Four Steps Fee Managers Should Take Before Entering New Markets

One of the major reasons they decided to make the leap: Both companies manage properties within a reasonable distance of these markets and already have regional managers in place who can oversee the additional properties. Woodward has four properties across the state line in North Carolina, while Fogelman has 615 units roughly 130 miles away in San Antonio.

Often, though, it is necessary to set up a regional office—especially if you don’t have an established footprint nearby and you have enough mass to justify a new office. The reasons are many. A new operational headquarters allows greater efficiency for invoices, puts less strain on corporate, and helps you establish credibility. “In the case that we only have one or two properties in an area, it is usually not worth establishing a regional office until we get more properties in that market,” Barnes says.

One reason that Mark-Taylor decided to expand its geographic scope and enter Portland over Dallas or Albuquerque, N.M., for instance, was because it saw the opportunity to use its Portland office as a base for operations throughout the Pacific Northwest—an area with a ton of potential for new clients. Already, the firm has moved across the Columbia River from Portland to Vancouver, Wash., and is setting its sites even further out. “Portland has 2.2 million people, and it’s only a three-hour drive to Seattle,” Danuser says. “There are other markets here that are pretty much in our backyard.”

But it’s crucial to know your geographic limits. Fogelman has branched out to San Antonio and Colorado Springs, Colo., but doesn’t expect to move any further West. “California is the one place we will not go. That’s a stretch—to move from Memphis across the entire country,” he says. “I’d say 1,000 miles is probably our limit.”