Le Papagayo on 101 in Leucadia has played host to two important decision-making meals in recent years. Once over coffee and pancakes, Jenni and I generated our individual lists of must-haves for a potential new home. After comparing our notes and matching on several criteria, we hatched a plan to move later that year. Then in December 2018, our real estate group shared lunch and pondered a brokerage move. By the time our food had arrived, it was pretty clear we were moving to Compass.
At that time, Compass was relatively new in San Diego and there was a temporary office where we officially signed on. Brimming with excitement after our onboarding, we drove to what we were told would become the Carlsbad Compass office. In a shopping plaza off El Camino, we came upon a construction site full of scaffolding, plastic partitions, and remodeling debris. We peered in the windows like children outside a toy store Christmas display and thoughts of conference room meetings and coffee breaks in a modern kitchen danced in our heads.
Unfortunately, no coffee would be consumed in that office. A stalled negotiation over tenant improvements and termite damage prompted Compass to look elsewhere. That was unsettling news to say the least. When we joined Compass, the allure of a new Carlsbad office was just on the horizon, supposed to happen that calendar year. Our nomadic real estate phase was now extended indefinitely.
Compass had opened a beautiful office space in Cardiff and that became our temporary home. We met some great people, ate lunch at Seaside Market, but it just wasn’t quite right. Carlsbad has always been the epicenter of my work life and to not have a home base there felt disorienting. Not to mention, it was just far away. It was a 35 minute commute in the morning and longer in the evening. After breakfast, I would hop in the car and my iPhone’s AI would let me know how far I was from Jack-in-the-Box (our office was next door) and the predictive drive time would stress me out. I tried to make the best of it. I found a great pour over coffee place and discovered new podcasts to make the longer commute more tolerable.
I know you’re thinking–poor Steve has to commute to go to work. But it’s more nuanced than that. Real estate can be practiced anywhere, including from the comfort of your own home. But, I’m an “office guy.” I like the idea of “going to work” and the casual conversations on the way to the copier energize me. And since real estate is hyper local, one shouldn’t have to drive more than one town over to get to an office. Some of this is probably just a massive rationalization, but Cardiff wasn’t home.
Then came a year and a half of working from home which wasn’t in my or anyone’s plans for 2020. I sat on my couch and missed the buzz of an office that was too far from my house in the first place. For an office guy I worked from home much more efficiently and effectively than I could have ever imagined. Still, it wasn’t the version of real estate I imagined when we signed on to Compass. Somehow I was a real estate nomad-even in my own home.
In May, we started to hear rumors of a soon-to-be Carlsbad office. A coworker texted me pictures of a beautiful office space near Legoland, but I wasn’t about to get my hopes up again. Then sure enough, an e-mail landed in my inbox, asking us to come in and see the new space. Perhaps this time was different; maybe the Great Pumpkin would appear at last. On the appointed day, I showed up and the suite formally occupied by a biotech firm was in the process of being Compass-ified. Our white logo was affixed to the black wall in the lobby. The Compass Entrepreneurial Principles were hung on the wall. The refrigerator was stocked with cherry and lime Bubly sparkling water. Keys were distributed and offices were assigned. Meeting the Carlsbad agents in their long awaited home had a first day of college feel about it. “Oh, you’re putting the desk there; I think I’ll put my desk there too.” Our inaugural sales meeting had tremendous energy and it certainly didn’t hurt that Liz, our new sales manager, kept the meeting to a tidy 37 minutes long. After the meeting, I had multiple conversations about neighborhoods that I routinely worked in, that not shockingly were pretty darn close to our new office.
I moved my “work stuff” out of our downstairs home office, and Jenni was able to reclaim the space that her husband usurped during COVID. A dedicated home office wasn’t on either of our Le Papagayo lists, but it certainly has been heavily utilized. For whatever reason, Le Papagayo has become my thinking place to deliberate about big moves. Our Compass office on Armada Drive doesn’t have fish tacos or sweet potato fries, but it’s also an excellent place for people to figure out their next move.
