The Center For Commercial Real Estate (CFCRE) was founded on the principle that certain specialized areas of commercial real estate have received short shrift when it comes to sources of education and general information.  In 1998, this Web site became operational and has since provided thousands of tenants, landlords, attorneys and aspiring real estate brokers with a comprehensive view into a world that for years functioned as something of a closed club.

This was quickly followed by the even more comprehensive How To Lease Commercial Real Estate home-study course and 78-page Lease Clause Analysis - Issues of Significance publication.  This "Complete Program" qualified Colorado real estate brokers for 16 hours of continuing education credits once they passed a 25-question test.  This effort was followed by the development of a variety of other products, including Request for Proposal (RFP) templates, a complete system of commercial lease forms, Comparative Lease Analysis software, etc.

The www.1031exchange-tic.com Web site is a continuation of those efforts.  While 1031 Tax Deferred Exchanges have been around for many years, the availability of Tenant-In-Common (TIC) fractional ownership interests is really quite new and a much misunderstood niche.  Much of the confusion lies in the fact that while TIC's represent an interest in real estate, they are primarily sold as a security.  We certainly hope that this Web site will serve to clear the often murky waters and provide information that will allow you to make better investment decisions.

By way of further establishing credibility, let us mention that Steve Wennerstrom, the President and founder of our organization, is a commercial real estate consultant who has served clients nationwide.  In addition, he is a Certified Property Manager (CPM), having earned that designation in 1986 from the Institute of Real Estate Management. 

Steve Wennerstrom

During the past 20 years, in addition to assisting AT&T in its facility acquisitions around the country, he has been fortunate to represent a host of institutional landlords including Chase Manhattan Bank, Connecticut Mutual Life, Union Carbide Pension Fund, MONY, Pacific Standard Life and Eastgroup Properties, a REIT listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

In most every case, the building's institutional owners provided him with lease signature authority for the properties his company represented on their behalf.  This means that he was responsible for ensuring that each lease advanced the interests of the building owner while also maintaining the mortgage-ability and sale-ability of the property.

This is no small responsibility when you consider that his company has represented individual office buildings as large as 600,000 square feet and that the total portfolio, at times, has been in excess of 3,500,000 square feet.  The gross rental value of these lease transactions has often exceeded 10 million dollars in a single year, involving tenants both large and small.  Some of the more recognizable names would include Ryder Truck Rental, Digital Equipment Corporation, Amfac Resorts, and RE/MAX International, to name but a few.

So where did he serve his apprenticeship?  With one of the most savvy real estate developers in operation during the 1970's and 1980's, the Vantage Companies based in Dallas, Texas.  While he ended his career with Vantage as President of the Denver division, he was not only trained in the finer aspects of managing and marketing office buildings and industrial properties, he had also been given the knowledge and tools necessary to ensuring that the "i's were dotted and the t's properly crossed" in every lease consummated by the Denver division.

One of the side benefits of this responsibility turned out to be a broad-based understanding of the issues, from both the landlord and tenant's perspective, that drive an individual lease negotiation.

In essence, he has experienced it all: the conventional, the unconventional... the ethical, the unprincipled... the complicated and the simple.