Formed 11 years ago, Roundtable’s goal was to be the face of the industry; CEO Jeff DeBoer still calls the organization a startup

While the economic downturn dealt a near-death blow to the real estate industry, it also gave Jeff DeBoer the opportunity to demonstrate the strength and influence of the Real Estate Roundtable.

“We probably solidified our role,” DeBoer said about the group’s policy efforts during the recession.
DeBoer said his members came to realize that policymakers in Washington, D.C., were critical to how the industry weathered the economic storm, how it stabilized itself and how it might flourish again.

And since policy is the Roundtable’s main focus, the recession was the group’s chance to shine.

In its current form, the Roundtable is a new organization, one that grew from the seeds of the now-defunct National Realty Committee. Back in 1997 when NRC’s CEO departed, the group’s leadership decided to reconstitute and refocus. They wanted the new organization to be a conduit for CEOs in the broader real estate industry to make connections with Washington. The goal was to fashion the Roundtable as the face of the real estate industry.

They made DeBoer its founding CEO and president, and during the next several years he and Roundtable leadership rebuilt the organization, attracted prominent members from the growing industry and expanded the political action committee and lobbying presence.

Today, the Roundtable is a $5 million-revenue group that reported spending more than $3 million in advocacy and grassroots efforts, making it the third-largest advocacy association in the real estate sector.
DeBoer talked to CEO Update about the beginnings of the Roundtable and how it developed and found new prominence during a recession.

CEO Update: How has the Real Estate Roundtable evolved since it was formed in 1999?

Jeff DeBoer: Our original goal was to provide a vehicle for CEOs in the real estate industry to connect to Washington in an organized way. It would help unite the broad-based real estate industry, because it is quite large in terms of the different product types—home building, office, retail, lodging, industrial and multifamily. The industry has 16 or 17 different trade associations that represent their parochial interests and they do a very good job at it, but what we wanted to do at the Roundtable was figure out a way to bring the leaders in the industry together with the leaders of these various trade associations to try and put a face on the real estate community so that Washington would view it as the real estate industry.

We have a number of organizations and individuals who would like to be part of the Roundtable, but the goal is not to have a large organization. The goal is to have a well-informed, fact-based organization that is nimble and that is able to quickly understand policy challenges and to respond to them and to proactively put forward ideas that are important to us. So a bit unusual in the sense that we’re not in any membership campaign, either on individual members or on trade association members.

As certain parts of the industry evolved, we expanded our interest there because that was a growing part of the industry. Certain ownership structures have popped up over the last few years that didn’t exist 10 years ago but are now very important parts of the industry, so we’ve responded more as the market has evolved, rather than looked at a growth chart and said, “We want to have X number of members by the year 2010.” That is not part of our program.

CU: Obviously, the recession affected real estate sectors, but how did that affect the Roundtable as an organization?

JD: Our business is Washington and making sure that Washington understands what’s important to the real estate industry. Policy in ’07, ’08 and ’09, in particular, became critical to how the real estate industry weathered the economic downturn, how it stabilized itself and how it might come out of it into the future. So while the general real estate markets certainly suffered because of the problems in the broad economy, we flourished because public policy became even more important.

People in the real estate industry, broadly speaking, became more aware of the role that Washington could play, positively or negatively, in the economy and in their business. We suffered no budget problems. We suffered no membership issues. We instituted zero budget cuts. In the public policy process, because of our involvement in different parts of the policymaking world, we probably solidified our role.

In every risk or in every downside there are opportunities and ways to use the assets that you have. The Real Estate Roundtable’s assets are the skill and education and long-term view of our membership.

CU: Looking at your members, from industry leaders to the associations, how do you take all those different voices and reach a consensus on issues?

JD: The Real Estate Roundtable is not trying to dictate or to direct how individual trade associations might deal with matters that specifically affect their asset class. Each one of these trade associations competently deals with issues that affect their membership directly. For example, the International Council of Shopping Centers is a member of ours. They will take the lead on issues that directly relate to the retail business, the Internet sales tax for example. Point number one is all these trade associations continue to do their own thing and they do it quite well.

What unites everyone is the asset itself, which is income-producing real estate. When we look at policy from the Roundtable’s perspective, we’re looking at things that affect the asset as an asset, not issues that affect a developer as a developer or an office owner as an office owner. We’re looking at things that affect income-producing real estate as the asset. For example, how’s the asset taxed? What are the issues relating to the transfer of the asset? How can we help make the asset more energy efficient and energy conscious? If the policy is good for the asset, our attitude is it’s going be good for all of the people that are associated with owning, operating and financing the asset.

CU: You’ve really increased PAC contributions in the last couple election cycles. In the last election cycle the amount was more than $800,000—double that of 2005-06 cycle. What’s behind that ramp-up in political donations?

JD: I would like to think in terms of 10 or 12 years that we’ve been in existence that the first third was spent on getting the right people, getting the model in place, figuring out what we internally wanted to do and how we wanted to do it, and not necessarily on PAC contributions or raising PAC money.

As the organization matured, then we started adding on other ways to make our organization more responsive to the way that Washington has evolved in the last few years. You have to have an active political action committee to supplement what your individual members may be doing in their own right politically. That’s why our PAC has grown while our membership base and numbers have basically stayed the same.

CU: How would you describe your leadership style?

JD: My leadership style is to set a course that is grounded in honesty. It’s grounded in hard work. It’s grounded in positive interaction with people and in being supportive and open-minded to different approaches. Having said all of that, I’m very involved in day-to-day operations, on the issues, in publications and direction or branding of the organization.

If I want something done or I want hours put in to do something, I don’t think anyone would ever say that it’s not something that I wouldn’t do in terms of the amount of time to spend on something or the focus. I’m not asking anyone to do anything that I haven’t done or wouldn’t do. I have a very open door policy. Staff people can walk in at any time of the day and talk to me. I’m extremely accessible on email or my cell phone. I try to return every call and email.

CU: How about influences in your own career? Any particular mentors or experiences you found formative?

JD: People always say this, but the greatest influence in my life was my father. He was not a formally educated individual, but he was very much a man of the world who wore many hats. He was a military person but he instilled in me the idea you can do anything that you want to do if you do it in an honest, intelligent way. More or less, that’s the way that I’ve styled my personal and professional life.

There are people that I’ve worked with that treat the receptionist differently than a senator or that treat the waiter differently than the person they’re having lunch with. I think all of those characteristics tell you a lot about whether they are the kind of person that I just described—honest, have integrity, work hard, and are fact-based. It may sound a little bit hokey, but that’s the whole program.