A Guide for Doctors, Dentists, and the Medical Community

Q & A with JP Roach, head of Hughes Marino’s Medical Practice Group

Hughes Marino, San Diego’s leading commercial real estate brokerage firm, is well known within the business community for its unique approach of representing only tenants, and not landlords. Hughes Marino’s addition of a Medical Practice Group will allow the company to extend its client-focused services and market reach to healthcare professionals throughout San Diego County. We sat down with JP Roach, head of this new Medical Practice Group, to learn more about the company’s expansion into the healthcare sector.

Q: What is the focus of this new Hughes Marino Medical Practice Group?
A: Our focus is to represent doctors, dentists, and other health care providers who need help with their business real estate decisions. As you may know, Hughes Marino has been successfully representing the San Diego business community in lease and purchase transactions for over fifteen years. From non-profits, to small businesses, to Fortune 500 companies and municipalities, Hughes Marino helps tenants, and not landlords, to save time and money and to reduce their risk in commercial real estate transactions. We identified a critical need for our services in the medical office arena, in which doctors and medical groups are often represented by traditional commercial real estate agents who also represent the building owners. The end result of this conflict of interest is often unfavorable lease terms and onerous conditions dictated by the landlords. As we investigated further, it became clear that San Diego healthcare professionals had very few options when it came to obtaining unbiased guidance and representation in their dealings with landlords. We set out to change that.

Q: Do doctors need tenant representation?
A: Yes, absolutely! In this economy, doctors need tenant representation more than ever. In today’s ever-changing and constantly evolving business environment, doctors are challenged with keeping pace with technological innovations in their fields and legislative policies affecting their practices, while at the same time treating a steady stream of patients. On top of these demands, doctors in private practice are also tasked with running and maintaining a successful business. Real estate costs are typically the second highest cost of running the practice. Our team helps doctors to make better real estate decisions, which in turn allows them to run a more responsive, efficient, and profitable practice.

Q: Are there other real estate specialists helping doctors with their office needs in San Diego?
A: Hughes Marino’s Medical Practice Group is the only San Diego tenant representation team dedicated to helping medical professionals in their lease and purchase transactions without any landlord agency conflicts. There are brokers who specialize in medical office space, but they are traditional brokers who spend a significant portion of their time also representing the landlords and developers of those medical office buildings. Tenant representation is something these brokers think they can do in addition to their landlord agency, but we believe representing both landlords and tenants creates a significant conflict of interest and an ethical impasse. How can one individual represent two parties with opposing interests in the same transaction? Simply put – you can’t. Our tenant-only representation focus breaks free from the old model and avoids the typical conflicts. This allows us to not only uphold our ethical obligations as tenant-only real estate professionals, but also to deliver more favorable outcomes for our clients. This notion of tenant-only advocacy isn’t new – our firm helped pioneer this model 20 years ago in the broader business community. However, this model is still new to the medical world. Our Medical Practice Group provides doctors and other medical professionals the truly independent, qualified representation they deserve.

Q: Have the doctors been receptive to this?
A: Yes! Doctors are extremely smart and very good at what they do. Once they see the difference between our model and that of the traditional brokerage firms, they are appreciative and eager to learn more. It feels great to introduce our services to an entire industry, which for the most part is still operating within the old model of traditional, conflicted commercial real estate brokers. We are proud to introduce medical professionals to a new model in which they can be represented by someone who is fully on their side.

Q: What background do you bring to this new practice area?
A: I graduated law school and business school with a dual JD/MBA and went into practice as an attorney, where I worked closely with doctors, representing them in legal matters. With the great training I received at Hughes Marino, I have now parlayed my work as an attorney into the world of commercial real estate. This new role allows me to continue working closely with doctors, only now I’m helping them to make great real estate decisions to plan and execute on the growth of their practice.

Hughes Marino is already well known for its pioneering work within the commercial real estate industry. With the introduction of our Medical Practice Group, we intend to do it again – only this time, we’re focusing our efforts on doctors, medical groups and the healthcare industry, where we believe our services can have a significant impact on the success of local medical practices. With better, unbiased real estate advocacy, our clients’ practices can grow and thrive, and the docs can continue to focus on their important mission of quality patient care and the health and fitness of our local community. And to me, that sounds like a great example of a win/win!