Realty Landscaping was founded in 1985 by Clifford Greer and has since grown tremendously, becoming one of the largest privately held landscaping companies. A single-owner entrepreneur originally managed the landscaping and construction services for a well-known home builder which eventually became Realty Landscaping with a core of home building landscaping installation for home builder tracks and subdivision. From this, the services provided by the company expanding considerably where it now includes everything a customer would need from a landscaping company. The company provides a “one-stop-shop” for customers, acting as a full-cycle landscaping and exterior service provider.
Daniel Biundo, Director of Strategic Development at Realty Landscaping, explains that the company assists clients with the design and installation of construction projects from the ground up, “from conceptual drawings to professional plant installation”. In addition to this, Realty Landscaping offers maintenance packages across all four seasons. As Biundo explains, this means that the company will maintain the site and take care of mulching, pruning of plant material, turf applications, weekly mowing, fall clean-ups and integrated pest management for the plants.
According to Biundo, the company’s full-spectrum approach means that it remains aware of every conceivable challenge. “We’re always looking for safety concerns that may arise or items that may be problematic – our team offers a proactive approach to looking at your property and being able to ensure that first and foremost, it’s going to be safe. But second, that it’s going to be functional too, and that it’s going to look its best while being functional.”
Going forward, the team has plans for expanding its offerings. Plans are imminent to branch out into exterior facility services which will include asphalt and concrete services, along with power washing for the exterior of buildings just to name a few.
In preparing for this expansion, the company has been laying the groundwork for some time. Kevin Craig joined the company as CEO in 2021, bringing with him a wealth of knowledge across a number of industries. Summing up what the company does, Craig explained, “If you think of the exterior shell of the building including parking lots, walkways, landscape, buildings façade, and lighting our services can be leveraged to help solve any problems that our clients face. We have a keen eye on the exterior of the building and we will proactively propose services by strategically delivering value if we see any deficiencies in the exterior shell of the building. Safety and functionality always remains front of mind for our team members.”
In November of last year, the company went through an infusion with private equity, where it leveraged its strategy to get additional financial support. This, according to Craig, allowed the company to continue its growth trajectory. “I believe we can compete with anyone in the industry – we feel that we’re positioned both intellectually and by strategy to be able to excel. We couldn’t have selected better partners that share our vision to help deliver tremendous value to our clients.”
“Realty Landscaping offers maintenance packages across all four seasons.”
This growth is evidenced by its geographical footprint. Realty Landscaping has four operating offices –Newtown, PA (HQ), Burlington, NJ, Oaks, PA, and it has recently opened its 4th Office in the Lehigh Valley. In addition Realty Landscaping operates in various states through it’s managed service business. This reach ensures that Realty Landscaping is equipped to bring considerable value to its customers, regardless of location. Craig said, “We become focused on the ability to not only help bring projects out of the ground in what we call the first generation and then to be able to continue to add value through recurring maintenance, additional services, and refit. It’s a never-ending life cycle of where you can continue to drive value to your clients.”
When asked what the key to the success of Realty Landscaping has been, the team didn’t hesitate for a second to find an answer. “It’s our people,” says Biundo.
“We continue to build on the solid foundation of a fantastic team with well known industry leader and team members – clients get to vote every day on who they would like to use for their projects and more and more of them are picking Realty. It’s very exciting to see the vote of confidence that we’re getting from our clients. Our teams work extremely hard, are smart, and have a ton of industry experience. It comes down to the people and the hard-working teams that we have here at Realty, that’s one of the key successes for us.”
Vince Giordano, from the construction side of the company, believes that through cultivating a professional mindset, the company has thrived. “We have a very well-groomed team of designers, architects, estimators – everybody knows their job and works very hard at coming out with a positive outcome. Delivering quality on every one of our projects and professional service, not just meeting the industry standards but exceeding – we stress the importance every day for every one of our professionals to go out the door with the right mindset. If we work hard from the senior management level, we will succeed – that’s our promise.” With this in mind, Craig added that the company has “an unbelievable reputation for quality work – one of our signatures for success is absolute quality and [putting the] customer first.” He believes that in this industry, people have to work very hard – but the company has excelled through strategic hires that have allowed it to work smarter, instead of harder. “We’re building a performance build culture and we’re doing that in the preservation of the corporation – we intend to continue to do that by making sure that we live by the philosophy that it’s clinet, company, self. If we take care of our clients, we’ll have a good company and if we take care of our company, we’ll all have a career path, so I try to sponsor that at the executive level.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic was ongoing, the company unfortunately lost 25 per cent of its revenue – which equated to over nine years of the team working hard. Incredibly however, in just 18 months the team has filled the gap and the last two years have brought record revenue for the company. Craig explained that it is Realty’s reputation for quality that is behind this recovery. “We feel that we’ve got a very solid strategy that delivers excellence and commits to the promises we make to our clients and positions us to take our place in the marketplace.”
Unsurprisingly, the company is poised for even more growth. Giordano explained that they intend to do this through a series of strategic partnerships. “We are looking at opportunities in many parts of the country, partnering with the right clientele who will allow us to take our organization and our efforts, our professionalism, and our services into those areas. The residential commercial design build landscape, construction, irrigation, maintenance, full-scale maintenance service including snow – we can do that, we’re proving that we can do it everywhere and I think that that’s an important attribute.” For Giordano, it is the relentless pursuit of improvement that drives Realty Landscaping forward. “When you’re looking at an organization like ours, as we continue to grow to get us to the next level – many companies just become satisfied, and we won’t be that company.”
Similarly, Biundo added that working with new clients, gives the opportunity to demonstrate what the company can do. By building the clients trust and confidence, Realty can then broaden the range of services it is offering the client. Instead of needing seven things done and getting seven different people, clients can then get Realty Landscaping to do all of them. “The wealth of resources and what we’ve been able to build allows us to be confident with client’s ask for these additional services. To be able to offer them knowing that we can deliver on the service and ensure that they’re satisfied. That will allow us to propel further, just being able to have that confidence in what we deliver.”
