In 2013, Danny and Charlene Sullivan founded Huntsville’s Leading Edge Real Estate Group with the goal to “Lead the way, using cutting edge-technology to sell your home quickly and effectively while having fun in the process.”

Fast forward to 2022, where earlier this week Danny and Charlene’s success culminated in a merger with United Real Estate Group (United).

For the Sullivan’s, the recent merger represents a continued commitment to their central mission in Huntsville.

“Leading Edge Real Estate has always monitored what to provide for the best agent and customer results. We did a tremendous amount of due diligence and considered multiple offers from national real estate companies to join their organizations,” said Danny Sullivan. “We also had the option of going it alone as we have since our founding in 2013. We are absolutely certain United Real Estate is the answer to how we and our agents grow best in the future.”

And for Charlene, the merger also illustrates how lucrative Huntsville’s market has been over the past few years, which produced both opportunities and challenges for Leading Edge.

“We built our company for our agents. Over the past few years, we reached a tipping point where the real estate market was rapidly changing and we were facing real challenges to offer the technology, training and resources some larger companies provided.

“The additional back-office support United brings to the table frees us from some administrative tasks and allows us to spend more time with our agents. We are excited to be able to increase our focus and investments in agent development and recruitment for their and our long-term success,” said Charlene Sullivan.

In this way, the merger provides tools in the form of training, new data, and technology that will help Leading Real Estate improve the success between the agents and their customer’s goals.

One of these useful tools is United’s Bullseye™, a cloud-based productivity platform that offers streamlined services to provide Leading Edge’s agents with more organized and fine-tuned data on Huntsville’s market. The access to increased market place analytics will help Leading Edge’s agents reach and relate to their customer concerns and needs with more efficacy, thereby meeting the Sullivan’s central goal.

For Rick Haase, President of United Real Estate, United’s Bullseye™ offers a competitive advantage to partners like Leading Edge that will help Huntsville agents continue to connect with their clients.

“What’s most fulfilling is that our proprietary Bullseye™ cloud-based productivity platform will fuel their growth in the Greater Huntsville and Birmingham markets and beyond,” stated Rick Haase, President of United Real Estate.

For Rick, offering Leading Edge Real Estate the opportunity to access these resources helps them provide the same personal connection that the Sullivan’s have achieved for years, in tandem with a more well-rounded understanding of Huntsville’s market.

And, for Haase and the Sullivans, it is no secret that Huntsville’s real estate market boomed over the past few years. The red hot real estate scene in town was a crucial part of an ever growing wave that swept through the city recently. Growth and development in such a way, according to United, can hardly be ignored.

“I was fortunate to have previously lived in Huntsville, and it is amazing to see how the region and its economy are thriving. The quality of life and cost of living in the region are excellent.

“With the ‘work-where-you-want-to-live’ migration well underway in the U.S., we intend to invest heavily to grow our presence in the region to serve both those that have called North Alabama home for generations and the newcomers that no doubt will be welcomed with Southern hospitality,” stated Dan Duffy, CEO of United Real Estate Group.

The merger also acts as a natural stepping stone for United as well. Haase noted that one of United’s major goals over the next few years was to eventually develop into Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, using Huntsville as a springboard into these next two locations.

“It’s one of those regions that does not catch enough national attention from. The city is still catching-fire,” said Haase.

For Haase, Huntsville offers diverse and growing demographics, a solid workforce, NASA and Cummings Research Park, and the ability to grow with the local economy, just to name a few advantages.

But besides Huntsville’s booming economy, what really sold United was the personal touch that the Sullivan’s brought to the real estate field.

“Leading Edge, and really the Sullivans, offered all the local flavor combined with the local expertise that really attracted us to Huntsville in the first place,” said Rick.

Form United’s perspective, what was most important was partnering with a business that would still be able to maintain its central identity regardless of the changes brought by the merger. Leading Edge represented the best in Huntsville.

When asked about what this merger means for Huntsville, Haase pointed to the growth of the community and how Huntsville’s interconnectedness has been the city’s “hallmark for such success” over the past few years.

“To put it simply, Huntsville is just a great place to be.”