2y
I want to start by saying that I am sorry that you had a negative experience. Your experience is not typical, even though you feel that it is. There’s a lot to unpack in your review, but we feel it is important to respond in order to either address the questions or clarify the facts around your statements. For stock, I do not see any unanswered requests. As to why shares appear low when you review your statement, stock is issued in the following quarter that they were earned. There were two quarters out of 16 where there was a delay and that was as we were migrating everyone’s accounts over to etrade, but all shares were accounted for. If the dollar amount is lower than expected, that is because stocks rise and fall. Almost all real estate stocks are down 80-90% from their highs. It is out of our control. With that said, we are the only company who gifts stock to agents. It is free to you and I am sorry that free stock became an area of contention. Regarding getting paid, around 2% of transactions are paid slower than desired and while that is higher than we would like to see, it’s not 100%, nor are even a third of delays due to accounting errors. While the percentage is low, it still equates to a big number and we are working on ways to help agents and accounting better work through issues faster. I am not sure what you mean when you say that the CEO blames agents for fees going up. Other companies raise fees every year as home prices go up. We raised fees $50 per sale and only raised fees twice over a 6 year period. That increase was necessary and far less out of our agents’ pockets compared to other companies. The statement given was that we would like to avoid raising fees in the future and if our agents were willing to use our mortgage and title, we may not have to raise fees in the future. It was not meant to come across as blaming anyone for anything. It was more of a “help us help you” statement. When I look at our communication regarding using our mortgage and title, I see less than one statement per month about giving our companies an opportunity. I am not sure how that comes across as pushy, but if you are willing to email me directly, we are happy to improve on the messaging. In Raleigh, we only lost one manager several years ago who we let go. We shifted their agents under the other managers rather than hire a replacement. Oh, and one other manager was promoted years ago, they did not leave. As for agents leaving “left and right”, our records do not match that statement. We are actually up agents 14% when most companies are negative for the year. Of the small number of agents who do leave, 90% close 3 or fewer homes per year. Only 2% of the agents who leave close more than 10 homes. When surveyed, most are leaving the industry. I hope this helps. Again, I am sorry that you felt it was a bad experience. We are striving every day to improve the company. I am happy to take fair criticism, that is backed by facts, and act on it to improve the company. If you are willing to reach out to me directly and show me specific ways with examples, then I will address them immediately with our staff so that no one else shares your experience.
