CBRE has tapped an industry veteran to fill a key role in its valuation business.
The Dallas-based brokerage's valuation and advisory services, or VAS, group hired Sung Lee as head of valuating funds in the Americas. CBRE said Lee would be lead the development and management of partnerships with institutional investors and private fund managers.
Based in New York City, he also plans to work closely with his counterparts in the VAS group to ensure consistency in the valuation of properties across geographies and property types. Lee's role is a new one, CBRE spokesperson Aaron Richardson said in an email.
Valuation professionals typically fill an important role in figuring out the value of real estate properties and investments. With the current uncertainty about how changing workplace trends and a potential recession might affect office and other property types, the valuation of real estate holdings is expected to become trickier.
As the commercial real estate investment world transforms, technology plays a critical part, Lee said.
“Transparency and speed of execution required by modern institutional real estate investment models, exemplified by non-traded REITs and defined contribution funds, are forcing commercial real estate valuers to adopt technologies and search for efficiencies at a pace unimaginable just five years ago," he said in a statement.
Lee has more than 20 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry and joined CBRE from Altus Group, where he most recently served as co-head of global advisory and mergers and acquisitions. During his more than a decade at Altus, he held several senior roles, including head of global accounts and global head of business development. Before that, he worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Based on his experience, Lee is expected to help the firm expand its valuation and advisory services business, said Tom Edwards, CBRE's global president of VAS. Lee has developed "high level relationships with many of the industry’s largest equity investors,” Edwards said in a statement.