Heirloom Realty Group’s David Cooke, left, with Kyle Yeatman at The Yeatman Group’s Centerpointe office. (Photo courtesy of The Yeatman Group)
In its seventh year with industry giant Long & Foster, a growing residential real estate team is getting bigger with the addition of another team and new office locations that are expanding its reach beyond Richmond.
The Yeatman Group, led by Kyle Yeatman, has acquired Heirloom Realty Group, a fellow Long & Foster team led by David Cooke.
The deal closed Jan. 17 and adds 13 people to The Yeatman Group, which now totals 66 with 55 agents and 11 support staff.
It also gives the group a presence in two more Long & Foster offices — its Glen Forest branch in the Glen Forest Office Park in Henrico, and an office in Deltaville that Heirloom had acquired from White Stone-based Carter Real Estate in October, Cooke said.
Yeatman also is taking on Long & Foster’s office in Farmville, which will likewise bear signage for the group and the brokerage.
The group’s home base is Long & Foster’s Centerpointe office, which it recently expanded — nearly doubling its space in the CenterPointe Office Building at Lucks Lane and Charter Colony Parkway to 7,200 square feet.
The Yeatman Group team in early 2020. The group now totals 55 agents and 11 support staffers.
Yeatman, who started his group in 2014, said the combination with Heirloom came about after he and Cooke worked a real estate deal together. He did not disclose terms of the acquisition.
Where his group is more active in and around the Midlothian area, Yeatman said Heirloom’s agents bring experience selling homes in other parts of town, such as the West End and Northside.
“David and I have been friends and admired each other’s business. The more we chatted about what we had going on and growth plans, it just came together that it made perfect sense,” Yeatman said.
“His team brings the other-side-of-the-town market knowledge that we lack, and our team provides more of the systems and training, and the horsepower from a marketing standpoint, that he felt would really benefit his team.”
Of the expansions to Deltaville and Farmville, Yeatman added, “We feel like those markets are really strong. We feel like the door’s wide open to go in those markets and make an impact right away.”
Cooke, who launched Heirloom in 2017 after starting out with Long & Foster’s Cabell Childress Group, said he was eager to join Yeatman after observing the group’s growth over the years. He said Yeatman, who started selling homes after several years working for area homebuilders, has carved out a niche in the market with his focus on new-construction sales for smaller custom builders.
“He has created such an anomaly in the business,” Cooke said. “He brought something to the market that no one else had done in our industry in this area, with the new construction background.”
He added, “Just watching that and seeing their team continue to grow and the footprint they were making in the Richmond market, they’re already doing everything that we would ever want to do.”
Long & Foster’s Centerpointe office, made up entirely of The Yeatman Group, is in the CenterPointe Office
Building at Lucks Lane and Charter Colony Parkway. (Photo courtesy Riverstone Group)
Building up
Relying on Yeatman’s experience working for so-called “big builders” such as Ryan Homes and Centex Homes, Yeatman Group got its start listing new-construction homes for smaller custom builders, which remains a focus of the team.
Yeatman said his time with those firms, followed by a four-year stint as sales and marketing director with local builder StyleCraft Homes, revealed to him an unserved section of the marketplace that he described as a gulf between on-site builder sales teams that are restricted to certain communities and brokerage-based real estate agents who he said were more often focused on resales.
“After 10 years in the market, I thought there was a huge gap of Realtors that didn’t really understand or embrace new construction, and so many of these little custom builders that were building eight to 10 homes a year that didn’t really have great representation,” Yeatman said.
A Longwood University grad with bachelor’s degrees in business administration and pre-law, Yeatman launched the group with his then-sister-in-law Caitlyn Yeatman, who manages the team’s new-home sales. Initial hires included Ami Williams, a fellow StyleCraft vet who brought over her experience managing the firm’s design studio.
Starting out with Midlothian-based Homesmith Construction, whose office is next door in the CenterPointe building, the group now lists homes for a dozen area builders, including three coming over with Heirloom: TimberCreek Building and Design, WB Garrett Inc. and Santa Barbara Design & Build.
The group recently doubled the size of its Midlothian home base. (Jonathan Spiers photo)
Other builders Yeatman works with include Covenant Building & Design, Finer Homes, Harring Construction, Jones Homes Custom Builders, Longevity Home Solutions, James River Custom Homes, Humphries Custom Homes and McShay Communities.
The group has grown from three agents its first year to 55 today, and its support staff includes interior designers, online sales consultants, listing and closing managers, marketing reps and office managers. While the group started out focusing on new-home sales, Yeatman said its resale numbers have been steadily increasing, representing about half of its sales in recent years.
The group’s total sales numbers have grown as well, from 132 closings in 2015 to 802 in 2020, nearly double its pre-pandemic 2019 total. The 2020 closings totaled nearly $240 million, reflecting the team’s growth as well as that year’s hot housing market.
For 2021, Yeatman said the group had 799 closings totaling $328 million. He said Heirloom had 82 closings last year totaling $78 million.
Such numbers have ranked the group as Long & Foster’s top regional sales team the past five years, and its top team in Virginia for 2020 based on closings and sales volume.
Heirloom Realty Group’s David Cooke, left, with Kyle Yeatman at The Yeatman Group’s Centerpointe office. (Photo courtesy of The Yeatman Group)
In its seventh year with industry giant Long & Foster, a growing residential real estate team is getting bigger with the addition of another team and new office locations that are expanding its reach beyond Richmond.
The Yeatman Group, led by Kyle Yeatman, has acquired Heirloom Realty Group, a fellow Long & Foster team led by David Cooke.
The deal closed Jan. 17 and adds 13 people to The Yeatman Group, which now totals 66 with 55 agents and 11 support staff.
It also gives the group a presence in two more Long & Foster offices — its Glen Forest branch in the Glen Forest Office Park in Henrico, and an office in Deltaville that Heirloom had acquired from White Stone-based Carter Real Estate in October, Cooke said.
Yeatman also is taking on Long & Foster’s office in Farmville, which will likewise bear signage for the group and the brokerage.
The group’s home base is Long & Foster’s Centerpointe office, which it recently expanded — nearly doubling its space in the CenterPointe Office Building at Lucks Lane and Charter Colony Parkway to 7,200 square feet.
The Yeatman Group team in early 2020. The group now totals 55 agents and 11 support staffers.
Yeatman, who started his group in 2014, said the combination with Heirloom came about after he and Cooke worked a real estate deal together. He did not disclose terms of the acquisition.
Where his group is more active in and around the Midlothian area, Yeatman said Heirloom’s agents bring experience selling homes in other parts of town, such as the West End and Northside.
“David and I have been friends and admired each other’s business. The more we chatted about what we had going on and growth plans, it just came together that it made perfect sense,” Yeatman said.
“His team brings the other-side-of-the-town market knowledge that we lack, and our team provides more of the systems and training, and the horsepower from a marketing standpoint, that he felt would really benefit his team.”
Of the expansions to Deltaville and Farmville, Yeatman added, “We feel like those markets are really strong. We feel like the door’s wide open to go in those markets and make an impact right away.”
Cooke, who launched Heirloom in 2017 after starting out with Long & Foster’s Cabell Childress Group, said he was eager to join Yeatman after observing the group’s growth over the years. He said Yeatman, who started selling homes after several years working for area homebuilders, has carved out a niche in the market with his focus on new-construction sales for smaller custom builders.
“He has created such an anomaly in the business,” Cooke said. “He brought something to the market that no one else had done in our industry in this area, with the new construction background.”
He added, “Just watching that and seeing their team continue to grow and the footprint they were making in the Richmond market, they’re already doing everything that we would ever want to do.”
Long & Foster’s Centerpointe office, made up entirely of The Yeatman Group, is in the CenterPointe Office
Building at Lucks Lane and Charter Colony Parkway. (Photo courtesy Riverstone Group)
Building up
Relying on Yeatman’s experience working for so-called “big builders” such as Ryan Homes and Centex Homes, Yeatman Group got its start listing new-construction homes for smaller custom builders, which remains a focus of the team.
Yeatman said his time with those firms, followed by a four-year stint as sales and marketing director with local builder StyleCraft Homes, revealed to him an unserved section of the marketplace that he described as a gulf between on-site builder sales teams that are restricted to certain communities and brokerage-based real estate agents who he said were more often focused on resales.
“After 10 years in the market, I thought there was a huge gap of Realtors that didn’t really understand or embrace new construction, and so many of these little custom builders that were building eight to 10 homes a year that didn’t really have great representation,” Yeatman said.
A Longwood University grad with bachelor’s degrees in business administration and pre-law, Yeatman launched the group with his then-sister-in-law Caitlyn Yeatman, who manages the team’s new-home sales. Initial hires included Ami Williams, a fellow StyleCraft vet who brought over her experience managing the firm’s design studio.
Starting out with Midlothian-based Homesmith Construction, whose office is next door in the CenterPointe building, the group now lists homes for a dozen area builders, including three coming over with Heirloom: TimberCreek Building and Design, WB Garrett Inc. and Santa Barbara Design & Build.
The group recently doubled the size of its Midlothian home base. (Jonathan Spiers photo)
Other builders Yeatman works with include Covenant Building & Design, Finer Homes, Harring Construction, Jones Homes Custom Builders, Longevity Home Solutions, James River Custom Homes, Humphries Custom Homes and McShay Communities.
The group has grown from three agents its first year to 55 today, and its support staff includes interior designers, online sales consultants, listing and closing managers, marketing reps and office managers. While the group started out focusing on new-home sales, Yeatman said its resale numbers have been steadily increasing, representing about half of its sales in recent years.
The group’s total sales numbers have grown as well, from 132 closings in 2015 to 802 in 2020, nearly double its pre-pandemic 2019 total. The 2020 closings totaled nearly $240 million, reflecting the team’s growth as well as that year’s hot housing market.
For 2021, Yeatman said the group had 799 closings totaling $328 million. He said Heirloom had 82 closings last year totaling $78 million.
Such numbers have ranked the group as Long & Foster’s top regional sales team the past five years, and its top team in Virginia for 2020 based on closings and sales volume.
good work Kyle!!