Earnest CRE is a licensed Florida commercial real estate brokerage based in Jacksonville. We broker two things — retail shopping centers and land — and our principals own and operate both: nine shopping centers across the Southeast and a working farm.
Portfolio and transaction figures reflect the principals’ family holdings and combined transaction history; Florida licensure is our principal’s, held for over a decade.
Sam Bonnardel has been licensed in Florida for over a decade, in a family real estate business built on owning and operating. Before Earnest existed, the family built a portfolio spanning 120+ buildings and $320M+ in transactions — nine shopping centers owned and operated across the Southeast, plus multi-family, hotel, and industrial assets, and a working farm the family still runs today.
He’s managed dozens of rehabilitations, negotiated the leases, fought the reassessments, replaced the roofs, and watched the water table. Those lessons — learned on the owner’s side of the table, with the family’s own money at risk — are what Earnest brings to every assignment.
Because owners deserve brokers who’ve carried the risk themselves — and who work every deal like their own money is in it. We start with the number we believe, even when it costs us the assignment.
Earnest money is a buyer’s promise to close — real money, put up front, at risk. Our name is the same promise. Straightforward and earnest, start to close.
Principal. Owner-operator of the portfolio behind every opinion we give.
Broker of Record. Holds the firm’s Florida license — compliance, contracts, and closings.
A full-time engine behind every listing — packaging, comps, and systematic buyer outreach.
