Last year was a milestone year for Property Guys, a company created in Moncton that looks at real estate a little differently.
The company celebrated 25 years in September of 2023.
“Jeremy and I were actually business students at Crandall University and we were just starting our second semester in 1998, that’s when it all started. Long story short, driving back and forth to school every day, we kept seeing for sale by owner signs on lawns. I had a skill set to create these local websites, so I looked at one of my fellow business students and suggested we organize these for sale by owner signs and put them on the Internet. That’s basically how it all started,” says President and CEO Ken Leblanc.
Within the first year, Property Guys did over 150 local listings in Moncton, before getting a call to begin franchising.
“We didn’t even know what franchising was at the time. We did a little bit of investigation and then we sold our first 10 franchises all in Atlantic Canada within the first 10 months of franchising,” Leblanc adds.
From there, it expanded coast to coast, in areas including Victoria, BC to Newfoundland, and they’ve even dabbled internationally in South Africa and Australia.
“We’ve come a long way from our early Crandall days for sure,” Leblanc says.
When they first started, Leblanc says they just thought it would be a great way for a couple of University students to make some extra money, but after three years, they realized it was going to be much bigger than that.
“Here we are, 25 years later and we offer a full suite of real estate services. Everything from, a private sale, right up to fully licensed services, and we’re now getting into rentals,” Leblanc says.
“As much as it is important to look back and reminisce about how far we have come, it is also as important to look ahead at where we are going,” adds CEO Ken LeBlanc. “We know that our approach, based on choice, expertise, and transparency, will continue to deliver value for our users not only today but for the next 25 years and even beyond.”
After 25 years, Leblanc says there is still much work to be done, and other regions they’d like to move into include Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver.
“We’re excited that we can offer something especially the economic times that we’re in right now with interest rates being at record highs. I think an offering like property guys.com is going to explode.”
