The Group plans to close an office as Realtors work remotely

FORT COLLINS — In what might be the shape of things to come, The Group Inc. Real Estate will close one of its offices because several of its sales professionals prefer to work remotely.

The Group has launched a mobile broker model, accommodating the 29 sales professionals who choose to work remotely. As a result, it needs less office space, so it will close its 40-year-old office on Horsetooth Road.

The 375 E. Horsetooth office was Group’s second when built in 1983. It provided offices for 18 sales partners and contains 12,750-square-feet of space. It will be put on the market for sale in the spring.

“This location was on the south edge of Fort Collins, which is obviously not the case anymore,” said Brandon Wells, The Group president and CEO. 

“With our mobile agent model, we can consolidate our Fort Collins office space. We will be reinvesting to expand our presence in Weld County and in other growing communities to the east and south of our traditional service area,” he said.

The Group’s presence on the south side of Fort Collins will be anchored by the Harmony Road office, which opened in 1999. A new Timnath office, which opened in 2022, serves the fast-growing communities of eastern Larimer and western Weld counties. 

Larry Kendall, a co-founder of The Group, said the latest move adheres to an ongoing philosophy at The Group. “Success comes to those who get in front of the inevitable. That was the motivation to open the Horsetooth office in the first place as we knew housing was being developed south of Horsetooth Road. In fact, we had trouble getting financing for the building because the banks thought it was too far out of town.”

The Group heard the same skepticism when it decided to build on Harmony Road, Kendall said. “At the time, there was nothing on Harmony Road except for Hewlett-Packard. We were in a cornfield.” Even the Fort Collins Post Office initially declined to deliver mail to the new building, he said. Now Horsetooth Road is considered “Midtown” Fort Collins, and some 40,000 cars a day drive past The Group’s Harmony Road office while only 26,000 drive by the Horsetooth location. 

“The Group always wants to be a leader and get in front of the inevitable.  The trend toward sales associates being more mobile and working remotely has caused us to realize that we don’t need as many bricks and sticks. The Timnath office was built with the modern, more mobile Realtor in mind, and will be a model The Group uses as it expands,” Kendall said.

The Group also will maintain its other offices, including another in Fort Collins, two in Loveland, and one in Steamboat Springs.

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