Mike Vogel | 10/1/2009

A Lesson in Timing

Thomas Crocker

In 2005, during what he calls “one of the most enormous commercial real estate bubbles ever,” Boca Raton’s Thomas Crocker sold a commercial real estate portfolio rich with properties in Florida for $1.8 billion.

Cashing out was nothing new for Crocker. He survived the last commercial real estate debacle, the 1980s overbuilding crash, and transformed himself from a big fish in a small pond, developing and selling a few landmarks, including headquarters for Office Depot and W.R. Grace and his pioneering Mizner Park retail, residential, office and entertainment project in Boca Raton, to be a big fish in a bigger pond. He assembled portfolios that spanned the Southeast United States, including one with 125 properties. He left that to build the one he sold in 2005, a 137-building portfolio whose lineage traced to legendary Florida developer Ira Koger.

Crocker reloaded, raising $200 million from pension funds, institutional investors and others — enough, once he leveraged it, to buy $500 million in property. But he mostly waited. Commercial real estate, he says, was priced for perfection. Values allowed for no economic hiccups, let alone a meltdown.

Now, as a veteran of two commercial real estate debacles, he sees opportunity — down the road. “The fundamentals in the office market are terrible,” says Crocker, 57. Owners and lenders haven’t faced up to swallowing their losses. Meanwhile, his backers “are very glad I have not brought anything for three years. We didn’t predict the global economic crisis. We did predict pricing had gotten out of control.”