Biography
MY BIOGRAPHY
Rich Cosner is one of the most successful people in the industry for training new and experienced real estate agents.
Rich has been in the business of real estate for over 35 years and has been making waves in the industry since he began.
Rich reveals that every single office and company that he has owned or managed was successful in becoming a market leader — by a wide margin. Acknowledged as one of the most innovative leaders in real estate, Rich remains highly accessible to all the agents in his firm. In fact, he credits his success to his passion for his agents.
Rich is known for being involved with his agents at the street level. He personally conducts “action groups” many times a year during which he works for four weeks with a group of 10-15 agents, coaching them on how to grow their business to the next level.
Rich loves to share his insights to agents on how to deal with challenges in the real estate businesses during sales meetings with his branch offices. Over the years, Rich has also written lengthy letters to clients of his firm to help them understand current market conditions and how to take advantage of the real estate market changes at that time. He also devotes a portion of his time with one-on-one meetings with top-producing real estate agents, whom he has helped create powerful business plans to maximize the profitability of their business. He will work with his new and newer agents in small groups and get them to a position where they can survive in a new business and then thrive in that business.
Rich has a highly ambitious and competitive spirit and loves to watch his competitors closely, learning from not just their success stories, but also coaching his agents on how to compete with top-earners from other firms.
"I am one of the most successful guys in the country at training new & experienced agents. "
His Journey
Maybe more than you cared to know!
His journey in real estate started when he earned a business degree in Business Administration, Marketing, and Accounting from New Castle Business College in Pennsylvania. Rich then joined Russell Realty Co in Cleveland, Ohio, and proved himself to be an outstanding salesman from the very beginning, successfully selling over 125 houses in just two years.
After this incredible start, the firm promoted Rich to the position of branch manager and within one year that branch became the top office in the 7-office firm. He later became recognized as one of the top real estate managers in Ohio after which he decided to move to Mission Viejo, CA, and started to learn the business in California.
In 1982, Rich was hired by Merrill Lynch Realty to manage one of its lowest-performing offices — an office that ranked #31 in a 35-office firm — in Mission Viejo. Within two years, Rich was able to bring the office to the #2 position in the firm, despite a high interest rate recession market.
In late 1983, Rich became the District Manager of a 5-office district and in six months was able to make it the No. 1 district for Merrill Lynch. In 1984, he became the Regional Vice President of Orange County for Merrill Lynch Realty and made it one of the top regions in the nation over a period of three years.
In early 1897, Rich handed over his resignation to Merrill Lynch Realty to start his own firm by buying a Century 21 franchise. In just a period of two years, the office was ranked 55th out of 7,000 offices in the nation. By the end of the third year, the office was ranked No.10, by the end of the fourth year, it was ranked No. 5 and in his last name with the franchise the office was ranked #2 in the country.
In these five years Merrill Lynch Realty exited the real estate business and sold their 400-office firm to Prudential. Prudential turned those offices over to its regional management team who became the owners of these office with Prudential as a franchisor. Because Rich was so well known from his Merrill Lynch days, the now Prudential senior leaders convinced him to move from Century 21 brand to Prudential.
Rich stayed in the Prudential system for the next 25 years. During that time he built three separate Prudential California Realty firms, all of which became top firms nationally. He executed his timeless strategy of hiring highly experienced people as well as new people to the business and showing them how to be more and more successful.
In 2019, Rich moved to the Nashville area where he currently lives. In February 2020, he bought Coldwell Banker Counce-Hooper and rebranded it as Coldwell Banker Southern Realty. The office is now the #1 firm in Lawrence County and does more business than the next 3 firms combined.
In early 2021, he opened his office in the Spring Hill / Columbia, TN, market and this office is now one of the fastest growing real estate offices in the market.
