Pleasanton, CA — July 10, 2019 — NextHome Inc. is proud to announce the company’s 375th brokerage. Led by broker Billy Dekemel, NextHome Innovative Realty is now helping clients in the Slidell, Louisiana area find their perfect home. The NextHome Innovative Realty office is NextHome’s fifth brokerage in Louisiana.
Billy and his wife Melissa will lead the real estate team alongside a growing number of deep-rooted and experienced agents. NextHome Innovative Realty brings its expertise to clients in the Slidell, Covington, Mandeville, and Abita Springs areas. The brokerage will help clients with residential, commercial, and investment property purchases across the Orleans and Tangipahoa Parishes.
“We absolutely love living here because of Slidell’s family atmosphere,” said Billy, who has lived in Slidell since 1986. “It’s just a lot of great families and working people and that atmosphere is what attracted us to the area and the reason we’ve stayed here for so long.”
Although he has a decades-long career working for the St. Tammany Fire District No.1, Billy found a love for real estate early on. He purchased and managed two of his own rental properties and in 2008 he got his real estate license. So began a thriving career working for both boutique and national real estate firms in the Slidell area. In a matter of a few years, Billy was closing about 26 transactions per year and grew his annual sales volume from about $600,000 to more than $3 million. It wasn’t always easy though.
“I think the toughest thing starting out was to get your name out there and letting people know this is your career, not just a hobby,” Billy said of those early years. “The biggest struggle other than getting a client base was getting people knowing that you are in real estate and you are in it to stay.”
Billy’s persistence and dedication to his clients paid off. In 2017, Billy found himself working with RE/MAX where he handled $4.2 million in transactions with in 27 deals that year.
However, he needed to take his commitment to his clients to the next level. That’s when Billy found NextHome.
“It had that same family atmosphere that makes Slidell such a great place,” Billy said of his initial attraction to what NextHome had to offer. “People know your name. I’ve worked for big national companies where you very much seem like just a face in an office. NextHome has a very different and family-like culture. It really is what attracted me to NextHome as well as being a franchise and having all of the processes in place.”
Today, Billy and his team are establishing a reputation as the folks local homebuyers can go to for up-to-date information and customer-first service.
“I think for one it’s all about the client and what their needs are,” Billy said of his business model. “It doesn’t matter what our needs are, it matters what they need. A lot of people say that they are doing that, but when it comes down to saying it and doing it, that’s two different things. That’s one thing we pride ourselves on – we are very customer-centric and customer-oriented. We do what’s best for our clients all the time.”
Billy plans to combine that philosophy with the best technology around to create a business locals can feel good about.
That passion for customer service is shared by his wife of 27 years and business partner Melissa. When Billy and Melissa aren’t helping people in the Slidell area find their perfect home, they enjoy relaxing by their pool and traveling across the country. They are the proud parents of daughter Meagan who is 26 and pursuing a career as a CPA.
“NextHome is thrilled to have Billy join our growing family and we can’t wait to see how, with the support of NextHome, he takes his real estate career to new heights,” said Imran Poladi, NextHome’s Vice President.
Please join us in congratulating Billy on the opening of NextHome Innovative Realty in Slidell, LA!
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.