NEW HARTFORD — After 25 years of affiliation with Prudential Real Estate, one local real-estate agency has dropped the affiliation and changed its name as it hones its focus on serving the local area. The former Prudential Joseph R. Carucci Real Estate agency is now known as Preferred Properties of the Mohawk Valley, Inc., says […]
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NEW HARTFORD — After 25 years of affiliation with Prudential Real Estate, one local real-estate agency has dropped the affiliation and changed its name as it hones its focus on serving the local area.
The former Prudential Joseph R. Carucci Real Estate agency is now known as Preferred Properties of the Mohawk Valley, Inc., says Edward Jekel, president and broker of record at the agency.
It made sense 25 years ago to affiliate with Prudential, he says, because it gave the agency additional resources such as the ability to market its listings nationally through Prudential. Recent changes, however, changed Jekel’s view of things.
First off, Prudential sold off its real-estate division about two-and-a-half years ago to a company called Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. Brookfield, in turn, was recently acquired by Berkshire Hathaway. The changes in ownership, Jekel says, made it a good time to review the franchise and see if it still made sense.
Factoring in other changes, such as how the Internet and technology have impacted the real estate industry, made Jekel wonder what a franchise with Berkshire Hathaway would do for his agency, his agents, and the area.
A few initial talks with Berkshire Hathaway about renewing the franchise ultimately cemented Jekel’s decision not to renew as the company urged him to consider consolidating with franchises in Syracuse, Albany or Buffalo to achieve some economies of scale.
“We’re a very small and unique area,” Jekel says of the Mohawk Valley. “Our market is different from Syracuse. Our market is different from Albany. Our market is different from Buffalo.”
Real estate is very local, he says, and he contended that the best way his agency could continue to serve the area was as a locally owned company without an outside franchise. Jekel opted not to renew his franchise, which ended on the last day of 2013.
On Jan. 1, Jekel debuted Preferred Properties of the Mohawk Valley and says he is already seeing benefits from being franchise free. “I have absolutely no regrets,” he says. “I think it’s the right way to go.”
Since the change, Jekel and his 14 agents have been working hard. “I think we changed 125 signs,” he says. They’ve also been working to change the website, banking information, letterhead, business cards, and more.
And through all that work, Jekel saw one of the first benefits of dropping the franchise. When the agency was affiliated with Prudential, all purchases went through Prudential-approved vendors. All of those vendors, Jekel notes, are located outside the region.
With his first purchases away from the franchise, Jekel opted to shop local for his new signs, business cards, and letterhead, spending more than $10,000 with Valley Signs in Clayville.
While the name has changed and the signs are new, one thing that remains the same is Jekel’s team of agents and all the experience and expertise they bring to the job. “We know the area,” Jekel says. That will be a benefit through an anticipated boom as development continues at the nanocenter at SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome. That development could bring as much as $17 billion and 10,000 new jobs to the area over the next decade, Jekel says, and that means lots of people new to the area and looking for a home.
And with a new business partnership with ListHub, a nationwide listing management platform, Preferred Properties of the Mohawk Valley can still have its listings showcased nationally.
“We’re going back to our roots,” Jekel says. “We want to be a driving force in the community.”
To help spread the word about the name change the agency mailed out letters to its clients and sent out postcards to residents in key areas. Jekel says the agency will host an open house sometime in the spring to coincide with the start of the busy season.
“We actually see a good year,” he predicts for 2014. “We see sales up.” While he doesn’t expect much commercial activity until later in the year, Jekel says he expects a “good and strong” residential market.
Headquartered at 600 French Rd., New Hartford, Preferred Properties of the Mohawk Valley (www.preferredpropertiesmv.com) was founded by Joseph R. Carucci, who passed away in 2010.
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