Smires and Associates has become an established locally owned-and-operated real estate business in central New Jersey even though it must compete with dozens of corporate-owned franchises.
Now the company that started in 2009 and reached $1 billion in total sales in 2018 has reached another milestone: $2 billion in sales.
“A little over 8,000 satisfied customers since we opened,” says Ed Smires, who co-founded the business with Justin Reed.
Another milestone, subtler but no less important, is that Smires has a brokers license in Pennsylvania now, in addition to his New Jersey license.
“Now anybody in the office who gets a Pennsylvania license can now sell real estate through Smires and Associates,” he explains.
Meaning that Smires is doing business these days in every direction — north, west, east and south. The firm already does a bumper business in Monmouth County, and Smires says they have listings from Cape May to the Newark area.
Smires and Associates began in a cozy space over a retail shop in Robbinsville. Ten years ago, the firm moved to its current office in Robbinsville Town Center.
In 2018, the same year it reached $1 billion in total sales, Smires and Associates opened its first satellite office, in Bordentown.
While that means the company has two offices situated relatively close together, the decision to set up in the former App’s Hardware in Bordentown City has remained a good one. Business out of that office remains brisk, Smires says.
“Jim (Traynham) and Kevin (Kerins) have grown that office to beyond expectations,” Smires says.
Smires doesn’t like the word “boutique,” but he is proud of the company’s standing as an independent real estate firm. As the real estate industry becomes more consolidated among a few regional and national firms, Smires has been able to not only survive, but thrive.
“We’re not interested in being huge. We’re interested in being good,” he says. “There are certain, you could say, old school ways of doing business that are never going to change,” he says. “Being hands on. Being present in the community. Having it where the people who run the business live in the community. There is no substitute for fundamentals in this business.”
He says he knows that he can see how well he and the rest of the agents at Smires and Associates are doing by the amount of repeat business they do. “Satisfied clients continue to send business our way,” he says.
Then there is the number one priority of all: “You gotta work,” Smires says. “I don’t sit and wait for my phone to ring. I pick it up and make it ring on the other end.”
Web: smiresandassociates.com.
