By Carole Hawkins, Staff Writer
Sandra Kahle enjoys figuring out stuff that’s tough for most people to understand.
She was an engineer, software developer and regional manager for BellSouth, then became a bankruptcy attorney before turning to commercial real estate in 2000.
Today, she is the broker and owner of Keller Williams First Coast Realty in Orange Park.
As distant from real estate as her earlier careers may seem, Kahle said the experiences help her better understand how to pull together deals, especially for small business owners.
“People who run a company can be very good at what they do, but I can look at a piece of property and know if they need an attorney or an engineer or a CPA, and I can send them there,” she said.
In 1998, Kahle’s sister was shifting her own career away from real estate management and back to sales.
She asked Kahle, the techie in the family, to help design her website.
“I came in and worked for about a year, did a couple of deals with her, and I said, ‘You know, I think I like this commercial real estate,’” Kahle said.
So, she replaced herself with a new tech support assistant and went off to get trained.
It was an early deal that would stretch Kahle’s abilities as a commercial agent.
In partnership with her sister, she brokered the Paradise Moorings development, a residential subdivision on Doctor’s Lake. They got four land owners to sell parcels for the project and kept the deal together while it went through wetlands, artifacts and rezoning approvals.
They brokered the sale to the developer and the sale again when they brought in builders to take down lots. Then, her sister sold the houses.
“We sold the dirt three times. It was wonderful,” Kahle said. “I learned a great deal from the whole process.”
Today, Kahle works projects that range from purchasing land for a Golden Corral, to leasing a medical offices complex, to managing tenants for an Orange Park retail center, to selecting an industrial site. Recently, she sold a parcel for a Dollar General store.
That scope of work, she admits, is unusual in a commercial broker. But it’s because she’s often helping small business owners, whose needs are more diverse.
It’s an 8,000- or 10,000 square-foot strip center someone is managing, not a 50,000 square-foot shopping center. Or it’s a client who wants to buy a 20,000-square-foot warehouse vs. a 200,000-square-foot building.
“There’s not as much money in those small transactions, so a lot of the commercial agents don’t do them,” Kahle said.
One area she doesn’t venture into personally is residential real estate, even though she has scores of Realtors working under her who do.
“I don’t want to drive around and show people houses and I don’t care what color the carpet is,” she said, with a laugh. “I’m just not into those things that most home owners seem very concerned about.”
Instead, Kahle plows into the environmental, structural, financial and legal issues of land development. Or figures out how to pair customers with properties where the deal’s moving parts include zoning codes, parcel sizes, building types, floor plans, parking lots and loading dock configurations.
“Everyone’s needs are so unique,” she said. “I love giving them guidance. And sometimes, teaching them what due diligence is, especially if it’s their first real estate deal.”