Greg Hague CEO of 72 SOLD; Business Model Exposed

If you’re in one of the 38 markets where 72SOLD is active Greg Hague will need little introduction, for those of you who haven’t heard of him he is the founder and CEO of 72SOLD, a real estate broker, and an attorney. His 72SOLD sells about a house every hour in AZ and generates 100 or so qualified seller leads a day for his 200+ agents, and that is just the Arizonan business.

 

His ubiquitous commercials (sometimes it seems you just can’t get away form him) are high energy and amazingly effective. And he’d love to share how he does them step by step with you, just for the asking. His vision is one where entrepreneurs remain the norm in the real estate industry and feels that replacing them with salaried sales staff is a step in the wrong directions. Love him or hate on him, hi and his team are very successful in generating listings and ending up with happy clients.

 

There is a lot of shade thrown his was and there is a lot of confusion about 72SOLD and Hague partners. Some agents even believe he isn’t licensed and that 72SOLD is not a brokerage, or real estate company at all. So for the record Greg pointed out that 72SOLD is in fact a brokerage in Arizona and that he has had a brokers license since 1981. 

 

72SOLD was founded to develop and refine a program he envisioned years ago. First to provide REALTORS (not just his agents) a program to give sellers a better experience and second to compete with the iBuyers. 72SOLD is now in 38 other states for example Kevin Holmes in Burlington Vermont is with KW and has been with them for a couple years now and is killing it. 

 

Hague’s passion for real estate runs deep, he tells the story of his father finding a job after WWII in real estate and building a successful company in Cincinnati. “My dads hard work and the real estate industry provided me the opportunity to have a private education, to attend Law School, and have so many doors open to me in life. All because of two things - My dad and this profession. So I am deeply passionate about keeping it as an entrepreneurial profession.”

 

The idea for the 72SOLD model came to Hague when thinking about how Apple handles the release of new phones and iPads, they use social proof and scarcity (whether real, imagined or built-in) to drive demand. They spend weeks prior to the release marketing and building buzz so when people show up they aren’t thinking “can I get a discount?” They are thinking “can I get one?” The best way to be brilliant is the look at all of the brilliant people and take their advice and do what they do.

 

Hague is very open with how he does things and freely shares with anyone for the asking. He said to email him and he will send you not just how they do it, but also copies of their brochures, what they use to present to sellers, everything they use to compete with all of the agents out there, so that they can try it and decide for themselves if it works for them or not. “The reason I do this is my #1 goal, why I’ll share exactly what we do, is to save entrepreneurship in real estate.

 

We better come together, the iBuyer’s ultimate goal is to displace us as entrepreneurs, to use their “we will buy your home” as a massive lead generator where they will get their salaried agents deals. They have a lot of money and can afford to take a loss buying homes. If we are doing things that will help everyone compete with this, I feel we should share that, there is enough business for all, unless it gets taken away by forces that would like to displace REALTORS.

 

Hague talks about how 72SOLD became ubiquitous in the Phoenix media market. It started with a couple or three thousand dollars for a budget to buy ads in community newspapers. We wanted to “look big in a small market” so we bought a couple of full page ads to test the message, and at the very beginning I committed to spend 40% of every commission back into marketing. Now they generate nearly 100 leads a day that get sent out to their 268 agents. 

Another unique part of their model is that 72SOLD doesn’t use the AAR listing agreement! They use what they call an authorization to market. It’s a lot easer for the sellers and agents. I wanted sellers to be able to read it, what seller reads 9 pages of fine print? It comes down to the user experience. Broker cringing out there, the world of consumer preference and taste is changing, if people sign up with you and then change their minds, you better just say fine … Be a Nordstrom, “we’re here to serve, we’re here to help.”

 

Kala Laos, CEO of Real Estate Software company Zoodealio, interviews Greg Hague CEO of 72 SOLD