Founded in 1998 by Karl Spoke while he was at Pacific Union Real Estate Group, SOMA Living is designed to be a one-stop shop for researching, buying, remodeling, renovating, maintaining and accessorizing a home. Spoke left his position with Pacific Union Real Estate Group last summer. A month after Spoke left the company, GMAC Real Estate Group, which purchased Pacific Union, sunk $20 million in second-round funding to open 13 more stores nationwide.

Currently, the SOMA Living company has a location at Bryant Street and the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. It has plans to open stores in Walnut Creek, Dublin, Fremont, Santa Clara and a second location in the city. Customers walk in, research the housing market on a computer and print out the results to take with them; browse samples and online catalogs in the design center; analyze different loan options and get various referrals to architectures, interior designers and contractors.

Being buyer-focused, SOMA Living neither lists homes for sale nor represents sellers of existing homes, new homes or homes under construction. The store does assist in for sale-by-owner transactions. Buyers' agents - which can potentially earn $60,000 to $75,000 annually, work set hours and receive benefits - staff the sales floor, where they wait for customers to approach them with queries. At the point of purchase, an in-house negotiator takes over for the salesperson to negotiate and close the deal.