For years, Aaron Bosshardt watched homeowners choose between two imperfect options: sell off-market for less than their property was worth or list publicly on the MLS when privacy mattered most.

Behind Bosshardt Realty Services

For almost 40 years, Bosshardt Realty Services has been a fixture in Gainesville, Florida. Founded in 1987 by Carol Bosshardt, the company has grown into a full-service real estate corporation with a brokerage, a residential and commercial property management arm, a title company, and an in-house real estate law practice led by a board-certified real estate attorney. Through all that growth, Bosshardt has remained locally owned and independent, a rarity at a time when so many independent brokerages are being bought out by national brands. Ninety agents work under the Bosshardt name today, and roughly ten of them are active real estate investors themselves. 

Aaron Bosshardt, who now runs the company alongside his wife, describes the business simply: community based, independent, and built to keep money local. That philosophy shapes everything, including the company’s decision to build its own approach to working with sellers and create more opportunities to keep transactions within the local market.

The Problem With the Old System

Aaron had spent years watching sellers navigate a system that often left them with limited options: list on the MLS or pursue an off-market sale, each with its own tradeoffs in terms of timing, price, and certainty. 

The MLS came with its own constraints. 

“The whole MLS system is just like, here are the rules. You have to do it this way. And you can’t do it any other way than that, or you’re in violation.”

— Aaron Bosshardt  

Net listings are outlawed in most markets, and sellers who need discretion, whether because of tenants, business sensitivity, or a property in rough shape, can have few good options.

An off-market sale can offer more privacy and certainty, but it can also mean fewer potential buyers and less opportunity to maximize the seller’s outcome. 

Aaron saw an opportunity to create another path: a professional, private process where the seller, the buyer, and the brokerage could all walk away better off.

Finding the Right Tool

Bosshardt was already using Salesforce when a rep suggested they were overpaying for a system that wasn’t built for real estate. That conversation led them to Stephanie Betters and Left Main. 

Being able to talk directly with Left Main’s founder and CEO made a lasting impression. Aaron has always made a point of being accessible to Bosshardt’s own customers and partners, and seeing that same leadership style at Left Main played a big role in the decision.

What was originally a search for a better CRM turned into something bigger once Aaron sat through Left Main’s demo and saw Investor Portal in action.

The Investor Portal gave Bosshardt a way to run private, off-market listings, something the MLS was never designed to handle. For sellers who need discretion, that difference matters.

When privacy matters

When Bosshardt listed a local bakery for sale, the owner didn’t want the sale made public. A previous brokerage’s listing with a yard sign outside of her store had already cost her half her business. Bosshardt needed a way to market the property without broadcasting it to her customers and the community.

In practice

The challenge: The seller needed to market the business without the sale becoming public knowledge.

The solution: Bosshardt listed the property on Investor Portal, a private website where Bosshardt controls who has access. Only approved buyers could see the listing, so it never appeared anywhere public.

The flexibility: Investor Portal gave Bosshardt a private website for off-market listings, with Bosshardt deciding who gets access.

Left Main helped them adapt the system to fit the deal. Instead of forcing the deal into a system built around a standard residential workflow, Bosshardt could tailor the CRM to the way this particular deal needed to be handled.

That flexibility extended beyond the software itself. Taylor Cannon, Aaron’s Executive Assistant, says the hands-on support from the Left Main team has been an important part of making the platform work for their business, particularly when they run into a situation that doesn’t fit neatly into a standard workflow.

A Different Kind of Deal

The strategy Bosshardt has built around the portal is deliberate. 

Instead of listing a distressed property at market value and letting a bidding war determine the outcome, they estimate what it would cost an investor to renovate after the cost of purchasing, then price the listing below that number, often by discounting an amount equivalent to what the seller would otherwise pay out in closing costs, taxes, and commissions. 

The seller gets a number close to what a flipper would actually pay after their own math, without the property sitting on the open market where 17 of 20 offers never close because buyers didn’t understand what they were bidding on.

“Why can’t we make an extra $5,000 or $6,000, and the seller makes an extra $30,000 and the buyer saves an extra $30,000?”

— Aaron Bosshardt 

The approach is designed for sellers whose circumstances don’t fit the traditional sales process. 

Aaron and Taylor described one seller managing an inherited property who had unknowingly lost multiple tax exemptions and was suddenly facing five years of back taxes, and the potential of losing his childhood home

Another involved an elderly couple, one of them ill, stuck with a home that had become difficult to manage. 

A third seller couldn’t afford to have anyone see his house in its current condition and didn’t want his photos circulated publicly. 

Taylor emphasized the importance of being sensitive to sellers whose circumstances can make a traditional listing difficult, particularly when showings, property preparation, or public exposure aren’t realistic options. 

In each case, the private listing model let Bosshardt work with the seller’s actual circumstances instead of forcing them through a one-size-fits-all process.

Better for Sellers. Better for Buyers.

Aaron is candid about the fact that this isn’t a high-volume play. 

He estimates the portal might generate 10 to 20 deals a year for Bosshardt, but they tend to be higher-margin transactions for the brokerage and meaningfully better outcomes for sellers. 

“This approach works better because it allows us to help sellers that need specialized help that’s not really available through the MLS…”

— Aaron Bosshardt 

The bigger opportunity, as Aaron sees it, is bringing more of Bosshardt’s 90 agents into the process and building out the portal as a communication platform for clients, something no other CRM built for individual agents can really support at the brokerage level.

For an independent, family-run brokerage approaching its 40th year in business, the appeal isn’t complexity. It’s control: control of their own data, control of how they serve sellers who don’t fit the standard mold, and control of a process that lets them do right by their community while still building a sustainable business.

By adopting Investor Portal, Bosshardt created a new option for sellers who didn’t fit the traditional process. It’s an approach that gives the brokerage more flexibility to meet sellers where they are while building a sustainable business.