When Maksym Herasimov launched WellHome in Kyiv in 2020, the real estate market was facing significant challenges. Demand was unpredictable, clients were making decisions more cautiously, and competition for high-quality leads was intensifying. In this environment, the agency needed to establish efficient workflows quickly to ensure that no client inquiry was lost among phone calls, messages, and ongoing negotiations.
Rather than dramatically increasing its advertising budget, Herasimov focused on building strong internal processes. WellHome began systematically recording every client inquiry, assigning clear responsibilities across the team, monitoring response times, and identifying potential legal risks long before a transaction reached the final stage.
Within the first year, the company expanded to two offices in Kyiv and Brovary. The team grew to more than 25 employees, the client base increased by 500–600%, and revenue rose by 200–250%.
Launching during a crisis
WellHome was founded at a time when many real estate companies were waiting for the market to stabilize. Herasimov chose a different approach: instead of putting expansion on hold, he focused on building a system that could operate effectively even under unstable market conditions.
All client entry points—including phone calls, messaging apps, inquiry forms, and partner referrals—were integrated into a single CRM system. Every stage of the transaction was assigned a responsible team member, clear deadlines, and defined procedures for transferring information between agents, managers, and legal specialists.
This gave the team visibility into more than just a list of contacts. They could track the real-time status of every transaction: who had reached out, what had already been offered, which documents still required review, where delays had occurred, and who was responsible for the next step.
How WellHome took control of the customer journey
At WellHome, the CRM became an everyday operational tool for the entire team. Agents could access each client’s communication history and their daily priorities. Managers had a clear overview of team workloads and the progress of every transaction. Legal specialists could monitor document statuses and review the list of legal risks that required verification before a deal moved forward.
Integrating telephony and messaging platforms eliminated a common problem faced by many real estate agencies: some client communication remained in personal chats, some was stored in private notes, and some was simply lost. At WellHome, every client interaction was captured in a single centralized system.
For clients, this meant a more transparent and predictable experience. They always knew what stage their transaction had reached, which documents were being prepared, and when to expect the next step in the process.
Shorter transaction cycles and fewer failed deals
After streamlining its internal processes, the company achieved significant operational improvements. The average transaction cycle was reduced from 68 days to 41 days. The share of failed transactions dropped from 11% to 4%. The gap between the asking price and the final closing price narrowed from 6.8% to 3.2%, while customer acquisition costs decreased by 27%.
These results were the outcome of several practical changes. The team responded more quickly to requests, reviewed documents earlier, identified weak points in the client relationship more effectively, and was able to intervene in a timely manner if a deal began to stall.
The share of repeat clients and referral-based business also increased. For a real estate agency, this is particularly important: clients return—or recommend the company to others—when the transaction process is transparent, well-organized, and free of unnecessary stress.
Team training was tied to real performance metrics
Team training became another key element of WellHome’s operating model. Rather than conducting training sessions for the sake of routine, the company focused on specific areas where performance data revealed weaknesses.
For example, if the company noticed that clients were dropping off after the initial consultation, training centered on improving first-contact communication. If negotiations over pricing became a recurring challenge, the team worked on negotiation skills. If transactions were delayed because of documentation issues, additional emphasis was placed on legal procedures and document management.
This data-driven approach helped new agents become productive more quickly while giving management clear insight into which skills had the greatest impact on business performance.
A stress test: 2021–2023
The period from 2021 to 2023 became a major test of WellHome’s resilience. Some clients were unable to attend property viewings in person, others preferred to complete more stages of the buying process remotely, and many took longer to make decisions due to ongoing market uncertainty.
In response, the company introduced virtual reality (VR) property tours, online reservation tools, and electronic contract signing. Although the team operated in a hybrid format, the core workflow remained unchanged: inquiry, property selection, viewing, due diligence, negotiations, contract signing, and post-sale support.
Maintaining these standardized checkpoints allowed WellHome to deliver consistent service even during periods when the traditional real estate transaction process was significantly disrupted.
A Ukrainian business model adapted to the Florida market
In 2023, Maksym Herasimov obtained his real estate license with Charles Rutenberg Realty in Clearwater, Florida, and began applying the operational approach he had developed in Ukraine to the U.S. market.
Florida is a highly competitive real estate market, where clients expect rapid responses, accurate documentation, and transparent guidance throughout the transaction. According to the article, within 18 months of entering the U.S. market, Herasimov’s personal income increased four- to fivefold, more than 60% of transactions closed without changes to the agreed terms, and client inquiries continued to receive responses within 15 minutes during business hours.
The experience demonstrated that a business model developed in Kyiv could be successfully adapted to a different market. While the legal framework, regulations, competitive landscape, and client expectations changed, the core principles remained the same: prompt communication, structured process management, thorough legal due diligence, and a clear, transparent transaction journey.
The strengths of WellHome’s approach
WellHome’s experience demonstrates that success in real estate often depends less on the performance of a single outstanding salesperson than on how effectively the entire business process is organized.
Several key elements contributed to this approach: a unified system for managing all client inquiries, clearly defined response times, early-stage legal due diligence, team training based on real performance metrics, and continuous monitoring of service quality.
Technology played an important role, but it was never the strategy itself. CRM software, virtual reality property tours, electronic signatures, and analytics delivered results because they were fully integrated into the team’s day-to-day operations rather than used as standalone tools.
The next stage
The next step for WellHome could be the development of a franchise model. Its foundation would include a CRM system with analytics, a library of contracts, a property verification methodology, communication scripts, and a system for agent motivation and training.
The idea is to transfer not just a brand, but a complete way of working: how to receive an inquiry, how to guide a client through the transaction, how to verify documents, how to train the team, and how to monitor service quality.
For the real estate market, this could become a stronger competitive advantage than yet another advertising campaign. Clients do not always see a company’s internal systems, but they quickly experience their results—in faster response times, accurate documentation, clear actions by the team, and greater peace of mind throughout the transaction.
The WellHome example confirms that growth in real estate can begin not with a larger advertising budget, but with better organization of internal operations. It was this approach that helped the company grow from a Kyiv-based agency into a business model that Maksym Herasimov was able to apply successfully in the U.S. market.