Colorado Real Estate Journal -
When Matt Ritter was a finance major at Illinois State University, he and some buddies drove to Colorado to catch two Allman Brothers Band concerts at Red Rocks in August 1997. “You can imagine coming from central Illinois with its hot, sticky humid weather and watching a great concert at Red Rocks,” recalled Ritter, a co-founder of Denver based Pinnacle Real Estate Advisors, a full-service commercial real estate firm with 30 brokers and 10 support staff. “I can remember enjoying the great weather and watching the planes landing and seeing Denver’s skyline,” said Ritter, now 34. “We all said that we’ve got to move here. Of all my friends, I’m the only one who ended up actually moving to Denver.” Even before the doubleheader concert, he was no stranger to Colorado. He grew up in Woodstock, Ill., an idyllic community northwest of Chicago, but probably had visited Colorado a dozen times during his youth, enjoying everything from concerts to camping to snowmobiling at Grand Lake and even the Final Four college basketball championship one year. He also was no stranger to real estate. “As a kid, my dad owned a duplex, and we kids would do things like rake leaves and shovel the sidewalk,” Ritter said. “It was a typical Midwestern upbringing. I thought real estate was a pretty cool concept. You own a building, tenants pay you rent and you make a couple of bucks.” Ritter’s passion for real estate has only grown. Off the top of his head, he estimated that he has brokered in the neighborhood of $500 million in multifamily deals during his career, which included stints at Marcus & Millichap and Unique Properties, before he and partner Jeff Johnson founded Pinnacle in 2006. He also worked at Janus Capital for six months, right before the tech-crash, but found real estate more to his liking than answering questions from mutual fund investors. Last year, the brokers at Pinnacle handled $190 million in transactions. For multifamily properties between five and 20 units, Pinnacle has a 45 percent market share, Ritter said. Most of those individual transactions are priced between about $1 million and $20 million. He doesn’t see the institutional apartment market as Pinnacle’s sweet spot. “It’s not because we don’t want to be competing against the big national firms for those deals, but rather if you do that, you are dealing with institutions and not people,” Ritter said. “We want to work with people. We want to get to know them and understand them. Our typical client might be an individual with a $5 million net worth and we can really advise him on his strategy and really get to know him and his goals.” His goal, he said, is to try to get a 50 percent share in every asset class niche, which in addition to multifamily includes office, retail, land and hotels. He thinks that Pinnacle eventually will grow to 50 to 55 brokers. “We don’t want to grow to 200 brokers just for the sake of growth,” Ritter said. He said he and Johnson created Pinnacle because they wanted a platform for brokers that had the perfect balance of a structured system that also fostered creativity. “We really want the best of both worlds.” On a personal level, Ritter said he was extremely “flattered and surprised” when he was recently named Broker of the Year by the Denver Metropolitan Commercial Association of Realtors. Johnson had this to say about his partner and friend when Ritter was named DMCAR’s Broker of the Year: “Matt is one of the most driven people I have ever met and is constantly working to improve every aspect of his life, both personally and professionally. He has big ideas, and the energy and passion to make great things happen. But most importantly, Matt truly cares about the success and well-being of those around him, including his family, friends, co-workers and clients.” Right back at you, Ritter said. “It was a great honor to be named Broker of the Year,” Ritter said. “I know they can only name one winner each year, but I am one half of a team. It’s too bad they couldn’t hand out one award to two people. I could not do it without Jeff. He and I complement each other so well. He is a great partner. During my acceptance speech I said this guy literally took me under his wing when I was 22 and he was 15 years older. I really didn’t know much other than how to work hard. I had that Midwestern work ethic and I still do.”