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:

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