Welcome to RE/MAX Platinum Online, the future of real estate sales

RE/MAX Platinum is poised to go where no real estate firm has gone before, which is full-tilt into the digital age with a new website featuring information, trend stories, personality profiles and agent blogs.

The new site — Platinum Online — is unlike any other real estate website. Rather than just a place for customers to get mortgage rates and view listings, the site will serve as a clearinghouse and virtual place for anyone wanting to network, share information, meet people, ask questions and get answers, and gain perspective about all things real estate.

As social media site Facebook explodes, and information gets transmitted instantaneously via Twitter, Joe DeKroub, the principal owner of RE/MAX Platinum, sees great energy and potential in cyberspace.

“It’s like a cocktail party,” he said. “It’s a place to get information, not to sell inventory. It’s a place to socialize, and ask and answer questions.”

The new website, which has been under development for several months, will bring together customers, agents and information in an effort to serve and generate sales leads.

“When you go into the Internet world and type in ‘Livingston County real estate,’ you get these third-party relocation companies that just sell us back their leads,” DeKroub explained. “They’re not in the real estate business. They’re just using technology. We’re giving all that business away to these companies because we’re not Internet-savvy; it’s high time we get that way.

“We don’t want to compete with our agents. We want to use the Internet to engage with our clients, to be informational and to do some institutional-type advertising.”

The idea is a novel one, a fresh approach characteristic of the new and innovative RE/MAX Platinum office, which was created in the fall of 2008 through the merger of Michigan Group Realtors and RE/MAX Platinum. Challenging economic conditions made the merger a wise business move. Consolidating the services of the community’s two largest realty companies made sense and created a real estate powerhouse that could increase services to its customers at a time when others were cutting.

At the time of the merger, the Michigan Group, owned by DeKroub, was the largest single-site real estate company in the state. It merged with the RE/MAX Platinum office, owned by Dan Callan and Will Steinmetz, which was the other major real estate player in the area.

DeKroub took a 55 percent ownership stake in the RE/MAX Platinum office, which was ranked 16th in the “Crain’s Book of Lists” with 2007 revenue of $149 million. When the merger was complete, the Michigan Group name was dissolved and the new RE/MAX Platinum office emerged with more than 150 licensed sales associates serving Livingston, Genesee, Oakland and Washtenaw counties, and dominating the local market with a jaw-dropping market share of nearly 34 percent.

“There is strength in numbers and the sharing of resources,” DeKroub said.

In order to continue its market dominance, RE/MAX Platinum looks to develop a strong, quality Internet presence.

“We’re heading into the future,” said Dan Callan. “We have to be using all the latest tools and technology in business these days, and it’s especially important in the real estate business. We have to expand our exposure through any way possible.”

By combining traditional information, social media and blogs, the new website will do just that.

“It’s another way to improve services for clients,” Callan said. “These days, we have to have more value without adding any additional costs. Our agents are really our customers, and if we can’t keep the agents happy and productive, we can’t do as much business.”

In the current economic climate, the real estate business is finding itself in a precarious position. Incomes are shrinking, but prices for just about everything else are increasing. Agents need to maintain their listings, and buyers are taking longer to make decisions. With short sales and foreclosures, more back office work is required than ever before.

“Transactions have become very cumbersome,” Callan said. “And labor intensiveness on the back end adds costs. Our fees go down (with lower home sales prices), but our costs increase.”

The goal is simple: “What we have to do now is become great at doing huge numbers,” Callan said. “We have to be able to process a whole lot more information, so our back office has to be great.”

At RE/MAX Platinum, everything agents and customers need to buy and sell real estate is available in-house, from companies for mortgages and title work to resident experts on short sales and foreclosures. The company has also made a huge commitment to using the new tools that digital technology offers, with an IT director on site.

Callan recently got involved with Facebook; within a week on the site he had reconnected with a grade-school classmate who proceeded to list a house with him.

“It’s amazing how much business is there,” Callan said. “And in such a short amount of time. (Potential customers) think of you if they have that kind of connection with you.”