It is hard to believe that it was seven years ago that a fresh new real estate brokerage entered the scene. That’s right, Blu Realty was born 7 years ago today March 1st.  The concept at the time was simple… real estate can be really boring.  Let’s make it fun. 

I was four years into my career at the time.  I had tried a few Brokerages in town, but they were all pretty much the same…beige, dull, old school.  In my previous life, I had worked as a video game designer for Radical Entertainment. Our office was fun. Dogs ran freely. We had pool tables, foosball, and a gym.  And we all worked towards the same goal. When I realized that didn’t exist in our industry, I set out on a mission to make it happen.  Around the same time, I adopted Lenny - a 7 year old hound/shepherd/lab cross and I wasn’t about to leave him at home all day. We needed to find a spot together.  So, with a couple other like-minded realtors (and Lenny), we blazed our own path and created an office that was like no other: fun and collaborative, yet professional and sophisticated. Blu was spawned.

 

THE EARLY YEARS

With our funky little boutique down in Yorkville, we managed to dial in the fun and collaborative part right away.  We had Lenny at the front door greeting everyone as they came in, the environment was sexy, we were young, we were hungry, and in my opinion we were causing waves in the industry.  It was almost like an experiment - put a bunch of fun, driven, and ambitious folks together and see where we can go (It helped that I was reading Good to Great by Jim Collins at the time).  It was exciting and we were growing.

THE TEENAGE YEARS

Soon we grew out of our space and it was time to move on.  We opened our Cambie location in 2010 and we were on the up and up.  Bigger space. More exposure. Slicker, fancier office.  The team grew and the brand evolved.  Yet, the concept was the same - Lenny’s warm welcoming face at the front and a bunch of hard working professionals in the back. However, when the lease was up, we realized we were surrounded by a bunch of big box stores and we didn’t feel at home.  Once again, it was time to move on.

HERE AND NOW

We were lucky enough to find our awesome current location at 86 Kingsway last year. That’s when I donned the overalls, picked up the hammer and got to work on making the space home. We are now fully settled and couldn’t be happier. Although the west side is nice, we are much more at home in East Van.  And as Lenny gets a little older the shorter commute suits him just fine.  For him, this has been a 49 (dog) year adventure.  And to be honest, it feels a little like that to me.  We had our fun teenage years where we were the rebels of the industry…Breaking the rules and having fun.  Then we hit our development years, where we really started to dial things in.  And now, just like Lenny, we are little greyer, a bit more mature, but still wagging our tails and having a ton of fun.

WHAT"S NEXT?

This industry is changing all the time and we will do our best to blaze the trail once again. We will be launching our new site this year, adding to our already amazing team, embarking on some fun new concepts, and getting the word out that Blu Realty is really where its at.  But most of all, we will continue to foster an environment that keeps us smiling, keeps us laughing, and keeps people coming in to give Lenny lots of love up front...because after 50 years on the job, he deserves it!