Where do you work: Home or Office?

[austinbroker]

I have worked from my home office since I started my company in 2004. People always ask me, "when are you going to open an office?" I really do not see the point right now. I always meet people wherever the business takes me. If its paperwork related, I email it. If it must be delivered or picked up, I'll have someone do it for me. No big deal.

I want to hear from independent Realtors and brokers. I know the KW and Century 21 agents have their company office (and they pay for it through commission splits).

If you're independent, where do you work? If you opened an office, what benefits did you see from it? Did the increase in production justify the overhead?

I would think an office would be the only solution if you had a team of agents. Your thoughts?

Ronnie

[Ryan Ward]

I work almost entirely from my home. This is mostly because I take care of my 11 month old daughter during the day. I just switched companies and enjoy going into the office just to get out for a while. I have a full office setup at home and enjoy that I can work from home. But, it takes a very motivated person to do it so I don't think it is for everyone.

[Micheal Pannell Realtor]

i have a full office at home and at my office, all my agents that work for me work from home. My office is a one stop shop in my office i have NHS mortgage, Credit Repair, Property managemnet, Farmers insurance(Coming soon) and my offic3e manager. She answers all the phones and get people approved, when they are approved they go to the agents. if not they go to credit repair.
What i have done to cut down overhead is to make everyone pay something. So the office doesnt cost me alot.

[coastal]

95% from home because I can start answering e-mails at 6:00 am work on the site till 9:00am show homes till 5:00pm and then work on the site and answer e-mails from home till 10:00pm

I only go to the office for settlements and initial meet and greets.

It's pretty sad because my office is absolutely beautiful and only a few blocks from the ocean. I however would look rather silly in my office with my PJ's on sipping a jack and coke at 9:00am as I often am at home

[austinbroker]

You would look silly if you added coke to perfectly fine jack. Where I come from, we only add melted ice. j/k

I however would look rather silly in my office with my PJ's on sipping a jack and coke at 9:00am as I often am at home

[ColoradoHomeHelper]

Im an office kind of guy..I cant seem to focus or get anything done at home...I think I have a crazy case of ADHD and need to be stuck at my office with no distractions to get things done!

We have a cool office set up where there are about 70 different independent real estate companies working in the same building we all have our own offices but share fax, copier, conference rooms and receptionists

[Michael Paul Eau Claire]

Great thread, Ronnie. I'm very interested to hear what is working for others. I currently run my limited-service company from my home...around working part-time elsewhere and hanging out with my 16-month old son. It works great because all I currently do is listings, so the initial meeting is always at the client's house.

I'd like to start up a full-service company next and I am debating whether or not to rent an office. I can get a very basic office in my town for about $150 month, just dirt cheap. Meeting buyer clients from out of town at a house or in the car just doesn't appeal to me.

[coastal]

Most of my clients are wham bam thank you mam deals. They've seen my website, they've seen all my listings. We chatted on the phone or through e-mail, they show up to look at their top 5 -10 homes and they either buy something or I never see them again. The more expensive the home the more time I spend with them. 80% of my business is out of towners buying vacation mobile homes on the water priced between $20K and $150K on a good summer weekend I can sell 2 - 4 of these. To sell 2 - 4 of these I have to take 6 - 12 different couples out and show them around. Hectic is an understatement. I also mis 95% of my brokers sales meetings because while they sit in the office on Wednesdays talking about sales and then spending the rest of the day touring brokers opens I'm out showing homes and making sales. Clients over $500K get all my attention and I'm happy to spend a good deal of time with them. But when I think about it five 100K mobile homes at 9% make me more money than a 3% co broke on a $500K SFH and I can move the mobile homes much faster...

What does this have to do with do I work from the home or office? I guess I don't have time to work from the office.

[BrandonSternfield]

Rarely do we at e3 see our clients. We tend to work with national folks, though we have started to do more federal clients now too.

We have an office that is a temporary one right now. Cubicle farm for now. Getting our newer office and conference room built for us while we wait.

Personally, I couldn't do this work from home. Between my pets, tv, and family I'd get too distracted.

It's bad enough that I view forums and surf the web while at work, but I at least work 95% of the time here. It would only be around 25% at home I beleive. I require the structure =/

But hey... having someone bring in bagels and fixin's every friday doesn't hurt either.

[judyo]

When I worked for a traditional company I had to lug my work into the office for floor time but the distractions there were worse than home. Now I only go into my office to meet clients or pick up closing or commission checks. Once in a while we have a meeting.