Focus – Small Realty Firms Fight for Visibility

They are weekly bookends on the local classified pages, grabbing much of the space in between, too.

rThe large display advertisements come from the large real estate companies and their large advertising budgets. The ‘spend money to make money’ theory is never more prevalent.

rSo how does a small realty office in Northwest Arkansas survive against the likes of a Harris McHaney Shearin Realtors, a Coldwell Banker Faucette Real estate or a Lindsey & Associates and their 100-plus agents scattered across Washington and Benton counties?

rSome say it takes that extra effort to stay afloat. Others say keeping things in perspective is the key.

rDavid Mix left Lindsey 11 years ago to start Dykes Bassett Mix and Associates Inc. with B.W. Dykes and Mary Bassett. It wasn’t easy, but today the business is the fifth largest real estate agency in Northwest Arkansas, including having four of the top 13 producing agents in 1999. Mix was the No. 2 agent in the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s rankings for 1999, ranking below only Meza Harris from Lindsey’s Rogers office.

r”We worked our butts off the first three or four years,” said Mix, now the company’s president.

r”We worked a lot of hours and made a lot of phone calls. Not that we don’t work a lot today, but back then there were some long hours.”

rDykes Bassett Mix began with six agents. Today the company has 30 agents, 16 of whom were million dollar producers in 1999.

rPruden and Associates Inc. of Springdale has maintained its modest business on Emma Avenue for more than 20 years. Jim Pruden said his company has sold to the same families for three generations.

r”Our business just comes to us,” Pruden said. “We are very well established. Most all of our business is repeat or referral.”

rIt’s not just clients agencies fight for, but also new realtors.

rLisa Biggs, of the Metro Area Board of Realtors in Springdale, said the smaller agencies have several attractive advantages for a realtor looking for an agency.

r”The benefit of a small one is you don’t have the competition you have in the larger ones,” Biggs said. “At some larger ones you have people inside the company competing with each other. When you only have one, two, or three agents in the office, you just don’t have that. A lot of people in smaller offices don’t even think about going to the big ones just for that reason.”

rAlso, smaller agencies don’t have as many in-office fees. They pay their realtor dues and nothing also.

rSmaller agencies understand they can’t fight for name recognition with the larger ones. A company such as Lindsey & Associates will have a two-page ad with dozens of photos of homes, short biographies on selected agents, names, pictures and phone numbers of every agent and a Web site address.

rSmaller agencies are pressed to get a small ad in a corner at the bottom of a page.

r”You have to spend money to get your name out there,” Mix said. “There is a lot of expense up front you have to assume to make things happen. You have to bite the bullet, though. It is a big risk. Smaller companies don’t have as much overhead as say us or someone like Lindsey. I know ours is pretty high.”

rGrammer-Mayes Realty of Springdale has been in business for 50 years, but Maxine Grammer said the company survives because she and her husband, Gary, work on other things besides selling real estate.

rMix said an agent’s success, regardless of the size of the agency he or she works for, depends on personal contacts.

r”Mary and I were both raised here in Fayetteville, so we knew a lot of people,” Mix said. “That helped us a lot getting started.”