Barely a year ago the real estate industry was stunned when Canadian-based Brookfield Residential Property Services (Brookfield RPS), a division of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. (Brookfield), and owner of Royal LePage, the largest Canadian residential real estate company, acquired GMAC Real Estate. With the departure of CEO John Bearden and a pending name change imminent, many labeled the GMAC franchise as yesterday’s news.

What a difference a year has made.

Announcing their second large acquisition today, Brookfield RPS has now also the owner of Real Living Network Services, a subsidiary of Real Living …

Whether you own a small real estate office or a franchise with multiple offices, real estate brokers have much in common with other small business owners during these difficult economic conditions.  This economy affects all businesses and it doesn’t really matter if you are the local hair salon or the major department store, current market conditions are tough.
For real estate brokers, owners and managers the focus revolves around how to recruit quality agents, how to retain quality and productive agents and how to increase overall profitability.  This is analogous to …

Imagine answering the doorbell some Saturday morning only to be met by a process server who is prepared to deliver a blow that has the potential to wipe out your life savings and create havoc and stress for months or even years to come. 
 
You open the registered envelope and find yourself faced with a lawsuit on a property you sold 18 months ago while under a broker who has since sold his company.  No problem.  You paid your Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance premium on that transaction so you’re …

As part of the annual Swanepoel TRENDS Report that is published every year during the first week of February, the research team wraps their four month study of the real estate industry by announcing the top 10 Newsmakers, Events and Trendsetters for the year.
The first list to be released is the Newsmakers. Newsmakers are defined as those people that during the year made headlines as individuals, as a result of their actions and leadership of the companies or associations they are involved with in the real estate industry.
The Top 10 …

On November 7th, while I was at the NAR convention in Orlando, Fidelity surprised us all by announcing that it would be acquiring LandAmerica in an all stock deal valued at $128 million. This merger would have great the largest title insurance group with about a 45% market share. In terms of the agreement Fidelity had time till today, November 21st to back out of the deal based on their due diligence. Well, last night, Friday at 8:00PM Eastern time they did exactly that. The deals off!

Many of you are a lot like me.  Entrepreneurial.  We’re constantly looking for opportunity, and when we see it, we often just naturally go for it.  Some of us more than others, depending on our place in life, our risk tolerance, financial ability, and the other things on our plate, but all of us, to some degree, learn to spot opportunity and react.  Such is the life of an entrepreneur.
I thought that some of you might find it enjoyable or even possibly instructive, if I were to walk you through …

Every year the Swanepoel TRENDS Report identifies, analyzes and then details out the imminent changes that are expected to impact the real estate industry over the coming 12 – 18 months.The 2009 Report is currently in the final 60 days of research and writing and obviously with all the recent financial disasters, the energy crisis, the housing collapse and foreclosure catastrophe this has made 2008 the worst year in real estate and financial history.

Already thousands of hours of researching has been invested in drafting the 2009 Swanepoel TRENDS Report by …

September 2008 is exactly two weeks old today, but what a September it has already been. The events of late are unsurpassed in living history and I think that 9/08 may very well be remembered as the worst financial disaster in history.

It started this month when mortgage giant, GMAC Financial Services announced that it would close all of its 200 retail offices and lay off about 5,000 of its employees. The 60% cuts were in their mortgage lending division, Residential Capital, the 7^th largest mortgage originator in the country. ResCap

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.

For 2 yrs I have avowed this correcting market to be the biggest opportunity we have experienced in over 2 decades.  Some of you have agreed and some of you looked at me like I had