By Kathy Bevan
It may not be a real estate brand that leaps to mind yet – for Realtors or consumers – but relative newcomer Right At Home is laying claim as the largest and fastest growing brokerage in Canada’s biggest urban centre.
In just six years, Right At Home Realty has grown to include 1,600 agents operating out of three offices in the Greater Toronto Area and continues to add more than 30 salespeople a month.
Arthur Bartram, left, and Howard Drukarsh launched Right At Home just six years ago. (Photo by Marko Shark)
Founders Arthur Bartram and Howard Drukarsh have set their sights on reaching 5,000 agents within the GTA; they then plan to expand beyond Toronto’s borders and perhaps Canada’s as well.
Right At Home’s business model is based on U.S. brokerage Charles Rutenberg Realty, which offers agents low per transaction and monthly fees. Bartram first heard of the U.S. firm while in the process of selling his Florida condo in 2004. Bartram’s Florida sales rep was just about to move over to Charles Rutenberg and he gave Bartram a promotional flyer about his new firm. When Bartram returned to Toronto, he showed the flyer to his friend and colleague Drukarsh.
“I remember going into his office and he said, ‘What do you think of this?’ ” says Drukarsh. “I was an agent and I reacted as an agent. I thought this was a really good way to create a business model that doesn’t exist in Toronto.”
At the time, Bartram and Drukarsh were both working at Royal LePage’s Johnston and Daniel franchise. They had known each other since the 1980s when they both worked for Canada Permanent Real Estate.
Together they left Johnston and Daniel and, with the financial banking of a group of investors, Drukarsh and Bartram launched Right At Home out of a Don Mills location, offering agents basic main office support for a fee of $49 per month, $275 per transaction. Six years later, the per transaction fee remains the same, but the monthly fee has risen to $79.
Part of the reason behind that increased monthly fee is the enhanced front office support Right At Home now provides to meet the needs of its home office based sales force.
“When we first brought the model into play, we thought agents would be prepared to book their own appointments…We found out within the first six months that agents didn’t like doing that – it became a barrier to some degree for agents joining us,” says Bartram. “We decided we’d introduce a system where agents’ messages and bookings were done by the office and so we had to charge for that.”
As further support for its agents, Right At Home points to its deal processing department – “probably the most efficient deal processing department of any brokerage that’s out there and we’re processing over 6,000 deals a year,” says Bartram.
“For us as agents, they provide very important support,” says Right At Home sales rep Serguei Serbrianski. “They have very good front desk services for appointments, preparation of listings and closing the deals. And very important, you are working in an atmosphere where you feel you are constantly being taken care of.”
Right At Home also provides a training program to support first-time agents, who make up approximately one out of every three new recruits. During the first two years, the firm only brought in experienced agents, because it didn’t have any training in place. That changed in 2006, when an industry trainer developed a 10-week mandatory program designed specifically for new Realtors.
“The program was strictly geared toward what really happens in the real world,” Bartram says. “We also have ongoing training here, almost on a daily basis, at Don Mills, where we put out an activity calendar every month with all of our programs, seminars and sessions that are available to the agents, all at no cost.”
Right At Home’s management is available 24/7 – including its brokers, who don’t sell real estate. The company also provides their agents and clients with the services of an in-house lawyer and in-house mortgage broker. Later this year they plan to introduce a reward program, to recognize the accomplishments of its people.
Another change to the firm’s original business model is how it now views bricks and mortar offices.
“In 2004, we thought we could be ubiquitous and be all things to all people from one location, but our industry doesn’t have that same mindset,” says Bartram, adding that the company adapted its strategy two years later, when it determined that agents preferred having a local address on their business cards.
In 2006, Right At Home opened its second office in Mississauga, serving 500 agents. In August of this year, despite a softening GTA market, the firm opened a third office, this time in Richmond Hill.
Its original Don Mills office – the number one transaction office in the Toronto Real Estate Board for the past three years – supports 1,000 sales reps.
“You would think this office would be like Union Station, but it isn’t. We probably see six to 10 agents a day and one or two clients a day, or every other day – agents aren’t utilizing premises like they used to,” Bartram says. “They can type their own deals, for example, and they can load their own listings into the MLS system. Those two functions were ones the office did for them 10 years ago. Today I would say at least 50 per cent of the agents are doing this for themselves, because they can.”
Bartram adds, “And if they’re doing most of the work, our motto is, they should be paid most of the money. It’s a pure economic model – there’s no magic to the formula.”
Right At Home agents have responded positively and word of mouth has been raising awareness of the brokerage among GTA Realtors. To raise awareness among consumers, the company will open four to five storefront operations in strategic GTA locations.
“That’s the most expensive real estate and a lot of companies are getting out of it – we think it’s a good time to get into it,” says Drukarsh. “It does all the obvious things for retail – you get walk-by traffic, drive-by traffic and you get visibility with not only agents but with consumers.”
Drukarsh emphasizes, however, that the company’s best sales promotion continues to come from their own salespeople. “No matter what we think of the company, the reason we’ve grown this fast and this well is because of what the agents think about the company.”
