Two Jacksonville realty firms merged Nov. 6 to form ERA OneTeam Realty.
The merger of ERA Davis & Linn and SVR Realty LLC expands the company’s scope to serve Southeast Georgia as far north as Brunswick and St. Simons Island and Northeast Florida as far south as Daytona Beach.
ERA OneTeam has five offices with more than 200 agents that had a combined $450 million in sales volume and 1,500 transactions in 2023, according to a Nov. 25 news release.
The headquarters is at 4540 Southside Blvd., No. 902.
The merger was three years in the making. Andrew Linn, a broker at ERA Davis & Linn, met with Jeffrey Terwilliger, SVR Realty founder, just to get to know one another and see what the future could hold.
“We didn’t actually start talking merger. We sort of got to know each other. We talked about differences and how we were like-minded in different ways,” Terwilliger said.
“We actually started kicking things off with a partnership on a property management company in Georgia, and then things started to grow from there.”
The merger brings an array of ERA Realty tools and services to the new sales force.
ERA OneTeam Realty uses a non-competing brokerage model that allows brokers to earn without upper management making claims on the most lucrative deals.
“Our infrastructure is to support our agents and find more opportunities that lead to contract agreements,” Linn said.
Linn, 45, and Terwilliger, 43, grew up in the real estate business. Both of their fathers were real estate brokers. Linn earned his real estate license when he was 18 years old. Terwilliger went into construction a couple of years after college before making real estate his career.
Besides expanding its sales region, the merger allows for greater sales opportunities.
“We have a wide variety of agents that work in different areas and different price points,” Terwilliger said.
“So I wouldn’t necessarily say that we specialize in any type of residential real estate, because we have people that can sell a $50,000 lot on Palatka all the way up to three, four, $5 million houses on the ocean.”
Besides residential sales, the new company will broaden its reach to get more involved in commercial sales.
Before the merger, Lynn took part in a real estate leadership program offered by Anywhere of Madison, New Jersey. He learned about leading himself and others as well as leading organizations.
“I went through a yearlong leadership program called Ascend,” Linn said.
“It was a great year of learning how to run, lead and grow a residential brokerage.”