To Co Broker, or not Co-Broker, is now the question?

December 7th, 2007

We now have a mortgage meltdown crisis, home values slipping, fewer well-qualified buyers, discount Internet brokers, the US Department of Justice on the heels of the National Association of Realtors and now....add some major, well known Commercial Real Estate Brokerage firms who will not co-broker on their "listings?"

No co-broker? Isn't that somewhat un-American?

Change in both the real estate market and real estate brokerage industry is evident. And bigger changes are coming down the pike. Realogics, a wonderful Blog site, states that in a recent poll they found that the two major problems facing the business are:

1. The present mortgage meltdown-with it's equally disturbing shrinking of the credit market coupled with tighter underwriting standards

2. Too many real estate agents.

From my perspective both of these have been created, or caused, in part by the real estate brokerage industry itself.

Just where was the National Association of Realtors before the "mortgage meltdown" became front line news? Did they alert, or warn, it's dues paying members to "protect the consumers?

They, were as silent as the National Association of Home Builders, and the national Association of Mortgage firms.

Many further change in the real estate business are going to occur from the bottom up and NOT from the top down is my prediction.

Years ago, long before there was an MLS system, real estate brokers functioned and functioned well. Most in the 1930's and 1940's, in this part of the country did not co-broker!


After my discussion with a number of older agents and brokers, I have discovered that most real estate firms were also insurance agents and real estate brokerage was in fact a part-time business in the 1930's,40's and even 50's.

My father ran a small general insurance agency and had a small real estate brokerage business.
Real estate and insurance weent hand and hand.

The Co-broker concept , from what I can gather, took root with the advent of the MLS which was not universal until after WWII.

Will the olden days of real estate brokerage return?

And who, by the way, hires, or attract new agents?