A New Class Of Real Estate Mogul Is Rising From The Ashes Of D.C.'s Office Market

John Wolf spent 18 years buying large office buildings as an executive at real estate investment giant Westbrook Partners.

But since leaving Westbrook in 2024, he has been buying up distressed assets and has even foreclosed on two buildings owned by his old firm — exemplifying the shift taking place in D.C.'s troubled office market. Once a haven for institutions the world over, D.C. is now a playground for bargain hunters that don't have investment committees to answer to.

“We have a clean slate,” Wolf, now the CEO of FarmViewVentures, told Bisnow last week. “I've got a new company. I don't have the legacy stuff. I don't have any baggage. I can go and make a clean, informed decision based on a new reset basis. And that makes me more competitive if I have the capital.”

Private investors made up 33% of the capital allocated to D.C. office buildings last year, more than double their 14% share of the pie in 2020, according to Avison Young. 

Their market share has grown as property values have contracted sharply: D.C. office buildings last year traded for an average of $172 per SF, according to CommercialCafe, down 41% from the average price of $294 per SF in 2019.  

Taicoon Property Partners, founded in 2023 by longtime Sentinel Real Estate veteran Hai Chien Wang, has bought four office buildings in the region over the past two years, all properties that were in loan distress.

Taicoon Managing Director Suzanne Pyles, who joined the firm in 2024 from Stream Realty Partners, said she and her colleagues are so excited about the discounted assets in the market that she was somewhat hesitant to speak publicly about it for fear of spurring more competition.  

“It's like telling everyone that Nordstrom is having, finally, its basement clearance sale, and everybody goes running,” she said. “And you're like, ‘Oh, why’d I tell everyone?’”

These private players are increasingly buying D.C. buildings that were long the exclusive terrain of institutional-grade investors like pension funds, REITs, life insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds and large asset managers. 

Those types of institutions have historically viewed the home of the U.S. government as a safe place to buy office buildings as stable investments. But in the era of post-pandemic office distress and a shrinking federal workforce, many of those investors have been burned and are looking to get out of the market rather than double down.

“They're not looking for the same exposure they may have been looking for a few years ago,” Solitude Cove Capital Managing Principal John Kevill said. “Where a few years ago, they might have wanted 10 or 15 holdings in the region, they might want five.” 

As office buildings have become viewed as riskier bets, the type of investors drawn to them has changed, said Emily Eppolito, a CBRE vice president who advises potential office investors on leasing prospects.

“It no longer fits the profile of institutional buyers, and it's more aligned with private buyers who have greater flexibility in strategy, in timing,” she said. 

These new private players have the advantage of being able to move quickly to capitalize on the distress, and many of them are investing money for privately wealthy families or individuals, meaning that they can both move fast and keep leverage down.

FarmViewVentures’ equity comes from a combination of high net worth individuals and institutional groups like Quadrangle Development Corp., Rithm Capital and GreenBarn Investment Group.

Wolf told Bisnow the acquisition the firm did for the 305K SF office building at 1325 G St. NW was all cash, pooled from a high net worth syndicate. It took ownership of the property after buying the loan from U.S. Bank and German lender Münchener Hypothekenbank, which Wolf said offloaded it at a “massive discount.”

“They just wanted to move on,” he said. 

Taicoon plans to acquire another two or three office buildings this year. Most of its equity comes from high net worth individuals in Taiwan, Pyles said.

“The brokers know that we can transact quickly, and that's what sets us apart from the bigger fish out there,” she said. 

It is looking for properties that are as close to the White House as possible, producing income, at least 50% leased — preferably with some recent renovations — and, most importantly, are on sale for cheap.

“If you're able to reset the basis of a building and buy it at a lower rate, then as soon as you start turning it around and you put a little money into it, then it increases the value, and you're able to borrow against that,” Pyles said.

In November, Taicoon purchased a nearly 200K SF office building next to Franklin Park for $35.5M, a deal that works out to about $180 per SF.

“We have a lot of foreign investors that see D.C. as a global market, and it's on sale,” Pyles said.

Taicoon is already starting to see its competition heat up. In addition to new entrants to the market, competition is also coming from longtime D.C. investors like Douglas Development Corp., a local firm run by the Jemal family that has ramped up its office buying activity over the last year. 

“Each time we're bidding on buildings, now we're seeing more and more people getting back into the market,” Pyles said. “So it is starting to shift.” 

Garfield Investments, founded in 2023 by longtime real estate investor John Mason, in June purchased a 285K SF office building across from the Department of Transportation headquarters in the Navy Yard area for $28M in a partnership with family office Broad Creek Capital.

The sale was facilitated by the lender, Bank of America, which swallowed a significant loss after providing the previous owner, Potomac Investment Properties, a $66M loan in 2021.

Two blocks away, privately owned Onward Investors bought the 225K SF building at 100 M St. SE last March after acquiring the senior loan the year prior. The Minnesota-based firm’s website says it looks to “identify market inefficiencies and pursue mispriced assets.” 

Onward proceeded to purchase another office building across the street in the last days of 2025, paying $43M in a short sale for the 300K SF office building at 1100 New Jersey Ave. SE, developed by WC Smith in 2004. 

“It's a reset of a basis citywide, and that's really what we've seen start to happen in the last 12 to 18 months,” Eppolito said.

While prices have stayed low, the office sales market is revving up, fueled by the new class of investors. There were 43 office building trades in the District last year, according to CBRE and MSCI research, more than any year since the pandemic. 

The recent uptick in transactions follows a yearslong office investment sales drought during which lenders were unwilling to take the losses on buildings that they controlled.

“Eventually, there had to be a little bit of a come-to-Jesus moment, and reality set in,” Eppolito said. 

“And I think many of the lenders that were now holding these office buildings realized, ‘We're not equipped to be landlords, nor is that part of our business strategy, and so we're going to sell these buildings, and it's going to be at a major loss, but it kind of is what it is,” she added.

It is only because lenders are now increasingly willing to take those losses that the new private players are able to jump in. The risks they are taking depend on these office buildings being in distress and selling for cheap.

And through resetting the basis — the industry term for buying a building for much less than it was previously worth — the new owners of these office buildings are able to give them a new life, bring in fresh capital for building improvements, provide tenant improvement allowances and hire brokers.

“The properties that we have purchased, as soon as we buy them, their value goes up because we're able to transact,” Pyles said. 

Taicoon is renovating all of its newly acquired properties and has hired brokers to fill the vacancies, engaging with the new agents even before it purchases the asset. Its renovations are focused on installing new amenities and improving the existing ones. Adding spec suites, or small turnkey offices, is a must. 

Wolf has renovated the garages at three of his newly acquired office buildings to try to improve their curb appeal.

“And that's just the start,” he said. “We're going to do a lot of other things across the portfolio.”