Above, Eric Gallus and Jillian Young
When one of the industry’s most successful regional brokerages joins forces with one of the biggest and most forward-thinking national real estate networks, it’s the purest definition of win-win. And that is precisely what occurred with the recent partnership of Premiere Plus Realty (PPR), the Naples-based, No. 2 market-share leader in Southwest Florida, and United Real Estate, the eighth largest real estate brokerage in the nation based on transactions, according to RISMedia’s 2024 Power Broker Report.
By expanding its tools and service offerings, PPR increases its value to agents and clients tremendously while maintaining its company name and culture. For United, the addition provides further growth through an elite new family member.
With 1,500 agents serving Southwest Florida and business booming, PPR Owner Eric Gallus felt it was the right time to go with United.
“We’ve done this for over 20 years, and it’s not how do we continue with what we do, but how to do it better,” he says. “There definitely comes the possibility of a plateau in this business with the low-fee, high-commission model company that we operate. By affiliating with United, we can continue to excel in our market and also be alongside extremely smart leadership that carries and projects the same vision to their agents and families that we desire for ours.”
Indeed, United, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, offers a host of services, such as LeadBoost (the company’s lead generation platform), Financial Wellness Programs, referral and relocation network and training and consulting for brokerage leaders, which can help increase agents’ production and revenue. PPR produced over $3.29 billion in annual sales volume and 5,004 transaction sides in 2023, and is expecting even more.
Gallus noted that PPR has very specific growth targets to meet in the next few years.
“We have goals to continue to be a top brokerage in Florida and in the top position of the local markets we serve,” he says. “We want to continue to be a place where agents are comfortable and can thrive in their business, individually or on a team platform. We want to be the brokerage where teams can excel in our model without having to go it on their own.”
Jillian Young, PPR’s president, expanded on that point.
“Specifically, we’re driving increases in our production per agent, and we would do that through United’s host of services, like their new lead-boost platform that has an incredible engine behind it,” she says. “We’re excited about their referral and relocation network as a means of increasing our agents’ success and our ability to have more referral transactions.
“We also believe that as a state and national leader, we’ll have better sales training and better wisdom for our agents to increase their business success. We have a goal to hit a certain market share by transaction count, and with the United leadership’s consulting on process improvement, we’ll get there much faster and more efficiently. They have wonderful tools and services and their business consulting and leadership is where we’ve already gained more value than we expected.”
Other United benefits and resources new to PPR include Learning Academy, Financial Wellness, United Referral Network and United Real Estate Group Healthcare and LeadBoost.
“Those are things that we could not offer before without changing something within the brokerage,” says Gallus. “So now our agents can continue to not only thrive in their business but also provide a better environment for their families, financially and health-wise. It’s a huge benefit for them.”
PPR strengthens United’s presence to nearly 5,000 real estate professionals across the state of Florida and over 23,000 professionals in the U.S. The move also expands United’s Specialty Properties Group portfolio, a collection of websites featuring luxury properties, golf properties, gated communities, waterfront properties and condominium property types at Lifestyle.UnitedRealEstate.com.
Going national, but staying local
It was an important change for PPR agents when they were told that the company was to become part of United. Young admits that while there might have been initial trepidations, once everyone learned about the benefits with no downside, it was a natural fit.
“We always lead with ‘nothing is changing; this is only an additive experience for you,’” she explains. “What’s wonderful about the affiliation with United is we’re not passing any more cost onto agents because United has been very generous and willing to offer more value than we could have imagined. So with our agents, we said we’re not leaving, your leadership is staying the same, your fees are the same, we’re still independently owned and we’re still operating the same way. Now our agents have a host of new tools and services, and their leaders are going to get better so that we can make the company better. Not one agent was upset, not one agent has felt the need to leave. It’s been an extremely positive experience.”
PPR partnering with United was a natural fit, but as Gallus points out, his brokerage wasn’t about to do what it did unless everything meshed seamlessly.
“Being in the business and going through downturns in the market, the challenges with everything from hurricanes to a global financial crisis, you look at your options when you hit a plateau and try to decide ‘how do we get above this?’” he says. “How do we navigate through this valley? How do we become better on the other side? We look at what other companies like ours are doing and what the national leaders are doing.
“Have we considered joining a national network before? Absolutely, but there was never an opportunity with the type of leadership like United’s and how they run their business. That was the stamp of approval, that we are going to be better by doing this alongside a company with the same core values, the same vision for what they want for their agents and the same model by keeping our costs down. The fear was that so much was going to change. But with this opportunity, there isn’t much change at all to the agent besides more benefits. And so it made sense.”
Young summed it up with a perspective gained from working at one successful company and what it takes to join with another to reach even greater heights.
“With any big change, especially when you’ve been doing business one way for so long, there’s a bit of apprehension as to how things will be received. We really like who we are,” she says. “We needed a new approach to reach our objectives, but we didn’t want to lose who we are and the fabric of what makes Premiere Plus such a wonderful place for our agents. So what I really appreciated about the United affiliation is that they said, ‘We like who you are. We’re not going to come in and make you change what you do.’ The only pressure we feel is to contribute to United’s success, because now we want our entire team to win.”
For more information, please visit https://www.unitedrealestate.com/.
