Best of Orange County 2021: Best real estate company

1. Compass

Multiple locations; compass.com

Founded in New York City in 2012, Compass has grown rapidly with a business model that emphasizes the use of technology to make the home buying and selling processes easier and more affordable.

The approach is obviously working: In less than a decade, Compass has grown into the country’s largest independent real estate brokerage, with more than 18,000 agents in more than 165 U.S. cities. Orange County represents a key market for Compass, a company spokesperson said.

“Compass delivers the ability to collaborate with a high-performance network of top-tier agents nationwide, while at the same time recognizing that the heartbeat of real estate in Orange County will always be community-driven,” the spokesperson said.

Its presence in the market is obvious: Compass real estate signs dot the landscape in more than two dozen specific areas of Orange County. There are between hundreds to a few thousand homes at any given time on offer through Compass real estate agents.

Compass Concierge is one of the firm’s most popular programs and exclusive to its agents, the spokesperson said. It allows sellers to easily prepare their homes to go on the market by fronting the cost of home improvement services like staging, painting and more.

According to the spokesperson, “This allows agents to help their client sell their home faster and for more money.”

Compass also offers sellers the choice of private exclusive listings, keeping their home off the public real estate sites while tapping into the vast network of Compass agents and buyers.

2. Times Real Estate California

2901 W. Coast Highway, #200, Newport Beach; 949-335-7437; timesrealestateca.com

As George Charles Hanold V, the CEO and co-founder of Times Real Estate California, put it, “The (real estate) market has gone parabolic and there is a sense of desperation from the buyer pool.”

He adds that his company knows “how to help our buyers navigate these rough seas and how to help our sellers best capitalize.”

“We are bringing more value to our clients now than ever before,” Hanold said.

The Concierge service, in which Times Real Estate conceives, designs and implements a remodel before a house is put up for sale, helps “capture the highest level of hidden equity with the most effective investment,” according to Hanold.

“All upside that we create goes directly into our seller’s pocket, less the cost of the renovations. We just got a seller a 10 times return on our investment.”

Other programs include zero-loss guarantee, a trade-up program to help contingent buyers who need to sell their home first, and Sell 360, in which the brokerage buys a home, remodels it and flips it, with a profit share incentive.

3. First Team Real Estate

Multiple locations; firstteam.com

If First Team Real Estate sounds familiar, that’s no surprise. It’s been No. 1 in total unit sales in Southern California for 19 years and has been in the market since 1976.

In that time, more than 250,000 home buyers and sellers have turned to the largest privately held family-owned company in the area. It has 16 offices total in Orange County, including a home office and another satellite office in Irvine, plus two offices in each of three other cities: Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Dana Point.

First Team Real Estate now offers on its website monthly local market reports, which provide unique, up-to-date data insights. This includes city-by-city information on the number of units for sale and sold, days active on the market and median sale prices.

Among its programs is the First Impressions Concierge service. Potential sellers who might be postponing putting their home on the market because of its condition can get First Team’s help and expertise with improvement projects or repairs with no upfront costs.