Ellen Israel
Executive managing director at JRT Realty Group
Louis Smadbeck Memorial Broker Recognition Award
Before her time as executive managing director for JRT Real Estate, before her tenure as transaction manager for Verizon at Cushman & Wakefield, before beginning her career with her father, George Israel, Ellen Israel wanted to become a spy. According to her mother, at least.
Although her father was a commercial real estate industry veteran, Israel opted for a bachelor’s in political science at Ithaca College, before attempting a graduate program at George Washington University’s Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies in Washington, D.C.
“My mother would call me every morning to tell me that ‘Jewish women do not become spies,’ ” Israel recalled.
But before she could get her hands on vodka martinis and Aston Martins, Israel became ill and decided to fly home to New York for a surgery. The day after her flight, on Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 Americans hostage. One of her professors at the time, who also worked for the Pentagon, left her class to presumably help manage the infamous standoff, she said. But, for Israel, it was just too intense — she elected to stay home in New York rather than finish her degree. By the following spring, her father had convinced her to start working with him at N. Peter Burton, a real estate management firm.
Israel soon made a name for herself with her sale of a 1 million-square-foot building, owned by Ford Motor Development, to a pair of prominent New York City landlords for $40 million. She never looked back. In the decades since, Israel has managed sale and lease transactions totaling over 25 million square feet. She currently works for JRT Realty Group, the country’s largest certified woman-owned commercial real estate business.
To this day, Israel is still brokering major deals across New York. This past summer, she co-represented the City of New York, on behalf of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, in its signing of a 640,000-square-foot lease at 110 William Street. It became the city’s second-largest lease of the year. She also spends time mentoring young women in the industry, both independently and through REBNY, of which she has been a member for decades. In fact, winning the Louis Smadbeck Memorial Broker Recognition Award is something of a full-circle moment for Israel because she met Smadbeck’s son, Paul, back in their school days. The younger Smadbeck was the first person Israel called after learning she had been chosen for the award this year, she said.
Her best piece of advice for those she mentors? It’s all about the relationships one makes with people on all sides of the table. One consistent thing about the industry is that it goes up and goes down — it can be a buyer’s market and then a seller’s market, Israel said. So keeping the lines of communication open, even during the slow times, is absolutely essential for success.
“If you buy into that concept, then, in times like now, you will realize that your advice and counsel to tenants, and buyers and sellers, is as critical now as it is in a market where everyone’s making deals,” Israel said. “Now, today, everybody should be going through their Rolodex and calling all their clients from last year if they haven’t been in touch, because every other broker is doing that. … This is a part of the business. You’ll never hit the top, you’ll never hit the bottom — you always need to be there, because this is the cycle of the business.” —N.T.