“We try to give back to the community, sponsoring schools, churches, and other independent organizations.”—Robert Bradley, chief executive officer
How can a real estate firm stand out among the sea of options in the marketplace? How can it rise above the rest and demonstrate its ability to know the market, understand its customers, and offer the best in local expertise?
For Robert Bradley, chief executive officer of Bradley Real Estate, it’s about consciously remaining an independent, truly local real estate firm. Instead of trying to be a bigger version of themselves, as many other companies do, they intentionally keep to their roots, grounded in the North Bay.
“We looked at the current landscape of real estate companies out there and we’re really the only hyper local major company that services the North Bay,” says Bradley. “The others tend to be these big brands but what’s been lost is the truly locally focused real estate company where all our resources, all our charitable contributions, are done locally. In looking at that we adopted a hyper local marketing campaign with the tagline ‘your neighbor, your partner’. We think that’s important for our clients because we really have the local knowledge of the market.”
The concept worked, and today Bradley Real Estate is the largest independently owned local real estate brokerage in the North Bay Area, with 11 office locations serving Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties. The company boasts a team of more than 400 brokers and realtors who have expertise in their local communities and understand the local, changing real estate market.
“We’re saying we’re going to be different than them [the big international brands],” says Bradley. “We’re going to be the company that’s focused on this area, knows it well, and keeps up with all the different things that affect the local real estate market and community.”
No stranger to awards, the firm has been awarded the titles of Best Real Estate Company in Marin County seven years in a row, Best Place to Work in the Bay Area for the past eight consecutive years, and the Best Company to do Business with in Marin County. Due to their extensive philanthropic efforts in serving their local communities, they were also awarded the Spirit of Marin Award.
“We’re constantly involved,” says Bradley. “A lot of this participation is financial but it also comes with opportunities for our agents to get out in the community with a lot of these events we sponsor and make contact with the people in the community that are doing good things. We can still make a profit but also do good for the community. Profit doesn’t have to be our only motive. We can also be a good neighbor and partner in our community and give back to them. That’s basically our philosophy. We try to give back to the community, sponsoring schools, churches, and other independent organizations.”
One service area in which Bradley Real Estate has expanded in the last several years is their commercial division—specifically in selling multi-family buildings. The firm started a commercial division about eight years ago, and began focusing on apartments about four years ago. Now, 80 percent of their commercial business is in apartment buildings and the segment keeps growing, with it comprising approximately one quarter of their total business.
“That business has grown tremendously,” says Bradley. “We’re now by far the largest multi-family brokers in the North Bay. I believe we sell about three times as many apartments as the next company in the North Bay. We have a really strong team of apartment brokers.”
www.bradleyrealestate.com
