The $22B Broker's Bold Bet: Bob Knakal's Blueprint for Selling with AI
In New York City’s commercial real estate world, few names carry as much weight as Bob Knakal. Having personally brokered the sale of over 2,300 buildings valued at more than $22 billion, Knakal has been a dominant force in the market for four decades. As co-founder of Massey Knakal Realty Services, he helped build what became New York’s leading investment sales firm before its acquisition by Cushman & Wakefield in 2014. After subsequent leadership roles at Cushman & Wakefield and JLL, Knakal is now embarking on his next chapter with a distinct vision: combining his unparalleled market expertise with artificial intelligence.
His new venture, BK Real Estate Advisors (BKREA), maintains a focused approach that has defined Knakal’s career – exclusively representing sellers, working solely on exclusive listings, and concentrating on the New York market. What’s different is the integration of cutting-edge technology into this traditional framework.
This marriage of old and new is evident in Knakal’s first strategic hire. Rather than bringing on another broker, he recruited AI expert Seth Samowitz as COO. Samowitz, with six years of experience in autonomous vehicle technology, brings Silicon Valley innovation to Manhattan real estate. “I figured if this guy can make a car drive by itself, he could help me sell buildings,” Knakal says.
One of the firm’s most innovative features is the semi-infamous Knakal Map Room, which exemplifies this blend of traditional expertise and technological advancement. At its core is a 24-foot by 10-foot paper map tracking thousands of properties, from active construction sites to potential developments. While physical maps have long been a staple of real estate analysis, BK Real Estate Advisors enhances this strategic setup with AI capabilities, enabling the firm to layer historical sales data, predict future market trends, and provide more precise property valuations based on upcoming neighborhood changes.
The firm’s AI strategy extends beyond mapping, focusing on three key areas: prospecting, deal implementation, and data interpretation. However, Knakal emphasizes the challenges in leveraging data effectively. “Most data sets are poor,” he explains. “You have to have the data over a long period of time, and you had to have used the same methodology for calculating the data consistently.”
The approach is already yielding results. In just eight months, the firm has secured over $2 billion in exclusive listings – a significant achievement in a market where competition for exclusive representation is fierce. They’ve closed multiple deals and have a major development site under contract, demonstrating that their tech-forward approach and leaderships reputation resonates with New York’s discerning property owners.
Despite this emphasis on technology, Knakal maintains that real estate’s fundamentals remain unchanged. “Fundamentally, it’s the same exact business it was 40 years ago,” he reflects. “You have to contact people, develop a relationship with them, develop trust, and ultimately, if you work with them, you have to deliver.” He views technology not as a replacement for human expertise, but as a vital tool for differentiation: “AI is not going to replace anybody, but somebody using AI is likely to replace somebody that’s not using AI.”
This balance between innovation and tradition defines BK Real Estate Advisors’ approach to the market. While technology enables broader reach, the firm maintains its geographic focus, adhering to Knakal’s long-held belief that “your niche has to be small enough that you can know every single thing about it, but big enough that you can make a good living doing it.”
By combining forty years of market expertise with cutting-edge technology, BK Real Estate Advisors isn’t just adapting to change – they’re helping to define what the future of commercial real estate might look like. In a market where information advantages are increasingly difficult to maintain, their approach suggests that success will come not from technology alone, but from its thoughtful application to deep market knowledge and strong client relationships.
