Redefine Your Real Estate Office Space

dotloop

April 04, 2018 | comments

Turn your workplace into a collaborative workspace that gets results

The definition of “workplace” is changing. Real estate agents no longer need to commute to an office to start each day at a desk. Instead, the workday often begins with that first glance at a smartphone to check email, respond to a text or assess the day’s schedule.

Today’s real estate professionals are no longer desk-bound because technology has made it possible to be equally, if not more, productive outside of the conventional workplace.

So why do brick and mortar offices still exist?

Many agents still go into the office to meet with a customer or use office equipment. While these reasons are definitely valid, neither really requires an office building.

As it turns out, for brokerages with 400 agents or less, semi-private office design is the most popular, according to a survey by REAL Trends, a privately held publishing, consulting and communications company specializing in the residential brokerage and housing industries. The most significant value an office space provides is a central gathering place for agents and brokers to interact and collaborate. Such communal spaces allow agents to synergize and learn from each other in purposeful and productive trainings, review sessions and team-wide company meetings.

Design for the future of your brokerage

 
To truly make the investment in an office space worthwhile, it’s important to take into account how much time your real estate professionals will likely spend there.

If your agents are like most, they’re usually out in the field, so it might not make the most sense to allot private desk space for each individual. Our advice? Focus attention on a central gathering space and leverage it for multiple purposes that keep everyone aligned and connected.

Having an open and collaborative workspace helps create synergy among agents. Because company culture is built and fostered both inside and outside the office, an office space should reflect the firm’s culture. However, when asked if their firm’s culture shaped their office space, nearly a quarter of broker-owners responded that their offices missed the mark.

Indeed, having a collaborative, common space is on trend in real estate office design. Nearly 75% of real estate offices report they are incorporating open workspace into their office design.


While the size and design of the physical office space is important, of course, the most critical factor to consider is who is occupying that space. After all, the most modern, cool environments are only as good as the people who inhabit the space.

For the full real estate report covering the REAL Trends survey, download it by clicking below: