Trends 2023: Real estate companies you should know about 

Editor's note: Since 2006, the Swanepoel Trends Report has provided in-depth research and analysis to help leaders understand the forces shaping residential real estate. This exclusive series of excerpts highlights each trend featured in the 2023 report.

Compelling Real Estate Companies: The residential real estate space is full of innovative companies who are betting on big ideas and leveraging technology and capital to serve brokers, agents and consumers in new ways. This excerpt takes a look at one of the seven featured companies, Place, which partners with real estate teams.

Place

Not a brokerage or a franchise, Place represents a new breed of brokerage operator who provides core services to real estate entrepreneurs. Founded in 2020 by Ben Kinney and Chris Suarez, entrepreneurs who had established real estate careers in the Keller Williams Realty ecosystem, the company develops deep partnerships with real estate teams by supplying core services, branding and support.

Teams can hang their license with any brokerage.

At a glance

• Year Founded: 2019

• Headquarters: Bellingham, WA

• No. of Team Partners: Over 400 teams

• 2021 Revenue/Profit: $150 million with $20 million profit

• Amount Raised: $100 million

• Valuation: $1 billion

• No. of Employees: 600

Overview

Place and the teams it partners with split the team's profits 50-50, and Place charges usage fees on every transaction. In return, the company provides deep operational support to its members including:

• Technology: an end-to-end technology stack and training for partners and their agents.

• Transaction management: full transaction management

• Finance: accounting, including monthly profit-and-loss

  statements, payroll and benefits

• Branding: brand support and digital advertising

• Recruiting: recruiting and hiring management

Agents who join a team in the Place network get access to more support based on their production. When they hit 25 units in any year, they receive employee-level health care from Place for that year and the year following. At higher production tiers, they start to receive stock options from the company, have the opportunity to be a coach, can take advantage of investment opportunities and the ability to operate a team within their team.

The company, which currently partners with over 400 teams throughout the US, has profit margin targets for each team of 30 percent. In 2021, Kinney shares that the average profit margin of a Place team was approximately 26 percent.

The company, which raised $100 million at a valuation of $1 billion in November 2021, has approximately 600 employees, and recently added experienced leaders to round out its C-Suite, including a chief marketing officer, a chief technology officer and a chief financial officer.

2023 + Future

In 2023, the company is looking to provide ancillary services to the consumers its partners serve, including through its in-house mortgage, BKCO Mortgage, and its title and escrow network.

Co-founder Kinney says the firm is focused on building a single technology platform to better serve Place consumers and increase attach rates for its ancillary services. It is also looking to help its teams improve their recruiting and retain 100 percent of its partners.

Digital and printed copies of the 2023 Swanepoel Trends Report are available for purchase at t3trends.com.