Halstead Property

Richard Grossman
Executive Director of Sales, Downtown
rgrossman@halstead.com
(212) 381-4274

Richard Grossman The Fixer

By Alicia Hartgrove

Unlike many in this business who stumble into real estate after dabbling in other fields, Richard Grossman of Halstead Property, now with 26 years of experience, never craved a different career.

He got his first taste of the business during his senior year of college when he worked for his landlord showing off-campus rental apartments to students.

“New York City is all I know and I know it from a lot of different neighborhoods. I don’t know if I ever want to work in other cities. I find there are always new challenges here,” said Grossman. “I like working with people, I like solving problems, making and structuring deals, and that’s what real estate is about.”

Grossman has been the executive director of sales Halstead Property's downtown office for the last three and a half years.

Before that, he was senior vice president and director of sales at Heron Properties for 17 years. Heron was bought by Terra Holdings, the parent company of Halstead.

Today, Grossman oversees the downtown office, managing training and helping agents work through problems. Since coming onboard, Grossman has doubled the size of the Village office to over 110 agents.

“My ongoing thing is really trying to help agents adapt to the current market. I make agents think when they do sales. I’ve lived through other markets and learned that the craft of real estate brokerage is more than just marketing but actually understanding how to structure deals and how to keep deals together,” said
Grossman.

Grossman grew up about an hour north of New York City in Newburgh, N.Y., where his parents still live and he still visits. “It’s the most the beautiful place in the world,” he said. “The valley overlooks the Hudson River. It’s a nice, friendly community with small town values.”

He said he misses the smell of spring in his hometown, but loves the diversity here in the city. “There is nothing like getting a charge walking down a New York City street. No other city can capture the diversity, the beauty, and the energy of New York.”

Grossman graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History. “I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with it, but the history of art is the history of culture. I came from a background that put importance on learning for the sake of learning. I didn’t have pressure to use my degree. College is for education not vocation and I still believe in that.”

In 1983, when Grossman was just 21, he came to New York City to pursue a career in real estate. He leverage his experiences showing rental apartments from freshmen into a job at the now defunct Rosemary Edward Realty and went to evening classes at the NYU Real Estate Institute to earn his diploma in real estate analysis.

“I was learning how to live on my own and in the city at the same time. The city was much simpler then and real estate wasn’t as competitive.”

After at year, he moved onto the brokerage and management company, J.H. Taylor Real Estate before moving to Hahn & Mann Realty where he was director of sales for
a 20-building co-op conversion.

“I did so many things over the years,” said Grossman. “I considered myself a full-service broker.”

In 1988, Grossman moved to Heron where he developed an expertise was re-structuring mortgages for co-op buildings. Grossman explained how he devised
a way to structure a commercial mortgage to unlock value and help reduce maintenance costs. He brought in a new bank to not only take over a mortgage but at a lower cost at several city buildings, including 200 West 108th Street and the Sanford Plaza Apartment Corporation in Flushing, Queens.

“The challenge I found interesting was trying to convince the bank that the property would be able to pay off the loan,” said Grossman. “I had to show the
bank that the building had the value to do that and support the loan against it without adversely affecting the maintenance cost of the unit.”

In addition to being a residential broker at Heron, Grossman was involved in the leasing of midtown office buildings and retail spaces, and art galleries on 57th Street and in the Chelsea art district.

“Surviving as a broker in the early 1990s was very hard, but I learned a lot and the things I learned really helped me become what I am today. The selling begins when the customer says no,” said Grossman.

At Halstead, Grossman is a huge fan of the brand and the company’s culture. “There isn’t a sense of cut-throat competition. I think we are known as the company that has real resources. We give our agents a plan with specifics and marketing venues; not just fluff.

“I’ve always been a big believer of sitting down with agents and having them come up with a business plan — where their business is coming from, what can they do to differentiate themselves from competition and articulate that in a fashion that will be meaningful.

“I think our agents marketing ability is very strong and, as a group, is among the most industrious and approachable in the business,” said Grossman.

As for the future, Grossman said he will continue to do the best that he can. “The market is changing,but it’s making for great opportunity. I want to try and harness that opportunity to make things successful, but I’m not sure what that means yet.”
In his personal time, Grossman travels the world, exercises daily, collects temporary and modern art, and spoils his mini-short haired, 11-year-old Dachshund. He is the past president of the Brevoort East, a luxury 330-unit cooperative building in Greenwich Village, where he lives.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008