High-performing real estate agent platform UrbanX has been ranked 24th in the Australian Financial Review’s Fast Starters List.
The annual Fast Starters List shines a light on Australia’s fastest growing young companies and start-ups.
The traditional real estate model has remained more-or-less unchanged from its roots in a pre-internet world.
Despite changes in technology, customer behaviour and the rise of personal brands, the vast majority of real estate agents lose up to 50 per cent of their income to franchise and agency fees.
Having made the move to his own independent agency 10 years ago, Dan Argent experienced first-hand how much better off agents could be by adapting to the new way and building his own brand.
But it wasn’t all upside, and he soon learnt that managing his own business, on top of listing and selling, came at a cost – admin, staff management, time away from loved ones and a lot of stress.
And so UrbanX was born.
Launched only a few years ago, UrbanX was created to empower top-performing agents to break free from the traditional franchise model and take ownership of their income, wealth and lifestyle.
Fast forward three years, and UrbanX is now the platform of choice for elite independent agents, and partners with 95-plus independent real estate brands and more than 170 agents.
The network is on track to exceed $2 billion in sales this year and continues to grow.
Providing all the back-office support from administration, accounting, branding and marketing, IT and software, and property management support, UrbanX gives high-performing agents a white-label platform to launch their own brand and business, keep up to 90 per cent of their commission income, while solely focusing on dollar-productive activities.
It provides agents with the best of both worlds – their own business without the time pressures and stress of running a typical agency.
So does the model work? Absolutely.
“On average, agents who partner with UrbanX experience 40 per cent growth in their first year, followed with an average increase of 140 per cent in the second year, with some experiencing growth of over 300 per cent,” Mr Argent said.
The numbers are attributed to both the high commission structures and the ability to focus on listing and selling while building your brand in a way that makes sense for the agent and their market.
“We’re finding more and more vendors are seeking out independent agents as the market shifts, to get a more personalised, boutique and flexible approach to selling,” Mr Argent said.
“Knowing that they (vendors) are listing their property with a committed business owner rather than being one small number in a one-size-fits-all national company resonates with them.
“We’re in a people-business, and people like to do business with people, not big brands so I see the rise of the independent agent continuing well into the future.”
When asked about their success, Mr Argent was quick to point out that while his unwavering vision to improve the industry is key, he could not do it without the right people and partners around him.
“I started UrbanX with two co-founders, Steph Kong (chief operating officer) and Gayle Williams (chief financial officer) who both brought with them decades of experience in their respective fields,” he said.
“Along with them, we’ve got a committed team who live and breathe our ’11 out of 10′ service mantra every day. We believe that if we make our clients’ (the agents we work with) lives easier, they’ll have more time to list, sell, and provide great service to their clients (the buyers and sellers).”
Beyond top talent, technology plays a huge role in the progression of the company, and UrbanX is investing heavily in the development of proprietary software to further improve efficiencies for the business and their partner agents.
Since completing a multi-million dollar funding round, led by private investment firm 29North, the team has built out a dedicated in-house tech team, led by chief technology officer, Gordon Tan.
With a reveal of their world-first tech platform scheduled for early 2023, UrbanX will continue to develop software that makes running an independent agency as efficient as possible.
What does the next three years look like for UrbanX?
“Our goal is to maintain our position as Australia’s top platform for high-performing agents,” Mr Argent said.
“And we’ll achieve that by continuing to challenge the status quo and support agents in building their best future, by giving them the best support and tools they need to achieve that.”
