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I get up at about 5:15 every morning and I try to get a quick workout in at home. I check my work e-mails and get some of my work things organized for the day. Then I wake up my first child, feed her, and drop her off at the bus stop around the corner. I come back, take a shower and get dressed. I wake up my second child, and feed the animals. We have a dog, two birds, 60 koi fish in our pond, two rats, and a horse. The horse doesn’t live at our house so I don’t have to feed the horse.
I live out in Malibu by Zuma Beach. I leave at 8 a.m. and I talk on the phone all the way to my office in downtown L.A.
I check my e-mails again when I get to the office. My schedule can depend on what my e-mails say. I’m a retail brokerage specialist. I mediate real estate deals. If I’m working for the landlord, I have to rent out that space to the best company for that space. I send out information on the site to retailers around California. Sometimes I put a sign in the window of the space.
Say I have a spot at 11th and Grand. If Starbucks and a hair salon sent me proposals, I would consider them both and discuss the decision with the landlord. I negotiate a deal by trying to get the landlord and tenant on the same page. When we’ve come to an agreement, we go to a lease.
If I’m doing tenant work, I’m looking for a site for the landlord. You consider their needs, find matches, set up tours, and show space. I negotiate deals with input from the tenants.
Most of my landlord work is in downtown Los Angeles. I would say that is 70 percent of what I do. My tenant work can be anywhere from downtown to Santa Monica. One of my clients is Wells Fargo. I did deals with them in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.
My mornings are filled with one meeting after another. I meet with landlords downtown; I’m responding to proposals. I actually tend to be running much of the day. Most of my downtown work I walk to. I usually park at the beginning of the day and go on foot from there. I prefer not to drive until the end of the day.
I’ll walk as far as eight to 10 blocks. I wear heels for work. If I know I’m going to be walking a lot, I’ll wear a comfortable pair of heels. I have a lot of shoes. You could say it’s a hobby.
I have worked downtown for over 15 years now. It used to be there was hardly enough activity to business down here; now we have plenty.
With all the new housing, there is a whole new dynamic. The transformation of downtown means I am swamped. It is really exciting to see the spaces you used to envision coming alive, being purchased by people who want to fix them up. A lot of people have the vision where before there were only a few.
I typically am so busy I don’t eat a real lunch unless I have a meeting. I’ll just do lunch on the go. Robeks always has deals so I’ll run and get something over there.
My afternoon is as unpredictable as my morning. I put presentations together for new locations that I want to show.
When I leave the office, I run some errands, usually in Santa Monica or on the Westside. I am always struggling to pick up one of the kids from something. I generally leave between 3 and 5. I do phone calls all the way back to Malibu and I get back on the computer when I get home.
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As told to Sarah Filus
Amy Raine
Senior Director of Retail Brokerage
Cushman & Wakefield
International Background:
Spent four years living in Indonesia while working for the World Bank. “I was adventurous. I spoke Indonesian and I had a specialization in the financing of tree crops and infrastructure products.”
To Relax:
“I like to take a long walk on the beach.”
At Home:
“We don’t have a TV. My kids can watch movies but we don’t have cable.”