Time certainly goes fast when you’re having fun. There is no doubt that the first six months of 2010 have been “funner” than the first six months of 2009.
In looking at our company’s results, I am happy to report that the gross fees earned for the first six months of 2010 will more or less equal the gross fees earned for all of 2009. The number of transactions for the first 6 months of 2009 and 2010 are also surprisingly the same.
What can we learn from these numbers and what does it say about the current market?
Like many businesses we made significant changes to our “modus operandi” during 2009:
1. We moved into larger premises that I am fortunate to own and were able to make renovations to the property to make it suitable for our use.
2. We added two of Sarasota’s top brokers to our team (a third was added in 2010).
3. We invested time, effort and money in improving our technological marketing efforts.
4. We employed the services of a full-time marketing director.
5. Finally, we did what we always do, which is focus on serving the interest of our clients even though the monetary awards were not as great as in the past.
What can these results tell us about the future?
The economic model is to a large extent driven by confidence. There is definitely more optimism out there which is encouraging business owners to do things that they would not have considered doing 12 months ago. Our level of inquiry has increased substantially and we are working with major national companies who would have been in hibernation in 2009. Our leasing activity is still the majority of our business and any sales activity is still mired in complexity. How banks, financial institutions and owners will deal with their troubled assets is still a work in progress.
If there is a lesson to be learned from our experiences of the past 18 months it would be that there is a new pardigm emerging in commercial real estate. I know one thing for sure, it ain’t business like it used to be and that is OK.
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