We just got off the phone with Eric Smith, Situs' new S.F. biz dev chief. The Houston-based CRE advisory firm created the role especially for Eric (there are other biz dev heads in Houston and NYC, too). The Credit Suisse vet, who ran its fixed-income branch in S.F., will be working in areas of liquidity, valuation, capital, financing, servicing, and investment.

Business is coming back, Eric says, with CMBS issuances up, banks in need of expertise in data aggregation, third-party valuations, and due diligence for portfolio purchases. He says the industry is prepping for a rise in M&As amongst banks, which they also do due diligence for. (We finally remember to write 2014 on our checks, but now the banks are changing names?) Situs' special servicing operation is based out of S.F. at 2 Embarcadero, where there's about 30 employees. When he's not scouring over docs, Eric is hiking in the Marin Headlands with his labs.