FOR MANAGERS: Companies to Watch

Intero Real Estate Services
San Jose, Calif.
www.interorealestate.com

David and Goliath

Former NRT exec takes on real estate’s biggest brokerage.

Nowhere has consolidation in residential real estate been more pronounced than in Northern California. A half-dozen years ago, the area was flush with strong, independent brokerages—Cornish & Carey, Contempo Realty, and Jon Douglas Co., to name a few. But one by one, these companies joined NRT, the Cendant-owned brokerage company that sits astride residential real estate like a colossus.

Now, with a five-year noncompetition contract clause expired, Gino Blefari, a former senior vice president with NRT, is challenging his former company in its Northern California stronghold with the launch late last year of Intero Real Estate Services.

In very short order, the company has grown into a big player in its market. Its first office, in the Silicon Valley community of Morgan Hill, 12 miles southeast of San Jose, topped the local sales charts just three months after opening its doors. It garnered about $250 million in sales volume in more than 400 transaction sides for the fourth quarter of 2002, according to MLS information provided by Intero. In the same time period, the nearest competing office closed about $150 million in about 275 transaction sides, Intero says.

“I know it sounds ambitious, but I want to create the greatest residential real estate company ever,” says Blefari.

The former partner of Contempo Realty is off to a strong start. Since opening Intero’s Morgan Hill office in October 2002, with more than 40 associates drawn from his former brokerage, Blefari has grown the company to more than 160 associates in six offices throughout Silicon Valley. Blefari’s goal is to make Intero 400-strong before the end of 2003. Interesting aside: The Morgan Hill office is managed by Kevin Moles, brother of Cendant Real Estate Franchise Group CEO Bob Moles.

What’s behind the growth? The key, Blefari believes, is embedded in the name Intero, which means “whole” in Italian. His holistic approach means making associates’ personal growth one of the company’s top goals. “For associates to serve their customers well, they need to have a broker who helps them keep their lives in balance,” he says.

They also need a strong sense of ethics. “Early on we had an associate who tried to steal a customer from an associate with another company,” Blefari says. “Once we learned about the incident and confirmed it with the customer, we let the person go.”

To help associates keep their financial lives in balance, the company is setting up a system to help them pay their taxes and save for retirement. “Real estate people have a hard time planning for their taxes and their retirement, so we’ll deposit a portion of their commissions into accounts that take care of these things for them.”

Backed by start-up capital from the Mercury Companies in Lakewood, Colo., Intero has built a 39-person executive suite that includes an education manager, who’s putting into place an accredited licensing curriculum.

This isn’t the executive suite of a company that plans to stay small for long. Says Blefari: “We’ve set up the infrastructure we need to handle growth into the long term.”