Richard Latella is an Executive Managing Director and the Retail Practice Group Leader for Cushman & Wakefield’s Valuation & Advisory group, based out of New York. The Retail Practice Group is comprised of approximately 110 senior-level appraisers specializing in regional malls, department stores, and other major retail property types in over 75 markets in the Americas. In 2018 the team completed appraisals on more than 3,930 properties led by the domestic team which completed valuations on 56% of the top 200 sales and financing transactions in the United States, including the top 3 assets, as tracked by Real Capital Analytics.

Rick joined Cushman & Wakefield’s then-national headquarters in as a Senior Appraiser in 1983. By the mid-to-late 1980s he began to develop a core specialization in retail valuation, with an emphasis on regional/superregional malls and other complex retail asset types. He relocated to Cushman & Wakefield’s World Headquarters in New York in 1988 to directly address a need to better serve global capital providers and institutional clients that lend on significant retail properties. Recognizing this need, Rick helped establish Cushman & Wakefield’s first specialty appraisal practice in 1990 devoted exclusively to the retail asset class. Over the ensuing years Cushman & Wakefield’s Valuation & Advisory group has built its business model around specialization and now has more than 20 specialty practices across a myriad of industries and property classes. 

Over his career, Rick’s appraisal and consulting assignments have been international in scope and have included a full array of property types, including commercial, industrial, multifamily residential, hotels and special-use properties such as hospitals and nursing homes. He is qualified as an expert witness in retail matters and testified in bankruptcy litigation cases and has been a guest speaker before numerous academic institutions and real estate and advisory organizations throughout the world. 

Prior to joining Cushman & Wakefield, Rick entered real estate in 1975 in sales and residential appraising with Warren W. Orpen & Associates, a local real estate appraisal, brokerage and insurance firm. In 1977, he joined the New Jersey Division of Taxation as a Supervisor in the Local Property Tax and Public Utility Branch. While assisting and advising state taxpayers on a myriad of issues, he completed the necessary course work and required examination to become a Certified Tax Assessor in New Jersey. In 1980, he shifted to a career in commercial real estate valuation with Valuation Counselors Inc., a national multi-disciplined commercial and institutional valuation firm in their Princeton, New Jersey office. In1982, he was promoted to Senior Appraiser.