LI broker using tech to rescue distressed property

A commercial real estate broker who is descended from one of Long Island's oldest families is using some of the newest technologies to come to the rescue of distressed properties.

David Madigan, 60, counts 11 generations of his family buried at three cemeteries in Southold, going back to brothers John and Henry Tuttle, who came to Southold in 1640, via Connecticut, from England.

Madigan, who lives in Shoreham, is president of the first Long Island office established by Sperry Van Ness Commercial Real Estate Advisors, a firm started in Southern California in 1987. It now has 153 offices across the United States, including the one Madigan opened in Holbrook last year.

The key to his business, Madigan said, is technology. He and his five brokers wear QR -- or quick response -- codes, a type of bar code that can be scanned by potential customers using a smartphone, providing information on the broker. Madigan also makes much use of social media, a growing trend in the industry.

"We are figuring out how to maximize the value of that and turn it into dollars," said David Pennetta, president of the Long Island chapter of the Commercial and Industrial Brokers Society. "People are just finding out what to do with it."

Madigan said his firm specializes in helping distressed properties, whose value has dropped while loans are maturing and banks want more equity to redo the loans.

In the next 36 to 48 months, he said, 4,671 loans on commercial properties on Long Island are coming due, totaling $10.4 billion.