REALShare with Chris Kline Jr.

In this month’s REALShare blog we are getting to know the President and Founder of Frederick Commercial Real Estate Broker of Record, Chris Kline Jr.  Chris was the recipient of the Emerging Dealmaker of the Year Award at the 2020 FRED Awards.

FCRE specializes in all commercial sectors of the real estate market, with emphasis on Industrial, Retail, Office, Multifamily and Adaptive Reuses of historic properties and/or properties where a change of use is necessary. 

To contact Chris call (240) 457-4802 or email ckline@fredcommercial.com.

Tell us about yourself and how you got into real estate.

I’m a life long Fredericktonian, born and raised. My family has been in Frederick for 9 generations. I left for roughly 10 years for school and 2 years in the Peace Corps. I have a masters degree in planning/Econ development. 

I started my commercial real estate career in 2014 working as a property manager. From there I worked for a few brokers before opening my firm in Jan. 2019. My father has played an important role early on in my career being he had his own success as a commercial RE Broker for 40 years in Frederick. 

What would you say is your greatest strength as a realtor when working for your clients?

I feel my greatest strength as a Broker is my ability to connect and gain the trust of my clients. 95% of the deals I’m involved in are single broker transactions because I’ve been able to earn the trust of both buyer/seller or tenant/landlord. That’s something to hang your hat on. I work for win win situations because any other outcome is a potential waste of time and doesn’t earn the reputation and respect that I’ve been able to achieve in a short time as a Broker. Frederick is a relationship market. My roots in this town run deep and that has allowed me to have a vast network of strong relationships. These relationships spur off referrals and create a support system I can rely on and my clients can rely on. It’s easy to get a deal under contract, it’s a whole other challenge to get a deal to close, and my approach to doing business has me brokering the deal through the entire process.

How can the typical small business owner find the right realtor?

They need to call/meet and do their own investigation into who they want to work with and decide what seems like the right fit.

What surprised you the most about the market in 2020?

COVID gave the commercial market a bump in some sectors like industrial and biomedical/life sciences, while giving other sectors like Class A office and retail a reason to rethink their role in the market place.

What trends are you currently seeing in the market?

There are seismic shifts happening in retail and how people prefer to receive certain goods- same day delivery, ordering online, returns being made so easy. This also caused a huge push by groups to own more fulfillment centers and distribution centers around their customer base, oppose to one fulfillment center in the middle of nowhere servicing markets hundreds of miles away...

In your experience, what are the top must-haves for a prospective tenant in a typical lease situation?

Competent and local representation so you can be guided by someone that knows what is and isn’t fair in a deal and can get you a market rate, if not something better. Market rate deals are where you want to aim for, if you’re expectations are too far off from market, you’ll waste time and lose out on things, that in hindsight, were the right choice.

What can a tenant do to strengthen his/her negotiating position?

Find the right broker to team up with. The right broker will strategize through every step of the process to make sure you’re positioned in the best way to work through any and all scenarios.

Hidden dangers, red flags: what should tenants be watching out for?

Trust your gut. If you are questioning if you have the right representation, ask around and see what others say and what type of experience they had. For example, if you as a tenant have a residential agent representing you on a commercial deal, you’re off to a bad start. I see this a lot, where a residential agent feels like they can take a commercial deal on because there is no difference in our licensing. This is the biggest red flag. I am a commercial Broker. If I were to say to my client, “Hey, I can help you buy your house, too!” I would be doing them a disservice and not honoring my fiduciary responsibility to my client because I’d be operating in territory I’m not verse in. Residential real estate and commercial real estate are two completely different markets and should not be compared or assumed they have anything in common with one another except for the fact it deals in real property, that’s it!


Property Spotlight

1–11 N. Market Street
Frederick, MD 21701

SALE / LEASE

Offering price: $2,750,000
​​Lot size:  6,472 sf
Building size:  22,729 sf
​Zoning:  City of Frederick Downtown Business (DB)

 

  • ​Iconic building on the Square Corner in Downtown Frederick
  • ​Portfolio of four parcels with three interconnected masonry buildings 
  • Heart of downtown with shopping, restaurants, municipal buildings and parking garages all nearby
  • Square corner building with three entrances
  • Period corner building with recessed columned entrance, magnificent finishes, marble floors, ornate bank vault, 24 foot ceilings with decorative beams and chandeliers
  • Rare opportunity to acquire a building of this size and prominence in downtown Frederick for mixed use redevelopment or corporate location
  • 120 feet of frontage on the west side of North Market Street, and 125 feet on north side of West Patrick Street

​Click Here to Read More