Expert Realty, a Florida real estate company launched in 2005, has expanded its relationship to provide a range of services to The Keyes Co. Inc., a South Florida real estate brokerage company that got its start in 1926.
Founded by Glenn Cohen as a discount brokerage company in 2005, Expert Realty changed its business model in 2006 to focus on search-engine optimization, lead generation and conversion, and other outsourced real estate business processes.
Cohen earlier created YHD.com, a discount real estate company that became the U.S. real estate operations of Foxtons, a real estate company based in London, England. Foxtons bought out Cohen in March 2004 and its U.S. operations fizzled in bankruptcy proceedings in 2007.
Expert Realty has provided some business services to The Keyes Co., which has about 1,500 agents and 30 offices, for about a year.
The expanded relationship includes the launch of a new Keyes Web site at ExpertRealty.com and the planned launch of HomeBase, a Web-based customer relations management software package for Keyes agents and brokers.
Cohen said that Expert Realty is also planning to redesign the Keyes.com corporate Web site and its agent Web sites.
While Expert Realty still maintains a brokerage license, the company is not active in the business of brokerage, Cohen said. Likewise, the affiliated title and loan companies that Expert Realty had established are no longer active, he said. …CONTINUED
"What differentiates us: We have local content and … local architecture that promotes search-engine optimization," he said.
The company has developed property-search landing pages that receive high rankings in Google searches, for example, that display properties and surrounding amenities on an interactive map and provide for one-click property searches.
"They key is business-process outsourcing. We’re doing for the brokers what they haven’t even attempted because it wasn’t a typical broker function," Cohen said.
The Keyes search site at ExpertRealty.com advertises more than 68,800 property listings in South Florida, and the site offers information on schools and other community amenities, such as local parks and restaurants.
Expert Realty operates a call center through which it communicates with prospective Keyes clients and assigns agents to work with those consumers.
"We train the agents on exactly how to convert that lead," Cohen said. "We develop relationships with buyers and sellers. We have a training that mirrors and matches the lead type." Call center staff arrange property showings with agents using a CRM system.
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