Not all commercial real estate advisors begin their careers in a research department, building proprietary databases and cultivating relationships with executive vice presidents before they ever make a sales call. Mario Alvarez did, and that foundation has carried him from a junior desk at CBRE to a multi-state single-tenant net lease (STNL) practice spanning both coasts.
Alvarez recently joined eXp Commercial, bringing a book of business that crosses retail, industrial, and multifamily asset classes. In a conversation with eXp Commercial Director of Brokerage Operations John LeTourneau, Alvarez unpacked the mindset, tactics and market vision that have defined his career, and explained why he made the move to a platform he believes is positioned ahead of where the industry is going.
What follows are five of the principles that have shaped his $1 billion practice, drawn directly from that conversation.
1. Start Where Nobody Else Is Willing
When Alvarez entered the industry at CBRE, instead of waiting for a sales seat, he started in the research department. He stayed there for six months to build something many brokers overlook: a proprietary database and an internal network.
“I started building my own database and aligning myself with the higher-ranking agents. I was talking and networking with individuals that were EVP and above.”
That deliberate positioning paid off. When he finally did move into sales, he already had relationships with the firm’s top producers and a granular understanding of the market. His first transactions were deals others passed on — small assignments considered too minor for senior attention.
“I took on assignments that were too small for individuals or nobody wanted to look at,” he recalled. “That’s where I was able to mark my name.”
Within a relatively short period, he had climbed into the top 10% of his office.
The lesson for early-career brokers here is that the path to a successful book of business often runs through the work others decline.
2. Your Name Earns For You – Eventually
There is an old adage in commercial brokerage that the first decade of a career is spent earning a name, and after that, the name starts earning for you. Alvarez subscribes to this, but with an important caveat.
“Prospecting is something you will always do,” he said. “Whether you’re number one, year one to year 20 in the business.” In his view, the mistake maturing brokers often make is confusing inbound deal flow with a sustainable business. Clients fall out the back end of any practice that stops actively nurturing relationships.
“You wanna make sure that you’re staying in front of your existing clients as well, by having ongoing conversation. It’s not just, ‘What can you do for me lately?’ But quite the opposite — sharing trends, market information, building a relationship.”
Reputation may give you access, but consistent outreach is what converts that access into closed transactions.
3. Be A Problem-Solver First, Deal-Maker Second
Alvarez draws a sharp distinction between the kind of broker call that works in a frothy market and the kind that builds durable client relationships through cycles.
He and LeTourneau noted that in the mid-2000s, a straight pitch, such as “What price do you want? I’ll get you more than that,” was enough. But, when credit tightened in 2008-2009, or when pandemic disruption scrambled valuations, advisors who had built their practices on transactional calls found themselves without a foundation to stand on.
To avoid that, Alvarez leads with curiosity. In his view, the goal of any client conversation is to understand what the client actually needs, even if they can’t articulate it themselves.
He often asks his clients questions like “Out of your portfolio, which property is causing you the most headache? What would simplify your life – a better property manager, an increased NOI, getting out of a stuck development project?”
That line of questioning surfaces issues that a purely data-driven approach misses. A property manager causing operational headaches. A development project stalled by contractor disputes. A debt maturity looming on a loan written at 4% and now facing a refinance into a 6.5 or 7% environment with significant basis points to cover.
“You’re not asking for something — you’re more of a problem solver. ‘Hey, I’ve got a property manager that handles that portfolio in Texas. Let me introduce him to you.’ You’re facilitating through a relationship.”
Being a problem-solver before a deal-maker is what puts a broker in the right position when the client is finally ready to act.
4. Know Your Segment’s Variables Cold
Alvarez’s primary specialty is single-tenant triple-net properties across California and throughout the United States, with additional work in multi-tenant and grocery-anchored shopping centers along the West Coast. It’s a segment that rewards encyclopedic deal structure knowledge and penalizes those who rely on surface-level comparables.
For example, a Starbucks with six years of lease term remaining and no rent escalations is an asset whose value cannot be Googled or approximated by AI. It requires knowing what that credit trades for in specific markets, what traffic counts and demographic profiles underpin the location, and how the remaining lease structure interacts with investor return expectations.
“Being informed of what’s happening in the market — whether that’s in California or what’s going on in New York, Texas, or Florida — is just being self-aware of what’s happening in the different markets and the transactions,” he said. “That gives me an overhead advantage.”
That market fluency also shapes how Alvarez reads macro disruption. In their conversation, he and LeTourneau point to the ongoing consolidation in the drug store sector — CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens locations that were once traded as blue-chip credit on long-duration flat leases — as a live case study in credit risk mispricing. Many of those assets are now being repositioned into multi-tenant configurations, like car washes, drive-throughs, coffee shops, dental practices, and neighborhood-service tenants that better reflect where retail demand has migrated.
5. Stay Ahead of the Opportunity
When asked where he would direct capital in the current STNL environment, Alvarez’s answer centers on two themes: health and wellness, and the enduring resilience of essential-service quick-service restaurants (QSR).
At the $5 million and above price point, he has his eye on health and fitness operators. As an indicator of where retail foot traffic is consolidating, he cited the ongoing repositioning of a San Diego shopping center he revisited recently, once dotted with nail salons and vacancies, now anchored by boutique fitness studios, organic eateries and wellness-oriented tenants.
“If I was gonna be looking in your $5-million-plus range, I’d be looking for single-tenant health and fitness. UFC gyms are looking for 40,000 to 50,000 square feet. And then you have smaller footprints like Lagree in the 1,500 to 2,500 square foot range.”
In the $2 million to $5 million range, he remains constructive on well-located QSR and fast-casual assets. His reasoning is that even as consumers shift toward healthier eating habits, the drive-through remains a fixture of daily American life for people who are time-constrained.
That forward-looking approach extends beyond asset selection to how Alvarez thinks about the infrastructure of his practice itself.
Alvarez has worked with the biggest brands in commercial real estate and has transacted in markets across the country. He sees eXp’s national network, with approximately 80,000 residential agents alongside its commercial advisors at the time of his joining, as a structural advantage for sourcing 1031 exchange opportunities and cross-border referrals that a single-market or regional firm cannot replicate.
“Being able to send a text message, a phone call, jump on a video call across different states doesn’t mean it’s one brand, one thing,” he said. “But what eXp brings is not only the residential, but also the commercial. That’s a lot of 1031 exchange opportunities that are untapped.”
Learn more about why Alvarez brought his $1 billion track record to eXp Commercial.
This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. All investments involve risk, including possible loss of principal. eXp Commercial and its affiliates do not guarantee any investment outcomes or returns. Readers should conduct their own due diligence and consult with qualified financial, legal, and tax professionals before making any investment decisions.