Many buildings, one showroom
[attach]6895[/attach]While working in international real estate in Costa Rica, Adam Sax was part of a company that sold multiple developments from one office.
“It was around for about six years in total and the idea worked very, very well,” he says. “We took the same model and did it for Toronto developments, where you have four, five, six or seven different developers in one space.”
Although part of the new Royal LePage West Realty Group office at Eglinton Avenue W. and Avenue Road — with broker of record Jim Sturino, Rick Aurora and Peter Riccio — is a brokerage, the other half is dedicated to the showroom, dubbed the condo mall.
“It’s a multi-condo development showroom so it’s kind of like a one stop condo shop where clients can come in and look for a variety of new condo developments,” Aurora says. “Instead of going from sales centre to sales centre, they can just come here and we can show them about the different projects in and around the Toronto area.”
Their roster currently includes E Condos at Yonge and Eglinton, South Hill on Madison Avenue and the Tridel project at 101 Erskine Ave., and will soon feature seven developments in total.
“It’s the first time ever done in Canada where you have one presentation centre for multiple projects,” says Sax. “The development community has been extremely welcoming to it and the consumer base loves it because they can come to one place as opposed to multiple sales centers across the city.”
Part of Sax’s job is to scout developments to secure projects that offer perks such as a 60- or 90-day period where their clients get first access to the developments, a $30,000 cash back savings for their clients only and amenities such as free parking or lockers, he says.
[attach]6896[/attach]“What we’ve tried to do is really create a niche for both ends, the development side for developers so they can market to one area, through one vehicle, and the consumer side so they can shop in one spot and know that they are guaranteed the best price in the city, with the best incentives and promotions and shop in one spot,” Sax says.
Prior to the venture, Aurora, Riccio and Sax developed an online real estate application for realtors and homebuyers to generate leads across Canada.
“We took the online capabilities that we had, which was extremely successful with oneclickhomes.ca and generating all these leads, created a team and we did something unique because most brokerages don’t offer leads to their agents,” Sax says. “We’re extremely cutting edge and leading edge for our agents.”
Although he counts every accomplishment at the company as notable, Riccio is grateful for his colleagues’ encouragement, adding this venture changed his life.
“Adam always encouraged me, come join me, come join us and I never believed him, I just didn’t really want to take that shot but then I did,” Riccio says. “It’s made me into the person I am today, it’s showed me a different world and combined with a love of selling and doing something I’m passionate about, it’s just a dream come true for I guess you can say a small time sales guy but with big ideas. Adam and Rick encouraged me to explore these ideas and now I do. I feel like a guy to be reckoned with.”
