How has Realogy’s strategy enabled your affiliates to stay afloat in a tough real estate market?
AP: About a year-and-a-half ago, we started a strategic development team. As we were seeing the market decline, rather than wait for brokers to call us and say, “I’m in trouble,” we started doing some analysis on a company-by-company basis. If we saw signs that weren’t positive, we started proactively reaching out to those brokers and saying, “We are tracking the market trends in your area and believe that you should consider some cost and operational improvements.” By identifying challenges early on, we’ve been able to help our brokers identify potential merger opportunities or other strategies to thrive successfully in their marketplace. MP: What is Realogy’s approach to facilitating mergers and acquisitions for its franchises? AP: We look at our franchise sales force as a complement to our field service teams. We go to our existing franchisees and ask, “How can we help you grow? Would you like us to contact prospective companies that may want to sell, and approach them on your behal
