‘Worst market ever’?

At the height of the real estate bust in mid-2009, Columbia real estate agent Jae Kim left his job at a large, established agency and opened his own firm, an Exit Real Estate franchise office in Northeast Richland.

“And people thought I was crazy,” said Kim, enjoying a hearty laugh now, two-and-a-half years later, on the cusp of an expansion. “In the worst market ever, why would I do this, right?”

Kim’s is among a handful of small to mid-sized real estate firms in the Midlands area that have risen out of the ashes of a housing crash that saw sales sink more than 40 percent in the Columbia area and agents flee the profession statewide.

These firms have survived — and are still growing — because of low operation costs, technological savvy and tenacity.

Jill Moylan, owner of Home Advantage Realty, last year tripled the number of agents to 16 at her boutique firm in downtown Columbia.

“I love where we are in the market right now,” Moylan said.

Sales in the Midlands were on the rise in the last half of 2011 after years of declines or government-stimulated increases.

Moylan relies on Internet marketing and is redeveloping her firm’s web site to try to capture more clients.

Smaller firms, she said, can adjust more quickly to a changed marketplace than big box firms and can offer agents larger commission splits.

While Columbia lost one large agency during the downturn — Century 21 Bob Capes Realtors was purchased by Coldwell Banker United, Realtors — surviving larger firms remain viable in the Midlands.

South Carolina lost about 7 percent of its licensed real estate agents between the peak of the market in 2005-2006 to the 2010-2011 fiscal year, which ended June 30, according to the S.C. Department Labor, Licensing and Regulation. That dropped the number of licensees to 41,929. Not all who are licensed practice real estate and many are only part-time agents.

That, in part, is why roughly only half of the licensed agents in the state are members of the S.C. Realtors trade group. That group lost 29 percent of its members during the downturn, falling to 14,428 at the end of last year, executive director Nick Kremydas said. In Columbia, the group lost half of its members, ending the year at 1,036, he said — partially because Russell & Jeffcoat, the largest firm based in the Midlands, pulled out of the group to cut costs.

But as the real estate market appears to have settled out, firm’s like Kim’s and Moylan’s, as well as Exit Real Estate Consultants in Lexington, are growing.

Longtime agent Rhetta Whitehead teamed up with her son-in-law Craig Summerall in 2008 to open Exit Real Estate Consultants.

They sold only 16 houses that year, Summerall said. Sales spiked 89 percent the next year. In 2010, sales rose another 40 percent from the previous year. And last year’s sales were up 28 percent from 2010.

The company recently moved from its first 1,300-square-foot location with four employees to larger digs in the same strip shopping center along U.S. 378 with roughly 3,200 square feet and 40 agents.

“Right now? The state of affairs is excellent,” Summerall said. “We are still in a growth mode, an expansion mode, and we are continuing to raise the bar on ourselves. We’ve done a great job up until now, but we’re not going to rest on that.”

Their growth is part relationships, part technology.

Whitehead recently closed on the sale of a house to a man whose grandparents gave her her first real estate listing more than 30 years ago, in 1981.

“I had worked with the maternal grandparents, the paternal grandparents four times, his parents four times, and now the grandson,” Whitehead said. “So, I’ve had 10 transactions with this one family, from 1981, my first listing that the maternal grandparents gave me, to selling the grandson his first home.”

While those types of relationships are important, Summerall estimates 45 percent of their business is Internet-generated.

A former banker who knew about the business side of real estate, Summerall brought in a consultant to help him bring a focused Internet strategy to the new business primarily designed to give agents greater opportunity to grow their business and aid the customer.

“I had seen how the Internet had revolutionized a lot of businesses, and I didn’t think real estate was immune to that,” Summerall said.

Meanwhile, Kim next month will open his second office — on Broad River Road near Irmo.

Kim says he could not have afforded to go out on his own — much less expand — during real estate’s boom years because costs for everything from land to labor to materials were out of reach. Kim, who had nine agents in 2009, now has more than 30.

Like the other business owners, Kim linked his real estate knowledge and experience with a technologically savvy assistant who had extensive experience operating a multiple listing service.

“My thinking was if you can make it in this market, (you’re going to) make it when the market gets good,” Kim said. “This is a tough, tough market. It will chew you up and spit you out. So, if you can stay afloat or thrive now, you’re going to be significantly better when (the market) gets better.”