Redeavor Executives Bring Expertise from The Agency, Official

A new development firm backed by $40 billion in combined career volume and a portfolio at launch of $4 billion in real estate has launched.

Redeavor enters the market offering development sales, advisory and capital services with a team hailing from firms such as The Agency, Douglas Elliman, Official and ST Residential.

The firm’s backers have not been disclosed.

Its name is a nod to the multi-year process often involved in selling out a building, versus what co-founder and Managing Principal Mike Leipart described as the “one and done” experience of selling a home.

“When we sell a building, we work on that for years,” said Leipart, who founded The Agency Development Group. “It’s not about endeavoring to do something; it’s a constant redeavoring. You constantly have to infuse enthusiasm behind a project. You have to redeavor that enthusiasm in yourself because it’s a very long slog.”

Leipart is joined by Andrew Wachtfogel, the co-founder and former president of new development at Official; Shane Farkas, former COO and CTO at The Agency; and Wade Hundley, Formida Capital CEO and former ST Residential CEO.

Redeavor also includes Managing Partner Violet Tudas, Managing Director Maranda Blanton, Vice President of Marketing Katherine Demakos, Senior Project Manager Kirstin Corsetti and Project Manager Jenna Marks.

360 play

Maintaining consistent cash flow in new development isn’t easy. And operating away from Wall Street scrutiny offers advantages for the fledgling business.

“As real estate sales become far more institutional and corporate and they’re owned by publicly traded companies, being bad at cashflow is not a good thing. It’s not sexy. People want to know what they’re making six months from now and nine months from now and new dev’s really poor at that,” Leipart said. “So you have to raise money; you can’t bootstrap it.”

Pooling sales, advisory and capital under one company also makes sense in an industry where the services Redeavor offers are typically split across a fractured business landscape.

“In this business, you make a decision five years before the building is there,” Wachtfogel said. “Often those decisions are made in a vacuum with nobody who has to deal with those decisions weighing in. If you want a holistic approach when you pick between A or B, red or blue, you want to know how that plays out in all the ways in a project profitably.”

The wave of conversions hitting the industry are a good example of where Redeavor could find opportunity. Leipart said they’re watching what’s happening in that space.

“We’re both incredibly bullish about the next couple of years and we do think conversions, whether those are apartments to condos or offices to condos or something else, the whole build-to rent home space is interesting,” Leipart said. “There are a lot of things happening right now and some of them we’re watching to see how that plays out and some of them behind the scenes we’re very actively engaging in.”

Redeavor’s team has a footprint in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Las Vegas and Nashville. It will soon make its way to South Florida. There’s also Colorado and further expansion in Texas that are being eyed.

“They’re not building tall buildings or big luxury planned communities in every market, so it is a pretty refined list,” Leipart said.