I've been a commercial real estate professional for over twenty years. Like most people, however, I was myopically focused on what I was looking for on behalf of my clients. If whatever I heard about didn't fit the parameters of my immediate clients, then I mentally put it in the circular file.
Over the past few years, however, my eyes have been opened to the wonderful world of referrals. I'm not talking about just referring your client that is selling their home to an agent in whatever town they are moving to (although that's a pretty good idea, too). I'm talking about crossover referrals between commercial and residential agents.
Recently, one of my commercial clients decided to sell his $9.5 million house in the San Francisco Bay area. In the past, I wouldn't have thought of his house as an income opportunity. After all, I have nothing to do with the residential arena. This time, however, it dawned on me that I knew some excellent residential real estate agents in the area. It also dawned on me that I could make some good money if I referred him to the agent that ultimately sold his house. So, that's what I did. The house isn't sold yet, but when it does I will receive about $80,000. Best of all, all I had to do was tell him that I knew some really good residential agents and ask him if he was willing to talk to them about selling the house. That's a pretty high rate of pay for my efforts.
On the other side of the coin, I know an agent whose wife was a senior executive with a company that needed some office space in San Francisco's financial district. He reffered his wife to me, and I quickly negotiated and closed a 15,000 sq. ft. lease for her company. The total commission on the lease was $120,000, and the agent made a very tidy sum of money on the transaction.
Residential agents often don't realize that the people that they sell homes to are also the same people that lease office space, open retail locations, and buy and sell commercial investment properties. Just as I did with my client that was selling his house, all the residential agent has to do is ask a few extra questions of their clients.
It can pay off in a very big way.
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