JP Piccinini: No More 1970s Way of Selling Real Estate

JP & Associates Realtors — led by Italian-born, Texas-raised J.P. Piccinini — is one of my favorite Dallas real estate success stories. I almost feel like someone who has babysat Mark Zuckerberg: I watched JP build his company in 2011 from a single office first in his home, then in Plano, to one of the largest independent real estate firms in the country.

And it’s still growing.

An Award-Winning Brokerage

His firm is constantly in the news for innovation. JPAR was ranked as the nation’s 50th most productive brokerage in transactions by the Real Trends 500. The company closed 15,000 transaction sides in 2019, a year-over-year increase of 30 percent. It was also ranked in the Swanepoel Mega 1000 list of top brokerages by sales volume, with $3.5 billion in sales and a growing agent count of 2600. The 100 percent commission broker started franchising its fee-only model in 2019 and sold 60 franchises in 14 states.

But JP doesn’t want to stop there: he plans to be in all 50 US states by 2023.

Giving Agents Everything They Want

Piccinini believes his company’s 100-percent-commission, full-service model is the future of real estate. In Texas, for example, agents pay a $550 minimum transaction fee (with a cap of 20) and keep 100 percent commission on every transaction. Agents must be full-time and are required to make a minimum of six transactions per year.

“We gave agents everything they wanted in a brokerage,” he says. “Because I started out as an agent.”

Always Innovating

And he has consistently tapped into new industry tech trends and brought them on board for his associates: last year he launched his firm’s own iBuyer instant offer program, and has health plans for associates.

Earlier this month, as agents were struggling with showing homes smack dab in the middle of a Coronavirus lock-down, Piccinini inked a deal with Matterport, the spatial data company of 3D virtual tour platform. In April, he waived minimum transaction fees for franchisees and reducing the fee to onboard new agents by 50 percent, one of several COVID-19 reductions for the month of April.

Earlier this week, he hired Brad Smith, a veteran of Weichert Realtors, Regus, and Dairy Queen, as JPAR’s chief growth officer for the franchise business. 

And he did this all from his home, which was where I caught up with him Thursday to talk about the changes COVID-19 will bring to the real estate industry. See our conversation below!