Leaner brokerages make way in real estate

Sometimes it’s just the right time to strike out on your own, and that time apparently is now for several area commercial brokers.

“I had been with Gibbons White for 15 years and was the VP of brokerage service there since 2008,” said Chris Boston, who formed BostonPace of Boulder with his brother, Mike, last November. “For me it was just the right time to take along my business and clients that I had.”

The two brothers had long thought of going into business together, and Mike, an investment specialist, had also just sold the wealth management company he had co-owned for the past 20 years. Mike had also assisted Chris and his clients with investment analysis for years.

“It’s a phenomenal dynamic,” Chris said. “He’s brilliant with numbers, and he completely understands the financial analysis. When we’re selling buildings and buying buildings, I think it brings a level of sophistication to our clients with a very high level of detailed analysis.”

Perhaps not completely coincidentally, Todd Walsh also chose to break off from the Colorado Group last year as well. Walsh and Chris Boston said they often find themselves working different aspects of the same commercial property deal.

“Todd and I are good friends and he’s one block north” of the BostonPace headquarters at 2315 Broadway in downtown Boulder, Chris said. “His firm and my firm are working together on several deals. It’s a lot of fun to have new firms working together, bringing a new energy and new skill sets.”

Walsh said independent brokers, as opposed to large brokerage firms, often find themselves working different sides of a real estate deal cooperatively, especially when a large tenant is involved. Essentially that allows them to cover the market effectively.

Like Boston, Walsh went independent once he thought he had the critical mass to split off from the Colorado Group. The decision was made easier by the red-hot market today in northern Colorado, but Walsh said today’s technology assists smaller boutique firms in critical ways.

“I realized the marketplace was changing, and clients wanted more from their Realtor,” Walsh said. “From a marketing aspect, creating a brochure and putting it on the internet is not going to do it. We use passive and active marketing targeting (specific markets).”

Many of the more pervasive tools, such as the Multiple Listing Service, are available to firms of all sizes on a per-broker basis. Walsh noted that larger firms have bigger fixed costs, which are transferred to their clients in terms of desk fees — fees that aren’t being directly applied to advancing the clients’ marketing.

“One of the reasons I went the independent brokerage route is we can invest the desk fees into (marketing) development,” Walsh said. Technology development favoring the small and flexible brokerages, including those in publishing and marketing, are certainly adding fuel to the fire underneath brokers going their own way, Walsh said.

“These resources are increasingly more available,” he said.

In Fort Collins, Josh Guernsey split with Brinkman Partners after 10 years to be a co-founder and managing director of Waypoint Real Estate last year, but he said that situation doesn’t quite correspond directly with his colleagues in Boulder leaving large brokerages. Essentially, he said Brinkman was looking to split its real estate investment and development firm from its third-party brokerage business, leaving him and four colleagues with the brokerage business.

“We’ve been very fortunate in that our clients were willing to make the move with us,” Guernsey said. “I don’t think there could have been a better time for it (in terms of market conditions).”

Brinkman no longer offers broker services, nor was the company interested in those services at the time of the split, he said. “The split could not have been more amicable.”

However Guernsey echoed some of Walsh’s comments, in that the technology and the current market certainly help independent brokerages succeed. “We started with four, and now we have 16 employees, Guernsey said of his full-service brokerage and property management firm.

Both Walsh and Boston said market conditions have been wonderful in expanding their companies, as well.

“We’re four full-time brokers, and we’re rocking and rolling,” said Walsh of his brokerage.

At Boston, of course, there was one employee whose hiring was a no-brainer, Mike Boston. While only tangentially involved in the commercial real estate market before Boston, Mike believes he makes a big impact on some top clients for the firm, which has represented companies such as NextGen, 1908 Brands and Boulder Brands

“I think what I bring is in the investment experience, the analytical ability and ability to assess the investment temperament, which I think is critical,” Mike Boston said. “Where the real investment opportunity comes is when the market is most volatile.”

Chris Boston said he and his brother also share a number of passions, including a deep devotion to their grandfather (Orville Boston, whose father was Thomas Pace Boston), as well as an appreciation for Warren Buffet.

“We love the example that Warren sets with integrity and honesty, and that’s what we’re bringing to BostonPace,” he said.

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