PHOENIX-A five-broker team coalesced in 2012 with a transformational idea: abandon traditional competitive brokerage models in favor of office-wide collaboration on deals. And, in leaving Orion Investment Real Estate a few weeks ago to launch a new multifamily specific firm, ABI, the five-broker team continues to rely on the concept of collaboration.

“To me, it's the way business should be done,” ABI Senior Managing Partner John Kobierowski tells Globe St. He, along with other ABI brokers Alon Shnitzer, Rue Bax, Doug Lazovick and Eddie Chang met while working at Orion Investment Real Estate, where they fine-tuned the collaborative model. Each of the five ABI brokers has worked in multifamily for their entire careers.

“We were all looking at different options in the market,” Kobierowski says. The group discussed the collaborative model. “It was a little uncomfortable, but we thought we'd give it a try.”

Shnitzer says the time was right to break away and start something new. “The markets on a national level are all starting to stabilize,” he says, with transactions gaining momentum. Because of this, the team saw both growth and an opportunity to capitalize on a trend toward smaller, nimbler, specialized companies.

ABI takes that one step further and works deals together, assigning tasks based on individual talent, sharing responsibility and commissions.

“It doesn't sound like it's such an amazing change, but it is, working as one team of specialists in one market and working together, versus an office full of people who specialize in an area but yet compete within the office,” Kobierowski says. “To my knowledge, we're really one of the first companies to start doing that anywhere.”

The model's success requires that each broker trust the others' commitment. “What we've found is when you start off on that premise, and you're all working together, we're a lot more effective than we are individually,” Kobierowski says.

ABI plans to expand nationally, but market selection and pace will depend on relationships built with brokers. The company will remain distinct from other national brokerages by eschewing centralized operations, instead relying on selected teams, which retain local office ownership stakes and local control.

Shnitzer says ABI will recruit only top-tier brokers with experience. “We're not going to build the company and open up offices just to build it,” he adds.