Conversation With: Bill Rafkin, Rafkin Lending
Throughout his career, Bill Rafkin has worked in leasing on the landlord side, leasing on the tenant side), investment sales, and financing, and has been both an investor and a developer. Now he’s talking that wealth of experience—gleaned at leading commercial real estate firms like Trammell Crow Co., KDC, and Panattoni—to lead his own firm, Rafkin Lending. “It’s like going 360 degrees, based upon that foundation,” he said. “This is where I want to spend my time and effort, growing this business.”
Rafkin has $25 million immediately available; his goal is to build a $200 million portfolio. He’s specializing in transitional financing or, as he calls it, “transformational financing—taking a project from one stage to the next.”
Rafkin recently stopped by D’s
Rafkin: I was born and raised outside of Boston, went to college at Harvard, then worked on Wall Street in municipal finance. That’s when I got my first taste of real estate, because the public finance department was located right next to the real estate department at First Boston Corp. (now Credit Suisse). What the real estate professionals were doing seemed very interesting to me. They were a lot more un-buttoned, a lot more swash-buckling, and a lot more spirited. So when I went back to business school at Harvard, I developed an interest in real estate, sparked by that exposure.
Between years at Harvard Business School I worked for Trammell Crow Co. in Houston. At that time Trammell Crow was doing a lot of hiring from HBS, and it has just been named one of the 100 best places to work, so I was very attracted to the company.
RP: What did you do at Trammell Crow?
Rafkin: I was just a summer grunt until finishing up at Harvard, then I returned full-time as an industrial leasing agent. I started with a guy named Bob Sulentic, who was a close friend of mine from business school. (Note: Sulentic, former president and CEO of Trammell Crow Co., now serves as president of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.) He and I would cold-call at our competitors’ industrial parks. He would start at the left end and I’d start at the right end, and we’d meet in the middle, compare notes, and go on to the next. It was a lot of fun and a great experience.
I moved to Dallas in March of 1986, after being recruited as a leasing agent for their national leasing team. I spent about nine months in that group then realized that my affinity and abilities were in the finance side of things, so I joined Trammell Crow Ventures, the in-house investment sales group. I spent five-plus years, great years, developing some lifelong friends and associations. I once told Harlan (Crow), my alumni association isn’t Harvard College or Harvard Business School, it’s Trammell Crow Co. It was and is a great company.
Career Portfolio Sample - News
Rafkin has $25 million immediately available; his goal is to build a $200 million portfolio. He's specializing in transitional financing or, as he calls it, “transformational financing—taking a project from one stage to the next.
You then continue to gradually increase your contributions for the remainder of your career (30 years) and earn an 8% annualized return on your diversified portfolio. Although you earn 8% gross returns, your net return will be reduced by the amount of
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Your Career Portfolio; How Diversified Are You?
Just as it is critical to have a balanced investment portfolio, it’s equally important in one’s career to be developing diversified skills, experiences and credentials beyond one’s immediate job and/or industry. Particularly, in today’s fragile economy and with peoples’ careers spanning up to 7 decades, there are opportunities and imperatives for one to be ramping up in a related or different field/job, even as one collects a steady pay check from a current position.
And full time positions are on the decline in general. In December 2010, the New York Times wrote a fascinating article, Weighing Costs, Companies Favor Temporary Help , which reports that more than a quarter of the 1.17 million jobs added to the private sector in 2010 were temporary positions.
While this is a frightening proposition for many, it also creates new flexibility and opportunity for individuals to reinvent the what, the how, and the “who for” of work. This is particularly true for many women and men who want a new model of working while raising a family or entering retirement years.
Undoubtedly, it takes discipline and patience to build out a fulfilling income in the true portfolio model. For example, I recently spoke with a college professor who mentioned that it has taken her three years to build out her portfolio of teaching, consulting and freelance writing to a point that it is just becoming synergistic, fulfilling and economically viable.
Even if most people aren’t ready to embrace this cornucopia approach to working, many friends and colleagues are naturally diversifying their career portfolios by taking on classes and side projects and work in areas such as real estate, photography, interior design, and writing. This enables experimentation with little risk, and is a great way to nurture a little more creativity and balance, particularly when a day job is only cutting you a pay check and not a soul check.
So, how does your career portfolio look today? What are you going to do this year to further diversify? Are you earning a pay check and a soul check?
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