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Before providing insights, Lichens described her background as context for the report findings. She was one of the founding partners of Real Capital Markets (RCM) more than 20 years ago, and joined LightBox about three and a half years ago. RCM is the leading marketing and transaction platform for investment sales, with a full 50% of all institutional property – hotels, industrial, apartment buildings trading in the US going through the platform.
“So, we see tons of volume,” Lichens explained, along with all the ups and downs that have happened over the course of the last 20 years. “I’m not a mortgage professional by any means,” Lichens cautioned. “But having been building out our deck capital market platform and seeing all the investments sales activity and having worked that client base for so many years, we bring a pretty unique perspective.”
As for peering into 2023, she suggested her perch is as close to having a crystal ball as can be achieved: “Across LightBox, we’ve got clients of pretty much every juncture of a deal,” she said. “We’ve got the buyers and sellers and the brokers and mortgage brokers and due diligence professionals, environmental professionals and appraisers. Everyone has their own niche and their own unique perspectives. And that’s what’s so exciting for us because we get to look across not only the whole industry as far as asset types, but every type of deal. For example, RCM and some of the due diligence professionals – they see things before the rest of the market sees them. So we get that leading indicator perspective with interviewing and talking to and working with those customers. We have our finger literally on the pulse of what’s happening because we’re doing thousands of transactions literally every week across LightBox.”
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