Pleasanton, CA— December 21, 2017 — NextHome is proud to announce our newest addition to the franchise, NextHome RARE Properties. The brokerage represents the 9th location opened in North Carolina for the NextHome franchise.
Based in Raleigh, the company will be owned and operated by business partners, Denise Zirker and Patty Topakian. NextHome RARE Properties will provide real estate services such as single family residential sales, first-time home buyers, land sales, relocation, veteran purchases, and new construction sales to the areas of Raleigh, Wake Forest, Cary, Garner, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, Durham and the remainder of the greater Raleigh metropolitan area – known as the “Triangle Area”.
The city of Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina and home to nearly 500,000 people. As one of the fastest growing cities in the United States, the population increases to nearly 1.75 million residents when counting all of the greater Raleigh Metropolitan area.
The partners met while working at a local Coldwell Banker brokerage in Raleigh. Both Zirker and Topakian started at about the same time as new agents in 2009. Seeing each other often, they admired each other’s work ethic and business acumen.
Both Zirker and Topakian worked as individual agents, but wanted to partner together as a team. In 2011, they left the brokerage to open their own company, Raleigh Area Real Estate Properties also known as RARE Properties.
“Leaving to go out on our own was definitely a leap of faith by two people who were only in real estate for two years,” recalls Topakian. “But with the support of our families and with the commitment from the community to having us represent them for their real estate needs, it was the best thing we could have ever done.”
Their brokerage would call each of their listings a “RARE Property”, providing a standard level of service not typically seen in their market.
“Every listing from our brokerage was a RARE Property,” said Zirker. “That meant it had nothing to do with size or price, but rather how we marketed the home. We focused on making sure the home had buyer traffic both online and in person. The high level of service and marketing was a commitment we gave to every one of our clients and stood by that promise.”
Investing heavily in lead generation and listing marketing, Zirker and Topakian saw a huge swing upwards in business. However, they noticed that business was not growing because of purchasing leads, but rather because of relationships with past clients and current clients and the referrals that came with it.
That referral-based way of doing business attracted like-minded agents to the company, which in 2016 grew to 12 agents and over $22 million in sales.
In the spring of 2017, Zirker and Topakian wanted to improve services and tools to offer their agents. It was at that time they found the NextHome franchise.
“We had an agent leave our brokerage which made us reevaluate our business model,” said Zirker. “When we looked at how we could be more supportive for our agents, we had no intention of affiliating with a franchise. But after speaking with (NextHome’s Vice President of Sales) Charis Moreno, I felt so comfortable with joining NextHome.”
“Patty had left the country for vacation when I found NextHome,” recalls Zirker. “I wanted to make a compelling argument for us joining NextHome. So, I worked with my husband in creating a spreadsheet for the pros and cons to be able to show Patty when she returned.”
“After seeing what NextHome could do for our brokerage, it was a no brainer,” added Topakian. “We were going to be NextHome RARE Properties.”
“Since joining NextHome, we have added four talented agents,” said Topakian. “We are fortunate to have such dedicated, hard-working agents who trust us and our decision to join the franchise. Our agents have loved the support by the Member Services team.”
Please join us in congratulating Denise, Patty and the rest of the team at NextHome RARE Properties on the opening of their brand new NextHome office in Raleigh, NC!
Interested in being a part of the NextHome Real Estate Franchise? Contact VP of Sales Charis Moreno at Charis@NextHome.com.
Each office is an independently owned and operated business.