In a year that has been full of noise, United Real Estate President Rick Haase has somehow managed to stay focused. Some of that focus comes from the messages written on the three colorful rubber bands adorning his wrist.
The first reads, “Go through life with an attitude of gratitude.” A second reads, “United Real Estate: Better Together.” The third, a gift from the United franchise in Richmond, Virginia, states, “Only the strong survive in 2025.”
“It may be a bit soft and fuzzy, but those three pieces of rubber on my wrist actually encapsulate how we as a company function,” Haase said. “We function with a high degree of gratitude and focus on the glass being half full. And then we know that if you are going to be successful, you have to persist in the face of challenges, and we know that together we can make all that happen.”
For Haase, these messages act as guideposts as he carries out United’s mission, which is “to improve the financial trajectory of our agents’ and brokers’ careers and lives.”
“Everything we do, we look through the lens of, ‘Is it on mission?’” Haase said.
This goes for anything ranging from decisions about products and services to decisions about entering new markets.
A focus on this mission is one of the reasons why Dallas-based United utilizes a flat-fee or transaction-fee model in which agents don’t have a commission split. Instead, they pay the brokerage a flat fee per transaction. While Haase believes United’s transaction-fee model is always attractive to agents due to the fact that it allows them to keep more of their commission than the traditional model, he notes that the current set of market and business practice circumstances has led to an uptick in interest in United.
“Whenever there is a change in the marketplace because interest rates go up 300% from their trough, or there are concerns that business practice change may lead to downward pressure on commissions, agents become worried about how many sales are going to be out there and how much money they’ll be able to make on those sales. Our model becomes even more attractive and that only benefits us even more,” Haase said. “We are seeing already an atypical number of brokers and agents that want to join us because they get the tools, services and support they are used to, but they get to keep as much money as they possibly can on every sale.
“The changes were not easy, but we are thanking the real estate gods for focusing in on this model that we feel agents can be most financially successful within. The need for this model is more apparent now than ever before.”
Like many other brokerages, United will be focused on growth in 2025.
“We have very defined growth goals, but the way we get there is to be 100% focused on our mission and to be really good at it, and then the being big, the scaling, takes care of itself,” Haase said. “That is what we’ve been living since the company’s inception.
“As the Zig Ziglar quote goes: ‘You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.’ Our way to get the scale we want is to keep our agents and brokers as our North Star.”
As United looks to scale, Haase said the brokerage leans on its proprietary technology stack to efficiently add new agents and brokers.
“We can add 20,000 or 30,000 more agents with very, very little additional incremental cost,” Haase said. “It enables us to scale without driving up our operating expenses as we do so. It really is the cornerstone of our ability to grow without damaging our mission or our budget.”
But as excited as Haase is about continuing to grow United’s footprint in the new year, he wants to make sure the company is doing so responsibly.
“We are very careful with the companies we take in and our acquisitions. We really curate those companies so that they understand the mission and that they are really on board,” Haase said.
He also noted that United isn’t looking to break companies to fit its mold. Rather, they are looking to work with industry professionals who share similar values and goals, so that they can shape a deal or a franchise that works to serve the needs of all parties involved.
While Haase is hoping that 2025 will be a better year for home sales, he said United will be focused on helping its agents and brokers achieve their individual goals.
“If someone is in the early stage of their career, they have certain goals like making this year the best one ever for their business. But if someone is later in their career and they want to have more time to spend with their grandkids or to stop and smell the roses, we need to find a way to facilitate both,” Haase said.
“As people move through the maturation curve of their business, everything that we are focused on — technology, marketing training, education, financial development, network development — all of those focus on different cohorts of agents within our organization irrespective of where they are, and we meet them there with great success. And that is what we are really paying attention to.”
But at the end of the day, it all comes back to United’s mission. And that, according to Haase, will continue to remain at the forefront for the brokerage in 2025 and beyond.
