Within the first four years of operation, the company scooped an award in the INC 5000 for being the fastest-growing real estate brokerage in America. Making it in the INC 5000 list, especially being at the top of the list for the real estate brokerage category requires more than working hard and it is a dream of many companies.
The following are some of the factors that have led to the fast growth of the company:
Most of the brokerage companies are based locally. Some agents specialize in an asset type, e.g. multi-family retail. Still, some agents specialize in a particular neighborhood. For Welfont, they decided not to specialize locally like the majority of real estate brokerages. They chose to be national from the beginning.
The company also decided not to specialize in asset type or asset quality. They mainly chose to focus on meeting the needs of a particular segment.
Even though Welfont is a private for-profit company, their primary target is to serve the non-profit clients because most of the real estate brokerages don’t serve this market well. The company had to learn the particular needs of their clients and where they needed help, and they began to help them with every asset type, of every quality, in every market.
For Welfont and its clients, it doesn’t matter where the property is located, whether in Alaska or Florida, in rural or a booming metropolis. This is not typical with the traditional brokerages, this in itself makes Welfont a unique company.
The company offers full turnkey corporate services for the non-profit buyer, from marketing them as a buyer to a common agent presentation. Services like asset management, underwriting, and even finance are unique to the nonprofit clients. Welfont does not just offer one service like many companies; they provide a whole package of services to their unique targeted clients.
One thing that makes Welfont stand out from the rest of the real estate brokerages is that they are a performance-based shop. They spend a lot of time and money to position the ideal properties for them, and to satisfy the seller needs. All expenses on any deal that doesn’t push through are carried by Welfont. Welfont only gets paid if the client makes money, this makes the company align itself appropriately to its clients whom they share mutual goals with.
The company developed a unique financing market that has never been around before. They used this strategy to help non-profits with the financing. A majority of non-profits have a tight budget and are nervous when it comes to investing in real estate. And since it becomes hard for the non-profits to invest in real estate, Welfont has created a market with the non-recourse loans that are specifically tailored to the non-profits markets.
Welfont CEO Shawn Marcell believes, “By giving the nervous non-profit buyer a tremendous amount of value, Welfont earns strong loyalty and repeat business throughout the year.”
With revenues of over $14 million in 2017, Welfont had over 11,000% growth in three years. It was the top fastest-growing company among all real estate brokerage firms in the US and the 16th overall fastest-growing company!
“It’s a team effort and we wouldn’t be here without the high quality level of professionalism and entrepreneurship our entire team embodies,” adds the company CEO, Shawn Marcell.
