Rocky Hill-based Prudential Connecticut Realty ranked 17th in the country with about $6 billion in sales volume last year, according to Realtor Magazine.
Although New England real estate firms have certainly kept busy over the past few years, a lack of available land for new construction has kept them from being quite as hopping as counterparts in other parts of the country. But two Connecticut firms last year maintained their places in the top 50 real estate firms in the country in terms of sales volumes and transaction sides, according to a list published recently by Realtor Magazine.
Prudential Connecticut Realty in Rocky Hill ranked 17th in the country with about $6 billion in sales volume and William Raveis Real Estate in Shelton ranked 20th with about $5.3 billion, according to the list. Prudential Connecticut Realty also ranked eighth in terms of biggest growth in transaction sides – and 24th overall with 15,725 transactions – while William Raveis Real Estate ranked 38th with 11,418 transaction sides in 2005.
The magazine sent out surveys to companies whose past record established them as high-performance companies. Those companies returned 228 responses, and the magazine ranked the top 100 companies that provided verification for their numbers.
Prudential Connecticut Realty has been in the top 100 list for about a decade, according to Candace Adams, the company’s president. She said she believes its success is due to the client-centric way Prudential is run.
“It’s specific to how we run the company,” Adams noted.
The company’s executives and sales associates adhere to service standards – which include commitments to keep clients informed of current market conditions and trends, to follow up on schedules and details, to provide prompt and ongoing communication and to return phone calls and e-mails quickly, among others – and core values, which emphasize honesty and candor, meeting customer needs and providing a supportive environment. Those standards keep clients coming back, and attract firms and brokers from across the state to Prudential Connecticut, Adams said.
“I think one of the most important differentiators is our core values,” she said.
Those values, she added, were created with input from the entire organization.
“We have integrated these throughout our company,” Adams said. “I think that’s the big differentiator.”
The firm has grown significantly in the past five or six years. It has acquired seven firms in the past 12 months, including the William T. Beazley Co., a 16-office, New Haven-based firm.
Prudential Connecticut’s services also make for happy clients, Adams said.
“I think what’s most important these days is that we are the most up-to-date technologically,” she said, noting that the firm has a presence on Web sites like yahoo.com, newyorktimes.com, realestatejournal.com, prudential.com and prudentialct.com.
The firm also provides services such as HOMEefficient, which connects and disconnects utilities and other services for people who are moving; a free home warrantee during the listing period; and an association with Doyle New York, an auction house, through which Prudential customers can sell their personal items.
The company also is affiliated with another firm in New York City, a connection appreciated by both clients and sales associates, Adams said.
William Raveis Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of William Raveis Real Estate, credits the quality of the firm’s sales associates for its success. As opposed to Prudential Connecticut Realty, William Raveis Real Estate is an entrepreneurial company, which attracts entrepreneurs who want to build businesses, Raveis said.
“We’re just two different business models,” he said.
The company strives to give agents a good foundation, he added.
“Our philosophy is ‘our agents are our customers,'” Raveis said. The public, in turn, is their customer.
The firm’s Web site is one of the tools the agents used to their advantage. Each sales agent gets his own site, and Raveis.com gets about a million hits a month, Raveis said.
Raveis started the business in 1974 in Fairfield with one office. It now has 47 offices in Connecticut, as well as some in Massachusetts.
Like Prudential Connecticut Realty, William Raveis Real Estate also offers several unique products. Last month, for example, the firm announced its establishment of a partnership with MBNA Corp. to offer an American Express card that will allow cardholders to – among other rewards – use points they earn for purchases to help pay their mortgages.
The company will market the card through its 1,700 sales associates. It started offering the card first to the associates and, as of late June, 900 had signed up, Raveis noted. The next step will be to have sales associates offer the card to customers when they buy a home or get a mortgage from the company.
The company is touting the card as an additional product that William Raveis Real Estate brings to its customers beyond the assistance of buying and selling a home or property.
William Raveis Real Estate also offers mortgages, insurance and moving services.
