Local, independent real estate company prides itself on 20 years of customer service
Seabrook Marchant thought he was destined for a textile career. After all, both of his grandfathers and his father were in the textile business and Marchant had gotten a degree in textile management from Clemson.
But after graduation and a two-year stint in the Army, Marchant spent a year working for a local Greenville textile mill and decided that really wasn’t what he wanted to do.
Marchant had always been interested in the real estate business, even showing friends’ apartments for fun, so in 1968 he went to work for C. Dan Joyner. Marchant worked for the well-known Greenville realtor for 25 years.
But around June 29, 1993, Marchant decided he wanted to do something that he could “put his own signature on.” He had always had an “entrepreneurial spirit,” he says, so even with three kids in college, a good position he would be leaving and a mortgage, he decided to branch out on his own and “take that leap of faith.”
The company began with an office out of his house and only one other agent.
Twenty years later, the Marchant Company prides itself on being locally owned and independent. Marchant is a native Greenvillian with family ties here going back to the 1880s. His company is family-owned, with son, Brian, serving as CFO and partner in Marchant Property Management LLC; nephew, Tom as vice president of sales and marketing; and wife Anne acting as business manager and also a partner in Marchant Property Management.
Marchant says his goal from the beginning was to build a company with a strong foundation centered on customer service. He is proud of a client list that reads like a “Who’s Who” in the Greenville real estate market, with many clients being friends, neighbors and associates.
Brian Marchant calls his father “a steadfast, compassionate role model throughout my life, both personally and professionally. I and the entire Marchant team are proud to associate ourselves, and our reputation, with the brand that he has built over the last 20 years.”
Seabrook Marchant launched the company focusing on marketing new home sales and subdivisions for developers, gradually migrating into general brokerage. When his son Brian joined him in 1995 after graduating from Wofford College, they added property management to their list of services and now manage over 375 properties, a significant part of their business.
The company does some commercial real estate and has a license for mountain properties, but the Upstate is its main focus.
Technology is one thing that has changed dramatically in the past 20 years, Marchant says, noting that when he started the company in 1993, no one had computers.
“We bought our first computer for the office in 1999 and only had one for everyone to share. Now everyone has their own laptop, iPad or smartphone they use to conduct business,” he said.
Agents can now work from home or from their cars and aren’t tied to a brick-and-mortar office. Buyers have changed as well, doing a lot of Internet research before even talking to a realtor.
With about 26 employees, Marchant certainly isn’t the largest real estate company in the Upstate, but he is okay with that. He says he would rather have “quality over quantity” any day and believes the company “stands strong” beside their competitors with their customizable customer care.
As they celebrate and look over the past 20 years, Marchant says, “We want to continue to build the business as we have, with the foundations that we’ve laid, and continue to excel.”
