The idea for BMC originated in 2006 when Benjamin Macfarland began to realize his ambitions as an entrepreneur while working as an analyst for a large office developer/operator in West Palm Beach. To establish his independence, he hung his shingle as an eponymous brokerage firm, leveraging the infrastructure of a mid sized local self storage owner/operator. As Ben built up liquidity as a local broker, in the spirit of his ultimate goal transitioning to the ownership and investment side of the business, Ben was able to reinvest enough proceeds to buy a couple storage facilities of his own before heading to Washington, DC to obtain his MBA in the midst of the Great Recession of 2008.
In Washington, DC Ben was able to blend the insights he gained from his master’s program and his experience providing business development services for an investment bank to identify real estate private equity as the optimal vehicle to own property at scale. Through mutual acquaintance, Ben crossed paths with Christopher DeVaughn who shared similar career ambition to impact the commercial real estate space. In parallel, Chris spent the same time window at a hotel real estate private equity firm as an analyst, learning the ins and outs of optimal institutional sponsorship platform design. In 2011, Ben’s graduation from his MBA program coincided with Chris’ firm’s completion of its Initial Public Offering. Both Ben and Chris headed to West Palm Beach to blend their skills and experience to spur the next generation of sponsorship programs.
Ben experienced early success in his endeavor to formulate and execute on repeatable strategy via spearheading a rollup of 8,000 student housing beds as a Chief Investment Officer. Leveraging this momentum, the Kohl family office stepped in to provide seed capital to establish and grow a portfolio of self storage properties as a Founder and Chief Executive Officer. This platform, now known as Storage Rentals Of America has grown to 8 million square feet in scale and over $1 Billion in value. BMC Real Estate exists as the transactional and diversification arm for Ben’s West Palm Beach based holding company. The platform has established itself and will continue to expand in 4 thematic areas.Storage, Hospitality, Housing and Logistics. The firm aims to allow other independent sponsors, service providers, vendors to achieve their entrepreneurial goals by delivering property owners in the 4 focusareas in need of liquidity or some manner of ownership shift.