Side goes back to grassroots to move forward in 2025

Many in the real estate industry are looking at 2025 as a year to get back to the basics of the business, but Side is taking it one step further.

This year, as the real estate industry looked to navigate numerous challenges, from the commission lawsuits to the continued housing market slowdown, Hilary Saunders said Side and its leadership have gone back to a grassroots approach.

“It has been about getting back to why you love real estate and have chosen to devote so much of your time to it,” said Saunders, Side’s co-founder and chief broker officer. “For most of us, it is because of the clients and who you are helping make their dreams into reality — you get to be part of that journey and that’s the exciting part of it all.

“For me, I get to be in a really cool space where I get to make not just homeownership a reality but also people’s dreams of owning their own business — and that is beyond exciting and exhilarating to me.”

As a white-label, brokerage-as-a-service firm, Side has mostly remained in the shadows and allowed its individual business owners to have the spotlight. But in 2024, Side began making more of its own voice known.

“Our thinking as far as our fundamental day to day hasn’t really changed, but as a company that works with top-producing Realtors and brokers, this past year and moving forward we are focused on leveraging our community and our network of agents to really raise the bar not only for Side but for the industry,” Saunders said.

“And this focus just happened to coincide with everything going on at the National Association of Realtors and the lawsuits. So, I think it was partly intentional, but it was also us just focusing on our community and trying to make them even stronger.”

As Side looks to 2025, the company wants to continue strengthening its agents and the industry as a whole through its education initiatives.

“One thing that we are really proud of that we launched this year — and we hope to expand a lot further — is our coaching program,” Saunders said. “A big group of our existing partners in our community have very tailored coaching programs that they’ve been working on for years and we want to make them available to the larger real estate community, not just within Side. There are some really amazing professionals and ideas, and it is something we definitely want to share.”   

But while Side is beginning to emerge as a brand, Saunders said this in no way means the company will be taking any of the independence away from its business owners.

“I think so many times people get kind of awestruck by change or these big things in the industry, and they get kind of paralyzed, but it’s our job as leadership to really advise them, refocus them and give them the tools they can use to be successful in any environment,” Saunders said.  

With technology changing rapidly, Saunders said Side’s focus on the tools provided to agents will be even more dialed in come 2025.

“We are really trying to enhance the experience of our partners. Part of that is enhancing our marketplace, and part of that is partnering with vendors to provide better services for our partners and their clients,” Saunders said.

According to Saunders, Side is honing its educational and technology offerings because the company wants to ensure its business owners are in the best place possible to tackle whatever the coming year throws at them.

“One thing we have always educated our community on is, in a slow year or a difficult year, you really need to double down on your fundamentals and look historically at how you have gained market share or created better customer experiences. Because when the gas is poured back on the fire, you want to be in a place where you don’t have to create new processes,” she said.

“This whole last year, while the market was cooler, we managed to stay steady and some of our business partners even grew, which blows my mind. But when the market does shift in a positive way, they’ll just be in the best possible position to serve buyers and sellers and build their companies.”

With so much of the company’s focus on the betterment of its existing agents and brokers, Saunders said Side doesn’t have the same massive focus on growth in 2025 that other brokerages may have. But this doesn’t mean growth is out of the question.

“In this next year, we really want to continue developing our Partner Up Program, which is really just us working with our existing community to find like-minded folks who also want to grow their own businesses, and then we invite them into our community,” Saunders said. “Rather than a traditional brokerage’s recruiting strategy, it is very community-first focused.”

Looking ahead, while Saunders is optimistic about things to come for her firm, she knows that there are plenty of challenges awaiting the industry in 2025. But instead of simply focusing inward, Side is looking forward to being part of broader efforts.

“I think we are really ready to participate in the conversations, whether they are about clear cooperation or buyer broker agreements, and I think a lot of these issues can be ironed out on a local level because the functionality of the hyperlocal market is not a national thing,” Saunders said.

“Once you start trying to make Washington and Florida act and operate in the same way, it creates way too much headache and noise, and you just end up making more of a mess and not solving any issues.”

But as it always does, Saunders said Side will be relying on the knowledge and expertise of its local brokers in order to advocate for the best policies and practices for a given metro.

“We are extremely fortunate to have amazing managing brokers in all of our markets, that are keeping a pulse on everything that is going on, and then we are able to make really fast and timely decisions and create guidance for our agents on the ground and adapt as needed for anything that happens,” Saunders said. “So, I think that’s our superpower — just being very nimble and quick to adapt and provide thought leadership to our community.”