Buckhead-Based Radio Personality Takes His Show on the Road

Local real estate broker Michael Bull was in Las Vegas this past week for “RECon” — a commercial real estate convention sponsored by ICSC (the International Council of Shopping Centers). The annual event is billed as ”the world's largest gathering of retail real estate professionals,” and as such Bull was just one of 30,000 in attendance. What makes Bull unique is that he was also there to tape his highly successful Buckhead-based radio show dedicated solely to the subject of commercial real estate.

“Some of my clients and fellow agents suggested the idea to me a couple of years ago, but I didn’t run with it until this past October,” said Bull, who lives in Sandy Springs. “We’ve now done 32 shows and managed to build a national audience in a very short period of time.”

The “Commercial Real Estate Show” is produced in Buckhead by Wilbert News Strategies and airs each Saturday at 10 a.m. on biz1190 , a station. It is simulcast via www.CREshow.com to listeners all over the country, including San Francisco, Houston, Miami, Seattle, Minneapolis and Orlando. That is quite an accomplishment for a show that began with modest aspirations just eight months ago, and for its host.

Bull was born in Nashville but has lived in Atlanta since the age of 6. He attended Grady High School and Georgia State University, then began his real estate career in 1977. After 20 years in the business he decided to start his own firm, opening Bull Realty in January 1998. Bull Realty started as a local business with three employees but now has 30 brokers and 10 support staff providing services for clients throughout the United States. There’s no doubt Bull is an expert on commercial real estate matters, but he does not attribute the radio program’s success to this fact.

“What makes the show is the guests,” said Bull. “A wide range of commercial real estate professionals have appeared on the program, and the audience really benefits from their knowledge and expertise. Our challenge is to attract new listeners, because once they hear the show, they usually come back. It is highly informative.”

The most recent show, taped at the RECon event in Las Vegas, featured attorney Scott Fisher (former chair of the real estate practice group at Arnall, Golden & Gregory), retail executive Glenn Stephenson (vice president of Highwoods Properties based in Raleigh, N.C.), and analyst Chris Macke of CoStar (a national market research firm based in Washington, D.C.). Each one provided valuable insight on current trends in the commercial real estate market, both in Atlanta and across the country.

Macke said the mood among this year’s RECon attendees appeared to be considerably brighter than it has been in the recent past, observing that “retail has woken up from its slumber — with first quarter sales figures up 24 percent over last year.” Macke also noted that that the future of commercial real estate values will depend largely on the unemployment rate. “If corporate America hires more people, there will be greater demand for commercial space, and that will increase confidence among buyers.”

Whatever the future holds for commercial real estate, one thing seems certain- Bull will be there to discuss the issues with informative guests each Saturday at 10 a.m., on the radio at biz1190, WAFS, and online at www.CREshow.com.