Realty ONE Group Terminus (Atlanta, GA)

Adrian Provost - Agent Spotlight

By Melissa Kandel

Broker/Owner and CEO, Realty ONE Group Terminus

THE BEGINNING

For Adrian Provost, his real estate story started back in 2010 with a car accident and reality TV. The market had dropped, agents were jumping out of the business left and right, and Provost was stuck at home, recovering.

So, what did he do?

Watch a whole lot of “Million Dollar Listing” then decide to get his real estate and appraiser’s license, simultaneously, of course.

“I love fine things, I’m a creative person from a fashion, art and music perspective, so it all just connected,” he explains. “I was sitting there after the accident and I kept thinking, ‘I would love to be involved with real estate.’”

Before launching his real estate career, Provost owned multiple apparel lines and a shoe company. “We only used the best of the best fabrics, and everything was handcrafted in Italy, made to order from start to finish,” he says.

With big dreams of selling mega-mansions and penthouse apartments, Provost thought he’d jump right into luxury real estate, but his first deal was far from high end – a $34,000 short sale where he made just a few hundred dollars profit. “To this day, it is still the most difficult deal I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “And I’ve worked on some sophisticated multi-family trades and complex transactions; this was literally the hardest one.”

In the end, Provost completed the deal, and focused on developing his craft, eventually getting into the luxury real estate niche that spoke to him from the very beginning. “Luxury is more than just the price point, it’s the experience,” he says, recalling his fashion lines that were devoid of any branding or logos. “It was all about the quality of the materials that we use, so you see our product and automatically know it’s luxurious. The same thing is true of a luxury house; you go in and feel you are in a property that is luxurious. Before anyone points anything out, you just feel it.”

Provost’s extensive luxury experience fostered a network of connections in fashion, music and entertainment, and he was able to turn those relationships into clients. “I connected the dots for them by providing a service that was always an exceptional experience,” he says. “I went from helping with mansions to helping with music studios and restaurants and everything else in between, which is how I got introduced to commercial real estate as well.”

One of Provost’s trickier commercial deals was when he sold a vacant hotel property in the heart of downtown Atlanta, which had a layout that wasn’t suitable for most investors. Like the short sale that got everything started, Provost found the perfect sellers – a group of individuals who owned high-end luxury properties and commercial assets in Atlanta – and got the deal done.

Today, Provost is broker/owner of Atlanta-based Realty ONE Group Terminus. He’s also operating partner of TapMoney Mortgage, CEO of a multinational real estate investment firm, an Inman News contributor, a member of the Forbes Real Estate Council and has studied real estate at Georgia Southern University, MIT and Cornell University.

“It was a long time coming but definitely rewarding across the board,” he says of his hard-earned journey from short sales to luxury top producer. He credits a commitment to education, constant improvement and even creativity, along with the bespoke style of concierge-like service his (under Provost’s steady leadership) brokerage provides.

“Our definition of concierge-style service comes from an extremely unique perspective because we adapt to the needs of every single individual,” he explains. “There is no blanket service we offer that will be duplicated across the board. We add value from day one, whatever that looks like for them.”

And “whatever that looks like for them” can translate into anything from booking a client’s hotel stay and providing transportation from the airport, to securing reservations at the trendiest, most how-did-you-get-that-reservation restaurants in town.

“We have a lifestyle specialist at the brokerage who is a partner of mine and he is huge in the celebrity world,” Provost explains. “He throws parties at some of the best restaurants with A-list celebrities, so if a client comes to Atlanta, they know they'll not only be taken care of but also have the opportunity to spend time around people who can expand their network in a unique and worthwhile way.”

Provost says concierge-style service at Realty ONE Group Terminus also depends on the client’s profile and specific needs. Do they want to be involved with every aspect of the process, visiting properties together and staying in the loop the entire time? Or, do they want to step in when it’s time for the transaction only, letting Provost and his team handle the rest?

“Our luxury clients are used to living a certain lifestyle and we extend that lifestyle when it comes to working with us,” Provost says. “If they’re used to doing something a certain way in Chicago that experience will be just as exceptional when they cross state lines or country lines into Atlanta, as we help them search for investment properties or luxury homes.”

HOW’S THE MARKET?

Provost says the Atlanta market isn’t in as dire a situation as some locations around the country. “There’s so much growth still happening here and so little inventory,” he explains. “Everything coming out of the ground now is class A, super high-quality. Every new build, high rise community that's been built in Midtown or Buckhead practically starts at $1 million or more for entry, and even rental apartments start at nearly $3,000 per month for some of the new products.”

One of the newer developments in Atlanta, The Dillon, an 18-story luxury condominium tower located on the famous Peachtree Road, is experiencing an impressive rate of contracts and plenty of momentum following the performance of The Graydon, the development group’s previous project. The Graydon, which is a similar luxury high-rise product also located on Peachtree Road has only one unit remaining, Provost says.

Demand for high-end properties is also pushing average price points ever higher. “Right now, our luxury price point in Atlanta begins around $850,000,” Provost explains.” A few years back it was in the $700,000 range. We are expanding and we don’t have enough inventory to fulfill the demand, so we have to continuously build.”

It’s not all peach pies and cobblers in Atlanta real estate; the city got hit by a few large tech companies (most recently Microsoft) scaling back their planned development projects. Halted by a difficult economic climate, these tech giants halted previously announced Atlanta-area initiatives that would’ve added jobs, created affordable housing, funded local non-profits and even helped promote children’s digital skills in public schools. 

“Outside of that example, tons of companies are coming in and our office sector isn’t as horrible as you might think,” Provost explains. “A lot of older office buildings are being renovated or converted into affordable housing. As a developer myself, I’m having conversations with the city of Atlanta about certain office buildings they own and ways to create more housing.”

Like most major U.S. cities, Provost says Atlanta is feeling the impact of mortgage fluctuations that are destabilizing the market. “Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t seeing the same numbers as we did a few years ago,” Provost explains. “But I think we also aren’t seeing the same amount of activity with those numbers.”

He says in today’s challenging real estate market, there are a lot fewer agents working in Atlanta than there were this time last year, so from a per-agent standpoint, activity hasn’t decreased much.

Where is Atlanta’s real estate market heading? In a word, up.

“Going back to the original point about Atlanta’s impressive trajectory of expansion, when it comes to new jobs that are coming, I think we are not going to have enough supply for quite a bit of time regardless of what mortgage rates are doing,” Provost says. “We still have people who will need to be located here and that will continue to fuel demand, new construction and growth.”

A STUDENT OF THE GAME

From the start, Provost knew he wanted to be a different kind of agent, one who was dedicated, focused and supremely ready to meet a client’s every need. The vision came from a combination of Provost’s sharply honed mindset for success and his own experiences noticing what the agents he worked with didn’t do. “When I had an agent, they just opened doors for me and helped me make bad decisions, which was the opposite of what I wanted to be,” he says. “I think the really good agents, the best of the best, the ones who are top 10% in this industry, we make it look easy, so a lot of people think, ‘Oh anybody can do this.’”

(They can’t.)

The problem, Provost says, is that when COVID hit, the market exploded and even agents who didn’t know the business at all could adopt that “make it look easy” mentality – in part because it was. Buyers were waiving all contingencies, going $20,000 over asking price without batting an eye, and homes were selling faster than agents could stick a yard sign in the front lawn.

“That really hurt a lot of agents, especially the newer ones,” Provost says. “They never learned to do business the right way from the beginning because of the market, not because of their actual capabilities.”

In addition to running Realty ONE Group Terminus, Provost teaches and coaches real estate investors, specifically with multi-family assets. “People come in thinking they will be Grant Cardone,” he says. “I tell them, ‘Dude, there is one Grant Cardone for a reason. Now that’s not to say you can’t make money – because you absolutely can – but there are certain attributes he has that a lot of people don’t possess. You may be better off investing with him as opposed to trying to be him.”

How do you become the GAOAT (Greatest Agent Of All Time)?

It always starts with gathering as much knowledge as possible, says Provost, whose philosophy is based on the belief that you must be an expert in your field to be great at whatever it is you do, which means learning new things, always.

A longtime basketball fan – he even owned an ABA pro team, the Atlanta Aliens – Provost says all you have to do is look at the examples set by superstars like Michael Jordan, the Kobe Bryant and Lebron James to realize that the reason they stand out the way they do is because they are forever students of the game.

Tom Brady, Provost says, is another example of this theory in action. “Look at where he was drafted compared to what he has done,” he explains. “He’s hands down the best quarterback of all time because he put in the work. You have to be a student of the game and you have to learn your craft.”

In his career, Provost took those words to heart. He learned about the real estate industry from professors at Georgia Southern University, MIT and Cornell. He studied every aspect of the business and then when he felt like he got something down, he studied some more.

“A lot of people think I'm in a position to kick my feet up but I couldn’t do that,” Provost says. “I want to be the best ever. I want to have the most millionaire-earning agents out of any organization that has ever existed.”

In his classes, Provost teaches his students exactly how to be students of the game and acquire as much knowledge as possible, which he says starts with making sure the brokerage they’ve joined has the resources, tools and capabilities to create the career they want. Once they’ve found the perfect fit, being a student of the game comes into play.

“You can’t just rest on your laurels or do tricks,” he explains. “You have to continuously improve because things come at you every single year that make our business a little bit different, and they can make real estate more difficult or they can make it easier and more efficient. You have to figure out what those things are. If you don’t, you’ll always be playing catch-up. When you do, you’ll be constantly improving your process, learning more and getting even better every day.”