Each year, Midwest Real Estate News inducts a new class into its Commercial Real Estate Hall of Fame. Here is a look at the busy career of one of our newest inductees, Ned Purtell, partner and head of office brokerage with Milwaukee’s Founders 3.
How does one measure success in commercial real estate? The most successful CRE professionals excel in three key areas – career longevity, volumes of transactions closed each year, and having a loyal roster of big-name clients.
By any of these measures, then, Ned Purtell is a success.
Purtell, a founding partner and head of office brokerage with Milwaukee’s Founders 3, has logged more than three decades of selling and leasing office and industrial product in the Milwaukee area. He’s also amassed a client list that includes such names as Transwestern, Wangard Partners, Tishman Speyer, Capstone, Somerset Properties and Continental Properties.
He’s also won the “Office Deal of the Year” award from the Commercial Association of Realtors twice, once in 2005 and again in 2022, with numerous other nominations scattered in between.
What’s behind Purtell’s success? He’s passionate about serving his clients, studies his local market, and does not shy away from working the long hours to lead his clients to the best possible real estate solutions.
“For most of my career, I have worked at locally-based firms, which comes with huge benefits such as being able to call your own shots and quickly respond to your clients’ needs,” Purtell said. “But on the flip side, the challenge is that you alone are solely responsible for creating your business pipeline. You do not have the ability to fall back on deals controlled at the corporate level that many of the national firms have secured.”
Purtell said that when he first began his CRE career, he enjoyed the challenging of closing deals. Today, he finds other aspects of the business to be more rewarding.
“As I have progressed in this business, my joy has shifted to the long-term relationships I’ve been able to build with clients and my colleagues,” Purtell said. “What I used to view as a pure commission-based business has evolved into a rewarding relationship-based business, where solving my clients’ needs and watching them succeed is more valuable and meaningful than the money in the bank.”
In addition to founding a company and building a decades-long brokerage career, Purtell has hired, trained, and mentored many professionals who have forged successful careers of their own. Purtell considers this mentoring work a way to pass his love for commercial real estate on to others.
It’s not easy surviving in an industry as competitive as commercial real estate for more than three decades, but Purtell doesn’t rely on any exotic strategies. Instead, he focuses on working hard and staying abreast of industry changes.
“I think my success has been due to my willingness to roll up my sleeves, work hard, learn from any mistakes and strive to be better on the next deal,” Purtell said. “Another key piece to my success is surrounding myself with great partners, Bob Flood, Scott Revolinski, & Andy Hess. It is hard not to look smart when surrounded by partners like this.”
Life isn’t about commercial real estate alone, though. Purtell also finds time to remain active when he isn’t closing deals — mainly through hunting, biking, running, snowboarding, and traveling the globe with his wife, Peg.
