* by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Since Arvida Realty Services was purchased by Coldwell Banker last month, the signs at the two offices will change but the people will remain the same.
“What we are excited about is the people,” said Walter Williams, owner of Coldwell Banker Walter Williams. “Arvida has a reputation of having high quality sales associates and to be joined with our sales associates who have the same reputation can’t do anything but enhance what we do. We think it will grow their business considerably because of the national name of Coldwell Banker.”
With the purchase, Walter Williams who has owned the Coldwell Banker Franchise in Jacksonville since 1994, acquired the Arvida St. Johns and Country Club and the Sawgrass offices.
The St. Joe Company sold Arvida Realty Services, St. Joe’s residential real estate brokerage unit, to NRT, Inc., Cendant Corp’s brokerage joint venture with Apollo Management, for approximately $158 million plus about $12 milion for working capital. Cendant owns Coldwell Banker. It was an all-cash transaction.
Arvida Realty Services, based in Clearwater, has approximately 3,700 licensed real estate associates, 765 employees and 110 offices.
“Without a doubt, I think it will be a big plus for us, especially with Cendant Mobility being the No. 1 relocation company in the world,” said Bingemann, the broker at the Arvida Sawgrass office and son of longtime local broker Pam Bingemann. “We look forward to all the benefits we will get from that.”
One major change will be the consolidation of the Coldwell Banker Walter Williams Hidden Hills office and the Arvida St. Johns Golf and Country Club office.
The lease was up at the Hidden Hills office so it was a natural progression for the two offices to combine.
Paul Andry, the broker at the Hidden Hills office, will become the broker at St. Johns Golf and Country Club.
Bingemann, who was juggling managing the St. Johns Golf and Country Club office and the Sawgrass office, is excited about the new opportunity.
“I was covering both offices, so this is a positive for me because now I can focus on the Sawgrass office,” said Bingemann. “It’s also a positive for the Jacksonville Golf and Country Club office because they will now have a full-time manager, full-time receptionist and several new sales associates who will bring a lot to that office.”
Williams said he is not planning on losing any sales associates. If anything, he is hoping to attract some more people because of the reputation of Coldwell Banker and Arvida being together.
“We think some people will want to join us,” said Williams. “In fact, Paul [Andry] said this morning he had two calls.”
Much of the equipment in the two offices belonged to Arvida, so those offices will have new fax machines, copiers, office supplies, business cards and more to look forward to.
“One of the things we are going to do is to work on modernizing their offices,” said Williams. “We want to make the offices more efficient and more attractive.”
Arvida was originally a community developer. Its offices reflect that by being decorated with information about its communities.
“Our office was originally set up as a new home sales center, so a lot of the information out there is very dated,” said Bingemann. “It was geared towards selling a new product, but they have long since moved out so we are going to replace that with some updated material and decorations.”
The offices will also be modernized technologically by reconfiguring their computers, high-speed Internet connections and new e-mail addresses.
Another plus to the merger: “The two ways of doing business were very similar,” said Williams. “Coldwell Banker controls and sells 50 percent of all the $1 million properties in the United States and Arvida was a high-end company, so our high-end operations and their high-end operations is going to work very, very well together.”
Bingemann agreed that both companies offered a lot of similar programs and services.
“Coldwell Banker is a full-service real estate company as was Arvida Realty Services,” said Bingemann. “We had a home loan program, they had a concierge program. We have a luxury home program and they have a luxury home program.”
Williams and Bingemann said the transition has gone very smoothly so far.
“There has been tremendous enthusiasm from the Arvida people,” said Williams, who is meeting individually with each of the Arvida agents.
“Their excitement about it has been just super,” said Williams. “And I’ve had calls from our agents for the last week saying how excited they are because they realize that this is going to give us more marketing power and the ability to do more things.”
“I’ve had calls from every single person in the Coldwell Banker organization, particularly all the managers, to welcome me to the group, which is nice,” said Bingemann. “I’ve enjoyed meeting all the people associated with Walter’s company and I look forward to having some local ownership and leadership which we haven’t had in the past.”
Arvida was based out of Clearwater, so Bingemann’s leadership was miles away.
“A lot of the decisions they made were based on South Florida trends and what worked there,” said Bingemann. “North Florida and South Florida are completely different markets.”
Williams has been depending on Bingemann and Andry to order new forms, cards, signs and such to make the transition.
“We’ve been working through it and I have a great staff in our corporate office that has been working on the changes,” said Williams.
Williams will now have eight offices in Jacksonville.
“It’s exciting. It increases our sales volume and it gives us more market share which allows us to do more within our market to help our company and the people within our company grow,” said Williams. “The larger Coldwell Banker is, the more they can do. The more support they can get, the more ability they have to do national marketing. It expands the ability to provide service to our customers, that’s the most important part.”
Many decisions concerning the combination of the companies, including the fate of the Arvida relocation services, have not been made yet.
The company already has a relocation division headed up by Sharon Juhasz.
“Cendant, the headquarters of Coldwell Banker in Florida and myself are communicating,” said Williams. “As each thing comes up, we talk about it and make a decision.”
Other changes are that Sunbelt Title will remain intact and will no longer be a part of the Arvida program.
“They do most of the closing business of the Arvida New Construction, a separate corporation from Arvida Realty Sales, and they are looking to maintain that relationship,” said Bingemann.
Williams will bring in Coldwell Banker Mortgage and they will be doing the mortgages for the two offices instead of Arvida Mortgage.
Arvida Mortgage will find a new location and maybe pair up with Sunbelt Title, said Bingemann.
Williams said that Cendant is making it a trend for the national real estate companies to gobble up the smaller companies. Smaller companies shouldn’t worry though, if they are doing what is right, he said.
“I don’t think anyone should be worried who runs their business like they should run their business,” he said. “There will always be a place for boutique shops. This is a very personal business and for that reason there will always be room for them.”