My brokerage, HomeSmart Real Estate, with 1,700 agents acquired Dan Schwartz Realty with 1,600 agents last week giving HomeSmart Real Estate 3,300 agents and making it by far the largest real estate brokerage in Arizona, the largest in the Southwest, and one of the largest in the United States.
HomeSmart Real Estate was created by Matt Widdows in 2000. Matt has always excelled at providing the latest technology to his agents and clients. That’s why I joined HomeSmart when I first got my real estate license 5 years ago.
Matt’s a good guy… and a tech geek.
Last spring while he was expanding the Scottsdale office I popped in to check the progress and Matt himself was up on a ladder with a hammer after everyone else had left for the day.
In 2005 and 2006 I would catch Matt himself fixing the printer in the Scottsdale HomeSmart office. I think he likes that stuff. It also shows how important it is to Matt to have technology that works. (Matt eventually hired a firm to take care of all that stuff.)
And the guy is young too as you can see in the video linked to above.
Congratulations Matt!
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Steve Nicks 03.24.08 at 11:17 pm
John - I’m glad to hear that you are happy with HomeSmart and Matt as the broker. It makes me feel a little bit better about the transition that we are going to be going through in the next few months. I’m looking forward to learning about all that HomeSmart has to offer it’s agents and our clients.
John Wake - Real Estate 03.24.08 at 11:46 pm
Steve, once you get settled in, you’ll like it.
Have you checked out any of the offices?
In the north valley there is one in Arrowhead Ranch and one in Scottsdale.
When I work in Chandler and Gilbert, I use the Mesa office. Apparently the next office will be in Gilbert.
Anyway, the offices have great facilities. They are very professional places to meet clients.
I often meet clients and we go over the MLS together on the huge, wall mounted flat screen monitor when we need to winnow down the showing list to the best homes.
Brian McMorris 03.25.08 at 6:35 am
John, congratulations on the merger! But I have to ask: what are 3,300 real estate brokers doing in this market. That is just a little over one house sold a month per realtor, if those two agencies sold all the houses closed in the Valley, which is probably not the case.
Secondly, the S&P Shiller average home sales price numbers are just in, and they are ugly. Phoenix is down 18.2% Y-O-Y. The only markets worse are Miami and Las Vegas. The market was done 4.1% from December to January. There is really no end in sight to the declines (no deceleration), though, it could be speculated that if the mortgage industry / banking system stabilizes, it will hopefully begin the process of healing.
John Wake - Real Estate 03.25.08 at 8:04 am
Thank you for your sympathy.
Many people have real estate licenses who are not full time Realtors… and many full time Realtors are becoming part time.
I’ll have to check out Shiller’s new numbers but down 18.2% is good for the industry. Its bad for homeowners, and I am one, but its good for Realtors, lenders and title companies to have prices correct as quickly as possible.
And we’ll see a deceleration in March.
Jay Thompson 03.25.08 at 9:58 am
I’d heard the rumors about Dan Schwartz, was wondering what was going to happen with them.
Brian - there are something like close to 50,000 people holding a real estate license in the Phoenix area. But as John mentioned, a significant portion of them do little to no business.
Matt Widdows 07.28.08 at 2:31 pm
John, thanks for the kind words. Sorry this is coming so late after your post. HomeSmart has some exciting new services that we are offering as a result of our new “scale of economy” due to our new size. The merger has really been a positive for everyone involved. If there is ever anything that we can do to improve, please do not hesitate to let me know at mwiddows@hsmove.com.
Susan Huang 09.27.09 at 2:57 pm
Hi,
I just passed my real estate sales license exam. I am looking for a brokerage firm to activate my sales licensee.
How much do I need to pay for the company? How would you split the commission?
Thanks!
Susan
John Wake 09.27.09 at 7:13 pm
Susan, Great! Call Margarita Roberts, Agent Services Manager at HomeSmart, 602-230-2107.
Carole Rajkovski 02.07.10 at 3:14 pm
Hi
I will call on Mon. I would like to talk to someone about your company. I am know a realtor in Fountain Hills and looking to make a change to another company.
Thanks
Carole Rajkovski
480 620 3075