About Us
Real Living is a full-service, national real estate franchise company with a comprehensive and integrated suite of resources designed to help brokers, agents, and their clients successfully navigate through the home buying and selling processes.
- More than 400 offices throughout the United States and Portugal
- Nearly 10,000 Sales Professionals
- Annual Sales Volume of $15 Billion
Real Living is part of the international referral network and sister company of Brookfield Global Relocation Services, the second largest global relocation services firm in the world. Through its acclaimed Premier Service® customer service program, Real Living boasts a 96% customer satisfaction rating among home buyers and sellers – the highest in the industry. As the first consumer lifestyle real estate brand, Real Living is committed to innovation by bringing new programs, services, support, training, and technology to its Brokers, Sales Professionals, and their home buying and selling clients.
Real Living History
The Columbus, Ohio-based company traces its roots to 1956. After growing to become one of the largest brokerages in the country, in 2002, the firm launched the Real Living brand and began to franchise nationally, retaining the entrepreneurial-oriented culture that had made the firm so distinct for so many years.
In 2009, Real Living was acquired by Toronto-based Brookfield Residential Property Services. And in 2010, Real Living merged with another Brookfield national brand, GMAC Real Estate. The combined company now operates under a single, powerful, and unified brand: Real Living.
Question: When did you join the Real Living network?
Answer: My company
had been affiliated with the GMAC Real Estate franchise network since
2006. After the November 2009 acquisition of Real Living by Brookfield, I
evaluated several options and ultimately decided to convert to the Real
Living brand and completed the brand conversion in February 2010.
Question: Why did you join the Real Living network?
Answer: This is
certainly a challenging time in the real estate industry and I believe
that Real Living is well position to help us locally stay one step ahead
of the competition while also helping consumers. After carefully
reviewing options that included several other national brands, I chose
to join Real Living because I was looking for an innovative real estate
franchisor focused on delivery high levels of customer satisfaction as
well as innovation. With Real Living, I found that and much more.
Question: Tell us more about Brookfield, Real Living's parent company.
Answer: Brookfield
Residential Property Services, parent company of Real Living, is a
division of Brookfield Asset Management, Inc., a global asset manager
focused on property, renewable power, and infrastructure assets, with
over $100 billion of assets under management. Brookfield
Residential Property Services has a portfolio of real estate brands
that includes: Royal LePage, LeCapitale, and Johnston and Daniel in
Canada, and Real Living in the U.S., Portugal, and Puerto Rico. Since
2008, Toronto-based Brookfield Residential Property Services has double
in size as it continues to carry out an ambitious, carefully timed
international expansion.Additionally,
Brookfield owns and operates one of the world’s largest global
relocation services companies, Brookfield Global Relocation Services,
which does business in more than 100 countries.
More information can be found at www.brookfieldrps.com.
Question: What makes the Real Living website different or better than other real estate websites?
Answer: Our websites makes it
easier than ever to search and find just the property you are looking
for. It provides a powerful combination of property detail, mapping, and
community information all on the property detail page. This helps
consumers quickly determine if the property meets their specific needs
and wants without the need to jump from page to page or site to site to
assemble key information about the home, local market conditions and the
qualities of the surrounding area.
- Consumers can save time and go deeper than searching by just city and price. They can refine their search by selecting from a number of other search criteria – and can even search by entering key words and phrases to match properties using the MLS property listing description.
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Consumers can also search for properties by specific school service area, subdivision, or specific street name.
Our Websites:
www.RealLivingHoustonHomeSales.com
www.RealLiving.com
Question: What are the key features for consumers?
Answer:
- Fast, comprehensive search of all listings in the market.
- Our innovative map search allows you to search for listings by drawing your own map boundaries on the screen.
- Most listings show a bird's eye view from all 4 corners of the compass, to give the consumer a sense of the area around the home.
- Right on the listing page, you'll find details on area home values, property appreciation, quality of life, schools, local economy, and more (compared to city, county, and national statistics).
- Once you register, you can save properties and homes, rate your favorites, set update alerts, leave comments for one of our agents, and use social medial tools to share properties with family and friends.
Question: What are the key benefits of the Real Living technology platform for Real Living agents?
Answer: Real Living has implemented an entirely new technology platform
that delivers the power of our national site to brokers and agents at
the local level. It's more than a website – The Real Living technology
platform provides agents with an integrated collection of resources
allowing agents to better serve clients and work more productively. The
platform consists of:
- Personal websites with the same features of the Real Living national website.
- A powerful back end system, the Real Living Business Center (private intranet website) that helps agents work with and communicate with their clients and prospects.
