At a time when other real estate brokerages are struggling, United Real Estate is thriving. The brokerage has also grown its market share and agent size exponentially over the past decade.
The Dallas-headquartered company has soared in agent growth and is now the eighth largest in the U.S., jumping from 139th in RISMedia’s 2020 Power Broker Report to the largest flat-fee brokerage in transaction count today. United has done what few brokerages have been able to achieve: meteoric success without sacrificing its core principles.
And it’s all by intentional design, says Dan Duffy, CEO of United Real Estate. A former leader and investor in the tech space, Duffy is no stranger to taking risks and betting big. His approach paid off with the product-led tech startups he’s built and advised.
But when it came to finding a new venture to invest in and build, Duffy was instantly drawn to United Country Real Estate, a 100-year-old company. The thrill of taking a great company culture and transforming it into something even better in a completely different sector of the real estate industry was exactly the challenge Duffy wanted.
And, as most real estate professionals know, no two days are alike in this business.
“We intentionally built something that wasn’t an incremental improvement on the status quo,” says Duffy. “We wanted to create something that had resilience and the absolute, most efficient delivery of services and products so that our agents and brokers could win.”
Duffy and his executive team took a “clean sheet of paper” approach when founding United, shunning the legacy systems and sacred cows, such as high commission splits, of traditional brokerages. The result is a winning model that prioritizes agent profitability and happiness above all else.
“When we looked at the business model, there were some really amazing pioneers that had solved some of the fundamental problems in the real estate industry,” explains Duffy. “We started looking at it in 2011 and said, ‘Well, if we were going to build a business from scratch, what would we build to solve the problems at the brokerage/national/brand levels, and, ultimately, with an eye on solving some of the fundamental problems for brokers and agents?’”
The easy answer was a 100%-commission model that empowers United’s 21,000 agents to keep most of their earnings. In exchange, United charges a flat monthly fee to provide agents with marketing, training and development, full-service support and technology resources instead of the traditional broker/agent revenue split.
So, in 2011, United Real Estate was born out of the storied 100-year-old United Country brand, armed with a new mission to “improve the financial trajectories of brokerages and agents by delivering uncharacteristically high levels of support and services.”
This unconventional brokerage model has been a major draw for top-producing agents and brokers. And it’s fueling United’s rapid growth at a time when other real estate companies are contracting or eyeing the exits.
“Lead with culture, follow with purpose”
Talk to any United leader, broker or agent, and they’ll likely point to the brokerage’s people-first culture as a key differentiator. They may have initially come for the promise of keeping more of what they earn, but they ultimately stay because of how they’re treated.
It certainly tipped the scales for Duffy when he looked to invest in a new business after his successful tech career. His previous work in that space taught him that a company’s core values, guiding principles and culture are the most difficult things to change.
But as soon as he met with leaders and brokers at United and got to know the inner workings of the company, Duffy knew he had found something special. And while he didn’t know much about real estate back then, he was eager to listen and learn.
“There was this consistent theme within the brokerage and the company that it was more than how much volume we do and how much money we make,” Duffy recalls. “There are people who are part of United that are fifth-generation partners. You don’t see that in business these days.
“Here, we see things differently—that you lead with culture and follow with purpose,” he says.
United’s culture of caring is best embodied by the people who drive the brokerage’s remarkable success story.
“We have a very rare, carefully curated assemblage of talent that goes to work every day within their discipline, and the mosaic that it brings together in terms of the organization is incredible,” says Rick Haase, president of United Real Estate.
The strategic genius of that talent has enabled United to make major investments in technology and agent support systems that have helped propel the brokerage to incredible growth. “We did it by building a platform that could scale efficiently, without adding costs to agents and brokers,” notes Haase.
“Because of our proprietary tech stack, we’re able to add agents, control costs and make sure they get the tools, services and support without damaging our ability to continuously flow that gross commission income into brokers’ and agents’ bank accounts,” Haase says. “By doing this, we are able to stay on our mission of improving the financial trajectory of our brokers’ and agents’ careers, vision and lives.”
The company’s agent-first approach has paid dividends, with United weathering the recent market downturn far better than many of its competitors. While many other brokerages have been shedding agents and losing money, United has continued to grow its agent count and remain profitable.
“We’re not only weathering the storm, but we’re doing incredibly well,” Duffy says, referring to the aftermath of the National Association of REALTORS®’ (NAR) commission lawsuit settlement. “We should send the lawyers a thank-you. It made our business stronger.”
Defying the odds and a down market through growth
In some markets where United operates, existing-home sales have plummeted by as much as 40%, Haase reports. Despite the headwinds of slower home sales, high home prices and elevated mortgage rates, companies joining United have a 27% growth rate, post-transaction, after joining the network over the last five years, he points out.
“People who opted into our company 10 years ago are renewing and extending their agreements for another 10 years,” Haase says. “If you go back 13 years when we were a fledgling upstart company, and we went from one agent to 21,000 agents in 13 short years—that’s an incredible growth rate.”
But United is careful about becoming too focused on production numbers. When companies do that, they tend to make business decisions that aren’t conducive to supporting their people, Haase points out.
“If you focus on being good, bringing the right services, tools and support to agents, and being there to help them when they have needs, you’re going to be rewarded—and we have been—with more people wanting to be part of your organization,” he says.
In addition to twice-monthly broker leadership calls where leaders share ideas and help each other navigate tricky situations, the company’s success is tracked through regular agent surveys. For instance, United’s Net Promoter Scores are “off the charts,” a testament to the strong relationships the company has painstakingly built with its agents, Haase notes.
Much of United’s impressive growth and success can be directly tied to the brokers who lead the 159 local offices, says Leigh Ann Bogran, vice president of operations with United.
“Our local brokerage teams focus on growth, but also provide tremendous transaction support, problem solve, create office environments for success and provide mentorship and training,” says Bogran. She adds that many United brokers also attended and held countless training sessions after the NAR settlement to ensure their agents understood and complied with the new rules.
“It starts at the top,” Bogran points out. “Our national team operates in a very lean way, and we always keep our agents’ and brokers’ success as our North Star; it’s what we work for every day.”
But Bogran makes it clear that the company’s local brokers are the essential glue that holds United together. And having knowledgeable, experienced brokers who know what it takes to excel in up or down markets, “gives those agents the confidence and the conviction to go out and win more business,” she says.
“Our brokers in the local offices who motivate and inspire our agents every day to reach their potential is why we’ve been able to outpace the market—and outpace our competitors.”
Savvy tech investments pay dividends
Right-sizing a real estate brokerage’s technology offerings while building buzz for a bespoke brand are complex undertakings. The race to capture and convert leads is ruthlessly competitive, and it requires constant investment, tracking, training and support.
No one knows this better than United’s Chief Technology Officer David Dickey, who oversees the company’s annual $5 million technology spend and product implementations.
The crowning jewel of its tech offerings is its proprietary cloud-based Bullseye Agent & Broker Productivity Platform, which gets 30,000 agent logins each month.