Kyle Galin, 26
Vice president at Handler Real Estate
Long Islander and Vanderbilt University graduate Kyle Galin was thrown for a loop when the pandemic hit just as he joined Cushman & Wakefield’s PREP program for newcomers to the industry.
What was supposed to be a yearlong program turned into a six-month program, and Galin, who graduated in 2019, was furloughed with about 10 others as the firm’s business dealings came to a standstill. “We thought maybe after a few months that the dust would settle and we could find a home back at C&W,” Galin explained. “As everyone knows, the dust took a very long time to settle.”
Galin found his way to Handler Real Estate, where his father Scott Galin is a principal and the CEO, a little earlier than expected. His original plan had been to find his own way in real estate before eventually joining what he sees as a bit of a family firm.
As a tenant rep, Galin has found himself not only representing Handler in-house in leasing up the 1 million square feet or so that it owns in Manhattan’s Garment District. He also helps nonprofit clients adjust their office footprint, as nonprofit Lifespire did in a recent deal to move from 1 Whitehall Street to the Kaufman Organization’s 462 Seventh Avenue — a 20,026-square-foot deal that closed in late October.
Galin and his team close on average about 10 nonprofit deals per year. They most recently closed a 10,000-square-foot deal at 99 Hudson Street for a tech firm known as Campus, and also helped online building platform Welcome Homes expand to 13,857 square feet at Rudin Management Company’s 41 Madison Avenue in November 2022.
“I sort of love the fact that I started at the bottom of this market,” Galin said of the onset of COVID. “I think starting out in 2013 or 2014, when we were at the height of the market, would have been awesome because there would have been a lot of money to be made and a lot of deal flow, but I think there’s something unique about the grind.”
