Page 20 - RENJ June 2021
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18 JUNE 2021
 RELATIONSHIP BUSINESS
Father and son thriving together as part of JLL capital markets team in New Jersey
Tom Didio is no stranger to what it means to be in the commercial real estate industry — the good and the bad — with more than three decades as a debt and equity broker in the region.
Neither is his son, Tom Didio Jr., who has seen his father take calls from clients at odd hours and recalls that “there wasn’t a vacation, car trip or trip to Disney that didn’t involve a pit stop somewhere to look at a piece of real estate.” Yet he decided to enter the business nonetheless, doing so nearly a decade ago, in a decision that became all the more gratifying last year when he joined Didio Sr. on JLL’s New Jersey capital markets team.
“I’ve been looking to do this for quite a long time,” said Didio Sr., a
senior managing director based in Morristown, making no attempt to hide his feelings on the matter.
He and Didio Jr., a director, are proud to make up a rare father-son combination in the brokerage side
of the industry, both focusing on institutional debt, structured finance and joint venture equity transactions. What’s more, they’re part of a team
at JLL that remains a leader in the state and has only expanded its reach over the past year. In 2020, the debt team in New Jersey completed 93 transactions with a value more than $2.8 billion.
“There’s a lot of capital out there for the right transactions,” said Didio Sr., who joined JLL as part of its 2018 acquisition of HFF. “The right
sponsorship and the right product is going to get a lot of attention.”
For his part, the younger Didio also recalls growing up in Bergen County and seeing his father commute to upstate New York, where he ran the regional office for the commercial mortgage banking firm Fowler, Goedecke, Ellis & O’Connor Inc. Didio Sr. would ultimately shorten his commute in 1998 when the firm was acquired by Holliday Fenoglio Fowler LP, leading to the opening of an office in North Jersey.
He has since spent more than
20 years as an office lead or as a producer working alongside many of the well-known brokers that helped build HFF’s presence in New Jersey and have continued that growth
under JLL. Many of them were indeed familiar faces when Didio Jr. interned at HFF in 2012, having recently graduated from Tufts University with an economics degree.
“It was a general interest (in business) and then gravitating to
this industry almost just felt second nature,” Didio Jr. said. “I knew I didn’t know anything about it other than the tangible nature of what real estate is — and I knew I’d have to learn.”
The younger Didio joined Freddie Mac Multifamily later in 2012 and would spend nearly three years at the company, developing a knowledge
of multifamily housing and agency finance. In 2015, he moved to a boutique real estate private equity firm in New York, where he stayed
By Joshua Burd
 Tom Didio Sr. (left), a senior managing director with JLL’s New Jersey capital markets team, and Tom Didio Jr., a director, have worked together since the latter joined the firm in June 2020.
Photo by Aaron Houston for Real Estate NJ












































































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