KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Expanding into Commercial Real Estate with Gayle Berkbigler

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Summary:This episode with guest Gayle Berkbigler provides a tactical roadmap for residential agents looking to expand their business into the commercial real estate (CRE) sector. The discussion focuses on the fundamental differences between residential and commercial deals, the shift in mindset and due diligence required, and the best ways to gain experience without a full career pivot. Berkbigler emphasizes that CRE offers a path to greater long-term wealth and provides actionable advice on how to start small and leverage your existing network to secure your first commercial transactions.

Welcome to Real Estate Riches, where Kathy Burns empowers realtors to achieve the success they've always dreamed of. Starting her career at 55, Kathy built a thriving business that offers the freedom of time and financial independence. And now she's sharing her journey to help others do the same. Whether new to the industry or looking to level up, this channel is your hub for proven strategies, inspiring stories, and the tools you need to grow your real estate business. join Kathy each week to explore global opportunities, successful systems, and expert insights to take your career to the next level. Get comfortable. Pick a video and start learning. Your journey to success starts now. Hey, everybody. It's Kathy Burns with Real Estate Riches and I got a buddy of mine, a new buddy of mine, Gail Berkigler, that I met in Spain. How about that? So you're going to hear from her and I'm excited for you to learn all about what she's got to share.

Hey, Gail. Hey, how are you today? Great. So you and I, we met in Spain. And we were at a convention, EXP International Convention. It was the second one they had. And I think I met you up at the pool. I saw you lounging up there. I'm thinking there's a really cool lady. I want to talk to her. And so we started chatting. And before you know it, I'm sure we probably had a drink and we were sharing stories, right? Exactly. Exactly. And what intrigued me when I first met you was that you were a commercial agent. And, not just any commercial agent. You're seasoned because commercial and EXP is a new thought process, new earth thought process. And let's, so in the meantime, though, tell us a little background about who you are, how long you've been in the business and how it all got going for you. Okay. Well, I'm in, I'm located in Austin, Texas. We're still a very, we're in the top five destination cities for residential and commercial businesses. Our business tax is. Our business tax

is a very friendly here in Texas. So a lot of your franchises want to move here. So I've been in the business 30 years. And one of my first deals out of real estate school was a office condo in downtown Austin. So it was an attorney friend of mine. And he asked me if I would take the listing. And I said, of course I will. So I just dove right in.

I wouldn't advise that these days. But I did, I was in Olin Gas. trader for 13 years before the move to Austin. And so I was really more used to and preferred dealing with more business to business. However, I did do residential during a time because I had to make a living. But I did prefer the commercial platform. And because I'm in a smaller town outside of Austin, I did, I dove into every asset classes, every asset class. There's several, unlike really residential. There's multifamily. There's industrial. There's development. There's office. There's medical office, retail. So there's many different asset classes.

And so I just, I like doing all of them. I have experience and knowledge and all of them. and so I love what I do and I still continue to learn every transaction. There's always something to learn. That's kind of the world of real estate. Well, tell us what a CCIM is all about. CCIM is an organization. It's a nationwide organization and a designation. It's a very highly sought after designation.

It is taught by practitioners. the CAC practitioners. It's a very tough road to go down to become a CCIM instructor. But they call it a PhD in commercial real estate. Wow. It's 160 hours of classroom studying nothing but commercial platforms and investment platforms. And then there is a six-hour test after each four core courses and then a six-hour test over all of the material at the end in order to pass the exam or set for the exam and pass it, you have to also have a portfolio to get the designation. You have to have a substantial portfolio that you submit and it gets reviewed and accepted. So it's an honor to have it. I got my CCIM certification in 2013. Nice. It's great to have it.

It reminds, I was security licensed with a Series 6 and Series 7 license, and our test was six hours, too. And it had extensive training. Matter of fact, I missed it the first time by one point. I was like, I was going through a divorce whole lot of the story. But that was a challenge for me, but I wanted it because I wanted to be special in that field, you know. And that really served me well when I came into real estate, probably just like your oil and gas. You had experience in dealing with different individuals, like you said, business to business. And so you were able to bring those skills forward as I was.

That's great. So when we were in Barcelona, I remember talking to you about the fact that you just come over to EXP in January. And I was elated because EXP when it first got the commercial company, and it's a separate company from the real estate, the residential. It's two separate companies. And they did that on purpose because a lot of real estate companies have commercial within them. And it's like agents doing both. And at EXP, they want you to do, you do commercial and we do residential. Don't mix the stuff up.

And they're pretty straightforward about that as well, which is great, I think. Yeah, we have two separate brokers for each company. So the commercial has its separate broker from a residential broker. Yes. Yes. And the whole company is a separate entity. in itself. So when it first came on, it had some bumps in the road, just like any business would have. So it didn't have a great reputation that it offered so much for agents. And also, like you and I discussed earlier,

you know, there aren't a whole lot of women, at least have been a lot of women, in the commercial side of it. So it was resisted. And there's not much tech, real tech, in the commercial side. And so they resisted. the tech. And so I think there was just a lot of walls up. And that's why I saw, here you were, seasoned, 30 years in the industry, brand new to EXP. I'm like, what just happened that made you say yes? Because I thought to myself, there's a lot of commercial agents I want to talk to about EXP, and especially now. So tell us some things that you loved about it that kind of triggered it for you and saying, yeah, I think I want to do this. Well, there were several things.

I had always understood and heard of EXP on the residential side, but I wasn't familiar with them on the commercial side. So a friend of mine, another CCIM, friend of mine introduced it to me and was telling me about it. And I was at another company that was kind of commercial and residential. And we were able to get coast. which is kind of like our commercial MLS. It's CoStar is a platform across its nationwide as well.

Right. And it's expensive. It's a very expensive platform. But in order to do commercial real estate, you have to have it in my opinion. Then also owned by CoStar is a platform called LoopNet. That is where we do their marketing. CoStar is the comps and all the different background of each property. So my friend told me that, okay, well, they're coming out with a technology package.

EXP commercial is. That includes a discount on CoStar. Buildout. Build out is my flyer program, and it's a really powerful program as well. It integrates with Facebook and LinkedIn and then MailChimp. And so you've got a... one place where you can build your flyers to include demographics because in the commercial world, you know, we always want to include the demographics because a lot of your businesses,

that's the key point for deciding purchase or lease. And so this platform included Co-Star Build Out and Sky Slope. That's our kind of our record-keeping and compliance platform. So it actually I thought I had a pretty good deal with my previous company on the co-star, but EXP commercial beat it. So that was one of the reasons why. The other reason why is a lot of people don't understand, but most in most of the time in the commercial world, the commission splits are very high. A lot of your well-known commercial platforms, it's 50-50, and then you have to split it with a team member, 50 with the house. If you're experienced, sometimes it'll be 60, 40, 60 to you, 40 to the house. I didn't, I don't, I'm seasoned.

I don't really need that kind of platform. And so with the XP commercial, the split is 80, 20, 20% to the company until you reach 20,000 to the company. And then you go 100%. That is a very unusual platform. commission form. So that was very attractive. And that is within a year. Once you pay the company 20,000 within the year, then you go 100% within that anniversary year. Right. So, and then there's other ways, you know, to make money besides just transactional. I've always just focused on transactional, but my eyes are being opened every day to other opportunities and that is bringing other

people into the company. So I can't explain that very well. I'm still learning about it myself, but there it's a way to make residual income. So all of those things are attractive. And I have to tell you, I have experienced such camaraderie and collaboration. It's, it's just kind of unbelievable. It's staggering. It's refreshing. Very refreshing. Well, I had been with five, let's see, Sartrecoa banker, Rima, South State, Keller Williams. I'd been with four companies before I went to EXP. And I didn't even know what EXP was. I had joined a team and two weeks later they were going to EXP and I was in a transition period in my life.

And I just said, whatever, they were a mega team and I just said, I trust you guys figured it out. But I didn't know anything about it when I signed the paperwork. But as soon as I got in, the first thing I noticed was the collaboration. And all those previous companies, what I was searching for at everyone, was collaboration because I was teaching myself the business. And from scratch and really struggling through some lean years to get going and nobody would help. I would give all kinds of information the second I learned something, I'm sharing it. But nobody reciprocated. And right off the bat at EXP, the collaboration was on steroids.

and I'm like, oh, I think I found my home. Just from that perspective, then I said, well, let me look at everything else I just signed up for it. Then I saw the stock. Well, I said I was securities license before. I'm looking at the stock. At the time, wasn't even publicly traded. It was an over-the-counter stock. And I'm like, wait a minute.

I can take 5% of my commission and I can get a discount on it and it's liquid. So if I had an emergency and needed to pay my taxes or something, I could do that. I was like, yeah, I'm going to start. sign up that 5%. And then they bonus me stock on top of that. When I did my first transaction, I'm like, yes, I like that. And then when they talked about that they would share 50% of all the revenue from the company out to agents in a formula that if you shared it with other agents, and I said, why wouldn't I share this company with other agents? I frigging love the collaboration, which we need so bad, the stock I loved,

and you want to also pay me for inviting people over to something I love, I'm so in. And I just dove right in. I thought it was the greatest thing going. Been here eight years this month. It couldn't be more excited about it, and I go to everything. And that's why I want to meet everybody that I can who's new to understand what was your motivation to come over.

So that was great. And I think you wanted to talk about this too, but in Barcelona, I was going. I kind of got a surprise, a nice, pleasant surprise, because they have, well, I was going so that people would know I was commercial in Austin, Texas. But they had rolled up, EXP has rolled out the co-sponsorship. And so I was quite surprised. I had about seven invitations from different countries because I'm commercial or because, you know,

yes, I'm commercial, and they have some, they're inviting a new agent to come on. And so they invited me to be a co-sponsor. So that was a nice, pleasant surprise. I was going to, just so everybody knew I was from Austin, Texas in commercial. So it was a very pleasant surprise. And just the people. To help you understand what co-sponsorship is at EXP, everybody has a sponsor. So when someone comes over, you pick a sponsor.

And the benefit of having the sponsor is all the people above them because the way this plan works is at seven levels. So you not only get the support typically of your sponsor, although they're not obligated to support you. It's a choice. And so EXP was seeing that a lot of times people were split. Like, who do I want to be my sponsor? Who do I want to be my sponsor? So now they created this co-sponsor thing. But how it worked out for me and why I was in Barcelona is because I've been working with a lot of agents in Portugal.

And I did not have boots on the ground support for my agent that I would bring over to EXP. And so I made a connection over there with Elisa Boisen, who's amazing. And she has a team there. So we started talking and I said, would you be the boots on the ground? would you be the co-sponsor with me? She said, of course, because she was looking for people to literally work part of her team. So she was able to build out her team. I'm over here in the States.

And I'm able to, my mission for her and that whole team is, how can I get you business for some of the things that you've got going on for sale over there? Because a lot of Americans are wanting to buy in Portugal. And so it just made sense. And then we had leaders from so many countries. I wanted to meet the leaders because what I learned was we can start talking to people that we know, like, who do you know that's a realtor in this country or that country? Let me see if they might be interested in something like this without pushing. And the other big thing that was announced there was that England, which is only six years with EXP, the country, and really the first two were like a kind of a transition period.

getting their feet wet and stuff. In the past four years, they are now the number one real estate company in England for transactions. So sometimes people say, well, you're just recruiters. No, I am a happily a recruiter because I believe in it so strongly. However, we don't make residual income if there isn't production. So production has to happen. And they proved that in just England itself in four years that they were able to do that kind of thing to become number one. And the reason that's so exciting in England is most of those agents there are salaried agents take six months to close a deal and for them to choose to walk away from their salary position where they get a baby commission on it knowing that they may have to wait six months before they even got paid

on that to walk over here and get straight commission but a much better split they'd have to be almost an entrepreneur mindset you know what I mean? excuse me on that one. I get so freaking excited about this. I can hardly stand it. So tell me about some of the connections that you made over there for the co-sponsorship. Well, speaking of UK and England, I met a couple over there, and they were so excited to meet me because I was commercial,

and they were going to be sitting up a call next week to discuss commercial with them. So they said it's kind of new to them, and so we're going to do that. I met one of the speakers on stage, on the luxury stage, was from Dubai. And we, another friend that I met from Portugal there, she has a winery that she has for sale, but she's not commercial. She's residential. And so I was helping her try to figure out how to get it out to the world. And co-star and LoopNet are definitely great tools to do that.

But we went up to talk to him after he was on stage and told him about the winery. And, you know, I wanted to ask him the question. And he of when he was on stage, you know, you're in Dubai. Most of those people in Dubai either own businesses, own buildings, you know, how much are you focusing on their commercial needs and referring it out to commercial broker? He said, that is a good question. I never thought about that. And it's like, really? Well, let's talk.

We're going to have a meeting. A guy from Dubai used to be a developer in the UK. I met three ladies from Portugal, one of them that has the 20 million euro winery for sale. Yep. She's in my organization. Okay. And then three from Puerto Rico. Yes.

Yes. And then not to even mention the ones that I had met in Miami and we reconnected with in Barcelona. So it's so exciting to talk about it and share because I didn't, you know, I didn't expect that. Right. Yes. Well, I think that's a good point too. That's why I go to all these events. I've already got Miami one. We've got one coming up here in Charlotte. I go to all the events because it is who you're connecting with. And because these agents are so collaborative, because of the way this company's designed for it to be collaborative, when you and I win, we all win. Stock goes up.

Everything goes up. Everybody wins in a ripple effect up and a ripple effect down. That's the power of this company. And I bought some meta glasses. Gail had metaglasses, and she blew me away with them. I was so excited because she's sitting next to me and we're watching a Spanish panel and she goes, hey, meta, translate that for me into English. And I'm like, what?

And she's wearing these meta glasses and it talks right into her ear. I ordered them. I just got them. I can't figure them out yet. So I'll be talking to you about that. Okay. But the technology that we're exposed to as well is just mind-numbing. And the ways that we level up when we go to these events,

and the connections that we make, I was telling you, Gail, that I'm just blown away with all the ideas that I've got. I need a VA to just start doing everything that I'm creating. Right. Well, and this, the conference, they had speakers that were very AI focused, and a lot of people are way, way beyond me on the AI, which I'm trying to get caught up with. But they're on the cutting edge of the technology platform,

and that's pretty exciting. You know, and it is. It's not, the AI is not going to replace us, but it will, the people who use it are going to replace us if you don't use it. So yes. Yes. Yes. And what was very clear, there were major players up on that stage, right? They were all heavy using it in their whole business, all aspects of their business.

They weren't just doing property descriptions and emails and stuff. No, it was running their business. It was answering things. it was amazing. Matter of fact, Carrie Sovey got off the stage. She was one of them. And she said to me, as she was walking by, she goes, I created a board of directors, GPT. And I'm like, what? Because I, I know how to make a GPT. I even have a GPT that makes GPTs. So I get home and my mind's just blown with all the things that I'm thinking of. And I said, let me create my own board of directors. And I'll pick who I want. I started with Jesus, because I'm a Christian gal.

So I need to stay focused with Jesus, guiding me the way. Then I picked Richard Branson for fun. I picked a health coach. I picked Glenn Sanford, the founder of the company, because he's brilliant. I want him to keep me online with where I need to be with the company. I wanted systems coaches. I wanted all those different people. I got 11 different coaches.

And I created it all. And then I was sitting there thinking, wait a minute, I could teach this. And I could sell the eight, the chat. I could give the chat GPT away, but I could sell the one hour course to get your set up. And now you go out there and you have your own board of directors because what it does is you put your goals in there and you have weekly accountabilities with it. You can also ask good questions. Like I let's say you go to the board of director guy who's the health coach. I have Gary Breka in there and I go, Gary, I'm just really struggling.

I'm tired. You know, my blood pressure is high. What are some of your suggestions? boom now gary kind of guides me and then holds me accountable like if i'm having too many sugars or whatever you know what i'm saying and i say to richard branson man all i'm doing is working lately which i love but i need a break this is what you got to do cath blah blah blah i love that idea and that was just from a brief conversation with carrie about what she's doing and she says it's taking her business up up and i'm like then i'm going to share this

Well, speaking of Glenn Sanford, he also had, he was on stage and he also had the meta glasses on too. They're pretty amazing. Yes. So I was with him in Lisbon a couple nights prior to that. And he comes out and I'm recording everything that he says because I want everything from him. And he comes out and he's got glasses on. And I was looking at him thinking, I never knew you to wear glasses before. And that's intriguing to me.

And so then he's, first thing he says was, we are a tech company, and I am full of tech. And he says, I got my phone in my pocket. And he goes, I got my meta glasses on, and I'm recording all of you right now. And he had some sort of little lapel piece that was recording everybody's conversation. He goes, so watch what you just say near me. But what he said he could, what we could do is agents, he goes, imagine you're wearing these glasses. And you're on a listing appointment with the client. And they're walking through.

you've got your glasses on, you're seeing all the cool things about the house, and you're asking your client, what are some of the things that you love about this house? That why did you buy here? What makes it special? And now you've got a video recording of that as a marketing piece. What? I just love the concept of it. And that's why I bought it.

I'm thinking there's so much content that I can create out and about. And all these events that we go to, there's tons of it. because you're trying to click pictures. No, if your glasses will just do it for you. Which you can also do a single shot in there, I think. Single shot and a video recording. Yes. And live translation, too.

The live translation, especially for us because we are doing global. Yes. Yes. And you know, what I noticed, a lot of companies may say that they're international, but the ones I've been with that say they're international, I didn't really experience it, you know. But we are in 27 countries currently and still adding more and more every day. So it's pretty exciting.

And one thing I do like is, you know, the country leaders were there and they were on stage. So we got to meet if we like I have a friend in Italy who owns a winery and he has a real estate license. And so, you know, it's like, oh. Okay, why not? You know, you can do international deals here, you know? Yes, yes. So I got approached by someone on LinkedIn. I'm not going to say his name right now because I'm so excited and I want to jinx what's about to happen.

Anyway, he's been reaching out to me and talking saying, hey, I like what I'm seeing that you write about on LinkedIn. I'm liking what your business is about. I think we should probably do something together. And I'm like, okay. So I'm busy all last month as I were traveling. And he reached out when I just got back and he goes, goes, hey, I really want to see if we can set it up for you to be a speaker at our event. I go, all right.

And I'm still wondering what it is. So I get on a call with this VA, and she's doing a slide presentation for me about this big three-day summit, all about high net worth global investors that will be coming to this event. And I'm like, wow, this sounds cool. I said, are you looking for me to pay to be on this? She goes, no. She goes, he picked you out. He's the head of the corporation and he picked you out because of your LinkedIn and everything

that you're doing. He would like you to present and bringing your AI and incorporate all that in because AI is a big piece of what's going on in business today. And she said, you'll have 45 minutes, 30 minutes to do your presentation and 15 minutes. And she goes, what would you like to speak on? Here were some ideas. I said, none of that fits me. Can I talk about being a connector and how I can connect people all over the world?

world. And I said, because that's really my mission. And she goes, that would be unique and that would be great. And I'm like, yes. So she says, give me your headshot, give me your bio, give me your, everything that we would need initially without the whole presentation because I haven't created that yet. And it's happening on the 18th. So I'm hustling. But anyway, they're going to provide all the social media and all that. So, and I'm also speaking, I'm being flown down to Miami, the speech AI to different agents down there. So my reputation is building because I'm using LinkedIn so much. That's a tip, people. LinkedIn is a power source and not just, don't buy that garbage pre-manufactured post.

Those are garbage. Be real, be on there. Use AI to help you and be consistent because it is, it's really changed my business. You use it, don't you? Yes, I do. Yeah. I just sent you a little note on there. today. Like, hey, I can't wait to see you online. So anyway, well, this has been great.

Any tidbits you've got for commercial agents that may find resistance to even look at it? You got to take a look at it. I mean, it's, if you're in this business to earn an income, it's the best platform I've seen. And I'm not easily impressed, but I'm impressed by EXP commercial. And I wanted to also mention we do have a conference coming up in Miami in October, and we've got one full day dedicated to the commercial industry. So I'm really excited about that. And just being able to do commercial business nationwide is unbelievable. I'm so excited. Yes. Yes. I'm coming to that. As a matter of fact, I'm flying in early so I can be there, hopefully bring in some commercial agents because I don't do commercial at all.

Don't want to. Don't want to learn that. But I do want to empower other agents to discover what we've got here. Yes. One other thing I wanted to mention is another reason I was so impressed when I went to Miami last year before I signed on. The commercial agents that are there so far, I would say I would really like to know the stats, but I would calculate probably 30 to 35% of them hold either a CCIM or an S-I-R, which those are very, very highly sought after recognizable.

So they're not scraped in the bottom of the barrel. They're picking cream of the crop. Cream of the crop is coming over. Our logo is where the pros go to grow. Yes, where the pros go to grow. Yeah. It's awesome. And it's true.

I use that theme a lot because, I will do LinkedIn articles about those pros coming over and why they did it. I've interviewed several of them to find out what was it. Because one is an e-buyer. I met him. I love that guy. He is an e-buyer with E-XP where he does basically residential. I don't know if he does commercial.

He might be a good guy to talk to. He's out of Minnesota, Minnesota. And he was there, as a matter of fact. I was trying to introduce you to him. Did you ever meet him? We were at the party, right? Yeah. But he's a good one for you to meet. I will connect you with him. We'll make that happen. And so anyway, it was exciting to have you on here today. I learned a bunch myself. It's very powerful information. And I look forward to everybody benefiting from this. And check out EXP if you haven't. Absolutely. Thanks, Gail. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. All right. Okay. We'll see on the next one. This is Kathy Burns for Real Estate Riches. So thanks for joining me on this episode of Real Estate Riches.

Wasn't that great? I'm sure you've got a nugget or two. I know I did. So if you liked it, please subscribe below, share it with everybody. Make some comments. We really find that invaluable. And if you're thinking that you would love to talk about this a little bit more, let's schedule a business strategy call.

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