Randy Rector
CEO
HomeSmart Evergreen Realty
Irvine, California
https://homesmart.com/franchise/hs0019
Regions served: Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties
Years in real estate: 21
Number of offices: 9
Number of agents: 1,000-plus
Who has most influenced your success: My parents, who instilled in me a strong work ethic
The brokerage recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. What would you point to as the biggest factor in its growth?
Our people. Whether it’s a 50-person brokerage or 1,000-person brokerage, once you get to a point where you can’t handle it on your own, you have to have great people—and we’ve been blessed in that regard. In fact, most of our employees have been with us eight to 10 years, on average, with several in the 15- to 20-year range, and our broker of record Lisa Schulz is at 25-plus. With that longevity comes the opportunity to build synergies across the organization. If the messaging remains consistent, and everyone is aligned, you’ll find that you don’t have cracks in the system where you’re constantly bringing in new employees and having to indoctrinate them into the culture.
Your mother, Tina Rector, founded the brokerage in 1996 and built it with a vision that eventually led to becoming a HomeSmart franchise. What do you think she’s most proud of when she looks at the company today?
Having retired from the day-to-day operations nearly 10 to 15 years ago, I would say she is most proud of the fact that her business is thriving. While my mom was introducing the flat-fee model in Orange County, HomeSmart Founder and CEO Matt Widdows was doing the same thing in Scottsdale—and after meeting at a National Association of Realtors® event, they decided to join forces. One of the main reasons we became a HomeSmart franchisee was because of the systems that were in place. The back office system HomeSmart has is absolutely incredible, and coming together has allowed us to scale in no time because the system did a lot of the work. The system is the key in the back office, and they’ve done a phenomenal job on that.
How has aligning with HomeSmart helped you take your brokerage to the next level?
Their management team has been a huge benefit when it comes to iron sharpening iron at the executive level. Having a nationwide group of folks that will jump on a call to discuss what’s going on in their respective markets has also helped us grow. There are so many leaders out there with fantastic ideas, and being able to pick their brains has been a key piece of the puzzle when it comes to growing the brokerage to the next level. The collaboration isn’t something I expected, but it has proven to be absolutely amazing. When you get us in the same room, it doesn’t take long for the shields to come down because we all know that when we’re at our most vulnerable, we’re going to learn so much more together.
What can agents expect when they join HomeSmart Evergreen Realty?
Support. And while that’s often a throwaway term because everyone says they offer it, what I mean by that is our Broker Services department. If you want to talk about what makes us stand out, I’ll argue with anybody that it’s because of that department alone. While we have great accounting, IT and all that other fun stuff, this is the one thing that touches the agents. The flat fees are great because of the success in what my mom created, but the concept has been copied across the industry, so the question becomes can you support it at the level we can?
For more information, please visit https://homesmart.com.
