Aaron A. Swerdlin serves as a vice chairman of Newmark Knight Frank in the Houston office. Mr. Swerdlin has more than 25 years of capital markets experience and serves as the firm's national practice leader for the self storage properties sector. In this capacity, Mr. Swerdlin steers the direction and development strategies of the specialty practice nationally.
To date, Mr. Swerdlin has led in excess of $5.5 billion in self storage transactions and just under $6 billion in overall transaction volume. Transactions have included single-asset property sales, portfolio recapitalizations and regional portfolio dispositions; some of these transactions are among the most significant ever completed in the self storage industry, including the $560 million Storage Deluxe portfolio in 2011. Mr. Swerdlin's experience encompasses several hundred transactions, more than 540 properties and in excess of 35 million square feet of self storage space.
Prior to joining Newmark Knight Frank, Mr. Swerdlin led the self storage group at HFF, LP. Additional career experience includes having served as the senior managing director and managing partner at Storage Investment Advisors, LLP (SIA), national practice leader for the self storage advisory group at CBRE and director of acquisitions for Storage Trust Realty (one of the self storage REITs acquired by Public Storage in 1998).
PARTIAL CLIENT LIST:
- America's Capital Partners
- BayNorth Capital
- Baupost
- Boston Capital
- Carlyle
- Clarion Partners
- CubeSmart
- Extra Space Storage
- Fidelity Real Estate Group
- GE Capital/Storage USA
- Hampshire Companies
- Harrison Street Real Estate Capital
- Hendry Investments
- Prudential
- Public Storage
- SSG Development
- Storage Choice
- Storage Deluxe
- Storage Pros
- TIAA
- Walton Street Capital
- Wharton Equity
Mr. Swerdlin is honored to have been recognized by a number of industry associations and publications for his consistent leadership and contributions. Among these honors, Mr. Swerdlin has been recognized as a Houston Business Journal Heavy Hitter more than six times, most recently in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and as a CoStar Power Broker four times, in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016. Mr. Swerdlin is also privileged to have been named a Chairman's Circle recipient at NKF in 2015 and 2016.
Outside of his professional career, Mr. Swerdlin serves on the board of trustees for a local school board and serves on its executive committee as vice president of finance and treasury. Mr. Swerdlin also serves on multiple subcommittees with other organizations including the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, where he serves as a co-chair of the Commercial Real Estate Society and as a member of the Demographic Study Committee. He also recently completed service as a commissioner with the city of Bellaire. Mr. Swerdlin is married with two children.