It’s Time to Make Our Real Estate Resolutions | Quality Brokerage, Statistical Reporting and Direct Foreclosure Search
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Announcements, Cherokee County, Miscellaneous, Self Promotion, Stuff I like to talk about
ALPHARETTA - This is the time of the year when we are resolving to make the coming year better than the past year.
No industry is more in need of improvement than the real estate industry (including the auto industry), both in terms of overall market conditions and in the way the industry functions (or dysfunctions depending on your perspective).
The big, national brokerage franchise is one of the elements of the real estate industry that I believe needs revamping and may be headed the way of WaMu, Bear Stearns and the Tyrannosaurus Rex. That is why earlier this year, I resolved to ditch the franchise model for the boutique model. The good news is now at the end of the year I have one less resolution to make and less change to make in the new year.
The currency of large brokerages is agents: Agents bring in the listings and buyers and earn the commissions that keep the lights on. What’s happening is that brokerages are losing their currency as agents drop out of the industry because they are not making any sales. And those agents who are still making a living are looking for more bang for the commission split dollar - or a lower commission split altogether. I’ve written before on this blog about the lack of real value a large brokerage provides to an agent who can already generate business.
Brokerage currency is dwindling. In 2008, the Cherokee Association of Realtors, of which I am a member, lost almost 35% of its members. I’ve heard it rumored that the Atlanta Board of Realtors has lost a similar amount as I’m sure other local boards have, too.
So why, then, do I sound almost happy about this?
First of all, I believe in the survival of the fittest (which is also why I try to stay fit!). The market conditions have forced some much needed fat trimming in the agent ranks. However, the real source of my happiness - and it is relief more than happiness - is that I’m not on a sinking brokerage ship any more. My new local broker, Maxsell Real Estate , is riding high in the water, which I attribute largely to embracing technology to run our business more efficiently, to having aggressive, fair compensation plans for agents, but mostly to understanding how to add value to an individual agent’s business.
In 2008, when the numbers for almost all Atlanta real estate brokerages where heading south, Maxsell’s numbers actually improved. We had 184% growth in the number of transactions over 2007 and there was 120% growth in the dollar volume of transactions.
We added, yes added, agents during 2008 (I’m an example of that) and ended the year with 40% more agents when most brokerages where losing agents. Our gross commission income was up 15% over last year. These statistics left Maxsell as the #8 brokerage in our sub-market, ahead of companies you may have heard of like Re-Max and Jenny Pruitt, and we are a small company!
While it is a relief to me to be affiliated with Maxsell, it should also give you comfort and confidence that Warmath Real Estate is part of a team that is figuring out how to survive and thrive in a real estate industry that is rapidly changing.
One of our strengths and one way we have continued to succeed in this market is our web presence including this blog. While my first resolution of putting our business on a sound brokerage foundation is complete, there are many resolutions I have about continuing to build and improve this website.
Real Estate Intelligence Portal
I actually wished to have most of this complete by the end of this year, but things always seem to take longer than expected. None the less, advances you will see in the coming month or so are a Real Estate Intelligence portal for Atlanta Real Estate reporting and statistics. What this means for consumers is that you will be able to come to this site and see updated, current reports and graphs of local market statistics, but more excitingly, be able to generate your own report and slice and dice the data based on ways that are meaningful to you.
Direct Foreclosure Search for Alpharetta and Atlanta
The second major improvement I’m resolved to for 2009 is the unveiling of our foreclosure search feature. It is currently not possible for a consumer to search online for foreclosures, shortsales and corporate owned properties as listed in the MLS. Agents can do it, but consumers can’t. The closest thing to it is something like RealtyTrac, a subscription service which is not pulling data from the MLS but rather cross-referencing various public sources of data including tax records. I plan to fix all that and allow you to directly search for foreclosures from the MLS. That’s what you want, right?
So, stay tuned as we step into 2009. We don’t fear the future, we create the future right here on this website!
We look forward to serving you in the coming year and being here when you need us. Happy New Year! Let the opportunities flow!
Hi Kevin,
It’s possible for consumers to search for foreclosures on websites other than places like realtytrac. I have a direct foreclosure search on my site. It pulls directly from the FMLS special circumstances where an agent has checked “foreclosures”. The code is FRECL. Anyone with a custom IDX which includes Jenny Pruitt, Harry Norman, Prudential, my website and quite a few others can pull by any feature that an agent can enter. Whether they offer it or not is another story. I’ve had it for some time and I would say it works quite well. What is more difficult is to add a “short sale” search because it isn’t a field we can enter into the system. I plan on having that ready before the end of January as well. It will read through each listing and pull the ones marked with short sale in the remarks.
I’m also working on an intuitive statistics feature so I’ll be interested to see what you come up with.
If we don’t stay ahead of the curve, we’ll end up like the folks leaving the business…