"I've been in real estate for 17 and a half years,
Trelora Founder and CEO Joshua Hunt. "I started early in life and quickly found success."
But with success came boredom, and he moved from RE/MAX to Keller Williams and franchise ownership.
"I realized our industry was broken," says Hunt. He was running an office with more than 100 agents and the vast majority of them didn't close sales. "We were just hoping things went well.
And the syndication of MLS listings across the Internet has changed the business completely. Hunt says that nine of 10 buyers search homes for weeks before reaching out to an agent. "We can no longer market properties," he says. "That's a thing of the past."
So Hunt launched Trelora in 2011 to remedy these problems, using the models of Chipotle, Starbucks, pharmaceutical sales and baseball.
"We need to be territory driven team with specialized positions," he says. To this end, Trelora has 17 employees and each has a well-defined job, including pricing specialists, listing agents, photographers and field agents.
"People who are in the field are always in the field and people who are in the office are always in the office," says Hunt. Instead of 2.8 percent going to the buyer's and seller's agents, buyers pay $3,000 and sellers pay $1,700 to list a home. Hunt says clients save an average of $7,000 with this model.
Hunt plans to replicate the model as a franchise. "We already have five buyers in place," he says."
The company is currently looking to recruit licensed agents with at least two years of experience.
Contact Confluence Denver Innovation & Jobs News Editor Eric Peterson with tips and leads for future stories at eric@confluence-denver.com.
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