Top agents at Bradfield leave to form own firm
San Antonio Business Journal - by Megan Kamerick
Five of the top producers from the city's largest residential real estate group, Bradfield Properties Inc., have left the firm and formed a new company called the Legacy Group.
M. Joy Exiner, Nancy Fulk, Steven Gragg, Janis Morgan and Jerri Smallwood from Bradfield are partners in the new company, along with Barbara Zoller, who joined Legacy from Keller Williams Realty.
Legacy will operate as a division of Keller Williams, a national real estate company founded in Austin in 1984 that also has a major local presence.
Smallwood has consistently been the top producer for Bradfield, according to Business Journal research. Smallwood and Fulk rank 6th and 16th, respectively, among residential real estate agents citywide based on 1997 closed residential home sales, Business Journal research shows. Morgan ranks 31st.
The partners are planning to attract other top agents to the firm by offering enhanced benefits, such as profit-sharing and training. This was one of the biggest attractions in forming the firm and affiliating with Keller Williams, Morgan says.
"These benefits provide an opportunity for Realtors who would like to have a residual income while building their real estate career to the highest level of productivity," says Mark Willis, regional director of Keller Williams. "This was a real meeting of the minds and a match in goals. We're really a training and consulting company thinly disguised as a real estate franchise."
Among the benefits is a profit-sharing plan that involves Keller Williams sharing up to 50 percent of its profits with its associates.
"This provides them with leveraged residual income opportunities that will survive their real estate sales careers," Willis says.
Keller Williams also offers business consulting and systems that have models for recruiting, decision-making, consulting, team building, training and productivity. These benefits, combined with access to the Keller Williams network, made the idea of starting a new real estate office affiliated with the larger group attractive, say the Legacy partners.
Keller Williams expanded its presence significantly in San Antonio last year when it acquired Howell Properties and the San Antonio operations of Network 100 Real Estate. The firm has offices in 14 states and is the top residential real estate firm in Austin. In San Antonio it has about 200 associates, Willis says. It reported $169 million in funded residential sales for 1997, according to Business Journal research.
Legacy Group has other Realtors coming on-board, says Exiner; she declined to name them until they join Legacy officially. The partners say they are only looking for top producers.
"We want professional, ethical people who are experienced and know the market," Exiner says.
The group has been discussing the possibility of forming their own firm since last spring, say Smallwood and Fulk.
"Our goal was to have an office of top-producing and experienced agents," Fulk says.
The partners say they think they can fill a niche in San Antonio that other agents have not been able to address. Smallwood and Joyce Bradfield both say the agents' departure was amicable.
"I'm very disappointed and we will miss them very much," says Bradfield, president and one of the owners of Bradfield Properties. "They've been a big part of our company. We wish them well. Besides working with them, they were also good friends."
Bradfield is optimistic that despite their departure, her firm will retain its dominant position in the local market.
"In consoling our office, I said the world doesn't come to an end. People come and go and we have to live with what happens to us," she says. "Take their volume off the top of our volume and we're still number one."
Bradfield, the largest residential real estate brokerage in San Antonio based on Business Journal research, reported funded residential sales of $357 million for 1997.
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