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Owned and operated by “two millennial women who are also best friends,” The Agency Bentonville is headed up by managing partners Calah Andelman and Kaala House. It’s the first office for The Agency in Arkansas, and is a “relatively rural brokerage serving a small pocket of the country.”
“We may not work in a market that sells multiple million-dollar homes,” Andelman and House said, “but it’s one of the fastest growing areas in the country nonetheless.”
Andelman offers a decade of industry experience, and prides herself on “helping clients grow their investment portfolios, achieve passive income goals and find homes that suit their evolving lifestyles.”
House specializes in working with “investors and families” and adds a professional background in sales, health insurance and remodeling to her understanding of the local real estate market in Northwest Arkansas.
Find out how these broker besties are building a market presence in Bentonville and why “many of [their] all-time best days happened in real estate.”
Broker Spotlight: Calah Andelman and Kaala House
Name: Calah Andelman and Kaala House
Title: Managing partners
Experience: Andelman (13 years), House (6 years)
Location: Bentonville, Arkansas
Brokerage name: The Agency Bentonville
Rankings: Brokerage ranked 17th in region
Team size: 14 agents
Transaction sides: 624 total sides
Sales volume: $162,977,723
How did you choose your brokerage?
We chose The Agency because they have such an incredible brand identity. We were sold when they showed us their software. It’s next-level stuff in every way. The support they offer to us as agents helps us be better brokers and also better help our clients. We are in a growth mindset, and once we saw what The Agency has to offer, we knew they could facilitate that growth.
What’s something you know now that you wish you knew when you started?
We know now that you should work with people you love if you have a chance. If your passions align with your best friend’s passions, why not partner up and build something incredible? We push each other, we listen to each other. If one of us misses something, the other one has it covered. We have each other’s backs and this unbreakable trust through it all.
What’s your top tip for freshly licensed brokers?
Go to a brokerage that has something to offer you. The commission split means nothing if you’re getting no support, or worse, bad support. The start of any new career is hard but going somewhere that doesn’t help with marketing, doesn’t help with mentorship, doesn’t give you a sense that you’re not in this industry alone makes everything ten times harder.
What makes a good leader?
A good leader is above all an effective listener. A good leader isn’t afraid to do the work and treats their team with respect and courtesy. A good leader should be the one in the room who isn’t fazed by chaos but instead understands that some of the best lessons are learned in that chaos.
What’s one thing you wish every agent knew?
We wish every agent knew that real estate is not for the faint of heart. It’s a high-risk industry but also comes with incredibly high rewards. Not just financially, but in terms of relationships and growth opportunities, too.
Many of our all-time best days happened in real estate. But all those highs were preceded by hard work, sometimes tears, and almost always sweat. When you’re working with the right people, it makes the bad days better and the good days mean even more, because you get to share them.
