Kiemle & Hagood Co., one of the Inland Northwests largest commercial real estate and property-management concerns, says it had record transaction volume and revenue last year, reflecting the sustained vitality of the real estate market here.


The company says it handled more than 600 transactions with a combined value of more than $150 million last year. It doesnt disclose revenue figures, but says its revenues climbed about 11 percent last year, following a 24 percent jump in 2005.


Based on activity levels its seeing in all market sectors, it says it expects further volume and revenue growth this year, though at a slower pace than that of the past couple of years. It got the first quarter off to a fast start with a record February, due largely to its handling of the $36 million purchase of the 20-story Bank of America Financial Center by Seattle-based Unico Properties LLC. That sale was Kiemle & Hagoods largest brokered transaction ever.


Its going to be an upward curve for a long haul, predicts Tom Quigley, the companys president and CEO and majority owner.


Unlike some past market upturns here that later faded, Quigley says he believes the Spokane-area has reached a level of activity thats more sustainable at a healthy growth rate over the long term, even if the national economy softens.


He attributes that projected resiliency to a mix of factors, including population growth, commercial expansionparticularly in the Post Falls-Coeur dAlene areaand greater interest from real estate investors outside of the Inland Northwest. All real estate sectors here are benefiting from that rising tide, he says.


Its across the board, but the investment side is an integral part, Quigley says. The level of inquiry and the owners that we now are managing for are all over the U.S.


Larry Soehren, K&Hs vice president and one of its two other principals, says, Its a good time to be uswhether its Kiemle & Hagood, the city of Spokane, or Spokane County. I just think were in for a good ride.


For real estate investors, Quigley says the Spokane area is attractive because it currently offers better returns and is more stable than some other markets, which makes it easier for them to develop exit strategies. Investors such as Unico Properties say, though, that they have no intention of exiting the Spokane market after a few years, but operate rather from a long-term strategy that might well include acquiring additional properties here.


K&H now manages more than 5 million square feet of commercial, office, retail, and industrial space heremore than double what it did five years agoand about 1,240 apartment units. It also has a parking-company unit, called Friendly Parking Services, that it formed about four years ago to manage or handle certain duties at parking facilities for clients, and it now oversees about 20 parking properties, mostly in the downtown area. In addition, it has a growing portfolio of homeowner associations that it manages. Such associations collect utility and maintenance fees and enforce covenants within neighborhoods created as planned-unit developments.


K&H is managing fewer market-rate apartments than it once did, focusing now more on nonprofit-sponsored housing for low-income families, the elderly, and others, such as AIDS sufferers. Soehren says the company now oversees almost 900 such units. Most of them are in the Spokane area, but some also are in Post Falls, Moses Lake, and Lewiston.


Separately, K&H administers a roughly $2 million-a-year, single-family housing rehabilitation program sponsored by the city of Spokanes community development department. The program provides loans of up to $25,000 to low- and moderate-income homeowners for basic repairs and improvements to their homes.


As a property manager, K&H collected a total of $48 million in rents and charges from about 4,000 renters and homeowners last year, up from 3,400 in 2005, through its various management programs, Soehren says.


The company occupies the fourth floor of the Washington Mutual Financial Center, at 601 W. Main downtown, and has 59 people working there. It also employs about 150 people who are scattered among the various properties it manages, and has one full-time employee at a satellite office in Kennewick, Wash., that it opened about a year and a half ago.


Gordon Hester, the companys other principal, secretary-treasurer, and director of commercial management, says the company will seek to expand its presence in the bustling Tri-Cities area.


Quigley says, Our retail penetration is for the most part wherever our clients take us, but currently stretches mostly from Wenatchee, Wash., to Whitefish, Mont. North Idaho, too, is an increasing piece of our business, he says.


Despite the big transaction-volume and revenue gains, K&Hs overall work force is up only about 11 people from six years ago, but Quigley says computer technology is enabling the company to do more work without greatly enlarging its staff.


The company ranked ninth in a list of the Top 21 Commercial Real Estate Firms in the state published in January by Washington CEO Magazine, just behind Spokanes Tomlinson Black Commercial Inc. The ranking was based on number of agents, and listed Tomlinson Black with 33 full-time licensed active agents and Kiemle & Hagood with 29. The two companies were the only ones east of the Cascades to make the list.


Contact Kim Crompton at (509) 344-1263 or via e-mail at [email protected].