David Baker currently serves as an Executive Managing Director in Newmark’s Houston, Texas, office. Baker is one of the most accomplished office agency leasing producers nationwide.
In addition to being recognized as one of the national and local top producers every year for over 15 years and a top agency producer citywide, Baker has also recruited and trained many of Houston’s top-performing leasing agents. His expertise is in curating, training and leading teams to outperform the market in absorption and rental rates by differentiating and branding office assets. Baker has performed at a high level during multiple market cycles—having represented over 50 million square feet of leasing in over 200 buildings in every major Houston submarket, including completing over 65 headquarters leases. Baker specializes in creating an office environment and brand that gives tenants and employees a compelling reason to go to the office.
Baker’s most notable recent accomplishment is secured three of the five largest deals citywide during the pandemic in 2020—Cadence Bank (82,000 square feet), Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation (37,000 square feet) and Ryan (67,000 square feet)—all of which were new tenant leases and new absorption. Teams led by Baker accounted for over 15% of the entire new leasing completed citywide in 2020 in the 240 million-square-foot Houston office market and secured the largest new lease and 327,000-square-foot corporate relocation of Apache Corporation.
Prior to joining Newmark, Baker served as the senior leasing agent and leader of a high-performance team on an eight-million-square-foot office portfolio in Houston.
Notable Lease Transactions
- BHP (Galleria), Tower Five build-to-suit, 595,000 SF
- BHP (Galleria), 1360 Post Oak, 586,000 SF
- Waste Management, multiple direct deals, 260,000 SF
- Mustang Engineering, new construction, 337,882 SF
- KBR, 216,099 SF
- Energy XXI, 171,000 SF
- Shaw Engineering, 312,564 SF
- Apache Corporation, 327,000 SF
- Direct Energy, 104,348 SF
Partial Client List
- Brookfield
- Cousins Properties
- Nuveen/TIAA-CREF
- Allianz
- Shorenstein
- Griffin Partners
- State Farm Insurance
- LNR Partners, LLC
- Rialto Capital
- TIER REIT, Inc.
- Regent Properties
- CP Group
Professional Achievements
- National Top Producer, Transwestern, 15 years
- Top Producer in Houston Region, Transwestern, 2004-2021
- Champion’s Club, Transwestern, 10 years
- Heavy Hitter Awards, Houston Business Journal, multiple years
- Power Broker Award, CoStar, multiple years
- Board Member, Commercial Gateway/HAR
Education
Baker earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Baylor University. He is a licensed Real Estate Broker in Texas and a Certified Public Accountant (inactive status).