February 21, 2011–One of the nation’s largest real estate operations reported today at its national convention that it ended 2010 with 79,315 associates, 701 market centers (offices) . . . . . .since the real estate market’s sharp downturn in 2005, the company has grown 30 percent in agents, 40 percent in market centers, 21 percent in closed units and 11 percent in closed GCI.
The above is taken directly from the website of one of the largest real estate companies in the country. This press release was published intentionally by the leadership of one of the nation’s larger, more successful and relatively speaking better, real estate companies. Let’s take a look at what they are so proud of:
30% more agents, great growth can be wonderful!
40% more offices – why does an increase of 30% in people require 40% more offices? Doesn’t this speak to inefficiency in expansion and unnecessary overhead expense?
21% more closed units – so 30% increase in agents and only 21% more business? Doesn’t this tell us that the per agent production is dropping? Should we be proud of the fact that our agents are on average getting worse and producing less?
11% more closed GCI – this is the Gross Commission Income. According to this company's own report, they have increased the people who split up the income by 30% but only increased the income by 11% - congratulations you are now getting an even smaller piece of the pie!
My intention is to not pick on this particular company, but to instead point out how rare it is for people in and around the real estate field to actually stop and think. To allow those thoughts to turn into ideas and for those ideas to then create meaningful changes.
The company highlighted above obviously believes that more offices and more agents are important. Do you think the public would prefer that someone focus on creating more competent, more professional agents, and quite possibly fewer of them?
Since its inception The RESULTS Group has focused on assisting a select few in becoming more skilled, more competent, more professional and better able to truly serve their clients. There is no fluff, no warm and fuzzy, no rah rah, just a commitment to create more competency. What if a company as large and influential as the one noted above adopted this approach?
Want to know the truly ironic part? The company above promotes itself as a training and education based company and yet according to their own numbers, their agents are doing less and less business in an environment where more and more buyers and sellers are desperately seeking the help of competent professionals.
Is there a place for thinking in the real estate field?
