Weekend Interview: CBRE's Barbara Perrier On Weathering Choppy Waters In Industrial And What's Ahead

This series goes deep with some of the most compelling figures in commercial real estate: the deal-makers, the game-changers, the city-shapers and the larger-than-life personalities who keep CRE interesting.

This is not Barbara Perrier's first rodeo.  

A top producer and a big name in capital markets, Perrier has been with CBRE for 35 years and has risen to the level of vice chair, the highest level a producer can achieve, according to the firm. In 2023, Perrier and her team, which includes her sister and fellow vice chair, Darla Longo, closed 76 deals totaling 19M SF and a transaction volume of $3.3B. And that, by her account, was a bad year. 

Perrier got her start in commercial real estate more than three decades ago. Instead of going into one of the more popular property types at the time, retail or office, she recalled her father’s positive encounters with the brokers he met working in manufacturing and went into industrial real estate. 

A lot has changed since Perrier began working in industrial real estate, including an increase in the number of prominent women in the field and industrial real estate's rise as an asset class. Perhaps because of those changes, she looks at the market now and sees opportunity.  

“Right now, I tell clients this is a really good buying opportunity,” Perrier said. “It's hard to convince people because we're in it.

“You never know you're at the bottom until you're at the bottom.” 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Bisnow: Industrial real estate rose to prominence in the pandemic, but that wasn't always the case, and it probably wasn't when you started in the field. So I'm curious, what drew you to industrial real estate, and what kept you there?

Barbara Perrier: I first got started in the late '80s. When I first got started, everybody was encouraging women to do office or retail, but my father was in manufacturing, and he was always fond of and had friends who were industrial real estate brokers. He told both myself and my sister Darla, “Industrial real estate's a great profession. You guys should pursue it.” At the time, there were no women in the profession, and it was not a super popular product type. But what I like about industrial real estate is it's more pragmatic. People have needs based on use. It's not emotional. It turned out to be a good choice.

Bisnow: Was there a single moment when you realized industrial real estate was it for you, this was your lifelong career?

Perrier: Shortly after I started, I got a big assignment working on a park in Glendale. It was with Prudential Insurance, now PGIM, and Disney. Disney was the major tenant in the park, and I was doing all the leasing. 

I just loved it. As a young person, to have such a big assignment was very exciting. It was so cool and so fun. It was like, wow, this is something that I really am going to enjoy doing. That was probably the mid-'90s when that happened. My career has taken a few twists and turns. Now I'm in capital markets, but that was totally the moment where I said, “This is something I'm going to do for the rest of my career,” and made me really feel like I made the right decision.

Bisnow: On the topic of being early in your career, you mentioned when you started in industrial real estate, there were not very many women. While there are certainly more now, I feel like it's pretty safe to say that it's still fairly male-dominated. What’s the next generation of industrial brokers in Southern California looking like? Are you still seeing more women come into the sector? 

Perrier: It's so exciting to me. A friend’s daughter works at Prologis, and a few of her colleagues started this industrial women's group for young people. It’s a substantial group, 50 or 60 women, all with jobs related to industrial. It’s very refreshing because when I started out, there were very few females that could be mentors or colleagues. The world has certainly changed for the better. It's not perfect yet, but it is so much better. 

Women have a different skill set when it comes to sales than men, so having a team that's made up of both women and men is important. We spend a lot of time mentoring young women. I've been part of the Women's Network board [at CBRE] and I have over 20 years on the board supporting women in our company. And as a matter of fact, tonight I'm meeting with one of my daughter’s friends who is in the financial advisory business but wants to make a switch to commercial real estate, and I’ll give her some counsel on how to do that. I think it's important because I didn't have that when I was starting out. So I can pay it back now to folks that need help.

Bisnow: Along those lines, over the years, you've assembled a number of teams. What’s the most important thing someone could do to set themselves apart from the rest of the job seekers?

Perrier: To me, it's been super important to be really responsive. Respond within the day that you've gotten things to react to things. When I first started out, I was so young, I had to overachieve to earn my stripes because people are like, “Wow, you're so young. Why would I trust you?” You have to be creative in your thought, hardworking and responsive. And I do treat clients like friends. Over the years, some of my closest friends have been clients that have turned into friends, so it's been good.

Bisnow: The Inland Empire saw some pretty incredible — some might say unsustainable — rent growth and demand, especially during 2021 and into 2022. Now things have been sort of consistently slowing down from those peaks, and I'm curious if you would classify what you're seeing in the Inland Empire, specifically right now, as a normalization or as something else.

Perrier: There has been some adjustment. Some of the process we’re going through is a natural reaction, and the market is still super strong. There's a lot of negative press, but things are still really good, comparatively.

2023 was a little bit tough, and I think 2024 is going to continue to be a little choppy. But the good news is entitlements are harder and harder to get, and there has been consistent demand. The Ports of LA and Long Beach are always going to be here. There's drivers in this market that don't just go away. 2025 is going to be really great again, and we're going to be firing on all cylinders. We just had to go through a little bit of an adjustment in the meantime.

Bisnow: Interest rate hikes over the past couple of years have significantly impacted the commercial real estate market overall. Now, it seems like we're going to have to wait at least a little bit longer for those rates to come down. You mentioned things are probably going to be a little bit choppy. How are you planning for the months ahead? 

Perrier: The good news about being in the business as long as I have is you don't get too excited or too worried, because we've all been here before. I think our objective for the year is really to provide good counsel to our clients and be honest about where the market is. Then they can decide whether it’s a good time to buy or a good time to sell.

I think a lot of people woke up in January 2024 feeling like they didn't do much in 2023 and, for whatever reasons, they need to do something — they need to get their money out or they have to sell to pay redemptions. There's reasons why business is going to get done this year — more business than last year — and it's just our job to advise where the market is. 

There are some people that will continue to wait. We're hearing that a little bit on the West Coast, where some people are saying they don't want to sell because it's trading at a discount right now. It's basically on sale. There will be others that will sell [on the West Coast] because it is so liquid. Again, don't get excited just because there are bumps in the road. This too shall pass.

Bisnow: You alluded to perceptions about the market here. I know you work with clients nationally who want to find space in Southern California. How have their views on the region as an industrial market changed since 2020?

Perrier: Because of the rent growth that we just talked about, it's been a little bit hard for investors to understand how to underwrite this market. Whereas in, say, Atlanta or Chicago or other markets, they’re a little bit more predictable right now and there might be more consistent data. Our data might be more all over the map.

My takeaway would be we have a little bit more of an uphill battle in trying to educate and make sure people feel good about what they're doing as far as assumptions, but I don't think there's been a fundamental shift from anybody feeling like this isn't a good market to invest. I think everybody still believes in the Southern California market and the drivers that are here. It's just been a little bit more difficult to underwrite because we’ve been over the map, we’ve had fewer comps, all those different things.

Bisnow: About that all-over-the-map-ness — whether that's rent growth or changes in the construction pipeline, in deliveries, in vacancy — and the way that all of those fundamentals are coming back to earth, I'm curious if that compares to any other time in your memory in commercial real estate. To quote you from earlier, is this a place you’ve been before? 

Perrier: I would say that each cycle that I've been through has its own nuances. The Great Financial Crisis was very scary. I think it was a different feeling than now. In that market, everything stopped. We're still doing things. 

We had a really good run for industrial. We had so many years. Looking back, you always say, if I would have known then what I know now, I would have bought. Right now, I tell clients this is a really good buying opportunity. It's hard to convince people, because we're in it, to tell people this is the right time to buy. You never know you're at the bottom until you're at the bottom. That's been one of the challenges. But I do feel like people are feeling that a little bit more now, that it's a good time to buy.

Bisnow: Speaking of buying, tell me about the most exciting deal that you worked on in 2023. 

Perrier: 2023 was hard. There weren't very many exciting deals! It was just a tough year. All 2023, my husband would ask me, “Oh, is this more practice?” meaning is this another deal that we took to market and didn't close. We only closed like 30% to 35% of all the transactions we took to market. We had a lot of just working our tails off to get deals done and then having them be pulled or whatever. 

I don't have very fond memories of 2023. I have to say, it was one of the toughest years I've ever had professionally. Almost instantly, 2024 felt better, and it still feels better. I feel like people are back in the market to make deals happen.

Bisnow: It's good to hear you're feeling better about 2024, because I’d like to ask you for a bold prediction for the rest of the year.

Perrier: I would say that I feel that 2024’s deal velocity is going to be double what 2023 was. It's not that bold, but I just feel like things are really going to move. And that’s despite the election year, which everyone is worried about. I think it's going to be a strong year.

Bisnow: What is your weekend routine or your favorite weekend activity?

Perrier: I love to golf. I've gotten into golf recently. Golfing, cooking, entertaining — any of those things. If I wasn't in commercial real estate, I would have loved to have been a Martha Stewart. But I'm in commercial real estate, so I have to save Martha Stewart activities for the weekend.