Editor’s Note: RISMedia recently released its 2023 Top 1,000 Power Brokers, exclusively for RISMedia Premier Members. In this special interview series, we talk to some of our top-ranking brokers to garner their insights and strategies for sustaining their firms’ success. For more information, click here.
Whether his firm is navigating the highest market surges, softer, shifting markets like today, or anything in between, United Real Estate President and CEO Rick Haase says there is one throughline that remains the company’s greatest asset through it all: its people.
Haase lauds his team for their “commitment to growing this company and the mission of improving the financial trajectory of our agents’ careers and lives.” By all accounts it’s working, as year over year, from company expansions into new territories to partnerships and rollout of its Bullseye™ Agent Productivity Platform, the company has seen a rise in its sales volume ranking on our Power Broker Report from No. 318 in 2019 all the way to No 9 this year, with nearly $21 Billion in total sales, a 31.7% increase over the previous year.
Here, Haase shares insights into the value of his team’s dedication and why that’s important especially now, and how the company is poised to continue delivering the best financial results possible to their agents and brokers, no matter the market.
United Real Estate
No. 9 Sales Volume
No. 6 Transactions
Rick Haase
President & CEO
What was the biggest contributor – positive and/or negative – to United’s results in 2022?
Our greatest asset, whether in a surging market (as we have had for the past five years, including the pandemic) or in a softer market like we are seeing today, has been and will always be our people. Their commitment to growing this company and the mission of improving the financial trajectory of our agents’ careers and lives is astounding. There exists a hands-on, practical commitment to sharing ideas and supporting one another. It is like nothing I have ever seen. This is even more important as the market continues to shift toward a more historical norm, and we learn from each other how to adapt.
What is the most significant change the company is making this year to ensure success in a shifting market?
Not sure I can say it’s a change, but we run on the principles of lean operations management. This assures that we operate a system of activities and processes that deliver hugely valuable end results for our brokers and agents. We eliminate anything that doesn’t provide results or drive success for our agents and customers. We are, therefore, not encumbered by operational weight and cost of ineffective legacy systems. This, in turn, allows us to keep delivering the greatest financial results possible to our agents and brokers.