Neal Gendler / Star Tribune

Agents at Eden Prairie-based Re/Max Results led the nation in numbers of transactions per agent last year, according to the National Association of Realtors' July issue of Realtor magazine.

The magazine's second-annual "Top 100 Companies" issue said agents at eight-office Re/Max Results averaged 30.52 "transaction sides" last year. A transaction side is a sale in which the brokerage represents the buyer, seller or both.

The No. 2 brokerage in transactions per agent, Re/ Max DFW Associates, Dallas, had 26.86 sides per agent.

The list, based on transaction sides, was drawn from questionnaires sent to about 320 leading brokerages, editor Stacey Moncrieff said Monday. Brokers had to include a signed audit.

Brokerages on the transaction sides list also were ranked by average volume per agent. Re/Max Results was second in that ranking, but Moncrieff said some firms not making the list by sides had higher volume per agent than some firms on the list. Some of those brokers operate where home prices are higher than in the Twin Cities area, where the median price was $168,500, according to the latest report in May. Among the 100, No. 1 in volume was Alain Pinel, Realtors, of Saratoga, Calif., with $8.6 million per agent. Re/Max Results was second on the list at $5.8 million per agent.

"Our average sale price is not enormous -- it was about $190,000 last year," said Bill Saunders, who opened Results as the area's first Re/Max franchise with partner John Collopy in 1987. "But our associates are just doing a high number of transactions."

Saunders attributed the results to the firm's business model, which he said emphasizes operations, not management. "When we seek to add staffing to our firm, we never add management. We only add operations people -- people who do work.... The other component to our productivity is that we continue to seek out high-performance sales executives."

Unlike other large brokerages, Saunders and Collopy don't take on beginners. Saunders said Results will add relative newcomers, but "typically, almost all of them have done $3 million to $4 million their first year."

Re/Max also differs by being a "100 percent house," meaning agents keep 100 percent of their commissions but pay for office space and supplies, management, advertising and use of the Re/Max name. At a traditional brokerage, commissions are paid to the broker, who supplies a variety of services, and split with the agent, whose share usually rises with productivity. Saunders and Collopy say the Re/ Max model is more profitable for high producers, although traditional brokers dispute this.

Re/Max brokerages as a brand have claimed about 16 percent of the Twin Cities-area market, about half or more what Coldwell Banker Burnet and Edina Realty each claim, although those numbers, too, often are disputed.

NAR ranked Re/Max Results as No. 59 nationally in transaction sides last year, with 7,936. No. 1 was NRT, owner of CB Burnet, with 351,550, and No. 2 was HomeServices.com, owner of Edina Realty, with 87,931. Alain Pinel was No. 60 with 7,861 sides. Annual rankings by industry newsletter Real Trends put NRT No. 1, HomeServices No. 2 and Re/Max Results No. 57.

-- Neal Gendler is at ngendler@startribune.com .