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Team Ulster Real Estate

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Education & Training with Ulster County Real Estate

When I first started here at Prudential Nutshell Realty (just Nutshell Realty before the Prudential affiliation) back in 2004 the company had 6 people, a fax machine and a company dog.  Our market consisted of 142 companies all battling it out for a piece of the Ulster County Market share and we were the proverbial "low-man-on-the-totem-pole".  The majority of the companies we were up against were seasoned veterans that guarded their territory like trained attack dogs.  At the time, our small company was hardly a threat, especially to those that hovered in the top 10 spots of our market of 142 companies.

Just to give you a little background, before I joined Nutshell Realty (2002), I designed, developed and sold a real estate web application that had a website front-end with a backend app that was part CMS and part CRM.  Within the first 6 months, I sold the product to about 30 of the top companies in the Ulster County Real Estate market (and a few outside Ulster County almost by accident).   At the time, Nutshell Realty was just starting out and wasn't in the top 30 but was interested in adopting a web presence that would dominate the Ulster County Real Estate market.  Now out of the 30-40 real estate clients I had acquired thus far, this was the first time I had ever heard the word dominate from any of the companies I was working with when it came to the web.  In 2002, having a real estate website was something a real estate company did just to keep up with their competitors.  With this type of focus on dominating the online market of Ulster County, it was clear to me then that Nutshell was about to change the way real estate was done in Ulster County.

Fast forward to 2004.  The market is starting to climb and everyone around me is making a ton of money using the web application I created.  It was time for me to sell my company and jump in.  Out of the 45 real estate companies that were now my clients, I had to choose which of them I was going to jump in with.  You would think the choice would be easy.  I am a technology guy, I would just select the company that emphasized technology right?  Not quite.  What was more important to me was the environment in which I would be working.  By this time, I have been in several real estate offices and have seen the office culture of most of them.  In most cases the culture is made up of cut-throat money hungry agents that would step on their dying grandmother to collect a commission.  At Nutshell it wasn't like that at all.  The 6 people, the dog and the fax machine made up one of the best Ulster County real estate teams I have seen.  Now when I say team I mean it.  These 6 people worked together helping one another out whenever needed without asking for anything in return.  This was the true definition of team real estate.  Needless to say, I was going with Nutshell Realty.

Now in 2008, we are 4th in the market (Based on Volume) and dominate most of the available keyword terms in our market.   Our company, now 25 agents 5 managers, a multi-tiered network, 2 in-house servers still work as a team.  The cut-throat atmosphere common in many real estate companies doesn't happen here.  So yes, technology is important but what is more important is the team of people that get behind it.

 

Comments (1)

Marie Meyer
Keller Williams Realty - Central Valley, NY
Orange County New York Realtor

Hi Lou ... always good to stumble upon a neighbor!  Interesting post.  I couldn't agree more ... corporate culture and one's team is what matters most.  You certainly have accomplished a lot!  By the way, what happened to the dog?

Jun 02, 2008 08:24 AM