Pellham Commercial Realtors merges with Murney

Two prominent Springfield-based commercial real estate brokerages with complementary résumés have merged under the Murney Associates Realtors flag.

Effective Nov. 3, Pellham Commercial Realtors became part of Murney Commercial Realtors. Owners Patrick Murney and Galen Pellham declined to disclose terms of the merger, but both said their companies entered talks earlier this fall and struck a deal within a matter of weeks.

Pellham said a total of 11 real estate agents with his three-year-old firm, including eight commercial Realtors, have moved their operations to Murney's office on East Primrose Street. Pellham Commercial had been leasing suite space at 1531 E. Bradford Parkway, but the firm exercised an option to leave the spot by December.

"I felt like we were treading water where we were," Pellham said. "About two months ago, we gave notice that we were wanting to go somewhere, but we didn't really know where, because we were talking to two other companies."

One of those companies was Murney, which is the area's largest residential and commercial real estate firm, according to Springfield Business Journal's 2008 Book of Lists. In 2006, Murney handled 187 commercial transactions representing $47.7 million in gross sales as well as nearly $1 billion in gross residential sales, according to SBJ research.

"Real estate is 95 percent local," Pellham said. "It became very obvious that if we wanted to become Springfield's dominant commercial company, we couldn't do it by ourselves; we needed to team with a company that has 500 agents."

See SBJ's Nov. 10 issue for more about the Murney-Pellham merger.