Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with James Prendamano, CEO of Casandra Properties:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Casandra Properties?
A: The company was founded in 1989 by my mother, Casandra Zappala. While the business focused initially on luxury homes, Casandra quickly became a pioneer in the industry. She became well known for being the first broker to focus on complex land deals, commercial and land leasing. Over the years the company has transitioned into a full service real estate brokerage and a proud City & State certified women based enterprise. In 2005, I took over all day to day operations and became the CEO in 2010.
Q: What makes Stated Island unique when it comes to real estate market?
A: Initially Staten Island was referred to as the borough in the shadow of Manhattan. Over the last 15-20 years as transformative projects such as Empire Outlets and URBY, which we were so proud to play a pivotal role in, took shape the borough emerged as a very viable option for investors looking for NYC real estate. As other markets have seen saturation, Staten Island became a very affordable option for everything from residential to industrial developments.
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Q: What types of services do you provide to your clients?
A: Today we offer full gamut of real estate and consulting services. Everything from pre-development consulting to residential brokerage, from large scale assemblages, to commercial leasing and everything in between.
Q: You are currently representing over $1B in real estate. How did you get to where you are today?
A: Over the years we have been fortunate enough to be involved in over $1B in transactional real estate. While each respective discipline in the industry has carried a very unique and specific skill set, it always starts with our holistic approach to the industry. While clients were getting lost in the shuffle at the larger brokerages we continue to deliver creative solutions through personalized service.
Q: What are you most excited about in the industry at the moment and what future trends are you expecting to see?
A: Without question the use of technology has created a whole new host of opportunities. Just as our day to day lives have changed so profoundly over the last 20 years, so has real estate. We are constantly innovating and finding better ways to source and service our clients. We began talking about the emergence of the industrial, manufacturing and warehouse markets on Staten Island over 2 years ago. As other markets in NYC continues to gentrify and manufacturing zoned land is converted to residential, we are seeing what we predicted come to bear and many companies have begun to locate on Staten Island. The overall price of entry into these markets are significantly lower than the other boroughs so we are seeing companies as small as the local trade shop and as large as Amazon put their roots down on Staten Island. Our access to the waterfront and rail offers us a strategic advantage particularly as logistic and distribution companies look to the water and rail as a cleaner, more environmentally friendly way of moving commerce. Staten Island will continue to emerge as a critical hub moving everything from aggregate to consumables.
Recommended: Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: As noted above, we have an aggressive growth plan that is centered around all of the tools we are unpackaging in the technology toolbox. Just earlier this year we announced we will be rolling out one new initiative a month to ensure we not only keep up with the trends, we are deploying market disruptors each month to keep us on the cutting edge of the industry.
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