2 real estate-related companies to add 300 jobs in Hoover

Two Hoover-based companies tied to the real estate business are planning a major expansion that should bring about 300 or more new jobs to the city over the next four years, officials announced Monday.

Lake Homes Realty and its sister company, RealSource Title Insurance & Real Estate Closings, are preparing to expand the scope of their business beyond lake homes across the country into the broader real estate market nationwide, Lake Homes Realty CEO Glenn Phillips told the Hoover City Council Monday night.

Phillips and his wife, Doris Phillips, who is the CEO for RealSource and part-owner and chief operating officer for Lake Homes Realty, weren’t ready to publicly disclose all the details of their expansion, but they gave the Hoover City Council enough of a taste to win a tax rebate worth about $100,000 Monday night.

Currently, the two companies have about 75 direct employees, plus about 180 real estate agents who work exclusively for Lake Homes Realty across the country in 34 states on a contract basis, Glenn Phillips said.

About 55 of those direct employees work in Hoover out of the companies’ office in Southlake and additional space they started subleasing at Meadow Brook Corporate Park in January, Phillips said.

The plan is to relocate and add about 300 or more new employees in Hoover over the next four years to work as back-office support for real estate agents across the country, he said.

The primary location being eyed is 2½ floors in an office building at 42 Inverness Center Parkway, but the lease there has not yet been signed, Lake Homes Realty spokesman Bill Lang said.

The relocation, which represents an estimated $1 million capital investment for Lake Homes Realty, would triple the company’s existing space in Southlake, said Greg Knighton, the city of Hoover’s economic development manager. “We’re really excited about this — big job growth for the city,” Knighton said.

Glenn and Doris Phillips evaluated other office sites across the metro area and in other states for their expansion but decided to stay in Hoover where they live, Knighton said.

Those 300 or so new jobs, with an average wage of more than $52,000, should boost the companies’ payroll in Hoover by $15.3 million over the next four years, records filed with the city show.

The indirect sales tax revenues, increased property taxes and building permit fees should mean more than $500,000 in revenue to the city of Hoover government over the next 10 years and should boost property taxes paid to the school system by more than $200,000 over 10 years, Knighton said.

As an incentive for Lake Homes Realty, the Hoover City Council voted unanimously Monday night to waive an estimated $80,000 worth of construction-related sales taxes that would have been spent on the expansion, plus about $23,000 in non-educational personal property taxes.

The action waives an estimated $43,411 in taxes that would have gone to the city of Hoover, $44,529 that would have gone to the state of Alabama and $14,705 that would have gone to Shelby County, Knighton said.

The two companies’ planned expansion adds to the cluster of technology-based companies located in Hoover in the U.S. 280 corridor and falls in line with the city’s comprehensive plan of boosting that kind of business growth in that area and other parts of the city, Knighton said.

Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato said in a news release that he is glad to see Lake Homes Realty remain in Hoover and grow.

“This project is another example of growth in Hoover’s STEM-based industries,” the mayor said. “We are seeing announcements each year of such growth in our city, and I am glad to start 2022 off with such a strong announcement.  I am also pleased that this public/private partnership will assist a Hoover entrepreneur to further grow a company and further contribute to the city’s economy.”

Glenn Phillips said he and his wife have really enjoyed taking Lake Homes Realty from a struggling business when they took it over to a point where it has made the Inc. 5000 list of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies for five years in a row.

Lake Homes Realty was ranked No. 2,711 on the list in 2021, moving up 445 spots from the previous year after having record sales in 2020. Sales were up more than 60% in 2020, and from 2017 to 2020, the company’s revenue increased by 149%, and the number of employees quadrupled.

Phillips said their company really is a technical marketing company that uses traditional real estate brokerages with its own agents to grow across the country instead of franchising operations around the country.

Most real estate companies that are growing nationally are selling franchises, and each of those franchises typically runs its own operations, he said.

Lake Homes Realty is different in that it provides most of the back-office support for those agents across the country from a centralized location in Hoover, he said. RealSource is using a similar model as it expands across the country, Doris Phillips said.

The real estate business is extremely crowded, Glenn Phillips said.

“There are more licensed real estate agents across the country than there are homes for sale, and we felt that what we’re doing on lake-type properties is really just the tip of the spear of opportunity,” he said.

“Amazon used books to figure out how to make their business work, and lakes are what we’re doing,” he said.

He and his wife plan to elaborate more at a press conference on Feb. 21, he said.

Find out more about Lake Homes Realty at lakehomes.com.