110% growth and counting: A Kansas City broker’s GameChanger run

 For broker-owner David Nichols, the growth didn’t happen by accident. — but rather by spreadsheet.

“Part of it was the acquisition of a second location, that’s been a big part of it, but we’ve consistently outperformed our local real estate community, even without that,” he told HousingWire. “I track every month, I’m a numbers nerd, so I look at how the MLS is going.

“We have about a three-year run where every single month, without the added office, we’re outperforming the MLS, and that’s huge. That’s a cultural thing for us.”

Nichols merged his REMAX Elite firm with Kansas neighbor REMAX State Line roughly two years ago — creating a bi-state operation with physical locations in Lee’s Summit, Missouri and Leawood, Kansas.

A 40-year foundation, a 2014 turning point

REMAX Elite was founded more than 40 years ago by T. David Rogers, who remains Nichols’ business partner, mentor and close friend. Nichols became a broker-owner in 2014.

The opportunity to merge with State Line came when that office’s ownership group — which ran the oldest continuously operating REMAX office in Kansas City — decided it was time for a change.

Instead of immediately pouncing on the acquisition, Nichols spent eight months coaching at the location before committing.

“I was going over once a week, spending a whole day over there coaching and teaching,” he said. “I was training, mentoring people and trying to decide if it would be a cultural fit for us. At the end of that eight-month period, it got to the point where the agents were like, ‘Are you buying us or not?’

“We said, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do this thing.’ The agents leaned in hard to the culture that we preach within our organization.”

Two states, two markets, one strategy

Kansas City’s geography presents a unique challenge.

With the metro split between Kansas and Missouri, regulations, tax structures and inventory patterns come with more variance than what’s typically seen in similar regions.  

For Nichols, expanding into the Kansas market was a deliberate strategic move — and having a physical Leawood location changed the game.

“There are people who live in Kansas that say, ‘No, I want a Kansas agent,’ and for our people to be like, ‘Our office is right here in Kansas, in Leawood,’ we were able to see a pretty big pickup in the volume of transactions that we were doing across state lines,” he said. “The Leawood zip code is the most affluent area in our city.

“The average price points over there are exponentially higher than they are anywhere else, so it’s a higher price point and a more affluent consumer.”

Work sessions, not just workshops

When it comes to technology and artificial intelligence (AI), Nichols takes a hands-on approach.

He had spent two hours in a work session with agents just before speaking with HousingWire.

“Becoming discoverable by AI is a big thing for us,” Nichols said. “That means teaching agents how to use AI to audit their digital footprint, and then how to clean up that digital footprint so you look consistent to any AI. Google is a big part of the kind of things we do. I’m a nerd, a tech tool nerd.”

Nichols also served as president of Heartland MLS and is currently president of the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors — which has nearly 13,000 subscriber members.

“We make sure to follow up [education sessions] with work sessions, where all those cool things that we showed you in the class, you’re going to do it live,” he said. “We’re here to help you do it. It’s no longer writing it on your notebook. Now it’s about doing it live with our laptops open, and we are using that to move the needle, which I love.”

Cutting through the noise

Looking ahead, Nichols is unbothered by industry chatter about consolidation, private listing networks and perceived threats to traditional real estate business models.

“To me, it feels like a lot of noise,” he said. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I believe that as long as agents pour themselves into relationships and provide great value to the consumer, that the consumer will remain loyal to that agent.

“I tell agents, ‘Let us worry about the other stuff, and you guys sell houses and make money and take care of people and pour into people when they need it, when they’re most vulnerable — which is all these life-changing things that happen.’”

Nichols sees a return to fundamentals as the winning strategy.

“If a broker is going to be successful today, if an agent is going to be successful today, it’s going back to the things that we were all taught 20 years ago,” he said. “What’s old is new, which is just taking care of people.”