Wade Woodworth joined Beauxwright as a development manager in July 2023. He brings valuable experience in capital markets, financial investment analysis and underwriting, portfolio management and site selection. Here he shares thoughts on business relationships, the excitement of working in the Southeast, and the importance of understanding both the complex financing and the emotional connections that go hand-in-hand with any successful development project.
Your background is in finance. How do you think this influences your approach to real estate?
Every investment decision includes a large financial component, and real estate is no different. Being fluent in that language is a huge benefit to understanding how to appropriately budget, model and evaluate real estate transactions. Since there’s a massive amount of time, energy and investment involved with any one deal, it’s incredibly helpful to be able to quickly analyze whether something will or won’t work from a financial standpoint, before spending a ton of time on a project that is just at the idea stage.
What got you interested in the field of real estate development?
There’s really two things that initially captured my interest in development, and still fascinate me to this day. Being a part of the Southeast’s “story” and helping to shape its growth is very energizing. The second piece is the ability to think creatively and design interesting places that people like to interact with. To me, that’s what real estate is all about – answering the question: “How can we create places that are both functionally and visually pleasing?”
How does your prior experience in multifamily development help inform the choices you make with other project types?
I think you can use prior experience as a frame of reference or template and apply those learnings to a lot of different situations, and commercial real estate is no different. A lot of the development-specific stuff (zoning/entitlement, site plan, budgeting, etc.) would remain similar to developing other project types. Qualitatively, a lot of the different asset classes are pretty interlinked so you can draw parallels between different successful projects (access, retail in the area, employment centers, etc.).
Beauxwright was built on the foundation of creating and cultivating long-term relationships. Why is this so important in what you do?
For me, the relationship aspect is foundational to how I approach both personal and professional interactions. I find it much more fulfilling to aim toward shared success, and I believe that placing priority on the relationship element is key to achieving that goal. CRE as an industry is extremely relationship-driven, given that it is a “people-centric” business at its core. Developing trust and other elements that lead to a successful relationship takes time, so it’s important to prioritize that each and every day. It was evident to me that the team at Beauxwright shared these same priorities and was a key part of my decision to join the team.
What about your job do you find the most rewarding?
Interacting with people is the most rewarding part of my day. Real estate development involves a ton of coordination with a bunch of different partners, so there’s rarely a day where you aren’t on the phone, sitting down in person with someone, going to lunch or something similar. Specific to development, I really enjoy the ability to create something that people interact with. Whether it’s a workplace, a place of residence or a place to spend leisure time, attempting to figure out what people want and why they should choose to spend their most valuable commodity (time) at that place is tremendously rewarding – especially when you get it right! And at the end of the day, it’s very cool to be able to point to something and take pride in all the work that it took to produce.
If you had to choose only five words to describe Beauxwright, what would they be?
Teamwork, integrity, entrepreneurial, sharp, fun.
What advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?
Take more chances and don’t be afraid to fail. A lot of the biggest lessons I’ve learned have come from difficult times or situations.
Lightning Round!
- Favorite restaurants: Little Mama’s or Yafo Kitchen
- Beach or mountains: Beach
- Favorite day of the week: NFL Sunday
- Call or text: Text, by far
- Favorite hobbies: Spending quality time with my family, listening to music, reading, watching football and basketball, skiing