As part of the Future of Real Estate series on the Union Street Media YouTube Channel, Rachel Allard, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Union Street Media, spoke with Dan O’Halloran, Broker Owner of The O’Halloran Group at Keller Williams Lakes & Mountains Realty in the Lake Sunapee Region of New Hampshire. The O’Halloran Group is a top-performing brokerage in the region and is known for its local knowledge and community first attitude. Watch the full interview above. 

Dan O’Halloran was working in the financial industry when his dad called him out for being miserable at his current position and suggested he “get into real estate” and leave his current position. O’Halloran, who reveals he was a tad stubborn when it came to taking his father’s advice, didn’t want to admit at the time just how miserable he was. “My ego was not going to admit to my father that I was miserable at what I was doing,” says O’Halloran looking back at that time. After some mulling over, O’Halloran decided to leave the financial industry and get his real estate license in 2005. When asked about what made him decide to take that leap of faith, O’Halloran says “I love the aspect of controlling your messaging, your marketing, your business, how you care about people, so I took the plunge and jumped in.”

A lot of times when looking back at how a successful person gets started there’s a gloss over of the struggle it took to get there. O’Halloran points out that “it wasn’t like I got into real estate and started crushing it, it was lots of struggle, lots of challenges – not a lot of success right away.” He jokes about not making a “respectable income for the first five years” as a realtor.  But that he loved what he was doing and “refused to give up,” something O’Halloran attributes a lot of his success to. 

In 2017, O’Halloran joined Keller Williams. From there he says his “business just exploded after that.” In his first year with Keller Williams, O’Halloran says he did a little over 30 transactions. This year, he says they are on track to do around 100 transactions and it’s looking like the business as a whole will be up by 30% compared to last year, despite dealing with a global pandemic. 

“Our team has always had the structure of care and contribution locally.”
– Dan O’Halloran

Previous to COVID the O’Halloran Group had a focus on community as well as the well being of their agents, something O’Halloran says was just amplified during the pandemic. They really focused on making sure the community felt supported as well as their agents. 

One approach that the O’Halloran Group takes that stands out is that O’Halloran requires that his agents take vacations and unplug from their phones. He notes “it’s a constant conversation of alright, well when is your next vacation?” when discussing goals and planning with his agents. O’Halloran says this focus on structured time away from work is really important because it’s so easy to “get burnt out and work 24/7 in this business.” 

Planning and goal setting are really big in their office for all team members so they can get where they want to go and so there’s the accountability of reaching those goals – whether they are big or small. They also look at their data together as a team so that there’s full transparency and accountability for all team members on a regular basis. 

When looking back at the start of the pandemic O’Halloran admits that it was a little nervewracking in the beginning, stating that “this year it’s been really really exciting because you know March everything kind of shut down and we didn’t really know what was going to happen.” Then after the market came back in such a strong way, O’Halloran says that it’s been “really surprising and we feel very fortunate in that regard.”

Keller Williams is known for their systems, and that is something carried through the O’Halloran Group – O’Halloran says that agents are required to adopt their technology, such as the CRM, in order to stay with the team. With that being said, O’Halloran says that “our goal is always to try to make sure the management of the business part doesn’t take away from the growing of the business.” 

“I find if you have the long-term game approach you’ll be successful.”
– Dan O’Halloran

When asked about how he would advise someone just getting into the industry, O’Halloran says that “overnight successes are very few and far between,” and continues on to say that “if you want to be known in your industry as a leader, or be successful as someone in real estate, it’s all about the long game.” What does that long game look like? For O’Halloran it’s not always about the sales price of the home – “it matters that that  person had an amazing experience and afterwards they’re going to tell everybody that ‘you’re totally crazy if you use anyone else but the O’Halloran Group’.”

For O’Halloran it’s not about taking over the world, it’s about doing the best job they can in their market and that “we like being small and efficient and having as much fun as possible.” O’Halloran says that getting involved in your local community and the real estate associations in the region and contributing can be a huge factor in the long-term success of your business. Building those relationships prior to a transaction will help, especially in a competitive market, because when that agent is looking at the “risk of all these five offers that look the same” they are also looking at “who’s on the other side of the table, and if you’re positioning yourself” in a way where they know you will help the transaction go smoothly and keep things together, that will go a long way. 

In addition to building those relationships with those in the industry, O’Halloran stresses the importance of being the local expert and that that was something he recognized really early on in his career as a way to be successful in the long term. 

For more information about Dan O’Halloran and The O’Halloran Group, visit https://www.sunapeeregionproperty.com

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