Brittany Geotes got into real estate thinking it would be a temporary job.
Fast-forward to 2021, and she is co-owner and broker associate with NextHome Simplicity, the venture she started in 2019 with her husband, Andrew. Before its freshly remodeled Long Beach offices had even opened, the business earned second-place honors in the People’s Choice Awards for real estate companies on the Coast.
Today, NextHome Simplicity is quickly growing — with nearly 20 full-time agents and employees.
“Our number-one goal when opening this company was to make things better in this industry, and it doesn’t come without hard work,” Brittany says, “but we feel that what we are doing is making a difference.”
The word “simplicity” is in the company’s name for a reason, she adds.
“We opened to create an easier, simpler way for the local consumer to find a reputable local Realtor,” Brittany says, “and we use a modern approach with cutting-edge technologies to improve and simplify our client’s experience.”
NextHome Simplicity only hires full-time real estate professionals and has strict minimum listing standards. Brittany and her husband also own a real estate photography company called UZZI Media, ensuring clients get dozens of high-quality shots along with Matterport 3D virtual tours of their listings.
“We like to say it is basically Google Earth inside your home; clients can virtually walk through a home with Matterport,” Brittany says. “They can look out the windows, look at the baseboards, walk into the closets, etc. It’s the next best thing to actually being in the home.”
That capability has proved invaluable during the pandemic, during which the Geotes’ business has flourished as homebuyers took advantage of low interest rates. The emphasis on technology was one of the factors that attracted the couple to the NextHome brand.
Andrew, who was a certified real estate appraiser for eight years before becoming a real estate agent, had long wanted to open his own brokerage, having led a successful team of agents at multiple firms as a broker associate. After graduating with honors from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2012, Brittany went back for a business/marketing degree — hoping to improve her odds of getting into a good master’s program for industrial organizational psychology. After taking real estate classes with a friend, she changed direction.
“Once Andrew and I found NextHome, he and I both had that ‘aha’ moment; we knew this was the brand we could agree on and finally merge our business together …,” she says. “They have done a great job of marrying technology and the human connection, creating balance between automation, local agent knowledge and guidance.”
Now the owners of the largest real estate brokerage in Long Beach, where they have lived for four years, the couple hopes to open a second location in the near future. The biggest challenges, she says, are the limited number of hours in each day and the sheer amount of work required to build and grow a successful business.
“Balancing our time and trying not to burn ourselves out is probably one of the top issues discussed in the Geotes household,” Brittany says. “Luckily, we have found some great employees who are helping us slowly but surely turn this business into a well-oiled, smooth-running machine.”