The move sees it acquire only franchise in province
Terry Kilakos (pictured) had been considering launching a commercial division for North East Real Estate & Mortgage Agency for some time – and when the possibility of acquiring Coldwell Banker Commercial Alliance arose, it seemed an ideal match.
The purchase had been in the pipeline since the end of last year, and was announced two weeks ago, with the Quebec-based commercial real estate agency coming under the ownership of North East.
Kilakos, North East’s president, is hugely enthusiastic about the deal and its potential to further the company’s growth ambitions within the commercial domain.
“We started looking for brokerages to acquire in the commercial space, and this came up last year,” he told Mortgage Broker News. “We made the acquisition official a couple of weeks ago – it’s been great. Now, there are 28 new real estate brokers that we’ve acquired through this.
“All of their focus is 100% commercial: multi units, leasing, all that stuff. It’s pretty exciting.”
The agency is also the only Coldwell Banker franchise in Quebec, a factor which played a significant role in Kilakos’s decision to push ahead with the deal. “It’s the only one, which is very cool,” he said. “The name does have a lot of credibility; it’s a banner that’s literally world-renowned.”
Kilakos also emphasized that there were no current or future plans in place to begin a merger between North East and Coldwell, and that the two would remain separate. “It’s always going to stay like that,” he said. “At North East, we have a really good name right now in Quebec; we have a huge client base.”
Indeed, he said, “exciting” plans were currently underway to expand North East’s reach beyond Quebec, with the company’s eyes firmly set on potential expansion into other markets and provinces such as Ontario.
North East’s acquisition of CBC Alliance arrives at an interesting juncture, with much talk in recent weeks surrounding a potential economic upswing thanks to positive pandemic-related news. The company noted in announcing the purchase that it expected significant business transformation and growth in the commercial real estate segment as the pandemic eased, and Kilakos also forecasts interesting times for brokers.
“[After] any crisis in general, you can really make a lot of money as a broker, whether you’re in real estate or mortgages,” he said. “We saw what happened during the pandemic: even when it started, for us, business just exploded. It’s not just [that way] for North East – if I look across the country and I look at brokerages, the revenues just went up like crazy.”
With that in mind, Kilakos said that the worst course of action for brokers right now would be to become inactive or “go into hiding”. “I don’t think that that’s right – you’re not helping yourself and you’re not helping your clients in a situation like that,” he said.
Instead, Kilakos said, brokers would have the opportunity amid the post-pandemic recovery to “guide their clients, help them when rates are going up, and maybe help them secure lower interest rates where they can.”
“After the pandemic, this is where brokers are really going to be shining,” he said.
