John Viscounty is a vice president and partner at Voit Real Estate Services’ Ontario office and our broker highlighted in this issue of Voit’s “Meet Our Professionals” Broker Profile Series.
For many brokers, golf is an essential part not only of their leisure time but also of their professional lives. On the links, leads are generated, relationships are built, and deals are done. For John Viscounty, Vice President and Partner in the Ontario office, his love of the game also played a role in his selecting commercial real estate as a career.
“My golf background has been a huge component of my professional life. I grew up playing at Santa Ana Country Club, near the Irvine office,” says Viscounty, who specializes in industrial real estate. “I was comfortable around adults from an early age, and I learned the etiquette – playing quick, what to say, what to wear, how to handle yourself if you played horribly, and also how to handle it if you played really great and won. I was naturally comfortable in that environment.”
Born and raised in Tustin, his formative years were shaped by his grandfather, a small business lender in Palm Springs, and his dad, a corporate litigator, who instilled in him the importance of developing strong relationships. “They were really golf-focused, and they were also not pushy salesman types. My dad always taught me to invite people to do things that they want to do, not things only convenient for me,” he recalls. His mom, a former teacher and now a volunteer at Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), taught him the value of giving back and creating balance in his life. “I had a lucky draw,” he adds.
Viscounty played golf in high school and was good, but not great. So, when he enrolled in Texas Christian University (TCU), he augmented his studies by taking a job at the historic Colonial Country Club (home to the annual PGA tour event, The Charles Schwab Challenge). “It was a small school, so I got a personalized education, and I studied entrepreneurial management, which was basically a sales education, focusing on critical thinking and negotiating,” says Viscounty. At the end of his junior year, an internship at the corporate offices of a high-end retailer fell through, and he was in need of an internship.
He reached out to family friend and Voit CEO Eric Hinkelman, who was also a member at Santa Ana Country Club, who helped him land an internship at Voit. “I knew little about Voit or commercial real estate, but they took me on for a summer internship. I can’t say I instantly found my fit after that experience, but my takeaway was that the mentality, the culture, and the lifestyle that the senior brokers were living was very appealing. They were sophisticated and focused on their careers, but they also were running out to their kids’ soccer games, and they just had a calm, well-rounded, balanced demeanor. I was really attracted to what I could be if I chose this career.”
He also realized that while the fruits of this career choice would most likely come after paying his dues, the relationship focus of brokerage was tremendously appealing. “I saw that I would be able to utilize my natural business development skills in a manner that could translate to business. It felt like it could be a natural fit where I could totally be myself but also be challenged.”
Following his internship, he returned to TCU and became a “phonathon caller,” essentially cold calling TCU parents and alumni to ask for donations for the university. Although he describes it as “a brutal job,” he learned cold-calling skills that would prove invaluable in his career at Voit, which he joined two weeks after graduating from TCU. He began as a runner for Mike Cargile, Senior Vice President and Partner in the Irvine office before transferring to the Inland Empire. While in Irvine, he benefited from the tutelage of both Cargile and Eric Hinkelman. “They had an open-door policy and understood how tough it was to be a young broker. It was a good combination of them being encouraging without micromanaging me. They provided a lot of reassurances, but they wouldn’t steer the ship too firmly, and that’s the epitome of Voit. It’s what makes it so attractive.”
Inland Empire
Viscounty says he has benefited from the wisdom of multiple brokers at Voit, citing senior vice presidents Shy Assar, Ryan Miller, and Sean Sullivan of the Ontario office as being particularly helpful to his growth as a broker during his eight-plus years at Voit. “I have been given guidance from every single senior guy out here,” he says. “I would say what’s helped me get to this point in my career is my ability to ask for help and the availability of resources to get good answers back.”
He also credits the Voit mantra of putting clients first as a key to his success, focusing on building relationships for the long term. For instance, he recently cancelled a deal after learning that the zoning was incompatible with the client’s goals. “My goal is to have a long career, so I’m not too hyper-focused on how I do each month,” says Viscounty. “This is about building relationships and helping people, being positive, and going the extra mile. That long-term perspective has depressurized each individual deal, especially in tricky times like today’s market.”
That long-term perspective also paid off in an April deal, where he and Sean Sullivan assisted a client in leasing a 30,000-square-foot fleet services location in a free-standing building at 1495 S. Auto Center Drive in Ontario. They engaged with the client two years earlier and were able to tour over 20 buildings before the decision was made. “We found the subject site and let it sit available for 12 months before making an offer,” says Viscounty. “This strategy allowed our client to achieve a lease rate significantly lower than the rate that had been advertised originally. Market conditions were obviously a factor, but strategizing early provided us with leverage that made a difference in the end.”
The emphasis on relationship building also paid off in a May deal where Viscounty and Ryan Miller represented the owner — a client for six-plus years — in a 37,722-square-foot lease at 740 S. Milliken Avenue in Ontario. “We tracked the segment intensely and were able to provide real-time pricing changes and tenant updates in the market. We had weekly tours and marketing updates and were eventually able to secure a tenant on a long-term lease,” says Viscounty. With the building fully leased, the institutional owners can now list the asset for sale.
“My strategy when I came to Voit was to get educated and get on every single deal possible and trust that the rest would come together,” says Viscounty. “Eight years later, it’s the support and the selflessness of the senior brokers and the rest of the Voit family that has kept me in.”