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Publications

What your agency is worth, and how to raise it.

Practical articles for real estate media agency owners on pricing, hiring, recurring revenue and selling. Each one opens on a real agency and a real number, and ends with what to do about it. Two new pieces a month.

A ring of golden light on navy
Strategy6 min read

Three Ways Out of the Middle

Sell now, keep going alone, or bring in an operating partner

One owner with a $35,000 to $50,000 a month book asked me in August why we didn't just buy it and write him a check. Under $300,000 in revenue that check is 45 to 60 cents on the dollar, and the last one the advisor in our group sold went at 40. The other two doors keep 100% of the company, and the difference between them is who carries the back office through a slow quarter.

  • Door one: sell now
  • Door two: keep going alone
  • Door three: bring in an operating partner
  • The four lines side by side
  • + 1 more section
  • growth-partner
  • exit
  • selling
Read
A blueprint elevation of a house with measurement callouts
Article9 min read

How We Value a Real Estate Media Agency

The actual math, in the open, because every buyer you will meet keeps theirs in a drawer

A million-dollar agency can hear three honest numbers in one week: 0.4x revenue from the shop across town, 1.7x on owner earnings from our model, 2.83x on EBITDA from a consolidator. All three can describe roughly the same wire transfer. Here is the math we use and where every number in it comes from.

  • Three quotes, one agency
  • The lens changes with your size
  • Start with the right earnings number
  • What moves you inside the band
  • + 3 more sections
  • valuation
  • selling
  • sde
Read
A grid of white marble houses with a single gold one at the head
Article10 min read

The Consolidation Wave Is Already Here

The call you got in January was not random

There is a buyer working through our industry right now paying about 2.83x earnings, and he runs twelve cold callers at four dollars an hour to find owners having a bad quarter. The agencies selling to him are not run by worse operators than you. They just took the call in the wrong month.

  • The consolidators are not waiting for the market to settle
  • What the buyers have that you don't
  • Why 2.83× is a perfectly rational price
  • The offer is priced on your situation, not your business
  • + 2 more sections
  • trends
  • consolidation
  • selling
Read
A small gold block resting on stacked blue tiers
Article10 min read

The Price Is Not the Payout

The headline number and the wire transfer are two different numbers

A $6 million offer can wire you $4.2 million on closing day, or it can wire you $2.4 million. Same business, same handshake, and $1.8 million of difference sitting in terms most sellers only read carefully after they have already accepted the price.

  • The multiple gets all the attention, and it should get some
  • The number you hear is not the number you get
  • Two numbers, not one
  • How earn-outs actually work
  • + 2 more sections
  • selling
  • deal-structure
  • exit
Read
A glass block lit from within, on a dark surface
Article10 min read

Clean Books Are Quiet Leverage

The most valuable work you will ever do on your agency is invisible until the day someone makes you an offer.

Due diligence runs $15,000 to $25,000 per brand and it is billed by the hour, so every month where the bank activity and the reported revenue do not line up is somebody's billable time. You pay for messy books twice. Once in the fees, and again in the discount a buyer puts on whatever nobody could verify.

  • Buyers price what they can verify
  • The add-backs you can't document aren't add-backs
  • What diligence actually looks at
  • Clean books change the close, not just the price
  • + 1 more section
  • selling
  • finance
  • exit
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A staircase of blue and gold steps leading up to a house
Article9 min read

The First Offer Is Not a Valuation

What a buyer is actually pricing when the call comes out of nowhere

A buyer offered me one million dollars for Aerial Canvas the year we did $4.3 million in revenue. Two years earlier, at $7 million, the offer had been $6.7 million. Same company, same founder. An unprepared seller lands near fifty cents on the dollar, and the work that closes the gap happens years before the call ever comes.

  • An offer prices your situation, not your business
  • The buyer had a number before they had your name
  • Why the first number tends to land near half
  • What actually creates leverage
  • + 1 more section
  • selling
  • negotiation
  • exit
Read
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New writing lands twice a month.

What agency owners in the group are seeing on pricing, offers, platforms and AI, with the numbers attached. Unsubscribe whenever. No pitching.

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