Concierge-level Full Service Real Estate with Lower Fees, what a concept!

Years ago, my wife Lisa and I made a strategic shift in our residential real estate business… and it has made us multi-millionaires.

Instead of charging the typical 6%+ commission that many real estate brokerages typically charge, we determined that we would win a whole lot more business by charging lower fees… and we were right. So right!

So we began marketing our concierge-level full service real estate brokerage in our beachy little communities, St. Pete Beach and Treasure Island, near St. Petersburg, Florida, making it very clear that we provided all the services that a home seller would expect, while charging 4% to everyone, all the time… no exceptions. And if we were the only agent involved in the sale, and we don’t need to share that commission with a buyer’s agent, we lower our total fee to the seller to just 3%.

Sellers immediately started calling us directly, asking us if we were still offering the lower fees they saw advertised… we told them that this was our concept, that we would always be offering this program. No need to twist our arms to lower our fee… we do it gladly.

In that very first year offering this concept, I had my best year as a real estate agent in my 16 year career.

The following year, I doubled it… my best year ever, again, only twice as good.

The following year, I didn’t double it… I increased it by another 50%… I didn’t want to hire a team, I’ve done that before… it can be a headache, recruiting and training real estate agents… instead, Lisa and I volunteered for a ministry and traveled 11 times that year, working a conferences and events, all while having the very best year ever in my 18 year career.

In the past 6 years, we’ve saved local homesellers over $1,800,000 in commissions, had they paid the typical 6% commission most brokers love to charge. It has been great.

We’ve helped hundreds of local home sellers, plenty of local home buyers, and we’ve added agents to cover more of the opportunities in St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa, Sarasota, and Bradenton, and even Orlando, Florida.

We were recently approached by a national franchise development company, interested in offering our concept across the country… and so, now, we are lawfully able to offer our REALean concept brokerage in all 50 states. We have an office open in Seattle, Washington, and are in the process of opening offices in Texas, California, Colorado, Illinois, and North Carolina.

We’ve noticed a few interesting results of our Full Service Lower Fees model…

First, our listings pretty much always sell quickly… As realtors, we like that our energy is well spent… no more wasting energy on home sellers who aren’t serious… when home sellers start looking at the cash they will keep after the costs of their sale are considered, they like the idea of saving, on average $9,600, possibly even $14,400 in fees… so our home sellers are super serious and very motivated, which makes our business a lot more efficient. Most real estate agents understand that many homes they will list (on average, about 29% of the homes they list) will simply not sell during the time of their listing agreement… those agreements often expire before a buyer is found for the home. Not with us… we put in 100% effort and get paid 100% of the time… and the sellers get the results they desire.

Second, our listings sell very quickly indeed! When home sellers don’t need to bump up the asking price to allow for an antiquated 6%+ commission, they price their home appropriately to be the next home to sell… this creates a flurry of activity, often with multiple offers, and often, the sellers get over-asking price for their home. Our average days on the market is one-third the average time to sell a home in our local market area… which means lower carrying-costs for home sellers, and a lot less anxiety and stress over the appointments and inconveniences of showing the home to prospective buyers. Even during the pandemic, with the Florida real estate market going up, up, up, the average time on the market in our local MLS was about 39 days, which is way down from the average 52 days on the market in 2019, our average days on the market is hovering around 12 days… many of our listing sell in under 4 days, with multiple offers, and many selling over asking price.

Third, our listings sell much closer to the original asking price… on average, our listings are selling at about 99.3% of the asking price, compared to the average 96.7% of the original asking in our local MLS… so our sellers are getting around 2.5% more for their home than the average agent, who is charging 2% to 3% more for similar services to the home seller. So a total delta of about 4.5% to 5.5% more money for our sellers than if they had hired a competing local brokerage that charged 6% or more.

And fourth, and this was a very pleasant surprise, our business model, charging 4% rather than the typical 6%+, attracts more affluent home sellers… in our local market area, the average sale price is around $237,000… and yet, our agents are working with much more expensive homes… on average, around $480,000 or so… and this makes sense… sellers of more expensive homes will enjoy outsized benefits of lower fees. The benefit for our real estate agents is that they are doing the same work that they would have to do for a lower priced home, and yet, they are seeing a nice uptick in their average sale price… so again, much more efficient!

This is such an exciting business model… however, real estate agents need to have the highest level of competence and professionalism… sellers expect that the agent they hire will have the knowledge, skill and experience to guide them through the home selling process. So our training and coaching programs are built to support our agents and the increase they will see in their business. This is not a model for part-timers and hobbyists… this is serious business.

Home sellers expect and deserve full-time, professional, competent real estate agents and brokers… they expect that their home will sell quickly, for top dollar, and that the process will go smoothly. These are not negotiable niceties for home sellers. As real estate brokers, we are helping people with a very large, complicated, multi-faceted transaction… and an emotional and very personal situation… the sale of the place they’ve called home for years. We take it very seriously, and we deliver incredible results.

If you’d like to learn more about REALean Real Estate, I’d welcome you to simply pick up the phone and call me, Kevin Cahill, at 727–755–1995… or you may email me at Kevin@REALean.com. And you can always visit our website to learn more: www.REALean.com