Ep. 394: Building an Independent Brokerage (with Tim Garrity)

Opening a Real Estate Brokerage

Who should listen: If you’ve considered opening a real estate brokerage or are curious about what it takes, the experience of this week’s guest will provide firsthand advice and valuable insight.

Key idea: There’s only one way to build a lucrative book of business: you need to earn your audience’s trust.

Tim Garrity is a partner and the broker of record at Copper Hill Real Estate Agency in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He’ll tell you that his personal goal is to show agents how to start, grow, and retain their own book of business that takes them beyond their personal sphere of influence.

In today’s episode, he talks with us about why he choose to open a real estate brokerage, the activities he’s implemented to support his agents, and the distinctive content strategy he’s used since the beginning that continues to generate new leads for his business and agents.

In these show notes, we provide a high-level overview of the content strategy—specifically blogging—Tim’s been using since he became an agent back in 2010.

A distinctive approach to content

One of the things you’ll notice as you listen to Tim’s interview is his innate curiosity. Several times, he explains his reasons for doing something in terms of wanting to know why:

• Why are people buying and flipping homes in poor Philadelphia neighborhoods?
• Why is someone able to rent a house for $700 in that neighborhood?
• Why are people buying warehouses and turning them into lofts?
• Why are some real estate agents salespeople and others brokers?

To get his answers, Tim would go visit areas and talk to people. He’d get boots on the ground and investigate. Then he’d write about what he learned.

He explains that at first his blogs were only a couple of paragraphs, but he was consistent about providing information that revealed what was happening in the Philadelphia market. And, as with most things, the more he did it, the better he got at it. By his second year as an agent, his content strategy started to take root and he tripled his previous year’s income.

Today, Tim continues to provide content that offers deep dives into the real estate activity in the Greater Philadelphia area and surrounding suburbs.

He and his team produce original content that describes different neighborhoods. They’ll write original content about the scene (restaurants, theaters, banks, pharmacies, etc.) and how easy it is to travel to and from the city, the suburbs, and “the shore.” (Being able to get to the beaches of New Jersey is a key consideration for many who live in Southeastern Pennsylvania.)

In addition to this content, Tim also sends to his database of contacts a quarterly report of neighborhood updates. Among the topics he covers are the number of listings, average days on market, what has sold, and price trends.

A third piece of his overall content marketing strategy is a monthly real estate newsletter that balances original and curated content. He includes an article he writes himself, three or four property listings, and a lifestyle piece. In doing so, he covers the three Es of valuable content: he educates, entertains, and endears himself to his audience.

The benefits of content marketing

For Tim, the benefits of producing good content and sharing it with his audience are obvious.

First, it establishes him as the agent of trust. Those who know his content either drop his name or do business with him. His content lets readers know that he understands the market in his specific region—his boots on the ground give him the inside scoop, so to speak.

Second, his content produces leads for his team of agents. Every follower he collects is earned; it’s all organic traffic.

Listen to Tim’s interview to hear more about his content strategy and discover how he started his own real estate brokerage—and the activities he implements to help ensure his agents succeed.

Please enjoy this episode and take a moment to leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts.

Connect | Resources

Blog: The Only 3 Real Estate Content Ideas You’ll Ever Need

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