Florida’s Biggest REMAX Office Is Shutting Down! REMAX Partners Goes Out Of Business
REMAX Partners, Florida’s largest REMAX office is closing due to lack of business. REMAX Partners is currently headquartered in Fort Lauderdale and has been in business for nearly two decades!
Wow…things are getting real bad out there. It goes without saying that Realtors who are not adapting to the realities of today’s marketplace are experiencing the wrath of a housing market that is obviously different than what most Realtors are used. to. Especially here in South Florida. Many Realtors never equipped themselves with the tools of a new economy.
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Many of today’s Realtors simply have not learned how to utilize technology, have not implemented real marketing campaigns and have not accepted that the old business model is toast. Faced with an informed and educated consumer and a market of distressed properties, it takes a new breed of agent to succeed and prosper.
The owner of REMAX Partners, Ray Glynn said five years of declining sales after Hurricane Wilma coupled with a 29 percent drop in business after the expiration of the federal tax credit for first-time and other qualified homebuyers has “made it financially impossible to continue in business.”
“We have exhausted all our resources and have found no one including RE/MAX who is interested in lending or buying the business,” wrote Glynn.
Even in writing his letter he still did not address the fact that most of his agents were not trained nor properly equipped to make it in today’s liquidation type housing market.
Right now, REMAX is trying to assist those agents affected by the closure in relocation to other RE/MAX offices. About 160 agents worked across the four Broward offices, he said.
Why? If they have not been able to survive, maybe it’s best to let them go. It is VERY unfortunate that any business closes. However, relying on government problems like the tax credits was not a way to go.
We have said numerous times, if agents focused on learning what to do in today’s real estate market, they would realize that there is plenty of business.
What kind of training? Learning how to do short sales, culling hordes of ready, willing and able cash buyers, utilizing today’s social media and technology assets, becoming proficient in negotiation and even learning how to buy and sell properties for their own portfolios, then it’s likely more agents and agencies, would survive.
Until that happens we are going to continue to read these brokerage obituaries.
RE/MAX Partners ceasing operations after nearly two decades By Arlene Satchell, Sun Sentinel RE/MAX Partners, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, is ceasing operations and closing its offices after nearly two decades …
That is why I am trying to learn how to partner with investors and become a Real Estate Investor
This is a classic example of leadership that has thier heads in the sand. This is why so many businesses fail today. It is not just the real estate sector, but look beyond and you will see old school businesses struggling while upstarts thrive because they take what is given. I myself have transitioned and learned the short sale biz and I am in the process of transitioning again. If you don’t have forsight and evaluate your business at least every six months, you too will be daed and buried soon.
Now we need about 90% of the other real estate offices to close and those clueless real estate agents to leave the business.
Wow Jim…that seems harsh…but then again, if they aren’t producing then I might have to agree with you wholeheartedly!
Hey noel..as you see, we are adapting to things again as we launch our site into a full fledged news site. You are correct, you changed as the market changed, you learned what was needed and accordingly you are still here. I remember when you and I butted heads some time back but you know what? We’re still here. We’re still making it happen and even though we may have disagreed, it was that passion to succeed that I could sense in you. And I was right…
So what do you have in the hooper that you’re planning now?
I don’t normally take time to comment but I’ve seen this company start to finish and I’ve known many agents associated with Partners over the years. My feeling remains the same today as it has for years. The “classic” or “traditional” real estate business model is a joke. Brokers put on agents just to have agents and hope they finally got a good one. Agents take listings just to say they have listings and then hope someone sells it. Want to clean house of dead wood in the industry? Change the model. Savvy brokers and agents today utilize whatever marketing avenues are available and as a result have a much greater reach. 20 years? really? is that a long time for a business to survive or just long enough to allow the pace to pass you by?
Hey George, good to hear from you. I know many of the RE Partners agents and have spoken to many of them about changing their game. They resisted, found reasons why not to and now the inevitable has occurred. It’s a shame but it’s going to continue.
Just wanted to point out to you, and your readers, some misleading facts in your story. RE/MAX is still in Fort Lauderdale, and this office was NOT the largest RE/MAX office in Florida, not even close.
There are at least 11 RE/MAX offices in Broward County unaffected by this development. A few of them are new, opening in the last few months. No doubt, many of the RE/MAX Partners agents will now join one of these offices.
These agents must have done something right, RE/MAX has the leading market share in Fort Lauderdale.
Also, this brokerage was about 53% smaller than the next largest RE/MAX brokerage, and doesn’t even make the Top 4 list of largest individual RE/MAX offices.
We should all be sad when a long-standing business with a great history in the community closes it doors. Many will miss them. But let’s not let the situation blur the facts.
Hi Shaun,
Thanks for your comment and thanks for stopping by. Of course there are some offices still in Fort Lauderdale…for now. But it has indeed been reported that this is the largest REMAX brokerage in Florida. We’ll ask for clarification. However, there’s nothing misleading, IMO.
One Quick Question…if the agents have “done something right”, then why are they closing their doors? Does REMAX have a different way of measuring success?
Nothing misleading? No, there’s nothing misleading in your headline except the fact that it’s incorrect. When incorrect facts are reported, that’s misleading. Please check it out and change it. It’s the right thing to do. Thanks.
Shaun I was going to play nice and not respond to your email…now I’m going to have to embarass you… The Headline says, as you can hopefully read…”Florida’s Biggest ReMax Office Is Shutting Down. ReMax Partnes Goes Out Of Business. As I said in an email to you, if you have a beef, you need to take it up with your franchisee. Perhaps they are the ones who are mistaken. Here is a screenshot from their website…
As the Vice PResident for ReMax Corporate office, perhaps you need to do a better job of managing the messages and statements that your franchisees make instead of trying to troubleshoot after the fact and wasting your time trying to get those who simply report the facts to change the facts. Let me know if you need the number to the REMAX Partners office if you don’t have it.
I was an agent with RE/MAX Partners. I left them for several reasons, none of them having to do with lack of personal performance. Between those reasons, was the exaggerated micro-managing of my files, their fines for missing unnecessary paperwork, their high monthly fees, their high transaction fees, and their “throw-you-under-the-bus” policy in the event any file got a bit challenging.
The business model made agents like me (with our high egos) leave the company. Year after year, BIG names with BIG sales volume left them becouse of these “conflict of egos”
Larry Revier was an outstanding leader. Ray Glynn and Rick Sicilia got trapped in the power ego business wich lead them to their ultimate failure. “You only fail when you give up” They could have closed two or even three offices. Instead, they closed all of them because their business model did not support this economy.
RE/MAX Parkcreek in Coconut Creek offers you 99% commission, no transaction fee, no fines, no micro-managing, no back-stabbing, for a modest $833.00 per month. And guess what… they are rocking!
Hi Alex, thanks for stopping by and thank you for your comment. I never met Ray or Rick…but I agree, Larry Revier is a stand up guy. I know some of the big name agents of who you speak and I empathize with your plight.
Good Luck out there and I hope it works out for you.
Mr. White…. this is a terrible situation for our community….. especially in light of the fact that several agents are owed commissions from closings last week…..before the infamous email (nice way of notifying agents they were shutting down and they will not see any earned commissions). Where is ReMax corporate in all this? I’m sure they knew the Broker was headed for a disaster and they could have stepped in to protect the agents who work hard to bring in the commissions. This kind of business ethic is “blurring” our community and market.
So Shaun…which is correct? I’m curious to hear. Perhaps others are, too?
Jeff: The truth is this… RE/MAX Alliance in the Tampa-Sarasota area is the largest RE/MAX brokerage in Florida, by a long shot. Or, if you measure by individual office size, there are several RE/MAX offices that have more agents than the four Partners offices. More importantly, to Leann’s point… Unfortunately, we did not have prior warning. We were surprised at the same time the agents were. But regional staff members have been in the community working to assist agents since that time.
How was RE/MAX “surprised at the same time the agents were” if Ray Glynn said in his email on Tuesday that “We have exhausted all our resources and have found no one including RE/MAX who is interested in lending or buying the business.”
So Shaun, I guess you are saying that in addition to being surprised by the closing of the office, you were also surprised that they held out to the public that they were Florida’s largest ReMax office? Would hate to have your job with all the damage control you’re going to have to do.
As a former agent of partners I saw the problems years ago and decided to leave then. For the most part the agents were very down to earth and friendly. What I saw was new managers every few months, with no experience, telling people how to do there jobs. I was offended on several occasions at the brash disregard for people skills that was present in management.Lets not kid ourselves, when Dale stepped aside as manager of partners on Bayview the writing was on the wall. I also believe there fee structure was a little greedy and they lost touch with everyday people. The best run companies are ones that find a way to retain good people, instead of thinking the company is what made the agent. Upper management dropped the ball and let a bunch of nobodys chase the decent people, and stars away. Frankly I left not because of cocky agents with egos of steel (Mocny, Young oflarety- ego boy, or no personality Albertttttt Lee) but because of management losing touch with ordinary people.
The agents that stayed with Re/Max Partners until the last days are the best in the industry and they did adapt to the market. The problem was that Re/max Partners operation expenses was too high and didn’t change from the days we had 400+ agents.
So whatever you wrote about the agents in your article is false information.
Hi David…thanks for your comment and thanks for stopping by.
Question…what part was false? Second question, and probably more important, if the agents that stayed until the end were the best in the business, can you tell me why they just didn’t open a smaller office and keep the “best in the industry” ?
Perhaps I can shed some insight. Last month the ENTIRE office of 170 or so agents combined only had 26 sales. And here is how it broke down:
* 20 agents had one sale each
* 3 agents had 2 sales each
So, by your own words, what qualifies as being “the best in the industry” amounts to being able to close one or two deals in a month.
Maybe that’s what the problem in real estate these days is. People having such a low bar of competitiveness and motivation to accept one or two sales per month as being the benchmark for success. Wow!
By the way…your name didn’t make the list, so I guess you are not one of the “best in the industry” yet you stayed till the end…hmmm…wonder what that says.
In my opinion, Re/max corporate wants to shut down most franchisors in highly populated areas and move those agents/brokers to their privately owned corporate real estate offices. It is a huge problem!!! The FTC needs to become involved. They won’t reduce prices for a stategy reason … not what they say, it is what they do. They want those re/max offices to fail. Yes, fail! The move the agents to their corporate offices and not only get their standard fund and franchise fees, then then get additional brokerage or firms fee too! Big business. I would warn anyone thinking of buying a remax franchise to run the other way!!! Those in it, don’t renew! It is happening all over. Oh, you can read about an office in the Seattle area, who had to file a lawsuit against re/max for this same thing. It was American Magic Real Estate Inc. vs RE/MAX. The broker/ownes DBA was re/max Champions. I think they are now Champions Realty or something? There was a female broker went nose to nose with remax when they tried to steal their company. Re/max is an overpriced loser! The agents due better at independent companies. It is better to work with good solid local brokerages than this big ceo’s that don’t care. Too many horror stories with remax. Look what they did to the guy in AZ. They destroyed him! I think he has a suit too?
Hey former ReMax…I hope you didn’t use your agent email…after this they might come gunning for you. Thanks for stopping by and for your comment.
To former RE/MAX broker:
I just came back from Denver, Colorado from the Owner/Broker training. I just bought a RE/MAX franchise; RE/MAX Performance. We are now open and we are located in Fort Lauderdale Beach.
For your reference, nobody at RE/MAX World Headquarters tried to deter me from buying the franchise so they could keep the agents for corporate. Quite the opposite, they went way out of their way to make sure I did buy one.
After visiting World Headquarters, I learned so much about RE/MAX and their (now our) unfair advantage over the competition. I was never made aware of the outstanding benefits for belonging to the RE/MAX system and honestly, when you compare aples to aples with other companies—there is no comparasion is you are making over $1.5M in sales/year.
Anyone that is serious about real estate, and real estate is their live, should be a RE/MAX agent. And if they are not right now, it is simply because they don’t know what RE/MAX has to offer and what we can do for an agent. For example, RE/MAX Performance offers you GROUP HEALTH PLAN INSURANCE. This is the kind of coverage you will get from a major company such as Ford, Chevrolet, etc, where anything and everything is covered without limits and regardless of pre-existing conditions. If you are still in the real estate business, and would like to take your career to the next level, I dare you to challenge me and compare what you have, vs what RE/MAX Performance and I can give you. Talk is cheap, 954-765-6567, call me.
Hey alex, welcome to the party….not sure if the ReMax broker you’re calling out is even still in the game but hopefully he’ll respond. Would love to see more banter about this.
But I have one question. You say that you bought a ReMax franchise and opened it here on Fort Lauderdale Beach. You also say that you will be making $1.5 mil in sales per year. So my question is did you go through all of this to basically make $45,000? I mean 3% of $1.5 mil is $45K….could perhaps that be the reason that ReMax corporate “went out of their way” to make sure you bought a franchise? Just sayin…
And don’t get ticked at me, I just read what you wrote. When I read it the numbers made me take a step back and wonder.
Either you missunderstood me, or I missexpressed myself. The comparassion is that if an agent is making over $1.5M in sales per year, that agent will net substantially more being with RE/MAX than with another company.
For your reference, based on paid commissions, I was the number 1 RE/MAX agent in the State of florida during the month of July, and made multiples of $45K last year alone.
Hey Dude don’t get miffed at me. I didn’t misread anything. You wrote “there is no comparasion is you are making over $1.5M in sales/year.”. I just extracted the commission based upon what you wrote. I wasn’t questioning your credentials, I was just reading what you wrote. I’m happy things are working out for you and I’m sure ReMax is happy that you are championing their brand. Good Luck.