A Better Plan

An iconic home magazine lends its name, and more, to a new Realogy brand
by Bill Briggs // photographs by Melinda DiMauro

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Within the energy-packed, vividly tinted walls of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, all the clocks, watches and Blackberry calendars are synchronized and ticking down to one white-knuckled moment.

After nine frantic months of labor – thinking, talking, planning, designing, building and, yes, painting – Sherry Chris, the president and CEO of the new brand, is ready to open for business in mid-July with a small exhale. "I have been living and breathing this for 24 hours a day," she says. "Sometimes I wish we had more time because we could do more research, but in reality, I like working under this deadline. It forces you to make quick and collaborative decisions; quite often those are the best decisions."

From floor to ceiling, and down to the handpicked office colors, Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate was conceived and crafted as a contemporary lifestyle brand – consumer-oriented, technology-clever, environmentally friendly, modernly furnished – all led by a Generation X-flavored executive team.

At the top of its arsenal of inventive strategies and tools is exclusive access to the largest consumer database in the nation, the 85 million people who subscribe to publications owned by the Meredith Corporation, including Better Homes and Gardens magazine. That’s because BH&G Real Estate’s parent company, Realogy Corporation, inked a deal with Meredith last October to license the BH&G Real Estate brand. The franchise’s brokers can now mine that treasure trove and market directly to potential buyers and sellers.

In other words, if one were to sit down and draw up a real estate company from scratch...

"This is exactly what I would do," Chris says. "I’ve learned by my mistakes many times over the years, and one thing I’ve learned is: it’s never perfect and it’s never going to be perfect. But this is about as perfect as it can be."

In short, her startup could seize that famous brand name while also riding the confluence of two industry waves. One: the recent spate of technological leaps. These new tools have given consumers more control than ever over their home shopping. Even better, the shift allowed BH&G Real Estate to position itself as a consumer-focused company smack in the middle of the Web 2.0 world. And two: the housing slump convinced more broker-owners to consider making a franchise change, according to Chris.

"If this opportunity had happened two or three years ago," she says, "it probably would have launched very differently."

After Realogy president and CEO Alex Perriello handpicked Chris for the top position back in October, she quickly hired Wendy Forsythe (a fellow Canadian) as her vice president of broker services and product development. The slate was clean, the business plan was blank, and those first moments were both exhilarating and terrifying. They began with one question. 

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