RE/MAX Premier Group: A Force to be Reckoned With in Texas

Starting with just one small office in North Dallas in 1979, Broker/Owner Don Dahlberg has grown RE/MAX Premier Group to 215 agents across four locations in the North Dallas/Plano/Frisco, Texas, area. In 2005, he was named RE/MAX International Broker/Owner of the Year. He has also been honored with RE/MAX of Texas’ Broker/Owner of the Year many times. For 11 straight years, RE/MAX Premier Group has been the No. 1 Texas brokerage in sales volume and commissions among the RE/MAX brand.

RE/MAX Premier Group’s Brenda Featherston is vice president of one of the second-largest RE/MAX brokerage in Texas. She also sits on the board of directors for North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, Inc. (NTREIS), which is the MLS for North Texas.

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Starting with the local board of REALTORS® and Internet Data Exchange (IDX), we take advantage of every online possibility we can, including hosting our company Web site, homesforview.com; encouraging our agents to create their own Web presence and syndicating all of our listings to remax.com and realtor.com. RE/MAX Premier Group also partners with Dominion Enterprises, an information services company that pushes our listings to several other sites, including harmonhomes.com and homes.com. And, of course, we send our listings to trulia.com, msn.com, yahoo.com and Google Base. We train our agents regularly — twice or more — every seven weeks so that they will in turn educate their sellers on all the places their listings will be. We really do push them.

The consumer demands two things: everything and now — and they don’t want to log in or register to do it. They want to view, view, view. Everyone agent has the right to set up a login or register, of course, but we strongly believe in “Let them have it!” and they’ll always come back to us. When doing an open house, advertise it to the world. If you’re going to have one on Saturday, why not tag it all week? We teach our agents how easy that is. Technology has made everything just a couple of clicks away.

As a brokerage, we can’t ever become complacent. Don [Dahlberg] was the very first RE/MAX broker to have an online presence back in 1996. With more competition, iron sharpens iron, so when competitors came out with one photo, we came out with five. When they came out with five, we came out with 25. A very small percentage of agents are loading 25 photos, but the consumer loves that, and that trend will continue. Through vendors like remax.com, homes.com and realtor.com, our agents can post unlimited photos with impressive reach.

In addition to our online efforts, we use the services of a company called Buyer Acquire. Instead of using a flyer box, we put riders on top of our for sale signs with a local phone number dedicated to just that listing. Research shows that people are more apt to call a local number. The individual phone number is address-driven, so there are no funny codes to enter or remember. All of these technological tools are about building business. Our agents not only pick up buyers, they also pick up sellers wondering why we’re doing what someone else isn’t. In the end, it’s all about marketing.

First, when it comes to virtual tours, the products Obeo offers are superior to anyone’s. That’s why we use them. We can give detailed reports out to sellers, telling them things like, “Your home was viewed this many times” and “People loved your master bedroom.” We know which rooms have been viewed and how many times. We know if a visitor moved furniture around virtually. With other vendors such as Centralized Showing Services (CSS), the agent can tell the seller how many other agents have shown the property. Through Buyer Acquire, we can know how many people have driven by the house and called into the local phone number on the sign. Sellers know how many and which sites their virtual tour has been pushed to. All of these things help the agent better market the property and their services.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter how many listings an agent has. You want listings you can market and get sold. Smart vendors like the ones mentioned above are changing along with the agents who are in this mindset. I was working with Obeo back in the 1990s when it was still 360house.com. They’ve continued to grow and grow and grow —and that’s why they’re still around. Smart vendors show the benefit of their product to the agents, not how great the company is. You don’t just offer these features on your medium- and high-priced listings. You offer it on all of them so you don’t waste time driving to a showing for a house the buyer doesn’t really want to look at.

Even today, there is still information that the consumer can’t get. Here in Texas, it’s nondisclosure when it comes to sales price. So it becomes really important to use all of the different pieces of available technology so you can help the buyer offer the correct price. They have to ask: How long has the house been on the market? How many times has it been on the market? How many new listings have come about since it listed? How many have expired?

Second, we want to educate agents to have a business that they’re passionate and professional about. We want those agents who only do one or two deals a year for a loved one or friend to get out of the business. The reason is many of them don’t stay educated about real estate and are just trying to make a quick buck. It takes time, hard work and dedication to become someone who works this business day in and day out; who learns the new technology and who can then help the client make the best decisions. Who wants to go to a dentist that only practices on Mondays?

You need full service: someone to make sure your listing is out there in all the correct places; someone who makes you remove your personal photos, get your junk off the mantle and move half your furniture out.

It has been a combination of things. You can spend lots of money on Internet leads and get a lot of contacts — but those aren’t leads. They can be cultivated into leads, though. Most Internet consumers are four to six months out. We must educate agents on how to work with a person who is just interested in community information. As new properties come along, send them information. Every three or four days, send them an e-mail with information on new listings and mortgages. It’s about constantly touching customers and keeping top-of-mind awareness with them. When they’re finally ready to get serious, they’ll come back to the agent they met online six months ago. We must teach agents that. It’s like putting out a bowl of candy. Unless you teach them how to reach out and take it, it’s just a bowl of candy.

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