Check out this week’s issue of The Hook. Nest Realty is featured in the cover story titled, “Survival of the Fittest: Adapting, Evolving, and Thriving in A Rough Housing Market
Feathering their own Nest now
When times were good in the real estate market, there was arguably no better career than real estate agent: bidding wars, way-above-assessment sale prices, and a virtually guaranteed six percent commission to be split between seller’s and buyer’s agents meant a sweet income for the hundreds that flocked to the profession in the early part of this decade looking to make their own hours and a pretty penny while doing so.
But those days are long gone, and they’re not coming back, say the three founders of a new real estate firm launched in February, when foreclosures were skyrocketing and some were questioning whether there was any way out of the mess.
“We felt that the real estate industry was a little stale, not too progressive,” says broker Jonathan Kauffman, who founded Nest Realty Group with fellow agents Keith Davis and Jim Duncan.
Kauffman, the firm’s principal broker, says the three men realized that the future of real estate– as of most sales endeavors– is online, and they set out to create a website that was informative, functional, and able to put power into the hands of consumers.
While the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors offers property searches by a variety of parameters including county, home price, or school district, the Nest Realty site goes further, allowing would-be buyers (or the simply nosy) to search by neighborhood and to get detailed information about the area surrounding each listing. That goes not only for Nest’s own listings but for all the properties in the MLS.
“The consumer in 2009 wants information and knowledge,” says Kauffman.
Davis, who worked in mortgage banking after college then earned an MBA in realty development, says the opportunity to build a new brand excites him– as does bucking the tendency of real estate firms to market agents along with– or even above– the properties they’re trying to sell. He points to real estate signs featuring agents’ faces and names as examples of this tendency. ”
Duncan, an agent whose personal blog, realcentralva.com offers extensive and daily real estate analysis, says he’s inspired by the approach he and his partners are taking. It extends to the firm’s signs in yards, which boldly offer interior photos and have the price propped on top (the agent’s name and phone number takes a smaller, lower position).
“It really goes back to, ‘We’re there to market the property and not ourselves,” says Duncan.
But one long-time agent says he thinks those signs could be trouble. “Sometimes you change the price four times in a week,” says Roger Voisinet. “It could be an administrative nightmare,” he says. “They could end up being wrong.”
Duncan and his new partners laugh off the concern.
“Even if things are moving that fast,” Davis says, “we’ll make sure the signs are changed.”
Other ways Nest is differentiating: all agents will have a minimum of three years experience, and the firm is also marketing properties through new social networking mediums like Facebook and Twitter– something many traditional firms haven’t yet embraced.
While Nest is seeking new ways to reach buyers and sellers, there’s one way it remains similar to more traditional firms: commission. While flat-fee realty companies such as Assist-to-Sell have come into vogue in recent years offering marketing and closing services for as little as $1,000, Nest isn’t straying from a commission structure, although Duncan says percentages will be negotiated individually for each client. He stresses that Nest will not allow dual-agency in which one agent represents buyer and seller. “Each side needs someone looking out for their needs only,” he says.
“We’re going to continue to set trends,” says Kauffman. “We’ve got great ideas and a lot of tricks up our sleeve that we hope are going to help our clients over the next couple of years.”