The annual awards breakfast for Prudential California Realty to issue awards for 2008 happened this week. It is always of interest to go and see who did how many sales and how much dollar volume they did. My new office in Carlsbad has no sales boards on the wall so there is no way to keep track of the business that other people are doing. It was a tough year for real estate to state the obvious. My company shed 1600 agents! San Diego’s board of Realtors MLS membership has shrunk from 24,000 to just 9,000.
I miss the old days when the founder of Prudential California Realty, Steve Games, would show up for awards ceremonies beaming with energy and deliver a passionate message laced with tears, waving arms and jumping up on desks and chairs. Yes, he was a showman and charlatan on one level, but his passion was real and his dedication to the agents was unquestioned! He often said: “Lead, follow or get out of the way.” Clearly, he was choosing to lead, and following him became the choice for the lion’s share of the best agents in town through the 90’s.
After the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11 Steve Games was shaken by what he saw as the vulnerability of the company that he had built into one of the most successful in the nation, when the real estate market simply stopped. Games sold out to Warren Buffett, stayed on as CEO for five years and has been out of the picture since then. In 2008 Warren had to write some big checks to cover the losses at PCR. I am grateful for the deep pockets of Mister Buffett, but I also miss the passion.
The good news is that Prudential will be here to provide the tools (that I couldn’t mobilize on my own) to help me best serve the real estate needs of my customers and friends. It’s a great benefit to be plugged in to such a quality structure and network for nearly every need and circumstance that arises in this wide and varied business.
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