Tom Nelson

Tom Nelson is a full service broker who represents tenants, landlords, and investors in the leasing and sales of commercial real estate and multifamily properties. Over his 25 year career, Tom has had the opportunity to work with many well-known institutional, corporate, and private capital clients throughout the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area regions of Northern California. His direct working experience with many types of property assets within the industry has gained him a broad and diverse skill set, which allows him to provide his clients with strategic, creative, and result oriented solutions that add value to their various commercial real estate needs. He is well respected within the industry by peers, public entities, and clients. He is considered a market expert by many news and media outlets, who seek his insightful viewpoints regarding the direction and workings of commercial real estate and development within the markets he serves. Tom’s career started in 1993 with Silicon Valley based developer, Barry Swenson, as a project development and asset manager. He became skilled in financial feasibility and pro forma analysis, acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, and property management. In addition to managing a portfolio of commercial and agriculture properties, he was also responsible for the design, entitlement, permitting, financing, and construction of commercial and residential developments. During this time he developed a passion for creative land use, historic restoration and economic revitalization of downtown urban cores and central business districts. After taking a yearlong career break in 2000 to fulfil a lifelong dream to travel, surf and snow board around the world, Tom briefly worked for the John Stewart Company managing a portfolio of apartment communities and homeowner associations. He then joined the Westfield Group, an international developer and operator of shopping malls, as a project manager and tenant coordinator working on the $150 million dollar redevelopment of the Oakridge Mall in San Jose. After a brief time serving as the mall’s facility manager, Tom then left Westfield to pursue transactional brokerage with Colliers International. Since joining Colliers in 2004, Tom has been a consistent producer and achieved many performance related awards. He was an active member for many years within both the Colliers Retail and Office Services Groups in the Silicon Valley office, before opening his own satellite office closer to home in Santa Cruz County to focus on general brokerage, investment, and consultancy services within the Central Coast sub markets of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, as well as continuing to work with his long time clients from nearby Santa Clara County. Working in smaller markets requires a broker to have cross-disciplinary expertise; they need to be knowledgeable of many different types of commercial properties and the specifics of each. For Tom, diversity makes life interesting, and he enjoys the challenges that come with multi-specialization work, versus doing the same thing every day. To quote William Cowper’s poem, The Task, “Variety is the spice of life that gives it all its flavor!”

• Specialties
  Investment Sales Broker, Landlord Rep (Retail)
• Languages
  English
• Markets
  East Bay/Oakland, South Bay/San Jose, Salinas, Santa Cruz/Watsonville
• Property Types
  Industrial, Land, Office, Retail, Flex
• Websites
  LINKEDIN PROFILE
• Company Website
  Visit Site
• Education
  College: BA Economics and Entrepreneurial Studies, UC Santa Cruz CCIM: Commercial Investment Candidate Urban Land Institute: Financial Analysis Certificate Licensed: California Department of Real Estate