Haven Real Estate Group LLC is the latest in a series of tenants to move into the historic Washington Cracker Co. building, also known as the Cracker Box Building, located downtown at 304 W Pacific. 

“We began this journey a year ago, and just moved in the second week of December,” says Haven Real Estate co-owner Robert Henry. 

Henry started Haven Real Estate Group in 2013 with his wife, Cambria. He says Haven was initially a group within another local brokerage, Realteam Real Estate Center LLC. 

While Haven is strictly a residential real estate brokerage, it’s licensed to broker the sale of multifamily properties, such as duplex and triplex apartment buildings, as well as single-family homes. 

Although the company is not currently involved with any large developments, as a former builder and developer himself, Henry says he looks forward to building connections with area developers. 

 “We have had some discussions with a larger developer, and I do hope to build on those types of relationships in the future,” he says. 

Haven works with several investors who buy rental homes, and smaller apartment complexes, as well as those who remodel homes. The company primarily serves Spokane and Stevens counties. 

 Haven moved from a 1,500-square-foot space with Realteam at 12704 E. Nora into 5,000 square feet of space on the top floor of the 3-story, 33,700-square-foot Cracker Box building. The space now houses 12 company agents and three support staff employees, but Henry hopes to have 45 agents at that office by the end of the year.

Other tenants in the historic building include a winery, an event center, a yoga studio, a coffee roasting company and a restaurant.

In July of 2014, The Journal reported that investor group Cracker Box LLC had acquired the building and the adjacent parking lot. Spokane-based Copeland Architecture & Construction Inc. redesigned the building, and contractor SDS Construction Management LLC has been working to upgrade the building’s interior.

Cracker Box LLC is headed by Darby McKee, a principal of Overbluff Cellars LLC, a Spokane-based winery. McKee says other than an area of 5,000 square feet still available on the top floor, all the building’s other spaces have been spoken for. 

“The remaining interior renovations should wrap up in the next three to five months,” says McKee. 

Henry says the company would like to lease the rest of that top floor, as he hopes to add more new agents. 

“My wife and I both have significant leadership development backgrounds and a passion for teaching new agents how to be successful,” says Henry. 

Nationally, he says, a typical new agent completes three transactions in a year, and 62 percent of agents quit the business within that first year. According to Henry, a first-year agent at Haven is completing 15 transactions, four more than the average made by successful agents nationally. 

 “The average number of transactions per agents is where the rubber hits the road. It shows how much money and opportunity is available at each of the firms, but also how much training is available at each and how effective that training is,” he says. 

He adds, “The average number of transactions an experienced agent in the Spokane area completes each year is eight. Haven’s experienced agents are completing closer to 30.”

“It might seem ambitious, but our focus is to continue to train our agents to become successful, and be proactive in finding clients homes,” he says. “These numbers are why I’m so confident we’ll have 45 agents by the end of this year.”