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On today’s All About Real Estate edition of the Atlanta Real Estate Forum Radio show, hosts Todd Schnick and Bryan Nonni are joined by CEO and Managing Broker of Terrace 24 Realty, Mike Minihan. In this episode, the trio discusses the concept of Terrace 24, the company process, its value to consumers and industry professionals, trends in real estate and much more.
Mike Minihan graduated from Indiana University with a degree in Business and Computer Information Systems. From there, he went into the IT world as a consultant for Ernst & Young. After leaving corporate America, he landed in the mortgage business for a of couple years. In 2004, Mike and his wife moved to Atlanta. Shortly after, he acquired his residential real estate license and he’s been operating in that space ever since.
Terrace 24 Realty is considered a hybrid real estate model. This means that Terrace 24 is in the same business as traditional real estate agents; its goal is to sell homes. However, Terrace 24’s second goal is to eliminate the commission taken by agents. The reason is simple. The work done by an agent for a $200,000 house versus a $400,000 house is the same despite the initial thought process that the agent will do more work for more house and more money. Terrace 24’s business model is the answer to this problem.
Terrace 24 unbundles the services that traditional agents offer and then assigns a value to each service. From here, customers can choose what marketing services they want to spend money on to sell their home. An advantage of Terrace 24 is that the company will level with the consumer; this means that Terrace 24 will tell consumers exactly what they should spend money on to see the most effective results and best return.
Initially, the consumer is offered a base listing package: the basic tactics they need to succeed. Terrace 24 puts a price tag on that package, and all other tactics are a-la-carte items. The base package’s offering includes entrance into the MLS service, professional photography, signs, electronic lock boxes, consulting services and closing services.
When a customer calls Terrace 24, they can expect a base listing fee of $3,500. This is collected at three different installments. The first payment is $1,000, and it’s taken upfront to initially list the house, which includes putting all marketing online and rolling out a marketing package.
“We advise you throughout the entire process. This is not an ‘enter your credit card here and good luck to you’ kind of company,” said Mike. “We’re very hands-on if our clients want us to be.” Once your property goes under contract, customers pay a second one-time $1,000 fee for an offer review and negotiation of the offer.
Once the home goes under contract, a third and final fee of $1,150 is charged; this is the due diligence and contract to close fee. This model is designed with one focus: saving home sellers’ money. With the Terrace 24 model, most customers looking to sell a home will save thousands of dollars.
Although the basis of the model is to provide transparency and common sense to the way real estate fees are charged, and not necessarily to save the seller money, this fixed fee for service approach usually ends up saving the seller thousands of dollars over a traditional real estate commission. To illustrate, for a home that sells for $400,000, Terrace 24 would save a seller over $8,000 when compared to a traditional real estate commission
The starting point for working with Terrace 24 is a valuation, and this is a free home value report. As a seller, this is necessary to make an informed decision. From this report, customers can get an idea of the proper listing price for the property and can list at a different price if they so choose. Again, Terrace 24 is there to advise on best practices.
It may appear that Terrace 24 looks to replace the traditional agent; however, “I can’t really see where that traditional agent is fully replaced,” said Mike. “This is about segments.” Traditionally, the market is divided into segments: buyers and sellers. Terrace 24 aims to disrupt this traditional model with the idea that there are more segments than this traditional model. The company wants to change the way those segments are served; Minihan and Terrace 24 look forward to “cracking the code” in Atlanta for this business model and expanding into many other markets nation-wide.
To learn more about Terrace 24, visit www.Terrace24.com.
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