When Gary Keller started the Keller Williams franchise he did a lot of research on this point. We have the highest agent count per office of any national firm (by a multiple of about 3) and rent tends to be one of the biggest expenses for a real estate brokerage. Gary’s goal was to minimize space costs by determining how much space was actually needed per agent.

So way back in the 1980′s we tracked how many agents and cars (you have to pay for parking too) were at the office at any hour on any given day of the week. The research showed that only a fraction of the agents were ever at the office at the same time. So long before internet-based telecommuting, agents tended spent the majority of their time in the field, in their cars, in their clients’ homes and in their listings. Seller meetings took place at the proverbial kitchen table, although buyers did tend to meet with the agent in the office. Agents came to the office for training, coaching, floor duty, contract work and social occasions. At the end of the day, you’d have a modest percentage of agents (mostly top producers) working full time out of the brokers office. For the rest, “flex space” (working areas and conference rooms) was what they wanted and used on a need to basis.

I love that your doing this survey. It would be really interesting to dig up some of that old research and see how much this has actually changed over time. I’ll see if I can find our original formula for office space (sq ft per agent recommendation).

Thanks for all y’all do!