Selling Westchester

Selling Westchester as a great location is part and parcel of Chris O’Callaghan’s real estate career. “As a business community,” he says, “we need to impress on the global market that Westchester has a highly trained workforce, a great selection of housing options, fantastic transportation centers, and very competitive rents and economic incentives, especially as concerns New York City.” 

The 53-year-old Rye resident learned the importance of promoting the county during his first job in real estate, which was at Rostenberg-Doern (since merged into CBRE). Today, he is managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle in Stamford, Connecticut, where he works with a team of nearly 50 professionals serving the Fairfield and Westchester County market.

O’Callaghan likes Rob Astornio’s move to solicit more business from New York City tenants who are thinking of relocating. “He’s saying you can come to Westchester, save money and still be only 35 minutes from the city by train,” O’Callaghan notes. The pitch echoes those O’Callaghan frequently made when he was chairman of the Business Council of Westchester and the Westchester Economic Development Business Coalition.

Some of the largest transactions in the county have highlighted O’Callaghan’s 30-year career, among them the sale of the former Texaco building to Morgan Stanley. He’s also seen many changes in the industry over that time. “The business has become very specialized and the services much more comprehensive,” he explains. “You have to be very focused on your own sector, whether it be industrial leasing, office leasing, capital brokerage, or retail.”

One thing that hasn’t changed is the importance of personal contact. “With social networking, you can touch a lot more people in a shorter period of time,” he says. “The question is, are you hugging them? Are you helping them?”