Walk in many a real estate office, and what do you see? A receptionist at the front desk, presumably a broker in a back office, banging his or her head on a desk while reviewing yet another incomplete file.

Let’s face it, the vast majority of an agent’s time is spent in the field: showing homes, sitting opens, doing listing presentations. Not only is office space expensive, it’s typically very underutilized in the real estate sales vertical. This article isn’t going down the alternative or reduced commission path. I’m excluding agent commissions, which are obviously unavoidable outside of having salaried W-2 employees as agents instead of independent contractors. If the coffee shop/internet cafe failed, could the brokerage operations survive? So many questions, so much capital investment.Įxploring the financials behind owning and operating a brokerage swiftly revealed that the largest expense, by far, is office space overhead. Beholden to a lease, what happens if everything we build just gets ripped out from under us when the landlord raises the rent? I knew I could sell the hell out of real estate - I did not know if I could craft a sellable craft coffee. It didn’t take long to realize how expensive it would be to bring this vision to reality.Ĭommercial space is expensive. The vision and plan was crafted inside my head, committed to paper, and a site search began. Walls where local artists could schlep their wares, maybe a little spot in the corner where the next Ed Sheeran could sing and play a guitar on open mic night. It would be a delightfully welcoming space, a place people felt comfortable and at home. A place where folks could come in, grab a seat and get a little work done while they sipped a latte and were bombarded with subliminal messaging about who their next real estate agent would be. Thompson’s Realty was going to be housed together with a coffee shop and internet cafe. The initial vision was to secure a space in the hip and trendy little downtown area of Gilbert, Arizona, a rapidly growing area east of Phoenix. His weekly Inman column publishes every Wednesday.Ībout this time 14 years ago, the thoughts around forming my own independent brokerage began to circulate in my head. He retired in August 2018 but can’t seem to leave the real estate industry behind. Jay Thompson is a former brokerage owner who spent six years working for Zillow Group.

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