MICHAEL T. ROBINSON – ‘A lot of momentum’

A New Jersey-based real estate firm that handled more than $30 billion in residential transactions last year and has 270 company-owned and franchised offices along the East Coast is expanding into Greater Boston.

Weichert Realtors, which already has eight offices in Connecticut, has hired 20 real estate agents in the Boston area and is planning to recruit at least 20 more in coming weeks. The company is also looking to establish franchises in communities west of Boston.

Michael T. Robinson, president of Weichert affiliated companies, said the primary reason the company is expanding into the Greater Boston market is demographics. The region features a higher-income, well-educated and technology-centered customer base as well as high home prices, characteristics that closely match those in communities in which the company currently has a presence.

He also said company founder and President Jim Weichert had always planned to have offices along the upper East Coast. “Part of Jim Weichert’s plan was to [establish offices] from Boston down to Washington [D.C.],” Robinson said.

The company, which occupied temporary space in Lexington, Mass., moved into new space on Massachusetts Avenue in the same community last week, with a grand opening planned for September. Agents will serve Greater Boston communities from that office. As part of its expansion into the area, the firm is also seeking to sell franchise rights.

“Our plan is to franchise outside of the Boston area,” he said. “We’ll be doing a mailing campaign to independent brokers outside of the Boston area to sell franchises because there’s a lot of momentum right now.”

Weichert handled 101,500 residential transactions last year for a total sales volume of $30.5 billion. Founded in 1969, the company owns offices extending from southern Connecticut through northern Virginia. In 2002, the company decided to franchise outside of that footprint and currently has 115 franchise offices along the East Coast, according to Robinson.

The company has a franchise office in Medfield, Mass., as well as company-owned and franchise offices in Connecticut, but otherwise does not have a presence in other parts of New England.

Weichert began advertising in the Boston area about four months ago to recruit sales associates and unveiled a major advertising campaign to announce the company’s expansion – with radio and newspaper ads running continuously – a month ago.

Robinson said the company has been surprised by the response to the ads in the Boston area and by the number of inquiries from the Worcester, Mass., region. The company has hired several agents from the Worcester area, according to Robinson.

Weichert’s entry into the marketplace comes just a little more than a year after the Shelton-based William Raveis Real Estate & Home Services started its expansion into Greater Boston.

“It definitely shows the growth and strength of the real estate market in the Boston area and in Massachusetts in general,” said Massachusetts Association of Realtors President Judy Moore. “It creates healthy competition which overall gives the consumer more choice.”

Moore added that Weichert has an “excellent reputation” within the industry and is offering agents an impressive set of benefits and services. “It’s actually very good for the real estate market because it does create another opportunity – another business model – for agents to migrate to that might fit their career goals,” she said.

Agents working in the Greater Boston area will rely partly on business leads generated from the Weichert Lead Network, an initiative launched about 18 months ago that is designed to connect customers who visit the company’s Web site in search of housing with designated agents and then convert those leads into actual sales.

“We’re taking that concept and incorporating that into Boston market area in conjunction with the traditional real estate office,” Robinson said.

Web site visitors interested in seeing a home go through a call center. A Weichert representative provides a quick prequalification and within minutes the customer is connected with a sales associate that is part of a select group of about 2,500 agents working for Weichert. Those designated agents are required to have a cell phone and must be available to speak to consumers.

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Robinson said the company started the lead network after recognizing that 75 percent to 80 percent of today’s consumers start their home search on the Internet, and most of them are not working with a sales associate when they begin. The company is aggressively advertising its Web site, www.weichert.com, and has purchased key words on search engines to draw visitors who are searching for property to the site.

The goal is to not only attract the customers to the site, but keep them working with the company, said Robinson. Out of over 100,000 leads generated through the site in the last 15 months, about 4,000 have been converted into sales, according to Robinson.

Unlike some discount firms that rely solely on the Internet to generate business, Robinson said Weichert is a full-service company, with more of a focus on buyers. When prospective buyers speak to a Weichert sales associate, for example, they’ll also have a chance to speak to what’s known as a gold service manager who can help them with mortgage, title insurance and other services. Weichert offers a one-stop financing service through its mortgage company, Weichert Financial, and other consumer services through Weichert Insurance and Weichert Home Protection. The company also operates a relocation company.

“There are a lot of franchises in Massachusetts and some are successful and some aren’t,” said Ann Trudeau, president of The Realty Guild, a group of independent and locally owned real estate companies from Maine to Massachusetts.

Some of the main reasons that individuals or companies may choose a franchise are for the Realtor training and technical support that franchises offer, according to Trudeau. In addition, franchises provide access to national branding, which requires a lot of costly marketing but helps with name recognition.

“If you’re a small company it’s very hard for you to brand your name,” she said.

In a letter designed to recruit new sales agents, Weichert points out that agents working for the company will receive full marketing materials to brand themselves as a local neighborhood specialist. The letter also explains that agents will receive full administrative and coordinator support, health benefits, a retirement plan and savings program, wireless laptops and “qualified” customer leads.

But Trudeau, who manages Barrett & Co., an independent real estate firm with offices in the Massachusetts communities of Lincoln, Concord and Carlisle, said local real estate boards and groups like The Realty Guild can provide similar resources and services to smaller, non-franchise affiliated firms.

Trudeau also believes that it’s hard for large franchises, with their focus on the bottom line, to attract agents. A lot of the more productive and experienced agents want to have flexibility in the how they market and sell homes, according to Trudeau, and they want “a connection” to who’s in charge.

“At an independent [company], they have a direct line to who’s running the show,” Trudeau said.