Few will argue that buying and selling real estate isn’t a specialized business transaction, or that when you want to buy or sell a property in the Lewiston-Auburn area, hiring a Lewiston-Auburn real estate agent isn’t the most common way to get the job done. It may be an excellent idea, but it doesn’t go quite far enough.

All real estate agents aren’t the same, because there are two types of specialists: residential and commercial real estate agents. At the Tanya Busch Team, we specialize: Cookie Dean, with years of personal commercial investing experience, handles our commercial sales and leasing while Tanya Busch specializes in residential sales.

When economic activity grows sluggish, agents may try to cross over in their efforts to keep business humming. Whether you are buying or selling a place to live, or contemplating a business-related real estate move, job one is to pay attention the type of brokerage the agent specializes in. There are very few true commercial agents in Lewiston-Auburn and while an agent may sell an occasional “in-home business”, it doesn’t necessarily make them the top choice as a commercial broker.

There are distinct differences between the residential and commercial real estate agent. Let’s take a look at the some of the major areas that make them different:

Types of Properties

The most basic distinction between a Lewiston-Auburn commercial real estate agent and their residential counterpart is the type of properties they deal in -- just about always determined by the intended use of the real estate.

For the most part, the role of the residential real estate agent is to help their client purchase or sell a single family home. On the other hand, commercial real estate agents help their clients find income-producing properties. They may be retail space, manufacturing or service locations, or any of the other types of real estate that house a business endeavor. 

Valuation Methods 

Not only is the intended use of the property different, so is the determination of market value. Lewiston-Auburn residential real estate market value is determined by comparing it to recent sales of similar Lewiston-Auburn properties. There are a wide variety of ways a commercial real estate agent determines the value of commercial property. All of them deal in one way or another with calculating future income and return on investment.

 Clientele:

True commercial real estate agents deal with businesspeople – building owners, tenants and investors -- who are, as a general rule, dispassionate about the transaction. The client’s main concern is to get a decent return on the investment. It’s business, after all.

Residential real estate agents, on the other hand, deal with people to whom the product – the house or condominium – usually comes to represent a significant emotional attachment. There’s far more emotion involved in the residential transaction and good residential agents will have much experience in handling the emotional component in such a way that it does not wind up compromising an otherwise sound transaction.