by: Stephanie Gonzalez, CEO & Managing Partner Stephanie was asked by RISMedia, “How will the events of 2020 (pandemic, social unrest, election) impact your market in 2021?” We are a local indy residential real estate brokerage located in the heart of Arizona, supporting the robust cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale. We are a brokerage that proudly supports a wide-ranging clientele base: luxury, first-time homebuyers, relocating families, move-up buyers, downsizing buyers, investors, buy and hold, fix and flip, developers, wholesalers, etc. Our firm was made an official brokerage in December 2015. Prior to that, we were built on the foundation of an unlicensed investor, who turned into a licensed solo agent, who grew into a large team, who eventually purchased and re-branded a small brokerage; all of which took place between 2006-2015, a time when Arizona faced the most intense real estate boom, bust and recovery of our century. Because of our history and experience with volatile market conditions, our brokerage adjusted to the civil, political and health crisis of 2020 with sufficient preparedness. Our brokerage team was agile and well positioned to pivot quickly with each step. As a result, in 2020 our brokerage increased 43% in total closed sales volume, 18% in total closed units and 51% in total profitability (compared to 2019). Our agent revenue increased and almost doubled from $13.4M to $25.8M, while our total number of producing agents remained steady year over year. The events of 2020 affected our local social and economic engagement. One of our greatest economic drivers – tourism – felt it most. Our tourism and the resulting local income generators of travel, events, entertainment, restaurants and hospitality moved to a stand-still in 2020 and are slowly making a come back. Through it all, our brokerage managed to find opportunity and growth based on two factors. One, the fact that we exclusively attract and grow seasoned and full-time agents and teams. Seasoned full-time agents typically do not have a plan-B and their homes, families and livelihood depend on their uninterrupted income stream. We found that our agents’ focus and determination spiked causing their activity and production to spike. Two, the fact that our Great Metro Phoenix area experienced an increase in both companies and families relocating to Arizona resulting in increased buyer demand, price increases and consumer confidence. These two factors will continue to benefit us through 2021. Not all real estate agents, teams or brokerages pivoted and thrived in 2020. Our employee-based support team and our agent community are grateful for our collective camaraderie, evolution and growth. We are optimistic about 2021 for multiple reasons. Macro reasons: population growth, job growth, economic development, affordability and our local balance to not over-build in the residential or commercial sectors. Micro reasons: we are re-investing in our agents and have doubled our support team from 7 to 14 employees over the last year. We also have a clearly defined plan for how to best elevate our agents and are confident this will cascade to support their businesses and the customers and consumers they serve. We are projected to increase our total sales volume by 17% in 2021. We will foster hyper-awareness for every human layer and each operational vertical of our business and lean into our strengths of culture, emotional intelligence and user experience to fulfill our full potential growth for 2021.