Photograph by Kathy De La Torre

Check Nunnally (left), Alain Pinel's new assistant manager, and Jeff Barnett, Alain Pinel vice president, are setting up the second office in the Alain Pinel 'campus' on N. Santa Cruz Avenue at the corner of Blossom Hill Road.

Century 21 agents flock to Alain Pinel

By Nathan R. Huff

Like ducklings lining up behind their mother, a flock of real estate agents followed Chuck Nunnally's lead last week, abandoning their Century 21 Contempo offices for spots at the new Alain Pinel office on the corner of N. Santa Cruz Avenue and Blossom Hill Road.

As of July 14, Realtors were still trickling into Alain Pinel's new, 9,000-square-foot office in the building that, for a brief time, was home to Furbelow Fabrics. They will join Nunnally, Alain Pinel's new assistant manager, who walked out of Century 21 Seville Contempo on July 10.

This is the second time this year that real estate agents have made a mass migration from one local real estate office to Alain Pinel. In April, 27 Saratoga Coldwell Banker agents followed their office's managing broker Carol Burnett out the door and over to Alain Pinel in Saratoga.

Nunnally said he switched for the same reason as Burnett. "It's the hands-on local ownership," he said. "I'm very happy to be part of Alain Pinel."

He added that he harbored no ill toward Century 21 Seville Contempo. "I love, respect and honor the Century 21 Seville Contempo management team. They are by far the best management group I have ever worked with," he said.

The number of Realtors following Nunnally could be more than 40, bringing Alain Pinel's Los Gatos corps up to 150 in two offices. Nunnally said it was normal for agents to follow their manager. "Usually the person in charge hired most of the people and they feel an allegiance to them," he said. Realtors almost always take their clients with them, aside from sales currently in escrow, Nunnally added.

Most of the new recruits will be housed in the new building, which is still being established. "We have desks, we have computers," Alain Pinel vice-president and manager Jeff Barnett said. "We're rolling."

He said Nunnally's departure was not a slap at Century 21, but rather an indication of Alain Pinel's unique approach to real estate sales.

"He came to us for our technology and our innovative way of selling homes," Barnett said. "We're the future of selling real estate." The new Los Gatos offices will be operated in the same "campus environment"--style as the Saratoga offices. Both offices operate under one phone number and set of keys, and agents and managers roam at will, using communal equipment in both offices.

"The goal is to make it a little more exciting," Carol Rodoni, president of Alain Pinel, said. "We're adding some Silicon Valley entrepreneurial flair."

Century 21 Seville Contempo president Gino Blefari did not return phone calls for this story. Marketing personnel at the company's corporate office in San Ramon said the company was still taking stock of the situation, and was not ready to respond at this time.

Alain Pinel will now have more than half of the local market share, a market that continues its upward boom. Just this year, housing prices in Los Gatos have increased 16 percent. And while January and February saw an overly tight market, inventory has increased while prices have continued to climb over the past several months.

Nunnally joins Alain Pinel after 10 years with Seville Contempo, which became Century 21 Seville Contempo three years ago, following the real estate giant's purchase of the local company. Prior to that, Nunnally ran his own office, Coast to Coast Reality, from 1980 to 1990.

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