Asked about trends in the real estate market, Mr. Cummings didn’t even have to look farther than his own home.
“My kids—they don’t want to buy a house,” he said. “All they’ve seen since they’ve graduated college in the last 10 years is real estate prices flat or declining, so they don’t see it as an investment. They see it just as a place to live.”
Mr. Cummings sees plenty of growth opportunities even within the multifamily sector, as the density of population and demographics continue to push growth within New Jersey and New York.
“What’s amazing is the competition coming back into the marketplace right now,” he said.
However, he did say there has been some semblance of a bubble in certain areas.
“There’s some irrational pricing out there, even on some construction loans,” he said. “We went through the worst construction cycle, residential real estate still in the doldrums, and we’re losing deals with a 4 percent handle? We think that’s irrational pricing.”
Mr. Cummings has been surprised about how well office space has held up in
Manhattan though, even with the continuing levels of unemployment. “We didn’t have the glut in overbuilding that we had in the recession of the late 80s/90s on the office side, so the pain hasn’t been as great as people had predicted.”
“Back three to four years ago, there was talk about what we were going to do when all these CMBS’ come due, what’s going to happen? The other shoe hasn’t fallen yet,” he said.
Still, despite tepid thoughts on the future of the economy, Mr. Cummings is sure about one thing: the success of Investors Bank.
“We want to be the most significant, premier banking organization headquartered in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area,” he said of his future goals.
Mr. Cummings hopes to raise another $1 billion in capital over the next two years, develop a middle market business lending team and double the size of the commercial real estate group.
“We’ll make a great living serving the underserved, we’ll work on the middle to lower end of the market and we’ll give them service that they won’t get at the large banks,” he vowed.
In order to achieve these goals, he’s drawing some lessons from another successful manager in New Jersey: New York Giants’ head coach Tom Coughlin.
“You look at their team, and how they lost two games to Washington, Seattle and Philadelphia, but they ended up accomplishing what they did,” he said. “If we can get people, all in, on the same page, working together, that’s a good lesson for business.”
Mr. Cummings might often sound like a football coach. He described his current position as one of a motivational speaker and instructor and he makes a point to meet every employee within the company at least once a year to hear their thoughts and ways in which Investors Bank might improve to better serve customers.
His passion and drive to make the bank a success go all the way to the training of new employees. During orientation speeches he and the rest of the management staff give to all new hires, he tells them “If you don’t want to put your heart and soul into this, I’ll offer you $1,000 to leave.”
“The last thing we want is people who are just here to suck air out of the room,” he said. “We want people who want to make a difference.”
