New Selling ICT co-working space to focus on real estate and related industries

Terra Alonzi is somewhat accidentally having a busier holiday season than planned.

She’s been in real estate since 2015 and last year formed the Alonzi Group at Keller Williams, which has had about $15 million in sales since then.

Next week, she’s closing on her purchase of a 24-unit apartment complex and then is buying a building to form a real estate hub: Selling ICT.

“This has all happened pretty quickly,” Alonzi said.

The last part has been especially quick and was something Alonzi hadn’t anticipated doing now.

She said she’s always noticed how much running around there is to do in real estate, such as to lender and title offices.

“I was like, what can I do to put everybody together under one roof?”

Then, as she was shopping for co-working spaces and had sticker shock, Alonzi started thinking about having her own place that would be more affordable.

“The idea was kind of hatched.”

Alonzi still didn’t plan to do anything immediately because of her upcoming apartment purchase, but Brant Dumford of SNC Group of Berkshire Hathaway told her he had an office to show her.

Somewhat reluctantly she went to look at the space at 404 E. Central just down from El Patio and had to admit, “I mean, this is perfect.”

Alonzi now has a letter of intent to buy the building and already is showing it to people in real estate and related businesses to potentially lease it. That includes talks with a lender, a home warranty company and a title company for what she called a one-stop shop.

Alonzi has five showings for the space’s 11 offices on Wednesday.

“They are a fraction of the price from what I had seen when I was out shopping co-working spaces.”

Even though the real estate industry is a competitive one, Alonzi said there’s value in working even with competitors.

“I’m hoping that this empowers everybody to work together,” she said. “This is just a networking space for like-minded individuals.”

Alonzi said if it proves successful, she could see buying another building and even one day franchising the concept.

The office should open by mid-February at the latest.

Even though a lot of people are working from home due to the pandemic — and some other co-working spaces are struggling or have even closed — Alonzi sees value in shared office space.

“I’m a very office-oriented person. I don’t do well working from home.”

She thinks a lot of others feel the same way.

“There seems to be a lot of interest.”

This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 2:33 PM.