United Real Estate Richmond’s headquarters. (BizSense file)
Ten years after bringing the United Real Estate brand to town, brothers Jeffrey and John Finn and their now-200-plus team have added a local peer to the fold.
River City Blues Realty, a 20-agent brokerage led by Smitty Smith, has joined the Finns’ United Real Estate Richmond and formed RVA Blue Realty, a team that will operate under the United umbrella.
The acquisition closed March 15 and brings United’s local agent count to 220, said John Finn, who leads the group as senior managing broker alongside Jeffrey, who serves as principal broker.
Terms were not disclosed for the deal, which John described as a cash transaction involving third-party acquisition financing.
John said he and Smith have known each other for years and started talking about joining forces as Smith was looking to return River City to a physical office.
Smith, who formed River City in 2009, said he was looking for a space to bring back its in-person homebuyer assistance seminars, after years of holding them as webinars in the wake of the pandemic.
Smitty Smith
“Before Covid came around, we had a very strong office presence,” said Smith, who said he was left paying on a lease for two years while presenting the webinars in a less effective virtual format.
“We wanted to get back to an in-person workshop. We reached out to John to see what some of the large, successful firms were doing, and we walked in and I was like, ‘Wow, this is what I want right here,’” Smith said. “This is exactly the office space we need, and his office was already set up perfectly to handle our ‘Grits & Grants’ workshops.”
Smith said joining with United also provides training for agents and other back-office support that would otherwise be an additional expense for River City to provide.
“He has the infrastructure and the experience that helps me and the agents already associated with River City Blues Realty, so it’s a win-win situation for my agents especially,” said Smith, who is serving as a lead broker at United.
“In order for me to stop doing business and go lease an office, furnish it out and do everything that I need to do, I would have to take my finger off of my business. Why go out and recreate the wheel when the wheel already exists and it’s turning in the direction that you want to turn?”
Finn, who previously owned Dominion First Realty before launching the local United franchise in 2015, said United’s transaction-based brokerage model also was attractive to Smith. The model allows agents to retain 100 percent commissions by charging them a flat fee of about $700 per transaction, rather than a traditional commission split.
John Finn Jr.
“That is the direction of real estate today if you’re a brokerage, because the fees that you charge generally are contracting,” Finn said. Instead of charging additional fees and taking commission splits, he said United attracts agents by providing additional services and training, from mortgage and insurance assistance to gym memberships and wealth management and Spanish language classes.
“We have a tremendous amount of technology and back-office, and a lot of small independents don’t have that,” Finn said. “This is an opportunity for them to continue using their brand but be supported by a national company.”
The acquisition is the latest for United Real Estate Richmond. In 2018, it acquired local brokerage Robinson-Harris & Co., which was rebranded as Robinson-Harris Title & Escrow and turned into an in-house arm of United.
With the larger company’s financial and tech backing, the local United brokerage has grown from six agents when it launched 10 years ago to 220 today, making it the largest African-American-owned brokerage in the Mid-Atlantic, Finn said, and the third-largest brokerage in Central Virginia based on agent count.
Finn added that they’re pursuing additional acquisitions and are “in serious talks” with three other companies. He said they’ve also secured franchise rights in Hampton Roads, where United has agents on the ground but no physical office yet.
Finn said United agents sold over 1,000 homes last year. The brokerage is headquartered at 9011 Arboretum Parkway in Chesterfield and has a second office at 9097 Atlee Station Road in Hanover. It celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 20.
