REAL ESTATE & DEVELOPMENT OUT-
OMAHA WORLD-HERALD SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016
Agents all under one roof or spread out? Approaches vary for real estate firms By Cindy Gonzalez
OPTIMISTIC OUTLOOK Local Realtors are encouraged about this year’s housing market:
World-Herald staff writer
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ere’s a forecast local real estate leaders agree on: Omaha area housing sales in 2016 should at least match if not outperform last year’s record-breaking activity. Individual companies diverge, however, when it comes to the type of office environment they think will best propel their troops to that outcome. A couple of the biggest real estate firms — Nebraska Realty and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Ambassador Real Estate — are launching the year with moves into brand new mega headquarters where hundreds of agents mingle and operate under one roof. NP Dodge Real Estate has taken a different tacK, scattering residential sales agents among multiple satellite offices. The company in just the last few months opened two more sites along the popular Dodge corridor that shares its name. Still another firm, CBSHome, has adopted a hybrid approach. While it has focused recently on consolidation, its agents still like the company’s handful of small “drop-in” stations across the metro area where they can meet clients or do miscellaneous business. Lisa Ritter, former president of both the Nebraska Realtors Association and Omaha Area Board of Realtors, said industry leaders began to re-examine internal structures and operations following the national housing collapse. Factors also included rapidly changing technology and mobile devices that have agents depending less on traditional office quarters, said Ritter, who owns Regency-based Re/Max Results. In that climate, Andy Alloway chose to re-brand his company and build a three-story headquarters with training rooms, child-care facilities and outdoor grilling and tailgate areas on the north side of West Dodge Road near 168th Street. Alloway said he waited five years for the right spot on which to unveil Nebraska Realty, formerly known as Deeb Realty. He expects the collaborative hub to ultimately save administrative costs, as well as get more creative juices flowing as agents feed off one another’s ideas. Location played a key role in determining where to plant the company flag, Alloway said. His firm also has a Sarpy County office. “Visibility is absolutely paramount, it’s huge,” he said. Vince Leisey, owner of the Berkshire Hathaway Ambassador firm, said most agents moved into their new mega headquarters this month and the remainder will in February. Ambassador will occupy 60,000 square feet — double the space of its last corporate office. In all, the office building at 177th and Burke Streets, west of the Village Pointe shopping complex, has 105,000 square feet. “It’s much easier to control your culture, and have it be what you want it to be, if you are in one location,” Leisey said. He said there are economies of scale that make it financially beneficial as well. NP Dodge’s Mike Riedmann acknowledges there are financial savings in consolidation. Nevertheless, he said, his company has opted to add rather than reduce its number of residential sales offices. Having multiple offices in various parts of the city, Riedmann said, helps in recruitment of agents as well as in sales growth. And, he said, the consumer is better served by having a contact point that is closer to their home. “We feel agents prefer to work in the market they serve and be closer to where they live,” he said. NP Dodge’s recent opening of offices on 148th and West Dodge Road and in a converted Old Mill car dealership building brought to six the number of residential sales offices along the Dodge corridor between 35th and 204th Streets. The company has a corporate base and 17 sites altogether that support residential or commercial transactions throughout eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. CBSHome’s Scott Vogt said his firm believes it has the “best
results this year.
Andy Alloway of Nebraska Realty: 2015 home sales in the metro area surpassed 13,500 — up from each of the last few years when sales did not reach the 13,000 mark. He sees similar if not better Lisa Ritter of Regency-based Re/ Max Results: Talk of rising interest rates could lead to a busier spring than last year’s.
NEW DIGS
Scott Vogt of CBSHome: Rising apartment rents also will help stimulate home ownership.
Nebraska Realty’s new headquarters building at 17117 Burt St. It is representative of companies that use one building for its agents’ offices. Other Omaha-area realty companies use a series of smaller offices, and still others take a hybrid approach, with a headquarters building supplemented by satellite offices.
“We feel agents prefer to work in the market they serve and be closer to where they live.”
Vince Leisey of Berkshire Hathaway Ambassador: The “negative bounce” the industry thought it might get from the ConAgra headquarters exit hasn’t really impacted the market.
Mike Riedmann, NP Dodge of both worlds” by having two full-service real estate offices and the handful of drop-in offices across the metro. The CBSHome corporate office at 159th Street and West Dodge Road and its newly built Sarpy County base each provide a spectrum of services, including experts to handle mortgage financing, closing services, title insurance. Said Vogt, who this year became chief executive and president of CBSHome: “We love the sense of community that we get with our agents together and we like that all of our services are under one roof so they have easy access to everything we provide.” At the same time, he said, the company’s drop-in stations allow for wider exposure for the brand and are a convenience for agents wanting a quick meeting or a place to copy documents. To be sure, smaller real estate companies also have evolved in various ways. Examples include the re-branding of the former Dundeebased Gold Coast Real Estate, which became the first local office of the national Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand. Owner Todd Simmons, joined by a husband-wife team formerly of CBSHome, have said they hope to expand from 10 to 100 agents in four years. Alliance Real Estate closed, with the owner David Matney joining the ranks of Berkshire Hathaway’s Ambassador. At P.J. Morgan Real Estate, the number of residential agents has grown while the headquarters has stayed at 7801 Wakeley Plaza, said Susan Clark, who heads residential sales. Agents increasingly work from their home, car and via smartphones, she said. Yet they like to be able to drop in at a home base where they mix with colleagues focused on other areas of real estate such as commercial ventures and property management. “It gives us the opportunity to learn from all aspects of real estate, and we think that helps us grow and be better at what we do.”
Mike Riedmann of NP Dodge: Lending standards have started to loosen more, opening a wider pathway for working millennials whose college debt had been weighing down credit scores. “We see a big wave of first-time home buyers coming,” he said. Susan Clark of P.J. Morgan Real Estate: Her team this year already has seen an influx of first-time homeowners entering the market. “That brings a lot of promise to 2016,” she said.
“We love the sense of community that we get with our agents together and we like that all of our services are under one roof so they have easy access to everything we provide.” Scott Vogt, CBSHome
Contact the writer: 402-444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com
The city vs. the suburbs Urban centers are growing, but the draw of outlying neighborhoods always will be there. Here’s how to decide which spot is right for you
and rebounded faster in recent years. “I think cities and denser areas tend to retain their value a little bit more because it’s more expensive,” Ameer said. “It’s more cost-prohibitive to get in, versus suburbs, where the affordability factor is widened and it’s typically easier for more people to get into that area.”
By Alyssa Karas
The Changes
CTW Features
Trendy neighborhood and nightlife? Or picket fence and easy parking? While American homebuyers continue to ponder the perennial question of where to settle — city or suburbs — the lifestyle, demographics and amenities of each are changing as well.
The Trends Americans have migrated en masse from the cities to the suburbs for decades, but the exodus has reversed in recent years, according to recent Census data. More than half of the country’s 51 largest metropolitan areas reported faster growth in city centers than suburbs from 2010 to 2011, and 19 of the 51 major metros showed faster primary city than suburb growth in 20122013. That’s up significantly from 2000 to 2010, when only five city centers grew faster than their surrounding suburbs. “I think there are always going to be people moving to the suburbs,” said John McIlwain, senior fellow for housing at the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit research and education group for land use and real estate. “We’re not talking about a blackor-white situation, but the great
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migration to the suburbs is over. We’re now seeing incrementally more people living in either central cities or newly evolving suburban town centers.” That said, a lack of affordable housing near city centers may drive new and first-time buyers toward walkable, city-like suburbs this year, according to housing predictions from real estate site Zillow. “Rents will continue to increase at a brisk rate in 2016, but many potential first-time buyers are living in hot markets where buying a home is really expensive,” Dr. Svenja Gudell, Zillow’s chief economist, said in a state-
ment. “We’ll start to see more people in hot coastal markets forced to move farther from the core of the city to find housing. When they get there, they’ll be looking for amenity-rich suburbs — mini-cities, with walkable cores and an urban feel. “Millennials want to buy, but they are waiting longer than previous generations,” Gudell said. Cara Ameer, a Realtor and broker associate with Coldwell Banker Vanguard Realty in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, has noticed a renewed fascination with cities in her clients. “First-time homebuyers tend to want to be in more in-town areas,” she said.
The Cost The top reason that suburbs continue to be attractive to homebuyers comes down, unsurprisingly, to costs. The main advantage of the suburbs is that housing per square foot is cheaper. Most suburbs offer bigger houses and more land. Homes in the city do tend to offer “less bang for the buck,” Ameer said, because the limited space is more expensive. However, both Ameer and McIlwain point out that homes in urban markets might appreciate more than their suburban counterparts. McIlwain said prices in urban markets dropped less
“People always said the reasons these (homebuyers) were going out to the suburbs were the same ones their parents had,” McIlwain said. “But the suburbs today are not the suburbs of the ’50s and ’60s.” The biggest demographic groups headed for cities are empty nesters and millennials, or those in their 20s and early 30s. “Many of them want to find ways to stay in the city after they get married and have kids,” McIlwain said. Schools and safety are two big factors in choosing where to live, and those statistics are changing, too. Not all suburban schools are high-performing, and city crime rates have seen reductions in the last few decades. With so many different choices, Ameer reminds her first-time homebuyer clients to be flexible and weigh their needs versus their wants. Buying a property needs to be a compromise, she said. “This is not a forever property, remember that,” Ameer said. “Get into something that makes sense for you financially and fits your lifestyle. As your life evolves, you can make the next step.”
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