Agents employed at the top 30 Brokers in CA
The above chart contrasts the number of employed agents in July 2008 with August 2009 at California’s 30 largest brokerages. Take a moment to see who is successfully riding out the recession, and who is falling victim to the crisis. What costs are brokers cutting or eliminating? Which brokers are wasting away an opportunity, and who is taking advantage of this crisis to capture market shares?
Notably absent are some of the nation’s top brokers. Some that would have made the top 30 in 2008, like Marcus & Millichap and the Mili Group, have lost agents or disappeared entirely (Marcus & Millichap was ranked 31, with 323 agents employed in August). Others, like Guarantee Financial, have actually added significant numbers of agents to formerly small organizations.
Since July of 2008, employment has dropped dramatically in almost every sector in California. Few industries, if any, have suffered as much as real estate (construction, insurance, finance, and agents and their brokers). Agents and brokers now scramble to succeed in the half-priced turmoil of spastic REO and negative equity listings. Those that remain full-time are the ones who have successfully adjusted.
Note that certain other “big names,” such as Century-21 and Prudential, are not brokers but real estate franchises. Franchisors contract with numerous individual brokers who operate separately from the franchisor and employ agents. While the Franchise may appear to cover several hundred or thousand agents, no one broker as a franchisee makes the list. Distinquish franchisees from independently branded brokers operating under their corporate name (those that made the list) which employ agents under one corporate broker’s license.
Agents employed at each of California’s top 30 brokers:
Some of the companies not mentioned in this list were conveniently left out because they maintained the number of agents they have, and this list also contains mortgage brokers as well as real estate brokers so the point here is unclear. In regards to the first comment on here made by Greg Kaiser about why Marcus & Millichap is mentioned in the writeup but not included in the list while they, like a few other companies, have retained the vast majority of their agents, this proves the data used here was not complete.
It is interesting to note the changes in Broker numbers over the past couple of years as well as to read the comments from then versus now. I feel that we must be busier today than before, due to the decline in messages being posted currently. As usual, the information being acknowledge is quite useful to agents. Thank you.
Additional comments to the above references:
Frist Priority Financial is a mortgage broker (opps…someone made a mistake!)
C21/Prudential are large corporations owned by multiple individuals not a sole employing Broker which this list is incorporated of.
Nick Khuri produces a wbseite that’s perfectly fine as a public portal. It does not include things that a professional Realtor needs in order to conduct business with professionalism with buyers and sellers, such as days on market, access to public records, closings in the last 24 hours, price reductions, etc. Nor does it provide an offer of compensation for Realtors who find the same benefit of presentation on equal sites, such as Streeteasy, Zillow, Trulia, etc. There is no site to go to, for Realtors who couldn’t care less about a local wbseite like HREO or Orex, to go to, to figure out if the listing broker is paying a co broke to, for example, a buyers agent- so, no assurance of payment.The brokerages have made a choice- and are not hostages- to avoid a real MLS, whether it be MLSLI or HANFRA, because MLS data provided appears to be far too transparent for their liking- which is a detriment to buyers, sellers and Realtors.Heaven forbid the real days on market be accessible to those outside of the Corcoran internal listing system (they actually report closings culled from public record closing providers *up to 3 months old* rather than maintain current *24 hours old* closings from all companies as a real MLS does). HREO and orex are perfectly fine local sites- but I’m guessing that Zillow costs a whole lot less.
Thank you for the great analysis. This is Boris Benz with Real Estate e-Broker (REeBroker). According to you, we are number one on this chart.
I wonder if we can use this chart on our website Real Estate Broker we are preparing to release an article and link to your post.
I appreciate your reply.
I work fro Frist Priority FInancial – a mortgage broker……this list includes lenders as well as Realtors? This list has my company on here.
Interesting, I would have expected greater declines. What I see here in Fremont, CA is that agents who didn’t have a client base of white collar workers suffered the most. Also most of the part-timers are gone, having decided they ‘ll not even do a deal to recover the cost of maintaining the MLS membership.
I’m glad to see the riff-raft gone as well. Those who were busy helping people buy properties with stated loans that they couldn’t afford.
You used to hear more about FBI prosecution of those individuals but it’s been very quiet lately.
What about Prudential California Realty? They had over 40 offices at their peak, with around 425 agents in the La Mesa and La Jolla offices alone.
what about C 21?
Hello,
Whomever made that chart left out some of the major brokers including mine, Marcus & Millichap. We are the largest brokerage firm nationwide. Check it out. http://www.marcusmillichap.com.
Thanks