Home, sweet home
Keller Williams Realty agents invest in their own office building
Keller Williams Realty agents invest in their own office building

By Richard Mize

Published: June 30, 2007

Some Keller Williams Realty agents have put their money where their mantra is.

"Why rent when you can own?” Indeed, why not? So now they co-own Keller Williams Realty's new building at 5629 Classen Blvd. in Deep Fork Creek, a new office park at NW Grand Boulevard and Classen.

"It was like a no-brainer,” said Diane Hubbard Loy, one of eight agents, including managing broker Gene Lowell, who own a piece of the building under the name ReLaunch Investment LLC.

Keller Williams Northwest offered the agents a chance to invest in the real estate. The franchise itself is still owned by Lowell; Mo Anderson, the Oklahoma native who is vice chairman of Austin, Texas-based Keller Williams International; and Oklahoma City investors John Bridwell and Paul Woolsey.

Loy, a Keller Williams agent for 13 years, said she didn't think twice when the opportunity came to literally buy into her workplace. It's her only commercial property investment. She already owns nine rent houses.

The $1.5-million, 10,500-square-foot residential-style office building and the new Pearl's Oyster Bar at 5641 Classen anchor Deep Fork Creek, developed by David Bohanon's Blackstone Commercial Property Advisors.

The Keller Williams building includes a classroom for 80 or more, space for a partner lender, conference rooms, offices for sales teams and spaces for individual agents, all richly appointed.

With residential real estate continuing strong and with Keller Williams' predominant share of the Oklahoma City-area market, it was time to move from cramped leased space at 2630 Northwest Expressway, where Keller Williams Northwest had been almost since its founding in 1992, Lowell said.

Keller Williams Northwest, which has satellite offices in Yukon and Choctaw, is one of 10 Keller Williams locations in the metro area. The Keller Williams offices handled 20 percent of the homes sold here by Realtors in May, Lowell said.

Lowell said the 130 or so agents working from the Keller Williams Northwest Market Center pushed for the move. That's the main office. The ones in Yukon and Choctaw are Keller Williams Business Centers with their own agents.

The Market Center agents formed a task force to look for a new place but could find no suitable building to lease.

The franchise owners thought building new space, and inviting agents to become part owners of the property, would be another way to implement Keller Williams' philosophy of fostering wealth building among its agents.

The idea was that the property's value would appreciate — and Lowell said it has already, as Deep Fork Creek attracts businesses and continues to expand. She said it's the only agent-owned Keller Williams location in Oklahoma. In addition to Loy and Lowell, co-owning agents are Jay Clark, Shelby Cummings, Brandon Hart, Marge Kelley, Pam Klepper and Joan Stamman.

Stamman, who works as a sales team member with her daughter, Stephani Roper, said Keller Williams' talk about its agents building wealth is more than talk.

"They realize they won't do well unless we do well,” said Stamman, a Keller Williams agent for more than 10 years. "A lot of owners of real estate companies are more out for themselves than their agents.”