FOR BROKERS: Companies to Watch
BY ROBERT FREEDMAN
Selling a bit of history
Niche broker connects buyers with antique homes.
David Deysher and his wife spent years looking for just the right antique house to buy. They found it a little more than a decade ago in Wilton, N.H.
Today that 1772, 12-room house is the headquarters of Historic & Distinctive Properties of New England, and Deysher is the company’s selling broker. With the help of five associates, his company is on track to close about 15 deals this year in the highly specialized historic homes market.
“My wife and I spent so much time looking, and I acquired so much knowledge about antique properties, that I wanted to stay involved in the market,” says Deysher, who earned his license shortly after buying his house. He worked under the Historic & Distinctive Properties banner for almost 10 years before buying the business and moving it into his house.
All of Historic’s associates, like Deysher himself, are part-time, each closing about three to four deals a year. The company counts as its market the entire southern half of the state.
To position his company for growth without compromising its identity as a niche player, Deysher gives his associates flexibility to list homes other than antiques if they’re bona fide distinctive homes. That means any non-tract homes built before 1940 as well as historic reproductions—contemporary homes that follow historic design standards and in some cases contain genuine period components.
“At any one time, historic homes account for only about 8 percent of statewide listings, so I wanted to give our associates the flexibility to work other parts of the market,” he says.
Despite the limited number of deals, the workload is considerable. Buyers tend to browse historic homes until they find just the right one. “I’ve shown buyers [as many as] 40 different houses in dozens of different towns,” says Deysher. “When buyers find their house, they know. The house talks to them. It’s an entirely emotional connection.”
The payoff can be great, though. Prices in Deysher’s niche trend considerably higher than prices for conventional houses. A historic home can run more than $1 million in a market where the typical house might cost less than $300,000.
Commissions are typically split between the brokerage and the sales associate 50-50 for the first deal of the year. The split moves up from there based on volume, peaking at about 75 percent for the associate.
For 2007 Deysher wants to bring on board another four or five associates to work the northern half of the state and the New Hampshire seacoast. But he must be selective. “Recruits must understand historic properties thoroughly,” he says, meaning, among other things, they must be able to place a house in its proper historic period. He can train them in real estate sales. “I had one owner who insisted his house was from 1776, but I could tell by the width of the floorboards and the absence of fireplaces that the house was built no earlier than the 1830s,” he says.
How do you acquire that kind of knowledge? “You start with a passion for these houses,” he says. The knowledge you gain from reading books and other resources on historic properties and talking to people about them flows from that.
Historic & Distinctive Properties of New England
www.historicprop.com
