Assist-2-Sell® New Location
in Santa Clarita
The beginning of January saw the new location of the Santa Clarita Assist-2-Sell® franchise office, on Soledad Canyon Road in Santa Clarita. Perhaps you have noticed the bright red Assist-2-Sell® signs dotting the landscape of the greater Santa Clarita area. Maybe you have seen an advertisement or read a magazine article about the company. Certainly the last few years have seen significant growth in area franchises. If you are like most people, however, you probably don't have a very clear idea about what Assist-2-Sell® offers.
Taken literally, the name “Assist-2-Sell®” describes precisely what all real estate companies do - help homeowners to sell their homes. Coupled with the idea of savings, however, the name seems to conjure up images of homeowners left to do most of the work themselves. Nothing could be further from the truth. Owner Max F Tennies comments, “Our motto is ‘Full Service with $avings’®. The biggest challenge is convincing people that we really deliver on what we promise. People are hesitant because the equation doesn't seem to add up. But the results speak for themselves, and our service is often better than people receive from conventional real estate companies.”
What is it that makes Assist-2-Sell® different? Are the savings truly as significant as the company claims? How can Assist-2-Sell® provide top-quality service, significantly reduce rates and still be profitable?
Although all franchise offices are independently owned and operated, and therefore set their own pricing schedules, there are two basic programs offered everywhere. The most dramatic savings come with the Direct-to-Buyer™ program, which the Santa Clarita office offers its clients for a flat fee of $5995. Generally, depending on their specific circumstances, homeowners are encouraged to try listing only with this program initially. Why? When it works, the savings are enormous. On a $500,000 home, for instance, the flat fee would be $5995, where with a conventional approach commissions might be as high as 6% or $30,000. How many people would scoff at putting an extra $24,000 in their pocket?
Clients may add the “MLS for Less” ® program to the Direct-to-Buyer™ at any time. If a home sells through the Multiple Listing Service, the homeowner will have to pay a commission to the buyer’s agent. Even so, the savings, on the listing agent side, can amount to thousands of dollars.
That’s essentially all there is to it. Assist-2-Sell® helps every step of the way, from pricing, showing and negotiating right through to settlement. There are no up-front fees for you to pay even if your home doesn’t sell, and there are no hidden fees to surprise you later.
Does all of this sound too good to be true? The Assist-2-Sell® corporation, which has today grown to a network of more than 500 franchises nationwide, was established because its co-founders, Mary LaMeres-Pomin and Lyle Martin in Reno, Nevada, observed, back in 1987, that many things were not working properly in the real estate industry.
“We knew in our hearts that the old way just wasn’t right,” says LaMeres- Pomin. “Customers weren’t getting the service they deserved, and the fees they were paying were too high. One reason for this is that real estate agents were spending the majority of their time and money advertising themselves to attract business. Of course, these expenses were getting passed on to the client.” LaMeres-Pomin continues, “When you see a realty ad in the paper, what do you see? You see pictures of agents. We believe in advertising our homes-for-sale, not our agents.”
The Assist-2-Sell® model claims to be a better deal for agent and consumer alike. Agents have peace of mind, leaving them free to focus on their customers. They don’t have to worry about what co-workers might be doing behind the scenes because there’s plenty of business to go around. A typical real estate agency hires more agents than there is work and leaves them to advertise, cold-call and compete with each other for business. Assist-2-Sell® offices hire only as many agents as they genuinely need, creating a more positive workplace. There’s still healthy competition, but it’s not cutthroat. Agents work as a team, helping each other, and are free to answer customer questions on any home. The high volume more than compensates for the lower commission levels.
“Our agents sell 10 times as many homes as other agents,” says Mary LaMeres-Pomin.
“Our concept brings people in the door and our agents provide great customer service. Because of the reduced commission rates, customers generally save a lot of money. This attracts more buyers and sellers, which increases volume, leading to more business for the agents. There is very little agent turnover. Once agents work in this environment, they don’t want to go back into that other world,” company co-founder Lyle Martin assures.
Martin, too, was motivated by what he regarded as a lack of professionalism in the industry: “We saw so many things that just weren’t working. Our strategy was to take what was typical and do the opposite. We turned everything upside down.” Instead of concealing and jealously guarding information vital to home owners and potential buyers, his philosophy is to disseminate as much information as possible, promoting cooperation on all fronts: between agents, between offices, and between buyer and seller. For example, Assist-2-Sell® always displays addresses and prices for its listings. And Martin encourages sellers to be present at their open houses, rejecting the idea of keeping buyers and sellers separate. “Who said they shouldn’t have contact with each other?” he asks. “That’s how deals get done more quickly.”
In recent years, the rest of the nation has been discovering what Reno residents have long known: Assist-2-Sell® works. Business has flourished and the company is gaining momentum. “We’ve seen progressive growth from the day we opened the door,” says Martin, “and that doesn’t come from discount commissions alone. While the lower rates may draw customers in, it is the subsequent results that leave them satisfied.” The results speak for themselves. Assist-2-Sell® has been amazingly successful in terms of ratio of completed sales, time on market and sales price. “We believe that if your home is priced fairly, it’s going to sell, regardless of which real estate company you choose,” Martin concludes. “The question is, ‘How much do you want to pay to sell it?’”
“Assist-2-Sell® is spearheading a revolution, and that revolution is sweeping North America, fundamentally changing the way real estate is sold,” adds Santa Clarita franchise owner Tennies, taking up the theme. “Assist-2-Sell® is cutting edge, a ‘lean machine’. By contrast, the conventional approach is a dinosaur, inefficient, cumbersome, applying an obsolete business model. It can only be a matter of time until it is abandoned entirely.”
“Of course, Assist-2-Sell® stimulates controversy – that’s what comes with changing the future of the real estate industry. We encounter resistance, skeptics, those who would discredit us. Ultimately, however, the Assist-2-Sell® approach is simply good sales philosophy: Put the client first, and the commissions will take care of themselves. In the real estate industry, this is a legal obligation: the fiduciary duty of every licensed real estate salesperson to pursue not the highest possible commission but the best interest of his or her client. That is a fact all too often forgotten.”
To learn more about Assist-2-Sell®, call 661-799-7400 or visit the Santa Clarita website at http://www.Assist2SellHomes.com, where you will also find a link to the corporate headquarters.
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