Realty One of New Mexico, a locally owned and independent residential real estate brokerage, has grown to more than 225 real estate agents with the recent affiliation of a pair of sales teams formerly associated with the Austin, Texas-based Keller Williams franchise.
The company’s 225-plus agents separates it from the hundreds of small “boutique” residential brokerages in Albuquerque. Coldwell Banker Legacy is widely recognized as the largest brokerage with more than 600 sales associates, according to its website.
Realty One announced this week that Remington Properties and a 15-member sales team head by Silesha Montano Naden have aligned with the company. Realty One signs are expected to go up in the next week at Remington’s office at 4300 Paseo del Norte NE.
Realty One has grown from about 100 agents in July to about 175 in November to currently more than 225, said Jessica Taylor, who cofounded the company in 2006 with husband Mike.
Jessica Taylor said key to the growth is “our compensation and the family-like feel of our company.”
“We keep most of the money with our brokers,” she said. “We take a $500 transaction fee. There’s no other split. Since we’re independent, we don’t have franchise fees as overhead.”
Real estate agents are paid on a commission basis, usually splitting a 6 percent charge against the sale price of a home. Residential brokerages typically take a roughly 30 percent cut of a an agent’s sales commission, which in virtually all cases works out to be far higher than Realty One’s $500 flat fee, Taylor said.
The upshot is that agents will take home more of their commission at Realty One than they would elsewhere, she said. In addition, franchise affiliations have become less important to agents due to changes in the housing market, such as the emergence of home-listing websites like Zillow and Trulia.
With the addition of the former Remington office, Realty One now has five locations — four in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe.
