Partners of the newly formed Duwest — a combo of DuWest Realty and DBA Commercial Real Estate — laugh when talking about the integration process of the two firms, with them being so "like-minded and aligned culturally," it's a surprise they didn't join forces sooner.
"We have similar attitudes and work ethic, and we've known each other for a long time," Managing Partner Scott Rodgers, who has 16 years of experience with DuWest Realty, told CoStar News. "It's gone smoothly."
DuWest Realty, founded in 2008, focused on investment sales and property management, while DBA Commercial Real Estate, founded in 2016, concentrated on tenant representation and real estate strategy for national, regional and local brands.
The two Dallas-based commercial real estate services firms recently combined to serve the Lone Star State with retail and land brokerage, tenant representation, investment sales, development services and property management. The firm's new managing partners Rodgers and Will Walters come from DuWest Realty, with managing partners Austin Schenkel and Perren Gasc coming from DBA Commercial. Corey Dunhon of DuWest Realty will take on a new advisory role as founding partner.
In addition to its Dallas headquarters, Duwest has a San Antonio office led by Managing Partner Evan Ketabchi; a Houston office led by partner Campbell Anderson and an Austin office led by partner Jorge Rangel. The existing offices, once DuWest Realty offices, will be rebranded with the Duwest name.
Combined, Duwest has 45 brokers and 54 total team members serving Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. Both firms rolled their financials together in the deal. Terms of the deal were undisclosed.
Schenkel said the brokerage landscape across Texas is "hyper competitive" and is rapidly evolving, which led to an opportunity to combine as a bigger firm and "build something bigger." Duwest debuted at ICSC Las Vegas last month.
"There's a lot of fragmentation in the brokerage world, especially in retail, which has a low barrier-to-entry," Schenkel told CoStar News. "This was a unique opportunity to fill some gaps in both companies to become a vertically integrated full-service firm."
In all, Duwest leases more than 500 retail properties totaling more than 10 million square feet for its clients and manages nearly 3.5 million square feet of retail properties across Texas. The firm's brokers represent more than 50 national and regional tenant clients, including Shake Shack, Victoria's Secret, Hibbett Sports, Pei Wei Asian Kitchen and Whitewater Car Wash.
Rodgers said the combination of the two firms "definitely gives us the ability to grow" by market share in Texas now that it has "all the main service lines" to offer.