Most commercial real estate professionals build their reputation deal by deal. Craig Fernsler, CCIM, built part of his in a different kind of room entirely — committee hearings, chapter leadership roles, and the state and national bodies where the rules behind those deals get written long before any property changes hands.
He’s Vice President of Investment Services at KW Commercial in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. Day to day, that means 1031 exchanges, Delaware Statutory Trusts, and transactions that require more than a straightforward buy-sell. What makes his career unusual is that a real portion of it happens a step back from any single deal — in the policy conversations that determine what deals are even possible.
Most practitioners don’t see that work until it shows up as a rule change. A new filing requirement. A tax provision interpreted more narrowly than expected. A zoning shift that rewrites what a parcel is worth. Fernsler’s committee seats put him upstream of all that — in the room while the argument is still happening.
A Broker Who Also Sits on the Committee
His CCIM history goes well past holding the designation. He served as president of the PA/NJ/DE CCIM Chapter in 2012. By 2015, he had moved into a regional role as Vice President of the Mid-Atlantic Region for CCIM International, with a seat on the organization’s International Board of Directors.
Those posts eventually led to where he sits now. Craig Fernsler holds a seat on the CCIM National Government Affairs Committee and a position on the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors Board of Directors. These aren’t ceremonial roles. They put him in conversations about tax policy, 1031 exchange legislation, property rights, land use, and financing rules — conversations that happen well before any of it shows up at a closing table.
Where Legislation Meets the Deal Table
It’s easy to treat government affairs as something that happens somewhere else and occasionally causes problems. That changes fast when new legislation lands on a deal’s timeline.
Fernsler watches proposed changes while they’re still moving through the process. When something is heading toward a vote that could affect how 1031 exchanges get treated, or shift what qualifies as like-kind property, he’s already tracking it. Clients hear about it before they’re staring at a closing date and wondering why the numbers no longer work.
Craig Fernsler on Protecting the 1031 Exchange
If there’s one issue Fernsler keeps coming back to, it’s the 1031 exchange. He’s used the mechanism enough in his own career — across roughly $19.3 million in personal commercial and investment transactions since 1989 — to know exactly what it does at the level of a single reinvestment decision.
His argument for protecting it isn’t complicated. Exchanges push capital back into the market rather than letting it sit after a sale. That keeps money moving into new projects and into the local economies that depend on them. When he’s making that case, it’s usually the center of the conversation — and it’s the same argument Craig Fernsler, CCIM walks clients through when they’re structuring one themselves.
Why the Policy Work Matters at the Client’s Table
One rule change can quietly alter the math on a deal that looked settled. A shift in how cost segregation studies get reviewed, a narrower read on like-kind property, or a new state reporting requirement — any of these can move the numbers before a client even knows the rule changed.
An advisor who catches this after the fact is always a step behind. Fernsler’s committee positions mean he’s usually watching a proposal while it’s still being debated, not after it’s already law. That gap — tracking it early versus reacting late — is what gives clients more room to actually adjust.
An Advisor Who Tracks What Comes Next
Fernsler doesn’t describe his committee work as separate from what he does for clients. A client putting together a Delaware Statutory Trust exchange, a business owner buying a commercial property, a developer still deciding whether a project makes sense — all of them are better positioned when their advisor knows what’s coming, not just what’s already happened.
That’s what the committee seats are really for. They’re a way of staying informed on behalf of the people he works with and bringing that back to the conversations they’re already having. The policy work and the advisory work aren’t two separate tracks. They’re the same job, just looked at from different angles at different times.
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