Expansions and conversions

New growth at Re/Max Capital Diamond Realty

Re/Max Canada has expanded its presence in Windsor-Essex County with the addition of Paul Germanese and his AW4U – The Real Estate Group to Re/Max Capital Diamond Realty.

The group of 10 professionals joins from Royal LePage, where they established a reputation over more than a decade for serving buyers and sellers in the local market.

Albert Kantarjian, broker/owner of Re/Max Capital Diamond Realty, said the move reflects shared priorities between the brokerage and the team.

“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Paul and his team. This partnership is built on shared values, a passion for delivering outstanding service, and a vision for continued growth.”

Don Kottick, president of Re/Max Canada, welcomed the addition. 

“Congratulations to Re/Max Capital Diamond Realty. We look forward to seeing them thrive and expand their impact in the Windsor-Essex community.”

Ottawa group returns to Re/Max

The Inspire Team of Ottawa, led by Rahim and Eda Rasooli, has officially returned to Re/Max, joining Re/Max Prime Properties.

The Rasoolis said their decision was guided by the brand’s global recognition and strong network, which they believe will support their team’s continued growth.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Rahim and Eda Rasooli and their incredible team back to Re/Max,” said Asif Khan, broker/owner of Re/Max Prime Properties. “With their deep understanding of the Ottawa region, they are a valuable addition to our growing network.”

Re/Max Canada president Don Kottick called the move “a testament to the power of the Re/Max brand.”

Royal LePage adds Our Neighbourhood Realty to Ontario network

Royal LePage recently announced it’s expanding in Ontario with the addition of Our Neighbourhood Realty.

The brokerage, formerly independent, is led by Rhonda and Bob Best, along with co-owners Luiz and Paula Lameiras and Gary and Darlene Hibbert. It has more than 140 sales representatives.

The firm serves Durham, Toronto and Northumberland, handling residential, recreational and commercial transactions. The ownership group has more than 30 years of combined experience in the real estate industry.

Leadership moves

Royal LePage COO announced retirement

This week, Royal LePage’s longtime chief operating officer Carolyn Cheng announced she will be retiring from the role later this fall.

Cheng has 25 years experience in the real estate sector. Cheng previously served as a director and then senior vice-president of strategic business services at Royal LePage.

Her resume also includes several years in leadership at Brookfield Real Estate Services. 

Good works

Record result for Slice4Shelter Charity Golf Tournament

Winnipeg’s Royal LePage Prime Real Estate raised more than $27,000 at its 3rd annual Slice4Shelter Charity Golf Tournament in support of the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation.

The record-breaking tournament brings the event’s grand total to $70,500.

All proceeds were directed to Alpha House to fund safe and supportive shelter services for women and children fleeing intimate partner violence.

“Our supporters at Royal LePage Prime Real Estate have a longstanding history of generosity towards families who are bravely walking away from violence and building the safer, happier and more hopeful lives that they deserve,” said Carly Neill, fundraising and communications manager with the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation. “We count ourselves very lucky to have them as part of our charitable family.”

Sutton Centre Realty signs cheque for St. John Ambulance

Over 300 attendees gathered in May for the St. John Ambulance Charity Gala led by Vancouver Realtor Corwin Kwan of Sutton Center Realty headquartered in Burnaby.

The event raised over $23,000 in total with a $5,000 matched donation from The Home Foundation. The proceeds will support critical programs like first aid training, therapy dog visits, and emergency response initiatives.

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Royal LePage’s Carolyn Cheng has announced her retirement from the brokerage after nine years as its chief operating officer. 

She wrote on social media on Tuesday that her last day will be Nov. 30.

“Over the past 25 years, I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with the best executive team in our business – they make me proud of our work, embody the highest of values, and have become part of my extended family,” reads her post. “Together, we have kept Royal LePage in a leadership position in our dynamic industry,” she said.

Cheng wrote that in her retirement, she wants to focus on photography, spend more time with family and friends, and move to part-time board and consulting work.  

Her photography has been shown at Red Head Gallery, Gallery 44, the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and TMU’s Paul H. Cocker Gallery, according to her website.

“This will be a new beginning for me,” she wrote.

Cheng previously served as a director and then senior vice-president of strategic business services at Royal LePage.

Her resume also includes several years in leadership at Brookfield Real Estate Services. 

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When beginning your succession planning process, evaluate and examine your options. Are you passing your organization down within the family, transferring it to non-family managers, or selling it to an outside purchaser? It is also important to gain insight into the competitive environment and the current market demand for similar businesses. This will allow you to develop options to restructure in order to improve value for your stakeholders.

Listed below are a number of important considerations and best practices to guide you in developing your succession plans.

Articulate and demonstrate a solid growth plan.

Buyers will likely purchase your business at a higher cost if there are opportunities for future growth. This includes new products or technology, geographic expansion or new channels. To demonstrate these opportunities to potential buyers, plan and partially implement them within your organization so buyers will be willing to further invest in your business.

Be prepared to sell because timing can be everything.

The strength of the merger and acquisition market in the real estate industry can change at any point and has a significant influence on buyer interest and ultimately valuation. Having your business in a sale-ready condition as early as possible will allow you to respond quickly and strategically to changes in the market. You will generally achieve best results if you allow a minimum of six to 12 months to properly prepare for the sale of your business, which includes completing a number of pre-sale due diligence exercises.

Work with a brand that knows your opportunities.

To best position your business among potential buyers, it is greatly beneficial to work with a brand that understands your market, can identify possible opportunities and will facilitate the transaction. By selecting a brand with a strong reputation, you will increase the likelihood that the acquirer will continue to support the growth and development of your sales team.

Determine your post-acquisition goals and priorities.

Maximizing the value of your business is a common and important objective of the sale process. In addition to this, consider what other aspects of your business are critical to achieve, such as maintaining the culture you have built post-acquisition, ensuring your employees are taken care of under new management and confidentiality considerations. Establishing both short- and long-term post-acquisition objectives will allow you to make strategic decisions for your business along the way.

Thoroughly maintain your business finances.

Getting your business affairs in order is a critical step to take when you are ready to sell. Invest in assistance to help separate the owner’s affairs from the business, manage financial reporting and accounting and clean up legal, tax and operational risks.

Establish a strong value proposition for your business.

Looking at your business from the perspective of the buyer will help you determine your unique value proposition. Identify who your potential buyers are and how they assess value so you can prepare your business to maximize valuation and competitive tension on sale. It is worth noting that buyers who offer the highest price for your business are not necessarily the right choice to meet your overall objectives.

Protect your sales proceeds.

To ensure you are meeting your retirement and succession goals, develop a strong wealth strategy for protecting your post-sale proceeds. It is critical to have the appropriate tax structure in place for the sale of your business.

Balance your business’ growth and profitability.

Ideally, give yourself two years to realize profit improvement initiatives and demonstrate their sustainability to buyers. While growth is important, try not to lose focus on profitability.

Post-acquisition success.

If you are the primary person managing and running your business, you will need to develop a succession plan that involves hiring a strong CEO or general manager, as well as a suitable support team who can establish themselves as assets to your business a minimum of a year prior to sale. This will allow your business to be more appealing to a potential buyer as they will take comfort in knowing the business will continue to thrive after your departure.

Mark Frenette

Mark Frenette is a director of business development at Royal LePage Canada. He has worked closely with the Royal LePage network of franchisees for 15 years to help them identify opportunities to both purchase and sell their businesses. Having worked with numerous brokerages on transactions ranging from five to 500 sales representatives, Mark has a strong understanding of the Canadian market and the succession planning process. Email Mark.

The post Brokerage succession planning checklist: Set yourself up for success appeared first on REM.

Why do you invest so much time and expense staying connected with people in your business network? Because you want the ideal real estate practice, where people remember to contact you for real estate service. Right? Why would they call you and not the neighbourhood “specialist” or another agent who happened to serendipitously cross their path? Two reasons – familiarity and trust. By diligently staying in regular contact, you hope to establish and maintain a familiar, durable and trusting relationship. Simply expressed, your goal is to be their friend in the business.

Here’s the thing, though, about family and close friends. You obviously share at least semi-regular contact, so familiarity and trust are hopefully ingrained. You’d presuppose they’d seek your services, if for no other reason than your close relationship. Naturally, they’d anticipate extra-special care while having a great time working together, and trust that the potentially stressful process of home relocation would be secure and more relaxed. Since they must pay somebody anyway, you’d expect they’d agree to your usual fee. After all, keeping the wealth in the family rather than paying a stranger makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, as you might attest, this isn’t always how things turn out.

In many cases, they suffer from the belief that you should perform your skilled services – surprise – for a reduced fee or even free of charge. Why? Because you’re family! They conveniently ignore the fact that unlike them, you don’t enjoy the benefit of a regular weekly paycheque. They fail to appreciate that the sometimes-considerable investment of time, money and expertise puts food on your family’s table, a roof overhead and fuel in your car. They fail to grasp that for you, time is money. While you’re labouring for them and critically, not for other paying clients, they’re at work earning their daily bread. To a somewhat lesser extent, it’s not unlike their volunteering to help build your new sundeck, unless of course, they happen to be a carpenter by trade. In such a case, to avoid a double standard, you should probably offer to pay them for their skilled assistance, or at least barter services.

To impress a new stranger prospect, you don your best clothes and professional (hopefully genuine) behaviour and strive to get to know them, to gain their trust and bond as quickly as possible. Since relatives already know you, you’d think the process would be easier, but it ain’t necessarily so. There’s usually no need to convince them to trust you personally, but professionally may be an entirely different matter.

When it comes to serving loved ones, particularly for the first time, you may still have to jump through a few credibility hoops to earn their professional trust. It won’t necessarily be easier just because of your personal long-term blood relationship, which could actually become a hindrance when crossing over from auntie to agent. Though serving family may be more relaxed, keep in mind they’re still clients for whom you’ve undertaken a solemn responsibility, including associated agency risks.

Representing relatives can be more stressful because, I suppose, of the dynamics of long-term relationships. It could be argued that you should be charging a higher than normal commission rate since they’ll probably expect a superior level of service because you’re related. Since they’re comfortable with you, don’t you think they’d contact you with questions, concerns or complaints more often than a non-related client – and at any hour of the day or night?

If your sibling believes you’re failing them, you can watch any chances of a commission fly out the window. And since emotions are difficult to avoid in family situations, maintaining professional decorum can prove problematic. Firing can be as easy as hiring. Compounding the problem is the resulting family gossip, ridicule, conflict and enduring hard feelings within a potentially polarized family. Rumours can travel like a grass fire and family won’t be vanishing after the business relationship is over.

When offered family business, it can be a tough call whether to hold or fold. In my next column, I’ll offer more on the subject for your consideration. Or if you can’t wait, check out my book, The Happy Agent.

Ross Wilson

Ross Wilson is a retired real estate broker with extensive experience as a brokerage owner, manager, trainer and mentor over a highly successful 44-year career. His book, The Happy Agent – Finding Harmony with a Thriving Realty Career and an Enriched Personal Life is available where print and e-books are sold, including the TREB, MREB, RAHB and OMDREB stores. Visit Realty-Voice.com.

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Well okay… that might not be an actual saying.

But it’s clear that with the average age of real estate professionals in Canada hovering around the mid 50s, there’s concern around succession issues and retirement in this era of greying boomers. As the industry grapples with this, we are beginning to see some big changes.

Many owners lie awake at night feeling tethered to their brokerage and wondering who will be able to buy their company at a fair price when they retire. Who would step in if they get sick? What would happen if they got divorced? Will business fall off as they start to wind down their careers?

Sales reps are vulnerable in these situations and have their own nagging questions revolving around security and stability. Will I have a place to work tomorrow if the owner retires, dies, divorces or gets sick? Are the owners financially stable? Do they have staying power? Can they handle a downturn in the market? Will I have to leave and start from scratch somewhere else in order to move up and become a partner/owner myself?

“Many owners in this industry don’t have an exit strategy, because no one person can afford to buy their business for what it’s worth,” says Nick Lalli, who for over 20 years has been an owner/partner of Century 21 Heritage House, headquartered in Woodstock, Ont.

“There are not that many buyers. If you want top dollar, it can take years.”

Ever since Heritage House was formed in 1980, its solution to succession planning challenges has been to allow top sales reps to become partners. Lalli says this creates a secure career path for suitable agents and is also an attractive exit strategy and investment opportunity for owners.

“When people leave there is always a line-up for their shares, which is not the case when selling a brokerage,” says Lalli. “It’s much cleaner for succession planning.”

In his opinion, it’s also safer and “less scary” for young sales reps than going out and starting up their own business. At Heritage House, agents interested in becoming shareholders are encouraged to let management know.

“They don’t need $2 million in their pocket,” Lalli says. “We’re excited to grow our business by attracting experienced agents who see the opportunity and stability here that they won’t get at some brokerages.”

There are typically between 10 and 13 owners benefiting from Heritage House’s non-traditional real estate business model and its substantial local market share, he says. That’s expected to increase significantly soon. Heritage House has “a very aggressive” regional expansion plan now underway, Lalli says.

The newest partner is Roy Singh. The merger in December with his company (formerly Century 21 Home Realty) has opened up the Kitchener-Waterloo area for Century 21 Heritage House and boosted the total number of Heritage House agents to around 160.

Singh’s is the fifth company Century 21 Home Heritage has absorbed.

“It’s very expensive to run a brokerage and a broker’s responsibility is enormous,” Singh says. “I was taking money from my own production to keep the brokerage afloat.”

He was looking to grow his organization in a way wherein “one person – me! – is not 100 per cent responsible for running the operation,” he says.

At 54-years-old (exactly the industry average) he was not ready for retirement. But he “wanted the firm to have stability, longevity and a future exit strategy.” He also wanted to ensure that there were opportunities for his agents.

A conversation with Heritage House at a Chairman’s Circle meeting for Century 21’s top offices got the merger ball rolling.

“It made sense, says Singh.

He says that, initial “growing pains” aside, he and his sales reps benefit from Heritage House’s pooled resources, diversification and financial stability; the sharing of learned best practices, sales tools and systems; and the time the company’s management structure frees up to allow partner companies to concentrate on clients and strategy rather that getting buried in red tape and administrative issues.

“There is professional paid staff, who are not salespeople, doing most of the Heritage House admin functions,” Singh says.

For agents deemed the right fit, the “big plus” is the chance to become a shareholder – an opportunity not available at most other brokerages.

“What I love is that we have a partner retiring and his shares will be sold to three junior partners – all good, producing agents with talent,” says Singh. He says it’s “a fantastic way” to have a stake in a company, “instead of starting up your own  and struggling for 10 years to become profitable, with sales suffering as a result of all the time it takes to attend to the business side” of things.

He says it’s important to have “young, new blood coming in and adding to the fabric of the organization.”

Signs indicate that non-traditional business models such as this are attracting attention. Lalli says Heritage House is increasingly getting calls from companies interested in the shared ownership concept.

His conclusion: “We likely will start seeing other companies adopt the concept of shared risk and benefits. I think it will become more and more important.”

Susan Doran

Susan Doran is a Toronto-based freelance writer who has been contributing to REM since its very first issue.

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