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This is the second installment of Inman’s Talking Talent series on recruiting. For Part One, with Compass’ Rory Golod, click here.
At The Agency, CEO Mauricio Umanksy “dares to be bad.”
That, at least, was the argument Umansky made earlier this week while speaking to Inman. The conversation was part of Inman’s ongoing Talking Talent series on recruiting and other pressing industry issues, and Umansky’s point was that success involves risk and tradeoffs.
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The conversation ultimately touched on topics ranging from commission lawsuits to Clear Cooperation to the National Association of Realtors and a rising rival organization. Umansky argued that his own company has lately had success both in recruiting new agents and in expanding across the globe — a process that remains ongoing.
But at a high level, the takeaway from Umansky’s remarks is that even more change may loom on the horizon for the industry.
What follows is a version of Inman’s conversation with Umansky that has been edited for length and clarity.
Inman: Talk to me about how you guys are doing overall regarding recruiting and about your strategy for finding talent.
Mauricio Umansky: We try to be very selective in terms of who we recruit. We’ve never been about huge numbers. We’ve been more about quality. That’s been our thing.
But we have been very successful from the perspective of the way we’ve recruited. We don’t tout it. To be quite honest with you, it makes me even uncomfortable to talk about it. You guys wrote an article recently about people recruiting away from us, and that’s kind of the only reason I’m talking about it.
Inman: It was Compass. I was talking to them about some similar themes, and they were kind of quick to mention your guys’ name. I wondered if there’s a rivalry between you guys.
Umansky: There’s no rivalry between us and Compass. I consider Compass collaborators and friends. We do a lot of things together. It’s certainly not anything between [Robert Reffkin] at the CEO level and myself.
But on the recruiting side, we’re definitely on the positive versus, you know, how many we’ve lost to anybody. Not only against Compass, but to anybody. I’m not selecting in terms of ever going after one particular company. That’s not our style. We’re just looking for people who fit our culture, who are amazing at what they do.
Inman: What type of agent fits that culture?
Umansky: Somebody who is interested in collaboration. And what I mean by that is sharing. Sharing information, really being part of a network, a global network. So people who are interested in learning from others. And also collaborating so that you can get a lot of referrals from building a network around the world. Somebody who is interested in high [touch] services.
If you actually want to see what a culture feels like, come and hang out with us for a week. It’s extraordinary.
Inman: If I were to come hang out, what would I see?
Umansky: It’s a feeling. It’s that friendship. It’s that openness. The people rooting for each other to succeed.
When you see something negative happen in the world, whether it be a fire or an earthquake or something like that, we come together to help. With what just happened in Spain, we came together to help our counterparts there.
Inman: Are you talking about the flooding in Spain specifically? What did you guys do? I can’t remember if I heard about that.
Umansky: Well, you wouldn’t have heard about it because we don’t necessarily talk about it. But we just all came together and raised some money and sent it over there.
Inman: How big are you in Spain?
We have offices currently in Marbella, Mallorca, Costa Palma del Norte. I believe we just opened Barcelona and we’re about to open Madrid.
Inman: You guys have expanded rapidly. What comes next in that effort?
Umansky: We’re building the brand in Florida right now. Florida has a huge new development component. We’re looking at South America, Brazil, Colombia.
I was just in Brazil. We’re in the middle of conversations for opening and expanding into the Middle East, which is extremely important. The economy in the Middle East is doing phenomenal. We’re just constantly following the money and following where everybody’s going so that we can service our clients.
Inman: Let me pivot back to the U.S. It has been a tumultuous year. What are you hearing from your agents regarding the commission lawsuits?
Umansky: There’s a tremendous amount of confusion. There’s a tremendous amount of education that’s having to take place. There’s a lot of anger in the industry right now.
Not only has it been a difficult time in terms of transaction volume, but also brokers are upset with the way that NAR has handled a lot of different things, whether it has to do with the settlement and [having] left the big brokers to pay big bills. Agents are upset.
There’s a tremendous amount of conversations about the Clear Cooperation Policy. There are great things about it, and there are terrible things about it. But at the end of the day, you have a monopolistic situation where people are forcing you to do something versus allowing competition to exist. I predict that in the next 12 to 24 months, you’re going to see a lot of changes in the real estate world.
Inman: Talk to me about what you’re seeing regarding commissions right now in the wake of the litigation and settlements.
Umansky: It’s still a little bit early, but it seems right off the bat that they are actually going up a little bit, not going down. People are able to negotiate only one side of a commission now instead of two sides. I think it depends on who the agent is and how good a negotiator they are. But at The Agency, we feel like we’re seeing them go up.
Inman: You’re involved in the American Real Estate Association, and you mentioned some anger toward NAR. Do you think NAR is toast?
Umansky: I don’t think NAR is toast. I think there’s a world where NAR exists. I just think that NAR exists at will. I think that NAR still has a lot to go through. My prediction is that there’s still going to be a lot of stuff uncovered, stuff that they’ve been doing over the years that is not kosher. I think that NAR is open to other lawsuits.
I don’t think they’re toast. I think they have the ability to stay alive and do great things for our industry. I think they just need to change their politics. When you’ve been protected for 100-plus years and you’ve been able to do whatever you want, you’re going to have a lot to clean up.
Inman: How are you guys doing with the American Real Estate Association? What’s membership and interest like?
It’s growing every day. It’s growing slowly. It’s a difficult thing to do, to build market share and power and get enough money. But it’s definitely growing.
I don’t know exactly what we’re up to right now. It’s 5,000 members, plus or minus. We’re talking to somebody right now that might be bringing in 85,000 members, which would be an extraordinary get. If we can get into that 100,000-member situation, then we would be a real association, able to start really having an important say.
Inman: You said 85,000? That’s almost exactly eXp’s agent count. Is it eXp?
Umansky: It is not eXp. It’s not a broker. It’s a coalition.
Inman: What’s the end game for the American Real Estate Association?
I think lobbying and advocating is super important. I think teaching in university is probably the most important thing for us. I’d like to be able to work with the local Realtors associations, particularly the state associations, help make them stronger.
We’d like to lobby to make licensing a little bit more difficult. We think obtaining a real estate license is way too easy. It’s an important investment in most people’s cases. I’d like to lift the quality of the real estate agent.
Inman: Let me circle back to recruiting. Does your leadership and advocacy come up as you guys talk to potential recruits?
Umansky: Yeah. I think there’s definitely an attraction for people who come to the agency because of that. There’s probably also a bunch of people that stay away from the agency because of that. So I would say there’s probably a little bit of both.
I’ve said this a thousand times. In order to be great, you have to dare to be bad. If you want to just be good to everybody and vanilla, you’re going to be just that; you’re going to be mediocre. So Walmart dares to deliver the best prices on the planet, but they deliver the worst customer service on the planet. But people don’t go to them to get customer service. They go to get the best pricing.
Inman: What’s The Agency version of that? You guys are great in what area, at the cost of what?
Umansky: We are a boutique firm, and we dare to do that. Therefore we’re not going to have 20, 30, 40, 50,000 agents. It’s just not what we’re looking for.
We deliver high-touch, white-glove service, right? That comes at a cost. We’re not a discount broker. Our agents receive a tremendous amount of services from marketing, to PR, to tech, to listing presentations, to education. And so we may not be the highest commission split to agents. You want to get a hundred percent commission split, it’s not going to be at The Agency.
