Meet CPE’s 2017 Stars to Watch: Joshua Jandris, Marcus & Millichap

By Barbra Murray

Each year, CPE features some of the commercial real estate industry’s top young talent. The high achievers selected as Stars to Watch represent a broad range of specialties, companies and geographic locations.

Following is a brief introduction to the accomplishments and secrets to success of one of this year’s outstanding young professionals. Read here about all of the 2017 Stars.

Age: 39

On the Job: Senior Managing Director of Investments,
Institutional Property Advisors, a division of Marcus & Millichap

With Company Since: 2006

Top Gun: Jandris is the number one agent in Marcus & Millichap’s Seniors Housing Group and among the top agents company-wide. In 2016, he closed transactions exceeding $1.5 billion in value for the firm’s Institutional Property Advisors affiliate.

Changemaker: Led the development of the firm’s National Seniors Housing Group and its county-owned real estate line of business. Along the way, he and his team received mandates from 33 different local governments to privatize skilled nursing facilities, requiring Jandris to report regularly to state legislatures across the country.

In response, he structured a process for privatizing government-owned facilities that satisfies local officials and their constituents while addressing multiple challenges: union negotiations, vendor contracts, staff and resident continuity, and the often lengthy Change of Ownership (CHOW) process.

Under Jandris’ leadership, his team has arranged sales of county-owned homes in ways that maximize proceeds, surpassing the minimum bid level by nearly 40 percent. As a result, the Marcus & Millichap team serving county-owned seniors housing has gained a 95 percent market share. All told, Jandris’ team has closed more than $4.1 billion in transactions, split evenly between senior housing and long-term care facilities.

Early Start: Jandris started aiming for a career in commercial real estate investment sales as an undergraduate at the University of Iowa. He quickly grasped the principle that real estate is finite and everybody needs it. That, in turn, offers a degree of security: “There’s certainty of compensation because you’re representing the seller and if the seller sells, you’re going to get paid.”

Secrets to Success: Early in his career, he realized that looking to material rewards as one’s primary motivation is a mistake, one that he’s seen many young people make. “Rather than setting my sights on material success, I looked at (the business) from a technical sense,” he explained. “If I can become an expert in my product line, meet x-amount of people and really do everything right, then everything will fall into place.”

Advice to Others:  “Not only is there no substitute for hard work, there are no shortcuts.”