Jeffrey DeBoer and James Whelan

“I’m in the information business,” Jeffrey DeBoer explained. “I try to inform policymakers about an industry that they may not be fully familiar with.”

That industry — commercial real estate — confronts a lot of problems that the federal government could help solve. That’s where DeBoer’s Real Estate Roundtable comes in: It is the top lobby for commercial real estate in Washington, D.C. 

The group’s remit runs the gamut from tax policy to insurance premiums to construction costs to zoning changes. The Roundtable runs up against the major issues of the day in this work, including the national housing crisis and the effort to take mortgage market giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac private.

Its role is to nudge lawmakers and their staffs to support solutions favorable to the industry. It’s not a light lift, especially since CRE doesn’t have baked-in support among Congress the way many industries such as finance, agriculture, tech and pharmaceuticals do. 

Plus, D.C.’s a woolly, wild place these days, to say the least. “In Washington right now, March madness is not focused on the NCAA basketball tournament,” DeBoer told CO in late March. 

Up in New York City, the nation’s biggest CRE market, the political picture is similarly muddled. A mayor’s race no one saw coming six months ago, a state capital controlled by one party sometimes hostile to real estate, a U.S. president from the city who’s no big fan of it anymore — these dynamics add up. And it’s James Whelan’s job to do the math as day-to-day head of the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY), the city’s most influential industry voice. 

REBNY under Whelan notched major wins in the last year. 

It came down on the winning side of initiatives such as the City of Yes plan, New York’s biggest rezoning since the early 1960s, and the extension of the completion deadlines for multifamily projects using the 421a tax abatement. State lawmakers also eliminated the 12 floor area ratio cap, a key to — among other things — rezoning Midtown South to spur office-to-residential conversions. 

“The city and state don’t get enough credit for the way the rules and the incentives have landed when it comes to office space converting to residential,” Whelan said. “That has really landed in a very good place.”