Exclusive: Colliers International snags 12-person multifamily brokerage team in Tampa Bay, North and Central Florida
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jan 15, 2021

Colliers International has snagged a 12-person, statewide multifamily brokerage team from Marcus & Millichap in an effort to grab more of Florida's booming apartment market.

The team, previously known as The Babb Group at Marcus & Millichap, includes nine brokers and three support staff. Five brokers and three support staff will be based in the Tampa office; two will be based in Orlando, and one broker each will be based in Jacksonville and Tallahassee.

The Colliers Florida Multifamily Team will be led by three industry veterans — Casey Babb, Luis Baez and Shawn Rupp, all of whom will be based in the Tampa office. In 2020, the team closed 47 multifamily transactions totaling $214 million.

“Finding a top global firm that handles a balanced amount of both private capital and institutional business was a perfect match for us,” Babb, who joins Colliers as executive managing director, said in a statement.

Multifamily real estate isn't what Colliers is known for in Florida, and the hiring of this team is a move to change that, said Danny Rice, managing director and market leader for Colliers International Tampa Bay. Colliers also recently hired a broker specializing in affordable housing — Jonathan Richards — who joined the firm as executive managing director and works form the Fort Myers office.

"It’s a very active market," Rice said of Florida's multifamily real estate. "There's still a lot of capital available for it."

Babb said a big part of the appeal of joining Colliers (NASDAQ: CIGI) was the firm's 2020 acquisition of Dougherty, a real estate financing firm that has since been rebranded Colliers Mortgage. That platform gives his team access to "true in-house financing," as well as equity placement to development capabilities.

Here is a complete list of the brokers and support staff joining Colliers:

Casey Babb, CCIM, executive managing director, Tampa

Luis Baez, CCIM, managing director, Tampa

Shawn Rupp, managing director, Tampa

Miles Tombrink, director, Tampa

Mike Steiner, director, Tallahassee

Jay Ayres, associate, Tampa

Brad McCollum, associate, Jacksonville

Andrew Birr, associate, Orlando

Ryan Wooden, associate, Orlando

Anthony Cecere, transaction coordinator, Tampa

John Cortez, marketing coordinator, Tampa

Ryan Murphy, research analyst, Tampa