Lexington, KY - In November of 2007 Becky Reinhold, Steve Klein and M. Riley Kirn started musing about joining forces in the real estate industry. This musing led to the 14-month process of opening Bluegrass Sotheby's International Realty, with a veritable all-star team local realtors making up the 23-agent staff.
"When we put the company together, we thought if we had an exceptional brand and an exceptional team of agents, that they would play off of each other and that has happened," said Kirn, the agency's vice president and operations manager.
Reinhold, Klein and Kirn all serve as vice presidents running the local Sotheby's agency as a triumvirate. Reinhold said they considered using their established names to start a local independent agency, but ultimately decided a brand like Sotheby's and the corporate infrastructure already in place would make the agency stronger.
"With the 2010 [Alltech FEI World Equestrian] Games, most of those folks that will be coming in will know of Sotheby's. They won't know Klein, Reinhold, but they'll know that brand because that brand is probably in the country they are coming from," Klein said about their decision to go with an established company name rather than going it alone.
Sotheby's International Realty started initially in the 1970s for independent brokers to band together in the sale of luxury properties. In 2004, it came under the umbrella of Realogy, the parent company of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, Century 21 and Coldwell Banker. Realogy licenses the Sotheby's name from the famed London auction house.
While franchised through a realty corporation with franchisees of other subsidiaries long established in the Lexington market, Kirn said the philosophy of treating clients with the "white glove" that must be attached to the Sotheby's name makes them distinct.
"It's not necessarily specific to the level of price," Klein said. "It's always specific to the level of service." The agency's 250 initial listings ranged in price from under $70,000 to more than $1.5 million.
In order to have that many listings within its first few weeks of existence, Reinhold, Klein and Kirn had to assemble a veteran crew currently operating in Lexington. Reinhold said the stable of 23 agents has 350 years experience between them. It was a major process for each of the agents to leave their previous broker and come to the new company, she said.
"Most of them have been extremely gracious and extremely professional," Kirn said about brokers at other agencies who lost agents and listings to Bluegrass Sotheby's International Realty. "I cannot reiterate enough: the people that have spoken to me have handled themselves with the utmost professionalism."
Sotheby's agents include Bridgett Collier, Mina Mattone, Betty Jo Palmer, Carolyn Wheeler and Linda Willson, along with a bevy of other long-time Lexington realtors. While the road to getting these agents and their listings transferred to the new company hasn't been entirely smooth, the Sotheby's management team said they had been prepared for it.
"The place I left, they were more than gracious. I had been there for more than 20 years and they have been more than gracious to all of us," Klein said. "They didn't have a problem with releasing the listings." This can be done when a realtor changes brokers and the seller decides whether or not to stick with their broker (who they often have little to no contact with) or their listing agent.
Kirn said the company could grow over time, but he doesn't expect the agency, which considers Central Kentucky its territory, will house more than 35 agents at any one time.
The current economic climate might not be the best in which to start a new company, Kirn said, but the three did not let the downturn change their plans. "If you try to time the start of a business to the day of the economy, you'll never get it right, no one will," Kirn said.
Despite the slowdown in the national housing market and the economy as a whole, Klein said he expects to see a good year for his new company. "We look for '09 to not be a banner year, but a very good year," he said.