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On February 22, RE/MAX LLC revealed in its fourth-quarter earnings report that it would part ways with Nick Bailey, its president after three years, and replace him with then-regional senior vice president Amy Lessing. He was replaced by Amy Lessinger.
Lessinger’s appointment as president comes as RE/MAX announces its sixth consecutive quarter of revenue declines — a phenomenon not unique to RE/MAX, with real estate transaction volumes declining across the industry.
Since taking over, Lessinger has worked to stabilize RE/MAX’s declining agent numbers and regain market share as the No. 1 franchisee. Inman caught up with her to discuss her first few months on the job.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Inman: Tell me a little bit about your background and what you did before becoming president.
Amy Lessinger: I joined when I was 26 years old, 26 years ago, back in 1998. The office has a partnership of 130 agents, which is great.
We sold it in 2020 and had the opportunity to come here and leverage all of that experience to influence our leadership team, so I joined RE/MAX LLC as Vice President of Regional Development. At that time, I was responsible for a small team overseeing the West region; about 18 months later, I was promoted to oversee the United States and a team of approximately 65 people.
How is your transition to President going?
It’s amazing, you know, I’ve been part of this network for many years and my role is pretty much driving the business globally and overseeing the delivery of all of our tools, support and services. Developed a vision for the future of the brand.
In your recent keynote, you stated your goals Regain RE/MAX’s No. 1 market share position. Do you think that’s your number one priority right now as president?
Absolutely. Our vision is to be the global real estate leader, above all else, and to become number one in every market we serve. So, regardless of market conditions, that’s our main focus – to provide growth and give our affiliates the most competitive advantage to succeed.
Can you detail some of the specific actions the company is taking to regain market share?
Two of the top priorities are very clear: Stabilizing and growing the number of agents in the U.S. is very important, and I think our biggest opportunity is to continue to help our brokers and agents understand the value proposition of RE/MAX.
This means that when we help our agents take advantage of the tools, technology and support we provide, we find that this leads to greater opportunities for agent productivity. When they become more effective, they become more professional, which ultimately leads agents to success.
Of course, innovation and adaptability are key. All of these are going to be key because obviously you want to innovate and adapt as you go forward because you have different opportunities.
Another thing you mentioned in your keynote was the MAX/Tech platform. What is the adoption rate of the platform?
I’m not going to give you a specific adoption rate today, but what I can tell you is that it’s been extremely popular. As with everything, adoption is really how you successfully leverage a tool like this, and our adoption rate is well above the industry standard norm, so that’s very exciting for us.
However, adoption of anything takes time, and we have more opportunities to help our affiliates truly rely on and utilize the platform because the platform is designed to help them work smarter, not harder, and help them Get more done in less time.
RE/MAX was one of the first brokerage firms to settle a commission lawsuit out of court. Does this have any noticeable impact?
Most importantly, we think this is a great decision. If we do not reach a settlement, our affiliates will face the same liability as Home Services of America’s affiliates, and in addition, if we do not reach a settlement, our approximately 10 RE/MAX brokerage firms that exceed the $2 billion mark will face liability Same responsibility.
So we felt very strongly that whatever the market conditions were, we decided to address and focus on helping our agents be successful, that was our focus, so we thought our decision was a good one.
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