How to Ride a Tsunami with Expertise: Interview with Anton Qiu
This is part of an ongoing retelling series on The Commercial Real Estate Tsunami: A Survival Guide for Lenders, Owners, Buyers, and Brokers by Tony Wood (ISBN: 978-0-470-63637-4, John Wiley & Sons, 2010), with a foreword by Matthew Anderson.
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Chapter 10 is different from the rest of the book. It’s an interview. Tony Wood sits down with Anton Qiu, a former investment banker turned commercial real estate broker who somehow managed to stay the number one producer at TRI Commercial for eight straight years during the worst market crash in decades.
And honestly? The conversation is fascinating. Because Qiu doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He just explains, step by step, how the mess happened and what he did about it.
How Did We Get Here?
Qiu breaks the whole crisis down to two root causes. And they’re both pretty simple.
First, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates way too low for way too long after the dotcom crash. People got burned in the stock market, pulled their money out, and when CDs and money markets paid almost nothing, they all piled into real estate. It became the only game in town.
Second, Wall Street got involved. And as Qiu puts it, every time Wall Street touches something, “everything becomes big, bigger than you would ever imagine.”
He tells this story about CMBS loans in the early days. The underwriting was tough. The people handling these loans were seasoned professionals. The rates were good but borrowers had to jump through real hoops to get approved.
Then around 2003-2004, everything changed. Random people started calling with aggressive loan offers. Not traditional lenders. Marketing people. “Business development officers.” The underwriting got sloppy. Suddenly you could get 80 percent loan-to-value, interest-only, non-recourse deals with 35-year amortization at rates way below what any bank would offer.
One of his clients literally said: “Anton, this is a no brainer. I can buy not one but two shopping centers with this money.” And he was right. At the time. Until he wasn’t.
The Day the Music Stopped
Qiu closed one of his last big deals in August 2008. Then the market just… stopped. He had six live transactions at various stages. Some he considered “done deals” in normal times. Every single one fell apart in Q4 2008. All because of financing. Either the loans got pulled or the terms changed completely.
So what did he do? He thought “hard and long” over the holidays and realized he needed a completely new business plan.
His Pivot
Here’s what makes Qiu’s story worth reading. He didn’t sit around waiting for normal to come back. He called every bank contact he’d built over the years. He took them to lunch. Set up meetings. Offered free professional valuations of their problem properties with fast turnaround.
Free. As in, no charge.
Why? Because banks were drowning in problem assets and needed accurate market data for their regulators and auditors. Appraisals took four to eight weeks. Qiu could turn around a report much faster with fresher data.
Those free reports turned into paid work when banks started foreclosing on properties or selling distressed notes. By the end of that year, 75 percent of his revenue came from helping lenders sell distressed notes and REOs (real estate owned properties).
That’s a complete business model pivot in less than a year.
The Blend and Extend Strategy
One of the most useful things Qiu shares is the “blend and extend” strategy he was recommending to clients. Say you’ve got a good tenant with two to four years left on their lease at a rate that’s way above current market. Instead of waiting for them to leave, you proactively offer to reduce their rent now in exchange for extending the lease by two or three more years.
The landlord loses some revenue short-term. But the tenant gets relief during a tough economy. The landlord gets long-term stability. And you get a “bankable” lease to show your lender so they don’t come after you for covenant violations.
Win-win-win. And honestly, this is the kind of creative thinking that separates the people who survive downturns from the ones who don’t.
The Extend and Pretend Problem
Qiu also confirmed something Wood touched on earlier in the book. Banks were absolutely playing games with their numbers. One bank asset manager, after Qiu told her the market was showing values at about 50 cents on the dollar, literally responded: “Then we will just use that old appraisal to stall the auditors for another couple of quarters.”
That kind of denial wasn’t rare. It was standard practice. And it’s part of why the commercial real estate crisis dragged on as long as it did.
International Interest
An interesting side note: Qiu mentions that overseas investors, particularly from China, were already looking at the U.S. commercial market as a buying opportunity during the worst of the crisis. They saw distressed assets and thought “discount.” Which turned out to be exactly right for those who got in early enough.
My Take
What I love about this chapter is that it’s real. It’s one guy explaining what he actually did, not what he thinks other people should do in theory. Qiu pivoted his entire business from traditional investment sales to distressed asset work in a matter of months. He offered value first (free reports), built trust, and the paid work followed.
The lesson is pretty clear. When the market changes, you have to change with it. Not next quarter. Not when you feel ready. Right now. The people who adapted fastest were the ones who came out on top.
Also, that story about the bank asset manager using old appraisals to fool the auditors? That should make anyone nervous about trusting reported property values during a downturn. The numbers on paper and the numbers in reality can be very different things.
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