Mike Girard and Ed LaFrance co-founded and lead The Senior Group, based in Allen, Texas. TSG is a discrete commercial brokerage firm successfully helping investors, management companies, debt and equity sources, and other solution providers come together to transact. TSG specializes in 55+ senior apartment communities, Independent Living (IL), Assisted Living (AL), Memory Care (MC: Alzheimer’s – ALZ / Dementia – DEM), Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNF), Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRC), conventional apartments, student housing, tax credit (LIHTC), and land. Types of clients include: Private Investors, Institutional Investors , Public and Private REITs, Pension Funds and Pension Fund Advisors, Government Organizations, Special Servicers/Trustees, Banks, Foreign Investors, Developers, and Hedge Funds.
Mike Girard is a successful multifamily brokerage veteran with 13 years of real estate transaction and advisory experience over two major markets, the North East and Southwest, totaling $2.85B in investment sales for private clients, pension funds, pension fund advisors, insurance companies, public and private REITs, government organizations, special servicers/trustees, banks, foreign investors, developers, and hedge funds. Prior to forming TSG, Mr. Girard was instrumental in the growth of Apartment Realty Advisors (ARA). During his tenure at ARA, the firm grew from 7 to 19 offices, and went from $1.7B to $9B in annual sales volume. Mr. Girard helped expand the New England and South/Central regions from single state to multi-state platforms and was instrumental in the planning, recruitment and launch of several of the national specialty brokerage practices including the National Seniors Housing Group, the land sales team, and the private client services group.
Mr. Girard has represented clients in their sales of high profile offerings including large urban mid and high-rise buildings and has also tackled highly complex tax credit, bond and HUD financed assets, student properties, seniors housing properties, trophy quality listings, largest in region sales, confidential offerings, fractured condominium sales, distressed and blighted properties, and wide-scale geographic offerings. Mr. Girard has coordinated large equity placement and JV partnership negotiations including restructuring for a $90M portfolio recapitalization, and was one of the lead brokers on a $300M disposition for a large owner. Mr. Girard has personally been involved in preparing valuations for thousands of properties and is one of the most heavily licensed individual real estate brokers in the country. Mr. Girard earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is also an active Rotarian in Allen, Texas.
Prior to launching TSG, Ed LaFrance co-launched the National Seniors Housing Group for Apartment Realty Advisors (ARA), which surpassed CB Richard Ellis in the first half of 2009 to become the largest conventional multifamily apartment brokerage group in the United States. During his time with ARA, Ed established numerous relationships and successfully brokered several transactions, including a large skilled nursing portfolio. Prior to ARA, Ed worked as a senior business development executive within the exclusive and little-known genesis of Enterprise, their Fleet Management division, where he developed C-level relationships with regional and Fortune 500 companies to become a national strategic leader on best practices as well as a top 10 producer nationally every year, helping to increase net profits more than tenfold over a five year period in New England. Ed has also been involved as an owner/principal in several entrepreneurial ventures, and was an Officer of Harvard University where he worked as a Controller for the endowment and had direct oversight of approximately $60 billion in futures and options contracts across 120 portfolios in 14 currencies. Ed graduated Summa Cum Laude from Babson College with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Investments, plus a concentration in Economic History from the University of Sydney (NSW, Australia). Ed is originally from the Boston area and presently lives in Collin County Texas with his wife and four children.