10 Years at Bramlett Residential

Feb 27, 2022

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years. – Bill Gates

February marks 10 years since we started Bramlett Residential. It really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, which is probably a good thing. Yesterday was my 43rd birthday and I spent the first couple of hours working. Friends and co-workers texted/emailed and said, “Stop working! It’s your birthday!” I really enjoy being productive and working for a couple of hours to start my day was really what I wanted to do, which is also probably a good thing. (Sidenote: I really dislike grind culture and was very happy to close the computer and go climb with Beck.)

We started Bramlett Residential out of our house in central Austin in February 2012 after a really rough go during the 2008 recession, which left me with (probably literal) PTSD. Ali and I were in a pretty happy and comfortable place in 2012 and it was just the two of us. I would field calls and inquiries and Ali would help with whatever needed to be done.

In 2013, we had overflow business and Will Mackintosh came on board as a buyer’s agent. Beck was born that year, so we leased an office around the corner on Balcones that we called “the cave” because it was so dark. We hired Bailey Moran (now a top producing listing agent) as an assistant and she forever ruined me for hiring because I thought all hires would be as easy and great as Bailey.

Our reporting goes back to 2014 and we did $26M in sales that year. Tara McGuire came on board in 2015 and our sales more than doubled. Vicki Duran and Ashley Vavasour joined us in 2017 and Kasey Gilliam joined us in 2018. After that, things started moving faster. I remember my 40th birthday, I was snowboarding (which I'm sure is a surprise) and Lauren Yoder (now our managing broker) called me to ask if we were taking on agents. She brought Katie Evans along with her. That same year, Craig McGuire decided to move from construction into sales and he joined Tara (which was an amazing decision - they’re now our top producing team.)

After that, things moved more quickly and we began growing more intentionally in 2020. I can’t list every agent and employee we’ve hired (we’re now up to 40) but the commonality is that everyone is phenomenal at what they do. That’s really the glue that holds everything together.

We finished 2021 with 28 agents and $324M in production. Our top agent sold just over $42M and our top team sold just over $61M. We’re on pace to sell over $500M this year, which is a little mind-boggling. We have 2 amazing managers, an amazing Director of Agent Services, and phenomenal operations staff. (A huge shoutout to Bilal Malik, who’s grown his business alongside ours and who is absolutely critical to our operations.) We’ve built some amazing tech and systems along the way and we have more to come.

In 2012, I don’t think I would have wanted to run a mid-sized brokerage. We certainly would have failed if we’d tried to build it quickly. We built this slowly and made a lot of mistakes that we learned from. We learned what works for us and we leaned into that. (Kaizen!) There are obviously other ways to build a business, but this is what has worked for us and how we’ll continue to grow. I can’t wait to see what Bramlett Residential looks like in February 2032!