Lloyd Ball of Anomaly Commercial joins me today to discuss the latest trends in commercial real estate and illustrate how we add value to our clients’ business.
Anomaly Commercial is a commercial real estate brokerage services group that helps investors acquire and sell assets for their portfolios. They also work with tenants, national franchises, and small businesses to help them locate expansion spaces for things like restaurants and retail stores.
According to Lloyd, an interesting shift is happening on the commercial side of the market. More investors are chasing higher-yield properties in smaller, more affordable markets. They’re shifting their attention away from core areas like downtown Seattle, Bellevue, and Kirkland and instead focusing on markets like Tacoma, which is actually one of the leading cities in the country in terms of rent growth.
When asked about making the transition from a residential broker to a commercial broker, Lloyd explains that the knowledge gap is what stops people from taking that extra step and jumping into commercial real estate. The commercial field is specialized, and you have to understand what property types are involved, their specific terminology, and how to evaluate those different types of properties.
“You’re shifting from business to consumer to business to business,” he says. “It’s more heavy on quantitative analysis and less emotional.”
For residential brokers to bridge that gap, Lloyd suggests they transition from working with single properties to working with multi-family units because they’re more like an investment property anyway. He adds that dealing with businesses on the commercial side of real estate isn’t without its share of emotion either, though. Business owners and CEOs have employees to think about, and they care about their well-being and their opinions.
We work with Lloyd on the transaction coordination side of things, and the systems we have in place as a team add great value to his business.
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“Alex and the whole Moncord team go above and beyond to help us see what the health of our business is.”
For example, when he delivers an offer and it’s mutually accepted or he sends an offer over to a broker, he CCs Lisa and it shows a certain presence that indicates we’re not just some individual broker—we have a team behind us and this is going to be a professional transaction. This effect helps boost the image of the offer as it comes over.
For Lloyd, there are many more internal benefits for himself also. He doesn’t feel the pressure of keeping track of everything. With our systems, he can look at all the timelines and deadlines and receive email updates when things need to be done. He feels comfortable with any issues because it’s easy to react to them instead of figuring out what has to be done. It’s easy for any broker who deals with a lot of volume to lose their way in regard to what’s important at any given time and where they’ll put their focus on any given day. Without having systems in place, that can be overwhelming.
“The uncertainty of where things are can paralyze you,” he says. When working with us, whenever a task comes up, it’s easy to get it out of the way, and that creates a mind space that allows you to think about other things in regard to the business.
“One thing I can testify to is Alex and the whole Moncord team go above and beyond to help us see what the health of our business is.”
I want to thank Lloyd for taking the time to sit down with me today. He is a great asset to our team and I value my friendship with him. If you have any questions for him about commercial real estate, you can email him at Lloyd@AnomalyCO.com.
If you have any questions for me about our market or you’re thinking about buying or selling a home, feel free to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help you.