Oakwyn Realty

Michael: I remember going through the newsprint version of Real Estate Weekly and wishing to be in there myself, and now running a company that has won an award from them is amazing.

We’re very grateful, because of your history in the industry and REW is a great company that supports agents. We’re excited to attend the gala! It is positively going to impact our business and lead to attracting new agents. We want Oakwyn to be known for having the best agents in the industry.

Morgan: Well, I think that it's a great honour to be receiving this Brokerage Excellence Award, because I think REW really stands for not only the realtor, but also for the general public. So for us, it was wonderful news and it will impact us in a big way, because we do have a lot of agents that have enrolled in the REW One Membership. We encourage them to have a great commitment to the industry as a whole, but also to continue to push on innovation and personal growth. I think it will drive our mission even stronger.

Pete: The big thing right now is we’re relatively young as far as real estate brokerages go, but I think there's still a segment of the people out there that say, y’know, “I got to work with another agent” or whatever it might be, one of the older “typical” real estate brands. And I think just getting more exposure for Oakwyn in general is fantastic. Getting in front of a lot of people and showing how much business we do.

Michael: It’s all about the people at Oakwyn. We’re values centred and principled, which produces great results for the general public. I'm really proud of our agents. They really care and they really want to see the clients succeed. It's something we take a lot of pride in.

Going forward, we would love to be BC's top-selling brokerage, but also be top-ranked in service and marketing. We want to be the local BC brand that wins the market, and awards like this are steps and milestones to achieve our target. We’re always looking to increase the quality of our service, marketing and commitment to clients.

Morgan: What has really led Oakwyn to success, or what our “secret sauce” is, is I think a couple of things. I think one is our really strong community of realtors and the culture that we're constantly trying to build off of and keep fresh-minded for our agents specifically. I think another big part of that is sticking to our core values.

A lot of people have missions and credos and slogans and core values. And that might just be something that they put on their wall. We live by that. We make choices by our core values. And it's really, I think, at the core of what Oakwyn is about.

Pete: It's really interesting. I really think it's kind of top down. Morgan and Michael and Arlene, you know the owners and the lead managing broker are just such wonderful go-getter people and they just seem to have endless amounts of energy, and they're always coming up with creative things to keep the group engaged, learning and make it fun. I honestly think it's just the people at the top are kind of infectious with their passion and love for real estate and growing the business.

Michael: My advice for other brokerages is to really look at how to improve their professional development. Look at your core values and why they want to run a business.

For agents, it’s to be customer obsessed. Focus on buyer and seller journeys and stories. Nothing is too small to consider. I’d recommend getting granular in making your marketing and service plans. That's going to create a lasting legacy. And instead of being transactional, be transformational. Each client is going through something transformational in their life, whether they’re looking to buy, sell, upsize or downsize. Be their steward and create surprise and delight.

Morgan: We really set up our mission because we felt that there had to be a change in the way the brokerages were run. Thank you very much for even giving us the applause, but we do feel like we're a startup still. We just really stick with that servant leadership and the servant mentality. I mean, we believe that it's the soil that makes a really great farm, a great blossoming group. And for us, it's many different pillars that's in our community, our culture, but also in our brand and our education and our leadership, our managing brokers.

We really have that core credo of building on that servant leadership, making sure that we're serving to the best of our ability. And it's really about that at the end of the day. And we make choices for that.

That's my biggest advice. Definitely just lead with that servant mentality. And I think you'll do wonderful.

Pete: It’s a bit tricky because there's so many different types of agents in our brokerage. I really love our brokerage and I obviously didn't start here, but for people that are new to the industry, I think that we really do provide some amazing support for new agents. We have something called Oakwyn University, which kind of guides people through the beginning; y’know, you get your real estate license and sure you've got a license to sell real estate but all you've really learned is how to cover your ass and not get in trouble in real estate.

And then they say “okay here's your license,” and you really don't know how to prepare a listing or how to host an open house or how to create a database or client connection and ongoing relationships and make those contracts work. So I really feel that for entry level agents, they've got an amazing program to get people on their feet and running in the right way. For people that are joining that are more sophisticated and savvy, I really think the value proposition is good.

But because we have so many agents now, the value proposition is quite good. I look at some of the other models and how much they charge on a per-deal or percentage and stuff it, and it just doesn't make sense to me. And I think Oakwyn has done a really good job of scaling up and making it just a really good value proposition. I don't want to say it's “cheap” because that's definitely not the right word. But, we've definitely created a lot of value with the brand, and it's not overly expensive; it's not going to break your bank account. And you're getting a lot of return for the money that you're spending with the brokerage.