Bob Knakal NYC

Bob Knakal NYC NYC Investment Sales Broker

Chicago, here I come!Very excited for The Deals Before the Development: Knakal Knetworking with the CCIM Illinois Chapte...
09/09/2026

Chicago, here I come!

Very excited for The Deals Before the Development: Knakal Knetworking with the CCIM Illinois Chapter on September 18th at The Metropolitan at Willis Tower.

And I am thrilled to say the VIP Dinner is officially SOLD OUT! Thank you to everyone who grabbed a seat.

The main event is still open, and we are going to get into the part of real estate that I love most: what happens before the development ever starts.

How do you find the site?
How do you price the land?
How does an assemblage come together?
How do you get an owner to sell?

And how do you create opportunity before everyone else sees it?

My good friend Simon Enwia CCIM CIPS GRI SRS ABR will be interviewing me, and then we will do what we always do at these events: talk deals, compare notes and Knetwork.

The program runs from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM on the 67th floor of Willis Tower. CCIM Illinois members attend complimentary and general admission is $50. Registration closes at noon on September 18th, and there will be no walk-ins because of Willis Tower security.

If you are in Chicago, I hope to see you there.

More details available on the Illinois CCIM Chapter Website.

09/09/2026

How do you become a true expert in a market as big as New York City?

When Paul Massey and I were getting started, New York felt enormous. Neither of us was from the city, and there were simply too many properties and neighborhoods for two young brokers to know everything.

So we made the market smaller.

We each took a small neighborhood and committed to knowing it inside and out. Every building. Every owner. Every transaction. Every opportunity.

That focus gave us the market knowledge we needed to add real value for our clients.

As we grew, we expanded the system one territory at a time. We added people to the north, south, east, and west, almost like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Eventually, during the Massey Knakal days, we had every inch of New York City covered.

The territory system became an incredibly effective operating model for us, and the idea behind it was simple.

Pick a market. Learn it deeply. Become the expert.

The Knakal Map Room 3.0?For decades, I have believed that one of the biggest advantages a broker can have is knowing the...
09/09/2026

The Knakal Map Room 3.0?

For decades, I have believed that one of the biggest advantages a broker can have is knowing their territory better than anyone else.

That is why the Knakal Map Room has always been so important to me. Maps on the walls. Properties marked block by block. Zoning, ownership, development sites, transactions. Information you can actually see and interact with.

Well, Hugh Burnham of Maker Wave 3D may have just given us a preview of what comes next.

Hugh stopped by and brought in several 3D-printed models of New York City buildings and development sites. Naturally, we put them right on the map and started talking real estate.

Seeing the buildings rise off the page changes the conversation. You can better visualize scale, context, neighboring properties, assemblage opportunities and how a development might actually fit into the surrounding neighborhood.

I have spent more than four decades studying New York City one building at a time. The tools have changed dramatically over those years, but the objective has not: Know the market better than anyone else.

Maybe the next generation of the BKREA Map Room won't just be covered in maps.

Maybe we 3D print the city!

Thanks, Hugh, for coming in and giving us a glimpse of what that future might look like.

Click on the pics and zoom in. You can see the 3D print sitting directly on top of the map. Very cool stuff!

Prospecting isn’t complicated. But it does require discipline.Block the time weeks in advance. Protect it. Make the call...
09/08/2026

Prospecting isn’t complicated. But it does require discipline.

Block the time weeks in advance. Protect it. Make the calls. Have the conversations.

Because every deal starts at the front of the pipeline.

If you stop prospecting today, you may not feel it tomorrow. But eventually, that gap shows up in your earnings.

Keep feeding the pipeline.

Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.

That’s how you build a business.

Build Over It!What do you do when you have 261,000 buildable square feet of development potential, but the buildings und...
09/08/2026

Build Over It!

What do you do when you have 261,000 buildable square feet of development potential, but the buildings underneath it aren’t going anywhere?

That was the challenge we faced at 201 West 92nd Street and 200 West 93rd Street on the Upper West Side.

The properties comprised the entire Amsterdam Avenue blockfront between West 92nd and West 93rd Streets. Both we and the ownership believed development represented the highest and best use of the property.

There was only one problem.

The site consisted of two six-story apartment buildings filled with residential tenants, many of whom were rent stabilized, along with several ground-floor retail tenants.

Demolishing the buildings and creating a conventional development site simply wasn’t realistic.

But sitting above those buildings was approximately 261,000 square feet of unused development potential.

So, how do you unlock all of that value?

We approached the retail tenants with the longest remaining lease terms to determine whether they would consider buyouts, giving prospective purchasers greater clarity regarding which spaces might ultimately be vacated and at what cost.

The residential tenants were a different story. There was no realistic path to obtaining possession of the buildings.

So rather than trying to eliminate the problem, we focused on designing around it.

Given the configuration of the existing buildings, we developed a concept whereby structural steel could be driven through portions of the setbacks and air shafts and down into the bedrock. That structure could support a platform above the buildings, creating an entirely new development plane.

In other words, instead of knocking the buildings down, a developer could potentially build a new building on top of them!

We also commissioned view studies demonstrating that upper-floor apartments facing east could have views toward Central Park. Needless to say, this was not a development opportunity for everyone.

Nevertheless, our marketing process generated 11 offers from developers willing to tackle the challenge.

Ultimately, we found the right buyer.

Kent Swig of Swig Burris Equities envisioned constructing an approximately eight-foot-thick concrete platform above the existing buildings, creating the foundation upon which an entirely new building could rise.

The property sold for $54,000,000, or $206.90 per buildable square foot.

Sometimes maximizing value isn’t about removing the obstacle. Sometimes it is about finding the buyer who knows how to build around it.

Here is what the seller had to say:

“We wanted to find a buyer who believed in the development potential of our property. Bob Knakal and his team found the perfect buyer for our site and we could not be happier with the results. We highly recommend him to the sellers of any property in New York City. They are the best in the business.”

— Jeffrey Laska, Laska Family Trust

One buyer gives you an offer. Multiple buyers give you a market.After selling thousands of buildings, I have become abso...
09/07/2026

One buyer gives you an offer. Multiple buyers give you a market.

After selling thousands of buildings, I have become absolutely convinced of one thing: nobody knows exactly what a property is worth until it is thoroughly exposed to the market.

You can underwrite it. Study the comps. Analyze the income. Arrive at a very educated opinion of value.

But the market ultimately determines the price.

One transaction I wrote about in Selling Buildings illustrates this perfectly.

A family had received a $17.5 million offer for their property from their managing agent. They were told three other buyers had been approached, so it appeared the market had been tested.

We saw it differently.

An emerging condominium conversion trend was changing the buyer universe and, potentially, the value of the property.

We took it broadly to market.

→ 53 offers
→ 3 formal bidding rounds
→ Sealed bids in the final round
→ $46.3 million final sale price

That is nearly $29 million above the original offer.

The difference was the process.

This is why I tell owners that getting an offer and maximizing value are two completely different things. An unsolicited offer may feel convenient, but that convenience can be extraordinarily expensive.

Highest and best use changes. Capital flows change. Zoning changes. Development trends change. The buyer who sees the greatest value today may not have been obvious yesterday.

The broker’s job should never simply be to make a deal.

It is to understand the market, identify every logical buyer, create competition, and implement a process designed to maximize the result for the client.

After more than four decades in this business, I still believe this is one of the most important principles in investment sales:

You don’t discover the highest price by asking one buyer what they’ll pay.

You discover it by making the market compete.

Life doesn't change overnight.It changes one intentional day at a time.The meetings you take.The calls you make.The book...
09/05/2026

Life doesn't change overnight.

It changes one intentional day at a time.

The meetings you take.
The calls you make.
The books you read.
The habits you build.
The relationships you invest in.

Years from now, those seemingly small decisions become the story of your life and career.

What is one thing you're being intentional about right now?

Join the conversation inside the Knakal Dealmakers Knetwork.

https://knakal-dealmakers-knetwork.socialmasteryvip.com/home-page

09/04/2026

What does success look like before most people are even awake?

For me, the day often starts before 5:00 AM.

That discipline reflects something I’ve observed throughout my career. The best salespeople I’ve encountered tend to share three characteristics.

Expertise. They commit to knowing their market, product, or specialty at a very high level.

Discipline. They consistently do the work required to move their business forward, including the work nobody is watching.

Passion. They genuinely care about what they do, and that enthusiasm gives them the energy to keep going through difficult periods.

Sales will test your persistence.

Sometimes you can hit the rock 99 times without seeing a result. Passion gets you to swing the hammer one more time.

After more than four decades in brokerage, I still believe expertise, discipline, and passion are three of the most powerful ingredients for building a successful career.

09/04/2026

How do you scale a brokerage without having your brokers cannibalize each other’s business?

At Massey Knakal, we grew to 250 people, including 72 brokers. We were certainly not a lean, mean machine at that point, and having that many people came with plenty of management nightmares!

But one of the things that allowed us to scale successfully was the discipline of our Territory System.

The concept was incredibly simple. A building doesn’t sit in the middle of the street. It’s either on one side of the street or the other.

Our territory boundaries ran down the middle of streets, so it was very clear which broker was responsible for every building. Brokers knew exactly who they were responsible for prospecting to, who they should NOT be prospecting to, and what happened if they uncovered an opportunity in somebody else’s territory.

That clarity was enormously important.

In many brokerage environments, multiple people are chasing the same owners and the same opportunities. That creates internal competition, confusion and, ultimately, cannibalization of the business.

We wanted our brokers focused on their clients and their markets, not looking over their shoulders wondering who else inside the company was calling the same owner.

The Territory System gave everyone a clearly defined lane and established rules for how business would be shared when those lanes crossed. That structure was a big part of what allowed us to grow to the size we did without everyone climbing on each other’s backs.

Today at BKREA, I’ve taken that same philosophy and adapted it.

We have about 20 people today, which I think is a great size. At Massey Knakal, our specialization was primarily geographic. At BKREA, we start with product specialization and then layer geography on top of it.

The structure has changed, but the fundamental principle has not.

Everybody needs to know what they are responsible for, where they are supposed to operate, how they are expected to work and how opportunities are handled when they overlap.

You don’t need chaos to scale. You need great people operating within a rational, disciplined system where everybody knows exactly what is expected of them.

That worked for us then.

It works for me today.

09/03/2026

Every market cycle creates a different set of opportunities.

Rod Santomassimo and I discussed the Savings and Loan Crisis and how periods of disruption reshape the real estate market. During that time, the Resolution Trust Corporation was created to sell distressed assets, changing the way many investors and brokers approached the business.

One lesson I've carried with me throughout my career is that every market has its own playbook.

The brokers and investors who succeed aren't the ones waiting for conditions to improve.

They're the ones who understand the market they're in and adapt their strategy accordingly.

Markets will always move through cycles.

The opportunities never disappear.

They just change.

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