Tough Times for Brokers

Here is the latest news:

1. The stock market had the 3rd worst one day drop in the history of the market- proceeded by 911 and an early day this October
2. IHC (intermountain health care) announced they are suspending any 401 k match for all employees
3. CB Richard Ellis is letting go over 1000 employees and that their stock is down from over $40 per share to under $6.00. Additionally, they have eliminated the service credit of $40,000 that they had previously made available to producers of $400k per year.
4. Jones Lange Lassalle stock is similar to CB and same with the cuts.
5. Coldwell Banker Parent company Realogy, lost over $20 million in the 3rd quarter – almost $200 million for the year – with debt climbing to $3.2 billion from $3.1 billion. Additionally, they increased their splits by 3% across the board last January.
6. Cushman Commerce CRG has cut all extra company events including their top producer trip.
7. Many top producers had deals-big deals they were counting on- go sideways that were not recoverable – they were dead.

The top four commercial brokerages are all making drastic changes. Their basic theme in the past was to grow, build, and expand. At the beginning of this year, that slowly changed to a theme of embracing change. Today, the basic theme has become "Survive". We all need to go back to the fundamentals and make changes in our personal lives now in order to weather out the storm.