You’re a top-producing real estate agent, expanding your client roster, surpassing your sales goals and living the good life. But why stop there? For these Engel & Völkers license partners—the company’s term for broker/owners—reaching the pinnacle as a sales associate led to making the decision to become owners and manage their own shop.
For many, this is the logical evolution in a successful real estate career, according to Tom Kunz and Adam Lerman, executive vice president and senior vice president, respectively, of Coaching & Accountability for Engel & Völkers, who possess a shared mission to support and drive brokerage profitability. The following license partners were successful advisors (Engel & Völkers-speak for “agents”) who felt they could translate their service excellence into ownership—not only to build a successful business, but to foster and grow top-tier talent.
Making the Decision
The decision to make the transition from agent to owner stems from a variety of reasons.
Erik Berg, for example, license partner with Engel & Völkers Aspen, wanted a change from the hectic pace of a top producer but still wanted to enjoy—and grow—the livelihood he had achieved. “I wanted to make a good living without feeling I always had to be in fifth gear and producing at the levels I felt I needed to,” he explains. “Being an owner provides me with residual income, allows me to help others build up their careers and maintain my role as a trusted advisor—something I’m still passionate about.”
Berg’s wife, Summer, left her eight-year law career to join her husband in the business. “I chose to give up a solid, steady income as an attorney because there was much more upside in growing a business,” she explains. “Every day provides new opportunities, the chance to build something special and enjoy the exciting parts of real estate transaction work that come with managing our office—it’s paid off in more ways than one.”
Valerie Post, co-owner with Keith Shirley of Engel & Völkers Boston, wanted to create something that would last well beyond their individual production as successful agents. “We weren’t in it just to maximize money for ourselves,” she explains. “We wanted something that would go on for years to come, not just depending on us.”
“The first step was looking each other in the eye and determining if this was really something we wanted to take on,” says Geoffrey Bray, co-owner of Engel & Völkers Minneapolis with Lindsay Bacigalupo. “Potentially, there’s a lot of risk in owning a brokerage, which you don’t have as a salesperson. So, the first step was digging deeper into our own personal ideology to ask ourselves, ‘Can we handle it, and should we do it?’”
Backed by the Right Brand
Making the jump into brokerage ownership for Bray and Bacigalupo had everything to do with the strength and support of the Engel & Völkers brand.
When Bray and Bacigalupo were running a team at RE/MAX, Engel & Völkers approached them. “We learned about what the company stood for—being the best of the best and providing exceptional, white-glove service,” explains …read more
From:: Real Estate News