William Raveis Real Estate & Home Services’ aggressive expansion into Massachusetts has included the opening of this office in Norwell, Mass. – a town on Boston’s South Shore – earlier this year.

As part of an ongoing effort to increase its brand awareness and presence in Massachusetts, Shelton-based William Raveis Real Estate & Home Services is in the process of establishing a real estate school that will offer everything from pre-licensing to continuing education courses for real estate agents and brokers.

The company is currently obtaining the proper licenses and insurance to run the school and has hired Sue Morgan, a real estate professional who has 15 years of experience running real estate schools for real estate franchises, to direct the William Raveis Real Estate School.

The hiring of Morgan and the establishment of the school comes nearly nine months after William Raveis began an aggressive expansion into Massachusetts with the opening of offices in the Bay State towns of Hingham and Norwell. Since then, the company, which has 43 offices in Connecticut and managed a sales volume of more than $32 billion last year, has also opened an office in the Newton Centre section of Newton, Mass., and has hired about 60 real estate agents.

The company is planning to open four more offices in 2004 and is eyeing the Cambridge, Wellesley, Brookline, Duxbury and Cohasset markets in Massachusetts. Chris Raveis, senior vice president of business development and head of the company’s Massachusetts expansion, said the expansion is ahead of plans.

“The biggest challenge has been finding the right locations and we’ve also been very particular in terms of the management that we’ve been hiring,” said Raveis.

Raveis said the offices the company plans to open could be brand new offices or they may be the result of acquisitions. In particular, the company is seeking out “boutique operations” that “mesh” with the Raveis culture, according to Raveis.

‘Basic Philosophy’

In addition to Morgan, the Raveis company has hired other veterans in residential real estate.

Early this year, the company hired Betsy Currier, an experienced and well-connected Realtor on Boston’s South Shore, to develop the Norwell and Hingham offices. Lynn Cohen, a Realtor who worked for the Coldwell Banker Newton office, was hired to manage the Newton office, and in August the company announced that it had named Suzanne Getz, a real estate professional with 25 years of experience who has created and facilitated sales associate and management training programs for companies like the former DeWolfe Cos. and Century 21 International Corporate, as its director of career development in Massachusetts.

Roughly 85 percent of the agents that have been hired have some experience in residential real estate, according to Raveis.

“What we’re providing is different,” said Raveis. Raveis explained that the company has an “agent-centric model” that focuses on building the careers of the agents it hires.

“Our main focus is on building a company that has quality sales agents and the differentiator is the true time we invest in building their careers on a personal, individual level,” he said.

When Cohen helped William Raveis open its Newton office, she took eight of her colleagues from Coldwell Banker with her. Today, the office has 27 agents.

Cohen said after the merger of Coldwell Banker Hunneman and The DeWolfe Cos. she was “actively seeking a different business model.”

Cohen was attracted to the “family” model of the company and to the philosophy fostered by company founder and President and Chief Executive Officer William Raveis, who she said she can call at any time if she has a question or concern.

“Bill has a real basic philosophy … he hires the best people and management and makes a commitment to build their careers,” she said. “That’s a completely different business model,” Cohen added, noting that other companies, such as Coldwell Banker, focus on having the greatest number of agents.

“Philosophically, those approaches are light years apart,” she said.

After occupying the fourth floor of a building on Langley Road in Newton Centre, the office relocated to prime street-level office space in the same building in September.

As part of her duties managing the office, Cohen has also tried to recruit agents to work for the company. “Part of my challenge is to get information out to let people know who we are,” said Cohen. “I’ve had great support from an incredible Marketing Department.”

The company’s leaders have also tried to reach out to consumers and get the William Raveis name out there.

“It takes a little time to brand yourself and market yourself,” said Chris Raveis. “We’ve been aggressive in doing so.” In addition, to advertising in local newspapers, the company has also organized a variety of community-centered events.

In Newton, for example, the company hired a well-known local artist in July who came to the office and provided an outline of a mural and invited the public to paint it.

Cohen has also been advertising in the local newspaper to invite the public on Sundays to view a comprehensive grid of all open houses in Newton and enjoy free coffee.

On Sunday, the Newton office, in conjunction with the Boston Children’s Theatre, will be hosting a Halloween gathering with story readings and pumpkin painting. The Newton office has also “adopted” the Dec. 29 performance of “Cinderella” by the Boston Children’s Theatre and has committed to selling 200 tickets for the event.

In upcoming weeks, William Raveis will begin advertising its newly established real estate school. The firm’s Newton and South Shore offices have training rooms where classes will take place.

Morgan, who ran real estate license schools in New England and established programs for Century 21 of the Northeast Inc., said she was impressed by the Raveis company’s training programs.

“When a brand new agent comes into the business, their initial training is going to make or break them,” said Morgan. “New agents coming into the business are different than they used to be. They’re coming from the corporate world and the high-tech industry and they’re used to getting really good training and they expect it. I think William Raveis will be able to provide that for them.”

Morgan said she’s also “excited” about working for a company that is offering another option to consumers and real estate agents at a time when some of the “bigger players in New England have merged.”

“They have a great reputation,” she said.