There have been so many mergers, acquisitions and office closings that people are being shuffled from one location to another.  Some larger brokerages have widdled their 20 offices down to 4 and some managers have been totally displaced and are now working for another company.  The challenge isn't if these people know how to manage, recruit or support agents...the challenge is, do they all share the same goals and vision for the offices they are in?  How do you evaluate and find out if, when all your staff goes to bed, they are all seeing the same picture of growth and success?  One way to find out is to have a "Vision Meeting" with your team.

The Federal Government took over control of FNMA and Freddie Mac this morning.(09/07/2008) As I was reading about it last night and again this afternoon, my thoughts go to how this will affect home buyers and sellers, as well as the economy in general.

In the previous article, I discussed how agents are beginning to take their offices wherever they go — well, maybe not the entire office environment, but at least the advantages of the office. Left behind are the endless interruptions, the noise, the mess, the well meaning colleagues “helping” or asking for help. Still very much available, yet remotely, are an array of technologies from telecommunications, to software, to IVR and LCM customer acquisition technologies, to websites, and CRM solutions. Virtually all the tools of a typical office (only often better) all available remotely.

I'm continually amazed at the developmental progress in -- and growing use of -- visualization tools to summarize data.  In a different post I wrote about the progress companies like Intronetworks has made in visualizing relationships between member profiles and member interests in online community networks.  In a recent article, NY Times wrote about a data visualization tool called "Many Eyes."

In another major announcement for the mortgage industry, GMAC Financial Services announced yesterday that it would close all of its 200 retail offices and lay off about 5,000 of its employees.

The majority of the cuts will happen in GMAC’s mortgage lending division, Residential Capital, and will slash that company by some 60%.

ResCap was the 7^th largest mortgage originator in the country with and market share of approximately 3.9%. ResCap’s losses for the second quarter of 2008 was $1.86 billion.

When you break a real estate agents business down, there are only four ways to increase production.  There are four proven avenues toward increased gross revenue.  The four ways to increase production are:

Number of contacts

In my last article, I discussed how our industry is changing dramatically.  I discussed how over the last few years telework has become mainstream, and is now amounting to nearly a quarter of our work force.  I cited how working remotely is increasing in popularity as technology is developed and costs associated with commuting increase.  Five years ago nobody would have even considered a virtual office, and yet at the current rate of growth, in a few short years virtual offices will no longer be the exception, but rather, the rule. So what do I mean when I talk about a real estate “virtual office”?

Oh, come on…you knew it was only a matter of days before someone started guilting you into thinking about what you are going to do this year for your holiday card and / or gift giving to all your clients.  So, let’s just get it over with – it’s time to start thinking about it, let’s just get it done.

There is a lot of buzz out there in the industry today about the emergence of “teams” and how dominant they can be in their market.  Is this the wave of the future and are we going to see the sole practitioner move into the background?