Catherine Reinecker.
Catherine Reinecker, 30
Vice president at Eastdil Secured
Catherine Reinecker’s first job after graduating from Georgia Tech — as an analyst with the sports and entertainment group at SunTrust Bank — proved to be a catalyst for a career in commercial real estate finance. Before that, it looked like she was on a far different career path.
“I worked on stadium financing for some of the major leagues like the NHL, NFL and MLS, so that gave me my first avenue, really, into real estate when I worked on a few stadium deals,” said Reinecker, who started at Georgia Tech as an aerospace engineering major before changing course and earning a bachelor’s in business administration with a specialty in accounting. “My father and my husband were always in real estate, but, until I worked on those specific transactions at SunTrust, it just had never piqued my interest.”
Reinecker joined Eastdil Secured in 2019 as an associate of debt placement and has worked her way up to a vice president role for the large brokerage firm, based in its Atlanta office. Her team works on roughly 30 deals a year, typically above $50 million with an average transaction size of between $125 million and $150 million. Despite market headwinds, Reinecker has been part of $2 billion of deal volume with another $1.5 billion slated to close by year’s end — on the heels of closing around $5.5 billion in 2021.
The active deal flow has involved a number of asset classes, but lately Reinecker has been particularly focused on the single-family rental sector. She loves the team aspect of Eastdil Secured and is excited to continue to grow its brokerage business with a versatile portfolio.
“We’re not commission-based here, we’re more salary plus bonus, which is great, and so it behooves us to work together more than it does to work on our own pipeline,” she said. “I feel like I get the opportunity to kind of build my own business here while also working in collaboration with others.” —A.C.
