Gary Ashton
The Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage
#1 Real Estate Team in Tennessee
#1 RE/MAX Team in THE WORLD
www.GaryAshton.com Official site
The Official Real Estate Team for The Nashville Predators NHL team.
Contact Gary Ashton HERE
Gary Ashton Bio
Gary Ashton acquired his real estate license in March 2001 and has had a rapid rise to become the #1 realtor for RE/MAX and one of the top 1% of realtors in the Nashville, Tennessee area, the #1 team leader with RE/MAX Advantage in Tennessee, #1 in the USA, and #1 RE/MAX team in the world!!
In addition, Gary is the official real estate agent for the Nashville Predators and has been featured as the team leader for the top RE/MAX real estate team in the world.
England to the States
Born in England, Gary spent most of his time pursuing a musical career, first playing drums with the Leeds Middle Schools Orchestra, then the Yeadon Town brass band, and then moving more towards the rock and pop bands. This eventually led to playing in a local Leeds rock/pop band called Officer Dibble.
At the time, Gary was working at an advertising agency and had clients who were selling cars or homes. This was to come in useful later! As the local success of the band grew, the attention of the music business came to them. The band was signed by Chris De Burgh's management, and as a result, the band subsequently opened for Joe Cocker, Chris De Burgh, and Tears for Fears.
His family owned two bed-and-breakfast hotels, and after leaving the band, Gary helped with the family business. Eventually, the hotels were sold, and the family emigrated to Clearwater Beach, Florida, where they operated a motel for 10 years.
When developers began approaching Ashton and other local hotel owners, Gary put together a team to handle the negotiations. This was his introduction to the world of real estate, and although the deal fell through, the decision to sell and move to Nashville was made.
In October 2000, Gary came to Nashville to once again pursue a musical career.
From Florida to Tennessee
In 2001, Gary obtained his real estate license and became an agent at Crye-Leike in Hendersonville. It seemed the best of both worlds – a part-time Realtor and a part-time musician. However, it soon became clear that music didn’t pay the bills, but real estate did!
From Part-Time to Full Time
Gary eventually became a buyers’ agent for Steve Shrum, one of the top agents at Crye-Leike and one of the few agents in Hendersonville who actually had a website up and running. Gary’s background in advertising had been used in developing a website for the hotel, and so he applied this knowledge in an effort to enhance the lead generation from Steve’s website.
2004
Gary left Crye-Leike and joined another regional real estate company called Bob Parks. This only lasted about 6 weeks because, at that time, he was offered the opportunity to become the exclusive agent for the geo domain Nashville.com. This allowed Gary to move from taking 2 leads a day to over 20! However, because the site was a nationally recognized site and ranked so well organically in the search engines, he needed a nationally recognized brand/logo so that people were aware that he was part of a real estate company, so Gary joined RE/MAX and the local franchise RE/MAX Elite.
Gary then spent the next few years building the website presence and putting together realtors who would want the advantage of getting numerous leads and the ability to build their real estate career quickly as part of his team.
2007
In 2007, Gary made "Top 3" Realtors in sales and earnings for the RE/MAX Elite group of over 400 Nashville area realtors. He is also was the number one agent for the Nashville Real Estate Team.
This was a banner year for Gary and his team, notably the first time Gary was recognized for his sales achievements by being honored by RE/MAX as a member of the "Chairmans Club."
2008
As the country started to see the effects of some questionable loan practices that seemed to have reverberations for credit institutions around the world, the market in Nashville was also taking a hit. Sales were down, but Gary's team was still recognized as being the top team with RE/MAX Elite in Nashville TN.
2009
Again, it's a trying time for real estate sales in the US, but with every cloud, there is a silver lining. The collapse of the real estate market actually created an environment for some amazing deals, and the strong positioning of Gary's team online meant that 2008 was still a successful year for the team.
The downturn in home sales was also seen by Gary as a team to regroup and to focus his attention on redesigning the website in conjunction with Morgan Carey of Real Estate Webmasters and his design team.
2010
The release of the new website was met with numerous comments of approval, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Since the new site was released, the number of registrations nearly tripled, and as a result, 2010 was a banner year for Gary and TAREG.
2011 -15
Much has happened in the years 2011 to 15 as the team became the #1 RE/MAX team in Tennessee
In 2013, the team increased its sales production to $147M, which actually placed the team at the #1 RE/MAX team in Nashville and Tennessee, the #6 team in the USA, and #9 in the world.
2014 saw the team increase production again to just under $183M and confirmed the #1 spot in Nashville and Tennessee, but increased the team's national ranking to #3 in the USA and #5 in the world.
In October 2015, RE/MAX LLC offered Gary the opportunity to become an RE/MAX brokerage owner and take his model of a team working as a brokerage with all the added benefits to the agents and become an actual brokerage. Gary became a broker/owner along with Debra Beagle and Jonny Lee.
2016-2018
In 2016, after only a few short months after leaving RE/MAX Elite, Gary's new brokerage RE/MAX Advantage, was named the RE/MAX Brokerage of the Year by the RE/MAX region directors. This covers the stats of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia.
After being given the opportunity by RE/MAX to start the new RE/MAX Advantage brokerage in 2015, 53 of the agents that were on his team at RE/MAX Elite made the decision to stay with Gary and come to RE/MAX Advantage. Out of the 70 agents he had at RE/MAX Elite, this was a very strong show of support for Gary and the rest of the team.
In 2016, at the RE/MAX convention in Las Vegas, The Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage was named the #4 RE/MAX team in the world, as well as the #4 RE/MAX team in the USA and #1 RE/MAX team in Tennessee!
2017-18 The transition from being a team at RE/MAX Elite to actually owning a brokerage and managing his team was a little tricky. The start of the brokerage was an unexpected one, as one minute he was at RE/MAX Elite, and then, in a blink, he wasn't!
Gary, Debra Beagle, and Jonny Lee were all "asked to leave" as presumably they were seen to be too much competition from the other agents at RE/MAX Elite! Gary's team of 70 agents was given a week to decide where they wanted to go after Gary was released. Turns out the owners of the RE/MAX region didn't want to lose Gary as an RE/MAX agent, so they put together an offer for Gary, and within 3 weeks of leaving RE/MAX Elite, Gary had started RE/MAX Advantage!
Of the 70 agents that were at Elite, 53 came with Gary to his new brokerage at RE/MAX Advantage.
In 2016, the team dropped a little in production but still made the top 10 teams with $226M in production. A year later, in 2017, the team had regrouped and refocused, and the agent count increased to 100! The sales production of $334M.
The SOLO EAST project was a huge undertaking but became one of the most successful condo sales projects in Nashville under the guidance of Debra Beagle and the team.
With the ability to work now as a brokerage, the new team flourished, and now the focus was on improving the team's conversion and ability to help the public.
The always-forward thing managing broker and now co/owner Debra Beagle really bought into the RE/MAX Momentum program, and the team started to develop its own identity and structure.
With the addition of Scott Hull prior agents but now focusing on the sales track, the conversion of the team's business started to grow exponentially.
The tech focus of the team was also enhanced by Scott Hull's ability to adapt and merge numerous processes into one to really help the agents and the public to have a successful real estate experience when buying a home.
In 2018, the team production increased again to $420M, and the team was recognized now as the #1 RE/MAX team in the USA and #1 in the WORLD!!!
2019
This became a watershed year for Gary, as the brokerage was offered the opportunity to become the broker partner for Zillow and their Zillow Offers program. This meant that after Zillow allowed sellers to sell to Zillow as part of the passion to make the home selling process more convenient, and then Zillow would list those acquired homes with Gary Ashton.
This partnership started August 5th, 2019, which coincidentally is Gary's birthday! Scott Hull was made the Director of the Zillow Offers operation, and the start of the next chapter of the growth was off!
The team's sales volume also saw signs of growth, and they broke the half-a-billion figure at circa $650M.
This made them also the #1 RE/MAX team in the world for the 2nd year running.
2020-23
There were a lot of changes in the entire world in 2020 with the onset of the Covid epidemic. That was a challenging time for everyone, and initially, real estate was probably considered to be an area that people were least focused on. However, as the epidemic evolved and the impact of working from home, plus the historically low-interest rates, the impetus to leave traditionally high-value areas to new states and cities grew very quickly.
Tennessee is a state with no income tax, and the Nashville area has become a destination for numerous corporate relocations, so the desire to move to Nashville has increased. This led to Gary and the team having some record-breaking years in terms of production, and in 2021, they broke the Billion Dollar sales volume for the first time.
In 2022, the market did cool due to the start of rising interest rates, but the team managed to maintain its momentum and finished the year at just under one Billion in sales volume.
The Zillow offers program did come to an end, but Gary and the team became the Zillow Flex partner. This has since evolved into becoming the Zillow Sellers partner alongside Opendoor.
To top it all, the team was named the #1 RE/MAX team in the world for the 5th consecutive year!
Real Estate and the Internet
Gary has taken advantage of the Internet as a way of reaching home buyers who are actively using the Web to find out more information about the Nashville area and homes and properties that are available through the Middle Tennessee Regional Multiple Listing Service (MTRMLS).
If you have ever had any contact with Gary, you'll probably recognize this image as being very representative of just about every hour of his working day!
Gary Ashton in a familiar pose circa 2004 :)
Photography
In keeping with Gary's interest in real estate, architecture, and the visual aspect of the internet, this developed into a photography hobby where Gary has managed to blend his interests in travel and photography. Gary has actually won a couple of photography awards working with the Ujena swimwear company based in California.