Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Real estate brokerage Compass is expanding further after acquiring the Alain Pinel Realtors firm for an undisclosed fee.
The deal should help Compass to expand its already considerable presence in the San Francisco Bay area, where it is now the third-largest residential retail brokerage.
Compass operates a real estate listings platform that aims to reduce the friction and frustration associated with selling, buying, or renting a property by providing real estate agents with a set of powerful tools to increase efficiency and sales volume. The company’s online platform, which rivals more established players like Zillow and Trulia, is meant for both real estate agents and buyers, and powers the entire transaction process from the start of the home search to finalizing all of the contracts and documentation.
Its deal to buy Alain Pinel Realtors is its third in the Bay Area in recent months. Last summer it acquired two other notable firms in the area; Paragon Real Estate Group, and Pacific Union International.
Alain Pinel is a specialized brokerage that usually caters to high end clients, and was the seventh largest residential real estate company in the U.S. in 2017 based on the dollar value of its transactions. The firm’s average transaction price is $1.6 million, and it boasts 30 offices nationwide with more than 1,300 real estate agents on its books.
Compass was founded in 2012 and has grown to serve more than 10,000 real estate professionals in 248 offices across the U.S. It has attracted some serious funding too, raising $1.2 billion from investors including Softbank. It also posted a $400 million financing round in September that valued the company at $4.4 billion.
Compass has been on an acquisition spree the past year. It also recently acquired the customer relationship management company Contractually Inc.
Last year, Compass officials said they were setting out to capture 20 percent market share in 20 U.S. cities by 2020. Compass officials told Bloomberg this past summer that the brokerage hopes to not only increase its property listings but also expand into other businesses, such as mortgage title transfer and relocation services.
