Long & Foster’s recent acquisition of local agency W.C. & A.N. Miller was a strategic move to give the mega-firm better access to Washington’s lucrative high-end real estate market. The region’s smaller, independent agencies, however, don’t see the merger as a threat to their business.
Long & Foster Real Estate, the nation’s largest real estate firm with nearly 17,000 agents, announced the acquisition late last week. W.C. & A.N. Miller, based in Fairfax, will keep its name but add “A Long & Foster Company” to its title, a move that will boost name recognition for the Miller Companies.
“But I think there is a point where being bigger doesn’t help the company anymore,” Evers & Co. Owner Donna Evers said. Evers and Company, a local real estate firm with 45 agents, caters to a high-end clientele with an average selling price of $800,000.
“[Clients] understand that having 15,000 agents isn’t going to get their house sold,” she said.
Evers’ firm is just one of many small firms in the region that focus on the sale of high-end homes and the competition is heated with or without the backing of a big-name firm.
“The fact is that we’re all sort of on our own,” Gerlach Real Estate, Inc. Realtor Bob Siegel said. Each agent, whether they’re with a small or large firm, competes for clients individually, he said.
“It doesn’t make that much difference,” he said. “The only difference is the big name recognition. If someone [new to the market] is trying to find an agent they might just call Long & Foster … but that doesn’t give an advantage because you’re still just one of thousands of agents [withinLong & Foster competing for that client].”
The bottom line, said local Realtors, is clients usually find them through referrals. And all agents have access to the region’s multiple listing service, which is one of the most comprehensive in the world, said Evers.
“If I thought it was important for me to be big,” Evers said. “I would have been big a long time ago.”
