Marshall Mend merger

COEUR d'ALENE - Marshall Mend Realty has been around 22 years.

Hope Realty is on year number 35.

For more than two decades, they have been competing for listings and sales in the North Idaho housing market.

No more.

They're now the same team

Marshall Mend and Paul Sohrweide, Hope Realty owner, said Thursday the two companies have merged.

"It's exciting and should be great," Sohrweide said.

The name will remain Hope Realty. Mend will lead classes on investing, agent recruitment and oversee the company's commercial division.

"Right now is probably the best market we've ever had as far as investing in real estate," Mend said.

Sohrweide said he and Mend share the same core values of integrity and fairness. Both also share the same fabric when it comes to real estate experience.

Mend has been in real estate since 1980, and founded his own company in 1990. Marshall Mend Realty employed four, while Hope Realty has about 30 Realtors.

Paul Sohrweide, who has owned Hope Realty with wife Debe for 11 years, said the agency has many experienced agents. With Mend joining them, "it adds depth to the business we're looking for."

"He brings something I really embrace, and that's thinking outside the box," Sohrweide said. "Things are changing, that's a given."

He said Mend has an extensive background in investing, too, that will pay dividends for clients.

"Real estate, if bought right, managed correctly, can have good returns," Sohrweide said.

Mend will work out of the Hope Realty office at 1410 Lincoln Way.

"Because it has a bald eagle in front of the building, it was perfect for me," Mend said, laughing.

The move is "definitely a change for me," he said, but he believes it gives him the chance to give back to an industry that has been good to him, and at the same time, help Hope expand its business.

Hope Realty will continue to be a company "that sets the benchmark," Sohrweide said.