What Makes WNY Metro Roberts Special?
WNY Metro Roberts was founded by our current active broker, Jim Roberts. Jim is a South Buffalo native who left a “day job” to start his own brokerage and grow it to what it is today. In addition to the Metro Roberts brokerage, Jim is involved with all things real estate, including property preservation, appraisals and house flipping. It’s rare to find someone as proud of his community as Jim is, as he has committed his life to invest in the Western New York area. While WNY Metro Roberts is expanding rapidly, there are no plans to move out of the Western New York region.
You’ll hear “family” a lot around the WNY Metro Roberts offices. That’s a large part of the culture Jim has instilled in the company.
What’s more family-oriented than the family dog? Throughout the first decade of the company’s development, it was not uncommon for Jim to arrive at any of our offices with his sidekick, Oliver, a white boxer with a black spot around his eye. When Oliver was still with us, you could find a heavy presence of Oliver on all social media channels and he also appeared on billboards scattered around WNY.
Jim’s wife, Tammy, grew up in South Buffalo with Jim and is also a licensed broker with an active hand in the company’s operations. Jim and Tammy’s three daughters all currently live in Western New York.
What is WNY Metro Roberts Realty?
Family-owned and operated, WNY Metro Roberts has solidified its spot in the upper echelon of the local real estate market. Consistently ranked No. 5 in the Buffalo Business First top brokerages in WNY, years of heavy recruiting and constant value added resulted in a period of rapid growth and Metro Roberts finally jumped to No. 4 in the 2021 rankings. This accomplishment was made more significant by the fact that Metro Roberts is the only 100% local, non-franchised real estate brokerage in the top four.
Growing rapidly, WNY Metro Roberts eclipsed 200 total agents in 2020 and is paced to surpass the 300-agent threshold by 2023.
In September 2020, Metro Roberts opened a new office in Orchard Park — its seventh active location. The following year, staff headquarters was moved to a larger facility in West Seneca, which replaced the Cheektowaga office. Included in the West Seneca facility is the staff HQ for all Metro Roberts affiliate companies as well as a state-of-the-art training room equipped for virtual and in-person learning sessions.
Leadership:
A direct extension of Jim’s vision and guidance, WNY Metro Roberts’ agents are led day-to-day by an experienced and professional general manager, Neil Gerrity. Neil joined Metro Roberts in August 2019 and provides the company with an image and credibility never seen before. Metro Roberts has always been a professional and powerful brokerage, but Neil is getting that word out and agents are taking notice during this growth mode. Neil offers one-on-one coaching to all agents and has already helped many agents grow their business to new heights. Neil is here to serve our agents — day and night — and uses his expertise to solve the day-to-day roadblocks with honesty, dignity and professionalism.
As a result of the rapid growth period, the need for a second manager became immediate. The obvious promotion of Ariel Williard in June 2022 was the answer. Working in sync with Neil, Ariel provides hands-on assistance for all our agents and oversees agent development beyond their signing day or completion of the new agent training course. In addition to her managerial job, Ariel also oversees the office Administrative Assistants to ensure we have the most versatile and knowledgeable staff possible.
Of all the real estate brokerages in the area, what makes WNY Metro Roberts different?
WNY Metro Roberts has also subscribed to the notion of being the most agent-friendly brokerage possible. Long-term success and quality of life for each of our agents is the primary goal. This starts with the WNY Metro Roberts’ commission structure. Agents can earn 100% of their commission on deals after $12,000 company dollar is earned. We have agents reaching their yearly CAP goal as early as February and collect 100% of the commission on all remaining deals during the final 10 months of the year. Pair the low CAP metric with the technology available and Metro Roberts is a “no brainer” for local agents.
Each agent is given a kvCORE account, which is a digital platform to keep their contacts organized, generate leads, promote their listings, and nurture their contacts. Automated social media programs are also available free of charge that increase our agents’ social media footprints.
Metro Roberts has an in-house photography department that will take professional photos, take aerial drone footage, create 3D virtual walkthroughs, virtually stage and capture, and edit all other promotional video to help promote listings.
All this technology comes with the proper training as well.
Metro Roberts offers an in-house training course for new agents to help them get their business started. The course is free and the mentor does not take any cut of the agents’ first deals, as some brokerages enforce.
We have a marketing manager that is on staff to help train the agents in kvCORE and also offer personal social media and marketing training to help them grow their business in the ever-changing digital world.
WNY Metro Roberts Culture:
Jim and Neil’s hands-on management, our agent-first model along with the Metro Robers family atmosphere creates an unrivaled culture in the WNY real estate world. The reason our agents are so happy is the culture designed around their success and long-term well being.
Philanthropy is a huge part of the brokerage’s culture. WNY Metro Roberts has a volunteer group made up of agents, staff, and family (H.O.M.E., Helping Others Means Everything) that hosts events and collections to benefit organizations in WNY. Jim will host parties and events for his agents and the only admission cost for each agent will be a clothing item the H.O.M.E. committee can donate. H.O.M.E. also planned and hosted two meat raffles since its inception, both times raising five-figure amounts to donate to a local organization. Much of H.O.M.E.’s operations are spearheaded by Jim’s wife, Tammy Roberts. Along with the agents and staff that volunteer their time to help out with H.O.M.E., many of Jim and Tammy’s siblings and their spouses volunteer for H.O.M.E. as well, adding another family element to the company.
