Minneapolis-based residential brokerage firm HomeServices of America, which owns Edina Realty, has bought a majority stake in two real estate brokerage franchises—a deal that will more than quadruple its current network of about 16,000 brokers and create a new brand called Berkshire Hathaway HomeService.
 
HomeServices and Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management have formed a new company called HSF Affiliates, LLC, which will operate Brookfield’s Prudential Real Estate and Real Living Real Estate brokerage franchises. The two franchises together have a network of more than 53,000 brokers across the United States, and HomeServices will own an unspecified majority stake in the new company.
 
Financial terms of the deal, which was announced Tuesday, were not disclosed.
 
HomeServices of America is a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway. HSF, which will be based in Irvine, California, also plans to start a new franchise in 2013 called Berkshire Hathaway HomeService. Buffet said in a statement that he is pleased to have Berkshire Hathaway be a part of the new brand’s name.
 
“Today’s announcement is significant for HomeServices,” the company’s chairman and CEO, Ron Peltier, told Twin Cities Business in an e-mailed statement. “It represents an important component to our overall growth strategy as we now have majority ownership in a franchise network with tremendous name recognition from which to build a new brand.”
 
The joint venture with Brookfield represents “an acceleration and expansion” of HomeServices’ efforts to grow its footprint nationally, spokeswoman Liz Litin told Twin Cities Business.
 
The company has been on a buying spree lately: Earlier this year, it bought Connecticut-based Prudential Connecticut Realty, which at the time of the acquisition, had more than 1,400 sales associates in more than 50 offices. It also bought Branson, Missouri-based Tri-Lakes Realtors, Oregon-based Prudential Northwest Properties, and Seattle-based Prudential Northwest Realty Associates, thus expanding its network of brokers to 21 states.
 
Brookfield Asset Management is more than 100 years old and has more than $150 billion in assets under management. Its two brands that are now part of the jointly-owned HSF were previously owned by Brookfield’s residential property services division and generated more than $72 billion in residential real estate sales volume in 2011.