Tim Harty, The Business Times

Dave Kimbrough and his sister, Jan Kimbrough-Miller, got a lot miles – Dave estimates 20 years – from Dave’s claim in advertisements: “I’m not bragging, I’m just applying for a job.”

That was him and the Kimbrough Team of real estate agents actively seeking work.

Now, after a 20-plus-year association with RE/MAX, the Kimbrough Team has bought into a new company: global, boutique real estate brokerage The Agency.

This time, they weren’t seeking work. They were sought.

And The Agency’s sales pitch was as effective as “not bragging, applying for a job” was for the Kimbrough Team.

Hence, Dave and Jan officially opened their franchise, The Agency Grand Junction, on Feb. 10 at 601 Main St., Unit B, in downtown Grand Junction.

“They were the one reaching out to us,” Jan said, “and it was just one of those things: Yep, this feels like our people and our culture.”

Dave said the real estate market in Grand Junction has changed significantly over the past five or six years and continues to change, and The Agency allows them to “bring a different style of real estate to this market and give people a fresh perspective and a fresh option if they’re looking for a customer-forward, client-experience-focused real estate experience.

“And this company provided us the opportunity to do that with a brand that’s globally recognized and has been very successful in the markets that they’ve been in.”

Dave added, “This is gonna be a really great addition to the real estate market in Grand Junction, and there’s nothing like this.”

The Agency, which has grown to more than 150 offices across 14 countries, touts itself on its website as representing “a portfolio of luxury real estate, homes and properties for sale across the world’s prime markets and celebrated destinations.”

Dave and Jan don’t want people to get hung up on the word luxury, at least not in terms of home and property prices. They see luxury differently, especially in Western Colorado, with the word referring to customer service during the sales process and a lifestyle that this area affords people.

When it comes to “luxury” customer service, Dave said customer service in general is a lost art and in many cases “dead,” but not with The Agency Grand Junction.

“We don’t subscribe to that,” he said. “We never have subscribed to that.”

The Agency Grand Junction’s customers can expect “the experience of everybody being given and receiving a white-glove treatment. … The idea is that luxury isn’t just about price point. It’s about what can you do for the client? What’s the experience for the client? And every client, regardless of the price point, deserves to have a luxury experience, because that’s what they pay for.”

For the “luxury” lifestyle, Jan mentioned Grand Junction is a regional hub with vast opportunities for outdoors recreation, easy access to world-class ski resorts, proximity to national and state parks, wonderful year-round climate and much more.

“I think that the people who value the lifestyle, they will make trade-offs,” she said. “They will trade the big house or acreage that they could get in Arkansas for the same price as you can get something on a .10-acre lot that’s 1,500 square feet. They will trade that for the lifestyle. And that is who comes here.”

She added of the Grand Valley: “I challenge people all the time. Find me a better place. Find me a better place than right here, and nobody’s come up with a better place.”

That thinking goes to another reason Dave and Jan relish their new real estate endeavor: “We are extremely high on what’s going to happen here,” Dave said.

He added, “We’re extremely bullish on what’s going to happen here over the next five, 10, 15 years. … Grand Junction is no longer a sleepy little town on the Western slope of Colorado. And since COVID – it was changing before that, but COVID really pressed the express button on that – it is now a global lifestyle destination where people know about it.”

Couldn’t let opportunity go to someone else

Dave Kimbrough says The Agency reached out to him about becoming a franchisee, and it went down like this:

“They call me out of the blue. I spent an hour one day chatting with the guy. And I was like, ‘Holy crap! These might be our people.’ You know what I mean?”

Dave said he told the rep he liked what he was hearing, but his sister, Jan Kimbrough-Miller, has equal say in any decision, and “you either win her over or I’m out. So, he met with Jan like a couple of days later, and she got done, and she’s like, ‘Yeah, this might work.’

“I mean, had he never called, we’d still be at RE/MAX.”

And they would have been fine with that. Dave said he and Jan had been approached by lots of companies over the years, flown to meetings with those companies, “and it just had never been a fit.” They had a good thing going with RE/MAX, so getting them to leave required something that really changed the game.

“RE/MAX, we had a wonderful experience … we would never say anything negative about them,” Jan said. “They have been amazing for all of these years.”

The Agency, though, proved to be the markedly different company that the Kimbroughs couldn’t ignore.

“When we were looking at this business, this business model and this company, we ultimately came down to the fact that it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, if somebody else did this thing, we would be cheesed,’” Dave said. “I mean, it really is that good. It’s such a cool brand and such a cool company.”

Too much fun to settle for retirement

Dave and Jan are 56 and 63 years old, respectively, and their ages were a consideration in their decision, but ultimately not a deterrent.

“We have one more good one in us; this is it,” Jan said. “That’s another thing: You don’t do something like this lightly at these ages unless you really believe this is worth doing.”

To that, Dave added, “Truth.”

Jan is closer to conventional retirement age than Dave, and she hears about it.

“Agents say to me, ‘I thought you’d be retiring,’ and I was like, ‘Why? Why would I?’” she said. “There’s so much more fun to have.”

Likewise, Dave said, “There’s so much more to accomplish. I mean, there’s always that next hill to climb.”

Room for other independent agents

Dave and Jan had one thing in particular they wanted to make sure got reported about The Kimbrough Team and The Agency Grand Junction. And it’s this:

“We’ve been the Kimbrough Team for so long, one of the myths that we need to dispel is that an agent coming here would need to be on the Kimbrough Team,” Jan said. “I need to make sure that it’s clear that we’re going to be adding independent agents and other teams under the umbrella of the agency.

“That’s just important that we have the ability to communicate that they are not all just one and the same.”