By Kathy Bevan
Almost 10 years ago, Halifax-Dartmouth Realtors Michael and Lisa Doyle left the world of traditional real estate behind and became the first in Canada to purchase franchise rights to Reno, Nevada-based Assist-2-Sell. The concept was simple: offer consumers full service through full-time Realtors for a flat fee, without listing properties on MLS. The Doyles’ Assist-2-Sell HomeWorks Realty brokerage also offered an “MLS for Less” service, listing properties on MLS and offering competitive commission rates to co-operating brokers, but still charging a flat fee for their own services; and a “Paperwork Only” option, helping private sellers complete their own sales.
Nova Scotia consumers appeared to be more than ready for this new brokerage approach.
Michael and Lisa Doyle (Photo by Dan Callis)
“The phones rang off the hook – the public was dying for a new and innovative way to sell real estate,” says Lisa, broker/owner of Assist-2-Sell HomeWorks Realty. Their most popular program continues to be what most consumers want from them today: their non-MLS, flat fee Direct to Buyer program. Their flat fee begins at $2,995 for houses listed at $200,000 and less; for $200,000 to $300,000 listings it rises to $3,995; for $300,000 to $400,000 listings, it rises to $4,995 and so on.
The Doyles say that no fees are charged upfront – homeowners only pay upon closing. If a homeowner opts for the MLS for Less program and Assist-2-Sell finds the buyer, the firm still will only charge its flat fee. “It’s not a bait and switch whereby we’re just trying to get people onto MLS to make more money; we make the same amount of money,” says Michael.
Getting past consumers’ concerns that a flat fee is a “scam” is one of Assist-2-Sell’s biggest challenges.
“People who call us for the flat fee program are usually shocked that we do everything we say that we’ll do for the flat fee. We do all the marketing and advertising, we put the signs out and feature sheets, the information box. We do everything a traditional Realtor would do, other than place the listing on the MLS,” says Michael. He adds that their happiest customers, however, are often those who end up working with Assist-2-Sell’s MLS for Less program.
“Maybe they weren’t successful on the flat fee and they decided they want to go on the MLS system – and then we sold their home and only charged them a flat fee. That is the happiest guy. Because then they realize this never was a scam; this is a real, honest program.”
The brokerage operates with five full-time Realtors, supported by Lisa as broker/owner and Michael as owner/Realtor and three administrative staff. The office is open seven days a week, with an office staff person there until 9 pm each evening. The Realtors are paid a flat rate per transaction and are provided with their computers, phones, office equipment and forms; they pay no desk fees.
Volume is key to the company’s success to date. The Doyles estimate that each of their Realtors sell, on average, five to 10 homes a month, focusing on single family homes and condominiums. In a peak year, they estimate the firm closes 700 transactions. For Realtors, one of the best selling points of working at Assist-2-Sell: they don’t have to beat the bushes for listings, as the company brings in the leads, focusing on residential single family, semi-detached homes and condominiums.
“We take away the stress and degrading part of sales – cold calling and pizza night at the brokerage where you’re calling or walking a street. Our agents don’t have to resort to all that searching for leads – we give them the leads,” Lisa says.
Finding willing sellers doesn’t seem to be an issue for Assist-2-Sell in the regions where it currently has operations in Canada – finding new franchisees has been more of a challenge, says Assist-2-Sell’s Lyle Martin, who co-founded the company in 1987 with Mary LaMeres-Pomin. Assist-2-Sell has 10 franchisees in Canada (in B.C., Ontario and Nova Scotia) compared to over 300 offices in the U.S. With the Canadian real estate market in much healthier shape than its counterpart in the U.S., the franchisor is putting a new focus on potential expansion opportunities in Canada.
Lyle Martin
Martin says that a major barrier to growth in Canada in the past has been what it calls CREA’s anti-competitive attitude toward discount brokerages, particularly those promoting an ‘entry-only’ MLS program, offering to place listings on the MLS system only, providing no other real estate services. Even though Assist-2-Sell’s business model is not built around the entry-only concept, Martin says his firm was “painted with the same brush”.
“There was a fear in the real estate community to get involved with companies like ours, so they’ve stayed away. Those who have ignored that perception and have bought franchises from us have done very well, but a lot of people have stayed away, because of the posturing by CREA,” Martin says. Now that CREA has changed some of its rules “we’re starting to get calls from people asking us what we’re about.”
Another barrier to expansion in Canada is the same one Assist-2-Sell faces in the U.S.
“Our name still gives people the impression that we’re a do-it-yourself company,” says Martin. “In Canada as in the United States, we don’t have any problem getting our message to consumers. Consumers are very responsive to our message, they like what we have to offer. The big challenge we have here is getting people over the perception that we’re a DIY company.”
To counter that impression, says Martin, Assist-2-Sell describes itself as “a company of choices”.
“You know with the iPhone, there’s an ad that says ‘there’s an app for that’? We love that – it’s a great commercial. Well, we look at it the same way. With Assist-2-Sell, what do you need, as a buyer or as a seller? We have an app for that, we have a solution,” says Martin.
What the franchisor, and its premier franchisee in Canada, have yet to find a solution for is what they see as CREA’s restrictive advertising policies, which mean that Assist-2-Sell HomeWorks, for example, has to include a very lengthy CREA-approved disclaimer in all its ads mentioning its fees and how much money the company is saving consumers.
“CREA’s Article 15 is designed to make people believe that the only way you can sell real estate is through MLS, there’s going to be a buyer agent, a seller agent, all these people potentially have to be involved in the sale of your home,” says Michael. “That’s what keeps commission rates where they are. It makes it very difficult for any discount model to come in and offer something different. I want anybody to be able to offer what they want – if they want to offer a dollar, let’s see how many homes they sell.”
If Assist-2-Sell HomeWorks’ early experience within the Halifax-Dartmouth real estate market is any indication, time may be on the company’s side, as changes continue to work their way through the industry. They are now a well-established local business, but when the Doyles first opened their Assist-2-Sell franchise in 2001, they faced a solid block of opposition from other brokers and Realtors.
“I joked that for the first three years, my full-time job was handling professional standards complaints. Letters came in on a weekly basis to our association, asking them to shut us down – they wanted us stopped, to go away,” Lisa says. “And it was all because we were advertising our fee. ‘We sell homes for $2,995.’ No one had ever done that before.”
A decade later, Assist-2-Sell HomeWorks has demonstrated that its business model can successfully work side-by-side with the traditional brokerages. “Our role was to take Nova Scotians from their level of understanding at that time to a higher understanding – to say, ‘wait a minute, can you look at this from a different perspective?’ – because this is what the public wants,” says Lisa. She recalls with great pride a comment from one of the board members of the Nova Scotia Real Estate Commission, telling them that their brokerage has changed the way real estate is being done in Nova Scotia.
“We take that as a huge compliment, because it was a hard go at the beginning.”
