by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
Owning a Re/Max franchise wasn’t Brenda and Ron Horst’s initial goal in joining Re/Max Unlimited. But, when their daughter and son-in-law decided to join the company, just at the time they were approached to buy it, all the pieces fell right into place.
“It would be a family business and with the kids being in business with us, it would provide an exit plan — if you will — because of our advanced age,” said Brenda.
They purchased the franchise in August 2006 and are at 100 Corridor Road in Ponte Vedra Beach.
Family members who joined the company include their daughter Erika Valenti, her husband James Valenti and his mother Vicki Valenti Trabert.
Erika is the administrative assistant while Vicki and James are agents. Other agents in the office are Bob Edwards, Chris Rich, Christina Patterson, Debra Dooney, Freida Prince, Jacquie Byram, Jennifer Edwards, Jessica DiGiovanni, Kelly Whitaker, Kim Sandberg, Naomi Wilkinson, Rick Lofgren, Sandy Haden, Susie Mullinax, Terry Brand and Wanda Peterson.
As the broker/owner, Brenda is responsible for supervising the administrative staff in the office, reviewing files, new listings and sales contracts as well as handling the record keeping, accounting, training and recruiting.
Ron mainly focuses on listing and selling property.
Most agents work from home. The office has an area with computers, phones and desks that are available for agents who don’t have an assigned space to use when they are in the office.
That arrangement may sound odd, as Re/Max has always been known for its 100 percent commission plus “desk fees.” But with the age of technology, that has morphed into the agent’s sharing in the cost of running the office instead of a desk fee.
“We don’t call them desk fees anymore,” said Brenda. “Before cell phones and computers and all that, most agents had an office with a desk. But, now so many agents have set up their own offices. They have everything they need to operate out of their home office and that’s what they do. You can’t sell much real estate sitting around in an office all day.”
A misconception of the Re/Max offices is that they don’t bring on new agents and they don’t have training. In reality, they do sometimes bring on new agents and they do have training.
As a rule, Brenda said they don’t recruit new agents, but if they happen to cross paths with a new agent that shows promise, they have been known to bring them on and give them a shot.
“We are very choosy,” said Brenda. “We’ve turned away several newly licensed agents because we weren’t sure. If we aren’t sure that you are going to make it, we are not interested.”
For those new and seasoned agents, they have several different avenues of training.
“We have the basic nuts and bolts of contracts and paperwork,” said Brenda. “I handle the one-on-one training of how to do all that.”
Other training comes from Re/Max.
“We have some of the top trainers in the country giving classes on the satellite network,” said Brenda. “The agents can watch it at home if they have Dish Network or they can come in here and watch it.”
They also have training-on-demand through the Re/Max Web site for the agents.
Ron said the future goal of the office is to have 30 good qualified agents.
With short sales and foreclosures as a big part of the market right now, Brenda said she is encouraging her agents to embrace that part of the market. Also, she is reminding them to go back to basics and re-visit past customers.
“I think most people that are looking for an agent are getting them through referrals,” said Brenda.
Though there is a huge supply still on the market, Brenda said it is important to keep a positive attitude because there are still people buying houses.
“We need to keep doing what we’ve been doing,” said Brenda. “Go back to the basics and get up in the morning and know that there is business out there to be gotten. If you go about getting it in the right way, and do the right things, you will have your share of the business. Our agents are proving that.”
Ron and Brenda have been agents since the mid-1990’s. Brenda started out with Watson Realty before moving on to Bingemann Realty Sales.
When Ron decided to get his license, they worked as site agents together at Azalea Point for a year and then joined Prudential Network Realty for about five years as a team.
“We were one of the first husband and wife teams,” said Brenda.