Catherine Thompson founded her Boston-based commercial brokerage 20 years ago, so she’s seen her share of cyclical downturns. The thing about a cycle is, after it goes down, it bounces back up. “We’re glad 2009 is over,” Thompson said. “The pipeline is way fuller than it was last year. I think there is definitely a renewed optimism going forward.”

“We always feel the pain of our clients,” she added, “so if we were working with someone last year who was unhappy, or stressed, or laying people off, all those negative things, it’s an environment that makes you feel very drained. Whereas I think you gain energy from finally feeling like, ‘OK, clients are hiring again.’ They’re not hiring by the dozens maybe, but a person here, a person there, filling up the empty cubes.”

Catherine Thompson

Title: Chief Executive Officer, GVA Thompson Hennessey & Partners, Boston

Age: 52

Experience: 25 Years

How similar are the deals you’re doing now to last year?

We’re still doing more renewals than relocations. The terms are longer. There’s more willingness to strike longer deals from both the landlord side and the tenant side. Concessions are slightly less aggressive this year than they were last year, but only slightly. I think we’ve reached a level at a lot of the [Class] A and B buildings where, realistically, they can’t go any lower, so you either have to make the deal at that level or you don’t make the deal, but below that it doesn’t make sense economically. The tenant improvement allowances are lower because there are so many renewals. And, I think, because there’s an understanding in the marketplace that the ability to get money for TI is significantly reduced, compared to five years ago.

Are you still in the market for new office space for your firm?

Yes.

What has that process been like?

We hit the market at the right time. There are a lot of good options. There are some good sublease options out there. That’s the real advantage for companies like ours. If you can take a shorter term or you’re willing to make some accommodations on what your ideal build-out would be – and I think most of us are in this environment – you can really take advantage of some aggressive economics. The frustrating thing is, when you know a lot, and when you have a lot of people in the office with opinions, it can take a little longer than the average tenant.

How quickly do you think a recovery takes hold?

Based on the amount of capital on the sidelines, I think we’re going to have a very rapid, sharp recovery. When we start to feel it happen, it will happen quickly, and we’ll be very surprised at how fast we got back to 2006-2007. We may once again find ourselves in very tight markets and with buildings selling at prices we’re shaking our heads at.

When a recovery happens, what goes back to normal, and what do people say ‘never again’ to?

I’m not sure there is an ‘I’m never going to do that again.’ People forget the last time around. It’s a function of supply and demand. It’s economics. If there’s a tremendous amount of capital out there, no matter what the commodity is, it’s going to push the price up, and people are going to overpay at some point in the cycle. And they’ll find ways to justify it, because the money has to go somewhere. When buildings were selling at 4 caps, we had a lot of conversations in our office where we said, ‘this makes absolutely no sense, and in a few years these people are going to be underwater, the investors are going to lose all their money, and the banks will be shaking their heads saying ‘why did we underwrite this project at that number?’’ And it happened.

And now you can see them queuing up to do it again?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Has this downturn changed the way you run your brokerage?

We’ve tried to tell our brokers this is a really good time to over-service your clients, because you can’t do that when the velocity is at such a high pitch that you’re being pulled in dozens of different directions every single week. It’s a great time to be doing a lot of extra things for your clients. Extra attention, extra services, extra entertainment. You can add a lot of additional value during these slower recessionary times. And the clients need you more.

Cathy Thompson’s Top 5 Favorite Motorcycle Rides:

• Caribbean Islands (St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Bahamas)
• Florida Keys
• Maui, Hawaii
• Bryce Canyon, Utah
• Monument Valley, Arizona