4-20

I’m penning this column on April 20. According to PBS, this day is widely recognized as an international counterculture holiday for cannabis culture, marked by celebrations, consumption, and advocacy for marijuana legalization. Originating in the 1970s with a California high school group known as the Waldos, the term and date became a popular code for meeting to smoke cannabis.
 
So what, you may be wondering? Has the day clouded his judgment?
 
Indulge me while I share a story about cannabis and my one and only experience with its use in an industrial building.
 
Let me take you back to a time when medicinal cannabis was legal in the state of California. Recreational cannabis, however, had yet to be approved through a ballot initiative.
 
We had connected with a family owned and family operated diesel mechanic who had run his business for decades out of a shop in Los Angeles. When we presented our broker opinion of value for what we believed the property was worth, he countered with a significantly higher number. My associate Joshua and I took a flyer and decided to market the building at somewhat less than his expectation, but meaningfully more than our estimate.
 
We prepared our marketing collateral and published the availability on several multiple listing services, including AIR, LoopNet, and CoStar, and commenced our marketing efforts.
 
Over the weekend after the property hit the market, we received no less than 20 phone calls with urgent requests to see the building first thing Monday morning. We could not believe the activity. When we questioned these prospective occupants about their intended use, every single one of them cited diesel repair, auto body, towing, or other compatible industrial uses.
 
We scheduled tours beginning at 8:00 a.m. on Monday morning, running through noon. About five in total.
 
It did not take long to realize that none of these operators were actually in the automotive industry. Instead, they were in the medicinal cannabis business. The building, as it turned out, was located in a zoning pocket that was slated to allow recreational cannabis in the near future.
 
We chose what we believed to be the most credible group and were completely transparent with our owner about the proposed use, the expectations, and the likelihood of closing.
 
I would like to tell you that everything went smoothly, but that would not be accurate. The transaction included more than its share of twists and turns. We had to reinstate the owner’s limited liability company, which had been inactive for over 30 years. There were back taxes and registration fees that needed to be addressed. Financing was delayed. Timelines slipped.
 
But in the end, we closed the transaction on April 20, 2016. A fitting and somewhat ironic conclusion to a deal that began with a bit of skepticism and ended with a lesson in market awareness, adaptability, and the importance of reading between the lines.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at abuchanan@lee-associates.com or 714.564.7104. His website is allencbuchanan.blogspot.com.
 
 

Florida

Last week was quite special. You might have noticed my absence from these pages. That wasn’t what made it special, by the way. My wife and I spent an amazing week with our oldest grandson fishing in the Florida Keys. We told all six of our grandchildren that once they turned ten years old, we would take them anywhere in the United States they wanted to travel. Our oldest chose Florida.
 
Watching him spend countless hours on the pier at our hotel fishing - baiting, casting, playing the line, reeling, rinsing and repeating, I was reminded of a saying: “every expert is a beginner who didn’t quit.” Witnessing his tenacity, I drew a parallel with those who succeed in commercial real estate.
 Stay with me, please, as I expand this idea.
 
At first glance, fishing and brokerage seem worlds apart. One involves patience and time on the water, the other conversations, negotiations, and problem solving. Yet at their core, both demand consistency and a willingness to keep going when results are not immediate.
 
Our grandson did not catch a fish every time he cast his line. In fact, most of his efforts produced no result at all. Still, he stayed with it. He adjusted his approach, asked questions, and paid attention to what worked and what did not. Over time, he improved, not because of a sudden breakthrough, but because he refused to stop.
 
That same principle applies directly to commercial real estate. Success in our business rarely comes from a single moment of brilliance. It comes from steady, repeated effort. Calls that are not returned, meetings that do not convert, proposals that do not result in a transaction are all part of the process. Those who succeed understand that consistency, not intensity, is what produces results over time.
 
There were moments when the conditions were not ideal and it would have been easy for him to walk away. Instead, he leaned in, remained curious, and stayed engaged. Eventually, his persistence paid off. Not through luck, but through effort sustained long enough to create opportunity.
 
In our business, there is often a temptation to search for shortcuts or quick wins. In reality, progress is built through a disciplined approach and a commitment to the process. Each step matters, and each action builds upon the last.
 
As I watched our grandson at the end of each day, tired but satisfied, I was reminded that growth rarely happens all at once. It happens gradually, through repetition, patience, and a willingness to keep going.
 
The lesson is simple. You do not need to succeed every time. You simply need to stay with it long enough, remain consistent in your effort, and trust that the results will follow.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at abuchanan@lee-associates.com or 714.564.7104. His website is allencbuchanan.blogspot.com.
 
 

Will AI Replace Commercial Real Estate Brokers? A Thought Experiment Through SEQUENCE

Lately, I have been doing something I do not often allow myself to do. I have been wondering if I am becoming obsolete.

Not because the phone has stopped ringing or because deals have dried up. Quite the opposite. But artificial intelligence has arrived with such speed and capability that it forces an uncomfortable question.

What happens if a machine can do what I do?

Last year, I wrote a book titled The SEQUENCE, a framework that outlines the lifecycle of a commercial real estate transaction. Source. Evaluate. Qualify. Under Control. Execute. Negotiate and Close. Expand.

Every deal follows this cadence. Every broker, whether they realize it or not, is executing some version of this sequence daily.

So I began to ask myself what it would look like if AI replaced each step.
Let’s walk through it.

Source
AI already knows who owns what, when their loan matures, what they paid, what their tenant roster looks like, and whether they are likely to sell. It can scrape, sort, and predict motivation faster than any human prospecting effort.

The days of pounding the phones may give way to prompting the machine.

Evaluate
Need a comp analysis. Done in seconds. Need a lease versus own model. Instant. AI can analyze market trends, demographic shifts, and financial scenarios with precision and speed no human can match.
What used to take hours, sometimes days, can now be done almost instantly.

Qualify
Here is where it gets interesting. AI can ask questions. It can even ask good questions. It can analyze responses, detect patterns, and score the likelihood of a deal closing.

But can it read hesitation. Can it sense when a client says one thing but means another.

That remains to be seen.

Under Control
Proposals, presentations, and follow-ups can be automated. Perfectly formatted. Delivered instantly. AI does not forget to send the email. It does not get nervous in a meeting. It does not miss a detail.

But it also does not build trust over lunch. It does not shake a hand. It does not look someone in the eye and say, I have got this.

Execute
Transaction management is already being streamlined by technology. AI can coordinate timelines, track documents, and ensure deadlines are met without error.

No dropped balls. No missed signatures.

Negotiate and Close
Now we enter the gray area.

AI can model outcomes. It can suggest optimal terms. It can even simulate negotiation scenarios.
But negotiation is not just math. It is emotion. It is timing. It is knowing when to push and when to pause.

It is reading the silence on the other end of the phone.

That is harder to replicate.

Expand
AI can absolutely help here. Marketing the deal. Broadcasting success. Identifying the next opportunity before the ink is dry.

In fact, this may be where AI becomes a broker’s greatest ally rather than its replacement.
So where does that leave us.

If I am being honest, parts of what we do are already being replaced. The administrative. The analytical. The repetitive.

And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Because what remains, the part that is hardest to automate, is the part that matters most.

Judgment. Trust. Relationships. Experience.

A machine can process data. It cannot sit across from a business owner who has built something over 30 years and understand what that building truly means to them.

At least not yet.

So no, I do not believe brokers are going away.

But I do believe the brokers who ignore AI might.

The future is not a world without brokers. It is a world where the best brokers use AI to eliminate the noise and focus on what only humans can do.

The SEQUENCE does not disappear.

It evolves.

And maybe the brokers who embrace that evolution will find themselves more valuable than ever.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at abuchanan@lee-associates.com or 714.564.7104. His website is allencbuchanan.blogspot.com.