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RFR has signed an 18,038-square-foot, full-floor U.S. headquarters lease with SPORTFIVE at 477 Madison Ave., a 24-story boutique office tower in Midtown Manhattan. The tenant, a Hamburg, Germany-based global sports marketing firm established in 2001 and owned by private equity firm H.I.G. Capital since 2021, will occupy a full-floor prebuilt space that had served as a model suite and helped drive more than 130,000 square feet of leasing over the past 12 months.

“RFR’s investment in 477 Madison, including a high-end pre-built program, has elevated the building with a curated package of timeless design and refined functionality and is representative of the exceptional quality that prominent firms demand,” said AJ Camhi, EVP and director of leasing of RFR.

An in-house team of Camhi, Paul Milunec and Rob Weller alongside a CBRE team of Arkady Smolyansky and Alex D’Amario represented RFR. SPORTFIVE was represented by Peter Van Duyne and Alex Lachmund of Cushman & Wakefield. 

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Nearly two years after ‘The Joy of Home,’ Century 21 is following up with another feel-good marketing campaign centered on the franchisor’s trademark gold-colored yard sign posts. Beyond being eye-catching, the brand said the golden hue represents C21’s commitment to excellence and the joy of ushering homebuyers and sellers through one of the most important moments of their lives.

The “Joy of Home” marketing strategy was key to launching C21’s three-year partnership with Major League Soccer, which generated more than 75 million media impressions for the franchisor through in-stadium signage, broadcast and streaming exposure. The 60-minute spot also scored a goal with consumers, with an independent survey revealing 80 percent of buyers and sellers were more likely to hire a C21 agent after seeing the ad.

Tori Keichinger

“Last year, we established joy as our emotional territory,” Tori Keichinger, C21 vice president and head of marketing, said in a prepared statement. “This year, we’re activating it in a more consumer-centric way. While working with our advertising agency and speaking with consumers, we learned that our gold yard sign posts were seen as iconic and so closely identified with our brand that the gold-colored post alone, even without our sign attached to it, prompted people to immediately associate the color with the Century 21 brand.”

“Our ‘legacy gold’ isn’t just a brand color; it’s a signal,” she added. “It marks the beginning of the homebuying or selling journey and represents the joy our agents help deliver every day. This campaign honors where we’ve been, while showing up for today’s consumer in a modern, meaningful way.”

In an interview with Inman, Keichinger reflected on the “Joy of Home” campaign, saying it spoke to consumers’ resilience amid one of the toughest markets in recent history.

Many of the headwinds present in October 2024 remain, she said, along with new macroeconomic and geopolitical challenges. However, she said C21 is still focused on showcasing the power of an experienced agent and how a home can underscore many important life milestones, such as a new job, marriage, starting a family or retirement.

“I think when people think about real estate, they think about it from a rational perspective of the headwinds that maybe our industry may be facing. But when they think about home, they think about the moments of joy that they experience with their family,” she said. “They think about those little tiny micro moments that are part of the fabric in between, and our Century 21 agents deliver that joy of home to the consumer.”

“And so we want to shine a spotlight on that brighter side of real estate that is always there, that we have always represented, regardless of what the market looks like, because that’s ultimately what home is all about,” she added. “We’ve seen every type of market through that over five decades. I think that’s what people want. They want optimism. They want to be reminded of what home represents.”

The new commercial, aptly named “Color of Happiness,” will be a keystone at the franchisor’s One21 Experience in Las Vegas this week. Attendees got an exclusive first look at the commercial, a sneak peek at revamped legacy gold yard signposts and panels, and a suite of customizable digital and print marketing assets.

“The stage itself is shaped as a giant yard sign with the screen as the panel. It [was] a real wow moment for agents,” Keichinger said. “We’re having fun, different activations and really bringing the joy of our brand, the joy of home, to life at this event. I mean, from every different place that you look, there are opportunities for our network to really see, feel and experience what they know, what they bring to their consumers.”

The CMO said C21 is also excited to enter the second year of its partnership with Major League Soccer and to strengthen its connection with the league’s 11.2 million fans.

“We really are reaching that next generation of homebuyers and sellers,” she said. “In fact, [Major League Soccer] recently released a Vision Insights decoder report stating that its fan base is 1.7 times more likely than the [the general population] to be in the market for a new home in the next six months.”

“Seeing the brand and the campaign come to life through that partnership gave us an opportunity to touch so many different formats, whether it was in-arena and getting to have that visibility in front of fans, whether it was through the halo effect of that digital streaming, or hosting more than a thousand members of our Century 21 network at games throughout the season,” she added. “So it really gave us the opportunity to continue to build brand exposure, but also deepen that connection with our brand.”

Email Marian McPherson

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BuildersUpdate.com has rolled out a “pay upon performance” model that shifts new-home marketing costs from upfront spend to a flat fee due only when a sale closes, aiming squarely at builders’ growing concern over wasted lead-gen dollars in a choppy demand and rate environment.

Announced March 26, 2026, the program lets homebuilders list communities on the BuildersUpdate platform, gain access to its national agent distribution network and pay a $750 fee only when BuildersUpdate is the procuring cause of a closed home sale through March 2026.

How the model works

Under the program, builders incur no upfront or recurring marketing fees. Instead, they agree to pay a flat marketing fee per home sold when:

• The buyer is brought by a licensed real estate agent using BuildersUpdate
• The platform’s patented electronic buyer registration system confirms the lead as new to the builder
• The home closes and BuildersUpdate can be documented as procuring cause

The company positions the $ 750-per-home fee as a substitute for traditional listing and advertising spend, which is paid regardless of performance. The fee level is set “through March 2026,” according to the announcement, signaling that pricing may reset after that window.

Distribution and agent alignment

BuildersUpdate says builders using the program gain exposure to a reported nationwide network of more than 841,000 licensed real estate agents. Those agents, the company says, pre-qualify buyers before presenting communities and inventory to them.

The platform’s distribution network, according to BuildersUpdate, includes:

• Placement across more than 13,000 websites
• Inclusion in over 1.2 million monthly newsletters
• Enhanced search prioritization for participating builders
• Access to a patented electronic buyer registration system that confirms whether a lead is new to the builder

That registration system also lets builders highlight current incentives and offerings to agents and buyers already in the funnel.

Because agents are paid only when a transaction closes, BuildersUpdate argues the platform helps align the builder’s and agent’s incentives and reduces time spent on unqualified or low-probability prospects.

“Why wouldn’t I use this program? I’m already paying a referral fee to agents, but this platform puts my communities directly in front of them – without the burden of ongoing marketing costs for leads that don’t convert,” one participating builder said in the announcement.

Why it matters to homebuilding operators

The offer is pitched into a backdrop of higher-for-longer rates, elevated carry costs on spec and standing inventory, and cautious buyers stretching qualification limits as fuel and materials costs remain volatile. Those conditions have raised the bar on marketing efficiency and intensified scrutiny of every dollar of variable SG&A.

For division presidents and sales/marketing leaders, the model effectively treats certain demand-generation costs as a success-based commission override layered on top of existing broker compensation, rather than as fixed or semi-fixed advertising expense. The operational questions become:

• Is $750 per closed unit, on top of agent compensation, accretive compared with current digital, listing, and paid-search channels on a cost-per-sale basis?

• Does BuildersUpdate’s agent network materially expand reach into active new-home selling agents in the builder’s submarkets?
• Can the system reliably document procuring cause in markets where multiple agents and portals may touch the same buyer?
• How does this integrate with existing co-op strategies, broker outreach and internal online sales counselor (OSC) processes?

For capital partners and CFOs, the structure converts some portion of marketing risk into a variable cost directly tied to closings, potentially smoothing margin variability in slower absorptions. But it also adds another per-unit fee at a time when many builders are already layering in permanent rate buydowns, closing cost credits and broker bonuses to stimulate demand.

Strategic considerations for builders

Strategically, the program may appeal most to:

• Builders with excess or aging spec inventory that need to increase agent engagement without committing to large, fixed marketing budgets.
• Smaller and mid-sized regional builders that lack the in-house marketing infrastructure of larger publics and rely more heavily on co-broker relationships.
• Operators entering new submarkets where local agent awareness of their communities is limited and pay-on-close visibility could accelerate brand ramp-up.

Operational leaders will need to evaluate how BuildersUpdate’s feed and registration system interfaces with their CRM, how leads are routed to sales teams, and whether the platform’s AI and patented tools can meaningfully improve lead quality over existing portal, MLS and agent-direct channels.

In an “every dollar has to close” environment, the key test will be whether the program consistently produces additional, incremental closings – not just re-tags existing buyers – at a fully-loaded cost per sale that beats alternative uses of marketing and incentive dollars.

Related

Most real estate agents assume they need to hire a marketing assistant before they can level up their marketing, but the bigger problem isn’t staffing. It’s systems.

Agents often believe better marketing requires more time, more people or a bigger budget. In reality, the biggest gap is usually strategy — knowing how to research buyers, position a listing, create a marketing narrative and build consistent content around it.

That’s where artificial intelligence is quietly changing the game.

Tools like ChatGPT, Grok and Claude are starting to function as something many agents have never had access to before: an on-demand marketing assistant that can help with research, strategy and execution in minutes.

The catch? AI only works if you know how to ask the right questions.

Over the past year, while teaching agents how to use AI in their business, I’ve found that a handful of simple prompts consistently produce the type of work agents would normally assign to a marketing assistant.

5 AI prompts that’ll do the work of a full-time marketing assistant

Here are five prompts that can dramatically streamline an agent’s marketing workflow.

1. Market intelligence prompt

Before writing marketing copy, great agents understand who the buyer actually is. This prompt turns AI into a quick research assistant.

Prompt:

Act as a real estate market strategist.

Analyze the housing market for buyers in [city or ZIP code]. Identify the three buyer profiles most likely to purchase homes in this area.

For each profile include:

• • Lifestyle motivations
  • What they value most in a home
  • Budget sensitivities
  • The emotional triggers that influence their purchase decisions

Then, recommend how a real estate agent should position listings and marketing to attract these buyers.

Why this works:

Most listing marketing starts with the house. Strong marketing starts with the buyer. This prompt helps agents identify who they are really speaking to before they create any marketing content.

2. Pricing and positioning prompt

Luxury brands rarely launch a product without deciding how it should be positioned in the market first. Listings should be treated the same way.

Prompt:

Act as a real estate marketing strategist.

Based on the following property details, identify the ideal buyer audience for this home and recommend the best marketing positioning.

Include: