Longtime real estate executive Beth Lambert spent her formative years on a Louisiana cattle farm and has settled into no-nonsense Texas, where she's taking on a new job financing property deals. She's so settled, she wants to stay at her new company for the rest of her career.
That doesn't mean she's averse to adventure. While she's not a Swiftie, as Taylor Swift fanatics are known, she enjoys the American singer-songwriter's music enough to travel 4,745 miles from Dallas to London with a few of her friends from CREW, or Commercial Real Estate Women, for a concert.
The journey comes as Lambert starts her new role as executive vice president at Orlando, Florida-based Foundry Commercial, where she works in the firm's investment advisory and debt and structured finance platforms.
But she won't be leaving her talent for finding a good deal behind. The trip also lets her pay face value for the ticket to see the popular musician due to Europe's much more aggressive regulatory environment over resale tickets than the United States. Swift concert tickets in Europe were about 87% cheaper than the average U.S. price as of early May — even when springing for the plane fare and a trip to some regions cheaper than U.S. cities, according to Billboard.
Even so, the deal wasn't the primary motivation for her trip, she said. "This is more about spending time with girlfriends."
It will be full-speed ahead for Lambert in getting established at Foundry Commercial's Dallas office. Lambert had been talking to Foundry Commercial for the past year to make sure a potential move was a good fit before leaving the capital markets group at Cushman & Wakefield, where she spent more than a decade of her career.
Lambert said the new role "felt like home," where she can put the equity mindset she developed while working at Goldman Sachs for 13 years into play.
"I felt this role was in a better alignment with my entrepreneurial spirit and equity background," Lambert said. "I'm able to play in both of these business lines for them and I'm becoming reacquainted and reintroduced to old professional friends in the business, which is fun because I love a collaborative work environment."
Lambert has more than 25 years of experience in the commercial real estate business and told CoStar News she expects her gig at Foundry Commercial to be the "last stop" of her commercial real estate career. She has been a member of CREW for decades and is a former president of the Dallas chapter that awarded her the CREW Dallas Outstanding Achievement/Lifetime Award.
"Culture was No. 1 for me where I am at in my career," she said. "This is my last stop and I wanted to make sure this was a place I could give my gifts to and contribute at the highest level."
Lambert said she began to develop problem-solving skills growing up on a family farm in rural Louisiana, corralling wayward cows. Now, she helps investors and clients of all asset types across the country navigate uncertain economics for real estate.
"I'm good with troubleshooting and thinking creatively outside the box," Lambert said.
Foundry Commercial has been in Dallas since it was founded in 2007 and has about 36 employees in its Dallas office, including more than two dozen commercial real estate brokers. Lambert joins a growing team in the Dallas office led by Steve Bassett as Texas market leader with longtime real estate executives such as Dale Ray, Rick Coe and Jim Traynor.
Traynor is leading the charge on Foundry's redevelopment of former office properties in the Dallas area and transforming them into industrial space. Last month, the team began work on what is being called Horizon Landing, with the first building expected to be completed by year's end.
There could be an influx of office-to-industrial redevelopment projects replacing obsolete office buildings, Lambert said, but she also warns it's difficult to paint one asset type with a broad brush. Plus, the future is difficult to predict, especially months before a presidential election.
"People came out at the beginning of the year very upbeat and optimistic, but now everyone has hit the pause button, which happens anytime there's a presidential election year," Lambert added.