Broker for Suzanne Anderson Properties,
Mike Huff is a real estate entrepreneur with a lifetime of high-level sales management success.
Mike, longtime Houstonians knew Suzanne Anderson Properties for years as a leading Inner-Loop boutique brokerage. You took over from Suzanne as managing broker in 2005.
Suzanne and I had talked for a few years about my purchasing the office. When I finally did, people asked, “What are you changing the name to?” My background has been in buying and selling businesses, and I find people often come into a business and change the wrong things. There’s a story about two brothers who started a restaurant and a third man who started franchising it. Eventually when Ray Kroc decided to buy out the McDonald brothers, Kroc kept the name.
The company was active in Houston during the 1980s and 1990s but things were changing. It’s hard for a one-branch independent to do things. When I became managing broker on Feb. 1, 2005, I made a few changes such as building a Website and making everyone’s business cards and yard signs look the same. Looking five years down the road, we took the first year to integrate everything and the next four years growing. We took the company from six to 100 agents and from four listings to 600.
You now have been under the Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate banner for a little more than a year. What has the BH&GRE affiliation brought to the table for you and your agents?
Everyone had tried to buy me or convert me to a franchise, but none of them appealed to me. When I talked with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, I really hoped I had my poker face on. I just couldn’t believe no one was jumping on that name. Sherry Chris (BH&GRE President/CEO) came to Houston to visit us and I also went up to New Jersey.
Now I’m not a real estate agent, I’m a businessman – although I’ve probably bought personal properties and represented myself more than a typical agent – but I know real estate from my family’s being in construction. I told Sherry that with the Better Homes and Gardens name, they are basically the 800-pound gorilla. It’s an iconic name that everybody knows. It’s given us a lot of credibility; for instance we were able to add a relocation division quickly. In addition, between Sherry Chris, Wendy Forsythe and Rick Gregory, we always have someone to talk to, whether it’s about technology, the Web, or anything else.
You were the first BH&GRE office in Texas and I still remember seeing one of your billboards. What marketing tools are you using? Traditional and/or Web 2.0?
We’re using both. A lot of companies have NO technology, and HAR (Houston Association of REALTORS®) is the great equalizer for many small companies. But I still think other companies miss that it’s not ALL about technology. Real estate is still a people business where people are making the most expensive purchase of their lives. They want to touch it and feel it, and have someone give them the warm sense of making them feel comfortable about it.
Your company has added four offices in the Houston area plus offices in Galveston, Austin, Trinity, Huntsville and Lubbock.
Having the Better Homes and Gardens name has made it easier to promote ourselves statewide. So yes, in one year we have grown our listings from 600 to 1,400, from six to 10 offices and from 100 agents to 220 agents across the state. We’ve doubled in business.
We’re talking with a number of companies as well as with agents who want to come on board with us. We want to be selective, but there are some big announcements to come in the next six months.
We’ve been hearing that resort/second-home properties are particularly active now in the Houston area. Three of your offices (Galveston, Trinity and Huntsville) are in those markets.
One of our philosophies is to take a look and realize there are now six million people in the greater Houston area. Within an hour of Houston are lakes, rivers and the Gulf of Mexico, and we want to locate offices in those areas. We see a lot of wealth coming into the baby boomer generation, and we know second-home purchases will come back. In fact, even our Austin office is very active selling small ranches.
