After many years as a commercial and industrial property broker, earlier this year, Fred Massa purchased the 58-year-old Wolfson Cutler agency and threw himself into the residential real estate business.

He’s bucking a lot of trends: An industrial broker trying to break into residential; an entrepreneur bent on starting an independent shop when many small brokers are weighing acquisition offers; and a real estate industry optimist who thinks 2011 is a good time to open five new branches and a couple of divisions.

Fred Massa

Title: CEO & Founder, Industrial Concepts Brokerage, Swampscott; Broker/Owner, Wolfson Cutler Real Estate, Medford

Age: 59

Experience: 10 years

You started out in the software industry, correct? How’d you become a broker?

When I got out of Boston College I went to work for Digital. Mid-1980s, I went and started my own software company. And I had that for a few years, sold that, and then I went to work for another software company, as a vice-president of sales and marketing. I was there for seven years, then went and started my own software distribution company. The software distribution company started doing pretty well, and as we expanded and needed more space, instead of leasing it, I bought. I did the math and I thought, ‘Instead of $6,000 rent, I can pay a $4,000 mortgage, and I get some equity, right?’ [9/11 hit our sector of the software industry hard, and when] I went to do my taxes, my accountant basically said, ‘You’re actually making more money on your real estate business than you are on software.’ [I ended up dissolving the software business] I got my license, and then I got my broker’s license, and I kind of morphed into an industrial brokerage. That’s my Industrial Concepts brokerage. That seemed to be settling in nicely, doing okay. And I wanted to go vertical in the real estate space, and it became a question of, did I want to start my own real estate company or did I want to find one? And I ended up finding one and I’m very pleased that I did. I remember when Wolfson Cutler was the premier broker in Medford. And I want to take it there again. 

You don’t see too many people leaping into the brokerage business these days. Why now?

I felt going into 2011 that we were close to the bottom in the residential market. I still don’t know that we’re at bottom. But pricing of properties is not what I’m concerned with. It’s the number of transactions. Pricing is a factor because it affects our revenue. But I’d much rather sell 1,000 houses at a $100 than 100 houses for $1,000. So I felt that was the case, and I guess I took a chance that that was the case. 

There’s a lot of turmoil in the real estate industry right now, lots of people trying to tweak the traditional business model. What’s your goal for the next few years on the residential side?

The first thing I hope to do is dramatically grow the rental piece of the business. Rentals are huge right now. Medford, Malden, Somerville – huge for rentals. Everett’s very big in rentals too. So my immediate plan is to hire a rental manager and get rentals going. We hope to open five rental offices within the next 12 months; I’ve already targeted three of them. One [will be] in Malden, one in Everett, one in Somerville, a second one in Medford, and one in Saugus. I have them targeted; I have deals in place, but I’m not moving in until I get bodies lined up…it’s very important in rentals to be in the city. You have to be local, a lot of people don’t have cars and things like that. Once we’ve settled that down – and that should move very quickly, within the next few months – I’m then targeting the growth on the residential side. We’re going to add a luxury division….it’s kind of geared on what’s happened with me on the industrial side. Because I’m very expensive. Existing customers, I might give them a deal, new customers I don’t. But I offer them things other brokers don’t: I have an LSP, I have an appraiser, I have a site surveyor, I have an engineer. And I tell them, ‘I will do these things at no cost to you. But you pay me at the back end.’ If people buy the concept, they use me… my thought with the luxury division is why can’t I bring those concepts [to residential sales]? Because people are getting 4 percent. It used to be six. I’ve created a pathway to 6 percent. We’re going to have a condo division. I’m very fortunate, I have an agent here who’s probably sold more condos than all the agents in Medford combined. She knocks ‘em out. It’s what she does. So we’re going to create a condo division, and she’s going to run it. And we’re going to create an aura based around our success rate. And then we also do property management. It’s in the very early stages, but with the rental business [I see an opportunity to] grow property management as well.

Fred Massa’s Top Five Tips For Getting Listings:

• Have an open mind for the property. Don’t walk in a say, ‘I’ve done a CMA and I’m going to list it at X.’ Then you’ve staked your ground and you’re looking for an argument.
• Assess the seller’s needs. Not what they need to get on the house, but what to they require to make the deal happen. Do they need help with the move? Is there going to be a gap between the sale closing and the buy?
• Add value to those needs. If they need help with a move, tell them you can store their furniture for them. If the house needs a brush up, offer to have landscaping or staging done.
• Gain the seller’s trust. If you think there’s something else you can do to close a deal, ask for another opportunity to get in front of them.
• Get the listing.