Complex Real Estate Transactions.
Simply Executed.
Over a century of combined California real estate experience, at the desk. Built to navigate every phase of the cycle, with the foresight only time delivers.
Institutional capabilities. Boutique accountability.
They had already closed the largest assignments, but they had also seen what happens when clients become line items on a forecast. They asked for better tools and smarter technology, and were told no by people too far removed from the work to understand it. So in 2014, Joshua Levy and Matthew Dobson built Arbor with a simple idea: a broker-led firm, equipped with the best tools, continuously refined, and staffed only by the professionals you’d want in your corner. Because when brokers are focused and empowered, clients come first, and everything else follows.
Complex real estate transactions demand continuity. Real relationships do too. The same broker, from first call to closing wire.
Twelve years in, it still works: the broker, the comps, the call. We take on fewer assignments by design. And the clients who called a decade ago still call the same number.
Owner-users to national rollouts. One firm.
Arbor’s clients run the spectrum, from a single owner-user transacting on one asset to operators executing concept expansion nationwide. The practice is built around three services: leasing, investment sales, and 1031. These aren’t deals that close themselves. Most engagements come from the same names twice or three times.
Improve a result.
Proceeds-maximizing dispositions where the client already has a number in mind and wants to know whether the market has more in it. We pressure-test the price against live comps before we accept the assignment.
Achieve under constraints.
Premium-pricing executions running against hard time windows: construction-loan closings, sponsor distribution waterfalls, fiduciary review calendars, 1031 identification clocks already on the meter when we’re retained.
Solve a problem with no off-shelf answer.
Multi-property, multi-party 1031 work for partnerships that are splitting (drop-and-swap structures, §761 elections), portfolio strategy on the acquisition side, and complex deal structures where the standard playbook doesn’t apply.
How we work.
Three principles every broker on the desk follows. The reason 95% close-to-list on 2025 exclusives wasn’t an accident.
Price against live comps.
Every exclusive runs through a pricing pass against the current quarter’s trades, the same dataset that feeds our public Cap Rate Index. If the number doesn’t defend on the comps, we say so before we pitch it.
Syndicate where buyers actually look.
Inventory goes to CoStar, LoopNet, and Crexi, plus direct outreach to the institutional and 1031 capital that doesn’t cruise listing sites. The job is getting the call from the buyer who was going to close this quarter anyway.
Stay on the deal, first pass to closing wire.
The experienced broker who underwrites your file carries it through closing wire. Same person on the pricing pass, the negotiation, the counter, the closing call. No deal team handoff. No junior analyst briefed by memo.
What we work on.
Experienced brokerage across the asset classes investors actually trade. Core practice covers investment sales and capital markets, agency leasing, tenant representation, debt and equity finance, and 1031 exchange (including partnership 1031 / drop-and-swap work).
Two specialties round out the practice, both built where the underwriting is harder and the relationships last longer: healthcare real estate and strategic advisory for legal and financial professionals.
What experience builds.
One bar that actually matters: closing at or near the number we underwrote.
A partial list of what we’ve closed.
Over a century of combined experience and billions in closings have taught us that each transaction is as unique as the people who own it. Below, a sample of our closed activity.
Trio Apartments
44 N Madison Ave · Pasadena, CA · 304 units
Pasadena Class A multifamily acquisition. Close to home, urban-infill density.
Park Fifth
427 W 5th St · DTLA, Pershing Square · 660 units
Two-tower mixed-use development site. Sold to MacFarlane Partners, who built it.
145 S Fairfax Ave
3rd & Fairfax · Miracle Mile, Los Angeles
Adjacent to the Original Farmers Market and A.F. Gilmore Co. Creative office, irreplaceable corner.
Havasu North Shopping Center
1799 Kiowa Ave at Hwy 95 · Lake Havasu City, AZ
Walmart-anchored power center. Out-of-state disposition, in-state buyer base.
888 Devon Ave
Holmby Hills · Wilshire Golden Mile
Ground-up entitled residential development site. Premium-pricing execution under entitlement-window pressure.
Berkeley Center
2200 block of Shattuck Ave · Downtown Berkeley
Full-city-block mixed-use retail with theater and Starbucks tenancies. Subsequent entitlement work led to the Shattuck Cinemas redevelopment and Flying Horse repositioning underway today.
415 S Palm
415 S Palm Ave · Alhambra, CA
Set the highest comp in Alhambra in over four years, and it still stands.
943 S Raymond
943 S Raymond Ave · Pasadena, CA · 9,500 SF flex
Identified pre-sale that converting 3,000 SF of warehouse to covered parking made the building pencil as medical. Sold to an orthopedic surgeon who executed exactly that.
2670-2674 E Walnut
2670-2674 E Walnut St · Pasadena, CA · 31,600 SF flex
Leased the building up first, then sold on the new income to an investor in a 1031 exchange.
980 Corporate Center Dr
980 Corporate Center Dr · Pomona, CA · 12,000 SF on 3.3 acres
Sold to an architect who paired SBA financing on the building with a syndication on the excess land, entitled for 162 student housing units. The financing structure made the deal.
225 N Second Street
225 N Second St · Arcadia, CA · 29,900 SF flex
Took it to market for lease first to prove demand stronger than comps suggested. The leasing pro-forma anchored a higher sale price than the comparable trades would have allowed.
1851 Flower St
1851 Flower St · Glendale, CA · 25,000 SF creative office
Sold to an aerospace subcontractor for owner-user occupancy.
Experienced brokers. No handoffs.
You don’t pass off what matters. Neither do we. The same broker, start to finish.
Multiple cycles. Real markets. Experience that holds when the model doesn’t.
Joshua L. Levy
Investment sales and capital markets. Co-founded Arbor in 2014. Senior Managing Director at NGKF Capital Markets before that, where he led the preeminent DTLA capital markets team. Marcus & Millichap before NGKF. Licensed in California since 1990.
Matthew W. Dobson
Investment sales, complex deal structuring, 1031 work, dispositions and acquisitions. Co-founded Arbor in 2014. Marcus & Millichap, then NGKF Capital Markets where he led a top-producing Southwest team. Licensed in California since 2006, broker since 2014. Active broker of record in California and Georgia.
Richard J. Ringer
Investment sales and capital markets. Marcus & Millichap broker associate before joining Arbor. Operates within the firm under his own broker corporation. Licensed in California since 1998, broker since 2005.
Matthew C. Mazur
Investment sales and capital markets. Operates within Arbor under his own broker license. Licensed in California since 2015, broker since 2022.
William R. Stifel
Office and retail leasing for institutional landlords and national tenants across Los Angeles. Career began in family-office asset management in Southern California before joining Arbor. Licensed in California since 2014.
Headquartered in Pasadena. Licensed brokerage in California and Georgia.
Closings to date in fifteen states. In Southern California, expect an experienced broker in the room. Outside it, expect the same broker on the phone and local partners we have already vetted.
180 S Lake Avenue, Suite 205
Pasadena, CA 91101
15 states. The map widens because 1031 capital doesn’t respect regional lines.
- California
- Nevada
- Arizona
- Texas
- Colorado
- Oregon
- Washington
- Utah
- New Mexico
- Florida
- Georgia
- North Carolina
- Tennessee
- Illinois
- New York
List is illustrative pending Erika confirmation.
What we publish.
The ARCA SoCal Cap Rate Index is a quarterly public read on where California is trading relative to the U.S. average, across the four core asset classes. Sourced from CoStar SaleComp. Updated the month after each quarter closes.
We publish it because the market-making question (is this market pricing tight or wide to the rest of the country, and by how much) is the question every buyer and seller is trying to answer anyway. The same underwriting discipline that powers the index runs every exclusive we take to market.
Bring us what matters.
Thirty minutes with an experienced broker. We look at the deal. Clearly. No decks. No pressure.
Questions about the firm.
When was Arbor Realty Capital Advisors founded?
2014. Co-founded by Joshua L. Levy and Matthew W. Dobson, both formerly of Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Capital Markets and Marcus & Millichap.
How experienced is the Arbor team?
Five active brokers and salespersons hold a combined 107 years of California real estate licensing, ranging from 11 to 36 years individually. The Managing Partners hold the longest tenures (Joshua L. Levy licensed since 1990, Matthew W. Dobson since 2006), with combined transactional volume of $5.5B+.
Where is Arbor licensed and where does it operate?
Arbor holds active commercial real estate broker licenses in California (DRE Corporation #01980430) and Georgia (GREC Broker #445669). Closings to date span fifteen states. In Southern California, expect an experienced broker in the room. Outside it, expect the same broker on the phone and local partners we have already vetted.
Who does Arbor work with?
Arbor’s clients run the spectrum, from small owner-users transacting on a single asset to operators executing concept expansion nationwide. They include private investors, family offices, trust officers, fiduciaries, and 1031 investors. The practice is built around three core services: leasing, investment sales, and 1031. Most engagements are repeat-client driven.
What makes Arbor different from a larger firm?
Same underwriting rigor. Different accountability. Experienced brokers stay on every file from pricing pass through closing wire.
Does Arbor work on 1031 exchanges?
Yes. 1031 exchange representation is a core practice, including complex multi-property partnership 1031 (drop and swap, §761 election) work for partnerships that are splitting. Arbor is a licensed commercial real estate broker, not a qualified intermediary, and coordinates with QIs, tax counsel, and capital sources to manage the forty-five and one-hundred-eighty-day timelines.
