Real estate brokers didn’t get where they are on pessimism or inflexibility.
That may help explain why the number of active brokers has fallen much less sharply than the number of active agents amid the real estate slump.
The ranks of brokers — who employ the agents — are down 1.4 percent in the past two years, according to the Georgia Association of Realtors and the Atlanta Board of Realtors. That compares with a 15 percent drop in the number of agents statewide since the top of the housing market.
One stay-alive strategy brokers have used is merging.
Meg Thompson recently closed her Gwinnett County shop, Meg & Company, and merged with Coldwell Banker RMR. She said merging with a larger company “allows me to get back to what I do best, and that is sell homes.”
Thompson said she found herself doing more and more paperwork after she cut out her administrative staff, and the merger seemed like a good idea.
“This has totally re-energized me,” she said.
Lenessa Pettigrew saw a business opportunity in the downturn. She recently added a real estate holding company to her full-service real estate firm.
Agents and brokers both can sell real estate, but in Georgia and some other states all transactions are done in the name of the broker, which means an agent must be affiliated with a broker. Brokers also hold different certifications and are required, among other things, to have three consecutive years of licensed sales experience.
Pettigrew hopes her real estate holding company, Lot 35 Real Estate Drive, will be successful by offering lower-cost affiliations to agents.
“There are so many agents who need somewhere to park their licenses,” she said. “I’m trying to offer a low-cost solution to those who want to keep an active license, but who don’t want to pay the high fees that many agents have to pay.”
When agents make a sale, a flat fee or percentage is paid to the broker. Fees agents pay also include their use of the multiple listing services, locally known as MLS and FMLS, where they list homes for sellers and find homes for buyers.
Real estate holding companies like Pettigrew’s aren’t new, but she says many are expensive, especially when an agent is not using their license.
“When I needed to park my license I ended up paying more than $100 a month, and that was the cheapest one I could find,” she said. “In this economy I know there are agents out there who just want to park while they research a company or reassess their career.” She charges $199 a year, or $25 a month.
There are also brokers like Donna Armstrong, who have decided to “do what it takes to make things work.”
As the broker and owner of two offices, Re/Max Metro Atlanta and Re/Max Metro Atlanta CitySide, Armstrong said consolidation of her two offices, Intown and in the Decatur area, has crossed her mind in the past.
“Sure, as a business person you’ve got to think about that kind of thing,” she said. But she decided against it and last year opened a satellite office near Piedmont Park when Blue Sky Real Estate Group merged with her company in December and its office space came with the deal.
“It is wonderful because that office is in a great area and our customers can get great service,” she said. “And what I’ve seen in the past couple of months in real estate is encouraging. I’m looking forward to the future.”
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