How One Brokerage Disrupted the Real Estate Industry in Fresno
~ by Jessi Hafer
If you've ever sold a home, you'll probably recognize this. Maybe you ask a friend or family member for an agent recommendation. Maybe a family or friend is a real estate agent.
You might interview a few agents. By the time you're ready to make a decision, you have a stack of papers, business cards, comparative market analysis showing the value of your home.
You've been told that your home will be on a Zillow, Trulia, Realtor, and many other websites. Most importantly, you're told that Realtors in Fresno are sure to see your home.
After hearing about all the different things that all the different agents can do for you, you are left wondering, how it is that all 5000 agents in Fresno charge the same thing to sell your home?
That's the same thing that Carlos Fierro was wondering. "Very early on, I realized that real estate brokerages and agents were largely stuck in the past. Twenty years ago, real estate agents took a much more active role in the sale of a home. They had to."
Prior to the internet, agents would often take out ads in newspapers and real estate circulars, or call real estate agents they knew to ask about buyers. Often, other agents in the office were the best chance at finding a buyer.
That's not the way homes are sold today. As Carlos said, "Truth is, that agents take a much less active role in finding a buyer. The great thing about the internet is that your home is out there for the world to see."
Once an agent places your home on the MLS, it's made available to countless online sites that buyers have access to. According to Carlos, "a lot of buyers are watching sites like zillow.com or realtor.com." So as Carlos puts it, "getting your home on the MLS is the most important thing you can do to get your home sold."
When Carlos Fierro started SVR he recognized that home sellers had very little choice in how their homes were sold. It was a problem that other brokerages didn't seem to notice.
He wanted to give sellers the power to decide how their homes were sold.
SVR is the solution to the problem he saw.
Paying 6% commission for the sale of your home made more sense when agents needed to advertise your home and everything was done by hand.
"Don't get me wrong, agents earn the money they get. We still do full service listing agreements," said Carlos. "Some sellers want an agent to take care of every aspect of selling their home, but that's not every home seller."
As Carlos likes to say, "not every seller is the same, why treat them like they are?"
The solution that Carlos came up with was a la carte brokerage. SVR gives seller the option to choose which services they want and how much they want to save.
"Our clients deserve the option to choose what services they want, and only pay for those services," said Carlos.
With SVR, sellers start with a flat rate, dependent on the value of your home, that gives them access to the MLS. Then, sellers get to choose the services they want.
Sellers get to choose from photo packages they want, to yard signs, to lockbox rentals, all
the way to what is essentially full service.
Because SVR does everything online, or virtually, they save a lot of time and they have very little overhead, so they save money on their end. They pass some of those savings on their clients.
"We are all about being innovative, and responsive to our customers," said Carlos. "Some clients want the full service experience. Others are just looking for access to the MLS."
Wherever you fall on that continuum, Carlos thinks you are the best one to make that choice.
"It's not just a tagline, SVR is real estate the way you want it," said Carlos.
Carlos Fierro thinks that disrupting the old way of doing real estate is best for home sellers and real estate agents. Looking forward, being innovative, adaptive, and creating a smart real estate experience and service focused brokerage is his focus. He looks forward to continuing to disrupt the industry, one client at a time.
