Real Estate Franchising

The trend in the last couple of years is giving bigger and bigger split to agents. I see the trend nationwide, and very closely here in Las Vegas. There are more and more 100% companies and the fees are getting lower every day. A year ago I thought that $100 per month in office fees and $300 transaction fee was pretty low. Today I see many companies offering $25 per month (also $10 per month, or even $1 per month) and $100 per transaction (including E&O).

Assuming low E&O insurance policy it can add $15-$40 in transaction cost. Then as a broker you have to check each transaction file. You have to assume min. 15 -40 minutes per file of your and support people time (discussing closing with agent, checking file, returning file to agent for missing paperwork, cashing check from title company and issuing check to agent plus all related accounting entries, etc.). There is not much left for broker/owner!

 Think about the scenario little bit more:
- Each office has operating expenses (copies, paper, printers, computers, telephones, secretary, front desk, cleaning service, power, etc.). There is not much left to pay those.
-  There is a big liability with each transaction. How many transaction a company has to do to cover just one lawsuit or paying deductible to insurance company. For example I worked for the company in the past which had $5,000 deductible for E&O. Later it was increased to $10,000. If a company charges $100 per transaction it will need 50 - 100 transactions just to cover that!

If you look at it you will realize that is not a business you want to be in. What if you are able to generate leads for your own agents? And take reasonable 25% referral fee or maybe 50% for new agents? In one transaction you can make possibly more money than tens of agents will bring to your competition. And that’s the strategy how MillionSaver real estate system works.

People ask me a lot this question. I would say it really depends how you do business. I know a lot of brokers who are in the business 10-25 years and don’t really make a lot of money. They work hard, but they don’t work smart.

 On the other hand I am in real estate just couple of years. Got my real estate license in December 2001 and broker license in 2004 (I think in March). But all my years were very profitable.

Why? I followed few simple rules:

1. Keep expenses low. I choose not to get beautiful and expensive office. I have started in small office with $400 per month rent. Once company grew I got more space and year ago bought my own 3,200 sq. feet office building. It is already paid off from the cash flow I have received. So starting small got me advantage and now I have free and clear office!

2. Do smart marketing. There are tons of products for agents and brokers. Most of them are too expensive and provide little value. I didn’t spend any money without seeing that REAL return will be high enough to justify the expense. So we are back to number one here:-)

3. INTERNET! INTERNET! INTERNET! It all goes to Internet. More and more users will use internet to search for homes. Using internet is very efficient way how to advertise or manage business. Therefore I developed Internet based Contact Management system for capturing leads, managing leads and managing agents. Therefore I have developed IDX system for showing and searching homes. I had a vision how to market real estate and manage agents better using tools and software. And therefore such tools are available as part of MillionSaver Real Estate Franchise.

We have developed our own unique IDX search homes software. It regular search functions you would expect from IDX and we also add unique functions like the one for FEATURED HOMES. This is one of the nice features we developed in our own (in-house) IDX solution. We didn’t want to give users only option to search for homes. We wanted them to be able to look at our web pages about different communities and see immediately homes for sale.

For example we can create page about certain community in Las Vegas. We go to our IDX, get the HTML code for the community and paste it to any HTML page. We can specify many criteria, like size of the featured homes ad, areas, zip codes,  communities, view, pool, golf amenities, etc. And it will show homes like that:

You can check live examples on HomesParadise.com:
- Spanish Trail is one of the master planned golf communities in Las Vegas. We wanted just show homes for sale in Spanish Trail.
-  Peccole Ranch - another master planned community. Check the homes for sale there!

 Believe me, clients love it! They can go and find information about places they are interested and see the homes for sale at the same time! They can save the homes they like to property organizer and click on homes they want to see with agent. Agent will get notification and can just go, show and close!

More about our IDX system:
- Example of regular IDX home search
- Description and screenshots
- IDX functions for clients

IDX Software license is provided at not cost if you purchase MillionSaver Franchise.

Screenshots:

Main admin screen. Shows hot leads (showing requests, call me request and more info requests). Customers can save the homes they like in their Property Organizer. Once they want to see the homes they like they click on (Show me, Call me.. buttons). Leads appear in admin center and agents can get access to them. There is more simple admin center for regular agents. The one shown is for broker only.

Detail of Showing request leads.

See what homes the customer wants to see. Possibility to send more info through admin.

Stats show many aspects. This one Number of new clients registered on IDX each month.

Data mining function. Find clients interested in certain projects.

Data mining - find clients who saved homes with certain features size, price, etc. Great prospecting tool!

Data mining. Areas, city, size…

Total Stats Overview.

List of clients. Can be shown by saved homes, saved searches, projects, etc.

Stats based on the Most Popular Searches 

Stats: Saved properties by clients in Property Organizers.

You can set up unique search forms. This feature allows reselling IDX software to agents.

Las Vegas, NV (March 7, 2006) – Las Vegas-based real estate broker Millionsaver announced the national expansion of the Millionsaver franchise program. The recent decision to expand their real estate brokerage program nationally was a direct result of the ongoing success Millionsaver has experienced in the Las Vegas market. The Millionsaver franchise program provides brokers with an efficient franchise system designed to acquire buyers and sellers and manage agents. Millionsaver has developed its own unique IDX system, contact management software, and referral system to give its agents and brokers a distinct competitive advantage.

Las Vegas, NV,  How Do MILLIONSAVER Agents Work? According to John Vanhara, President of EastBiz.com, Inc. and founder of MILLIONSAVER, “Our agents don’t waste time on prospecting methods, which worked 10 or 20 years ago. We don’t believe in telemarketing, cold calling, door knocking or other methods taught in traditional real estate companies. We strongly believe in the Internet and in providing comprehensive information to customers. Our efforts are paying off, and we are able to attract thousands of buyers and sellers to our agents. Our agents work as professionals. They handle the serious work we trained for: negotiating price and terms, helping to arrange for financing, coordinating inspections and seeing the transaction through to a satisfactory closing.”

John further states, “We are strongly Internet oriented. We use advanced marketing methods to attract buyers and sellers. We don’t believe that being strictly discount brokerage or 100% brokerage will  make company profitable. Agents should be spending less for ineffective marketing and company owners making more for managing some of these tasks and creating savings for agents. We are looking and trying all tools possible to create the best business model for clients, agents and owners.”

“Our mission,” says John, “is not to make money on real estate agents but with real estate agents. Our straightforward approach, savings and provided leads make the MILLIONSAVER offer very attractive and we are able to have most of the agents on advantageous company split. Once agents see how we work and what all services we provide they just love the service and stay with us.”

 The MillionSaver franchise concept is simple:

1. The franchisee will be licensed to use the MILLIONSAVER trademark, marketing ideas, sales procedures, advertising layouts and contact management software.

2.  Most of the franchisors charge royalty fee which is usually 5-6% of gross revenues. We do not charge any royalty fees. 

3. There is only one monthly flat fee of $500 for getting tools, software and access to leads.
4. If agents close deals from referral leads they are charged 25% referral fee. The fee is split between owner of the MILLIONSAVER franchise and provider of lead from referral network.

MillionSaver has developed tools, software and websites for brokers to provide services to agents. The broker can decide which services will be provided for a fee or for free. Such services include agent websites, online advertising on top websites for agent’s listings, virtual tours. They will train and set up these services to increase the productivity and profitability of the agent, and will provide management support for an agency team.

As stated by John Vanhara, “We see huge potential in expanding to hundreds of local markets. We want to find real estate brokers who will franchise the MILLIONSAVER concept.”