Ben Caballero: Breaking Records in the Builder Segment
By Ben Caballero
[This column was first published by RISMedia.]
August, 2019 — It’s not often that you see the name of a real estate pro in “The Guinness Book of World Records,” but Ben Caballero, founder and CEO of HomesUSA.com, is in there for being “the most productive real estate agent in the world.”
Caballero is not a typical broker. He invented the HomesUSA.com platform, an online technology for builders, which enables him to achieve such remarkable sales numbers, and, as such, has become one of America’s top-ranked brokers.
To what do you owe your success?
Ben Caballero: I work with homebuilders and not individuals. We’re open seven days a week, just like builders are, and we take care of them without delay, so they’re all really happy.
You only sell new-construction residential properties and only work with volume builders. Why did you choose that strategy?
BC: I was a homebuilder for 18 years, and during that time, I was also licensed to broker. When I would put my homes on the MLS, I noticed that it was real spotty. I transitioned out of that business and started listing homes for builders, but it was still spotty because there was no real system. By the time I got up to a couple thousand homes a year, it was unmanageable. That’s when I decided to create an online process, which we launched in 2007, and continue to improve.
Yours is a unique platform. Why do you feel it works?
BC: We have a team of developers who are constantly working to make it better. It’s designed for production builders. Someone who builds five to 10 homes a year doesn’t need us because they can manage it. When they’re listing several hundred homes a year—and we even have one builder who has several thousand homes—there’s no way they can manage that with just spreadsheets. Our model works well because we have a very sophisticated platform. It’s been designed specifically for a particular type of client, and everything it does is for them…more.
