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The Eberle Team In The News...
Capital News Channel 9
Date: 08/16/2008 12:58 PM
Tough times in housing market
It's a tough time for the housing market and there are many questions out there about the flux the market has been in. The New York State Real Estate Investors Association is holding a meeting Tuesday to hopefully answer some of those questions. The group’s Bob Eberle talked with us on Saturday. Date: 09/07/2008 11:40 AM
First home seminar
Buying your first home can be scary and exhilarating, especially when you're unfamiliar with the process. A new, free course is being offered by the New York State Real Estate Investors and Landlords Association to help you with that. Bob Eberle, Founder and President of NYREIA is here to tell us all about it.
National realty firm puts down big roots
Local Keller Williams office, which opened in August, adds 16 agents through merger
By CHRIS CHURCHILL, Business writer
First published: Tuesday, November 13, 2007
COLONIE -- The Capital Region's first -- and only -- Keller Williams Realty office just got bigger. The mammoth, fast-growing real estate company opened its local office in August, at Latham Circle Mall. Based in Austin, Texas, it has 77,000 real estate agents nationally -- and already more than 50 here. It just added 16 agents as Bob Eberle merges his Latham-based agency, Hallmark Properties LLC, into the local Keller Williams office. Eberle, president of the New York State Real Estate Investors Association, founded Hallmark just six months ago. But already, he said, the office has grown to a size that was difficult to manage administratively. "There's only so many hours in the day, and it was becoming more than I could handle," he said. Eberle said being part of a larger company allows him to give up some tasks, such as employee training or payroll issues. "It should allow us to still run the mom-and-pop shop inside the big company," he said. "It's the best of both worlds."
Keller Williams expects to grow here to include as many as 180 agents. That's huge by local standards. But that's the Keller Williams approach: While most real estate companies typically scatter their salespeople in many smaller offices, Keller Williams tends to centralize its agents in one or two locations. Keller Williams also offers agents a profit-sharing plan and stresses the openness of its books and accounting practices.
Marc Weiss, owner of the Keller Williams franchise in Latham, said an agent can look at the books of any of the company's locations nationally. "It's a unique model," he said. "And that's why it's growing so fast. To me, (now having) 50 agents in 90 days does not surprise me at all." Weiss owns the Malt River Brewing Co. restaurant, which also is located at Latham Circle Mall.
Keller Williams is the fourth-largest real estate company in the country.
All Times Union materials copyright 1996-2007, Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation,
Albany, N.Y.
The Business Review (Albany)
http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2007/11/12/daily4.html
Monday, November 12, 2007 - 1:42 PM EST
Newest real estate firm on block picks up industry vet and his co-workers
The Business Review (Albany)
Bob Eberle, president of the New York State Real Estate Investors Association, has joined Keller Williams Realty Inc. in Latham, N.Y. as an associate broker.
Eberle, who has 12 years of experience as a real estate investor, was formerly affiliated with Hallmark Properties LLC. The 13 other agents at Hallmark are also joining Eberle at Keller Williams, a national firm that opened its first regional office at Latham Circle Mall in August.
Keller Williams now has more than 50 local agents. With more than 77,000 agents nationally, the Austin, Texas based company is the fourth-largest real estate franchise in the U.S.
Eberle and his wife, Cheryl, formed the New York State Real Estate Investors Association in July 2006 to provide networking opportunities for local real estate investors and landlords. The group's inaugural meeting was at the Malt River Brewing Co., a restaurant at the mall. Malt River is owned by Marc Weiss, who is broker/owner of the regional Keller Williams office.
"The reason we chose Keller Williams is that it allows brokers such as me the opportunity to continue to run my business as I normally would, except that with the Keller Williams name comes incredible resources that only a national company can deliver," Eberle said in a prepared statement.
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Daily Gazette article
By James Schlett
Sunday, February 24, 2008
http://www.dailygazette.com/
See HTML Version of article
Area Realtors working through continued housing market slump
LATHAM — Last August, real estate agents in the Capital Region and beyond were
digging in as the sub-prime mortgage industry collapsed and the nation’s credit crisis peaked. Nervous lenders clamped down on consumer access to credit amid rising defaults, and over the next two months, U.S. housing sales plunged. Regionally, they hit a five-year low in September.
But in the sleepy hallways of Latham Circle Mall, Marc Weiss was amassing a small army of agents who planned to advance on the region’s housing market waving a red banner belonging to North America’s fourth-largest real estate franchise: Keller Williams Realty.
Weiss last summer received the franchising rights for the region’s first Keller operation. By December, Keller’s Latham work force had swelled to more than 65 agents and it was listing 120 area properties valued at $27 million. Weiss expects Keller to employ up to 200 locally and perhaps open a Saratoga Springs office this spring.
“This is one of the places Keller Williams isn’t, and we’re looking to paint the town red,” said Weiss. Keller entered the region at a time when the housing market was in flux, with sales continuing to fall from record high levels. And in that flux, which is knocking out some small real estate firms and bogging down larger ones, Keller is attempting to seize a chunk of market share. The firm is finding its right time in uncertain times.
The Austin, Texas-based Keller has been rapidly growing since it began franchising in 1990. In 2006, it passed Prudential Real Estate Affiliates as the nation’s fourth-largest real estate franchise. Between 2001 and last year, its staff of agents grew from 11,000 to more than 77,000 at 650 offices in the United States and Canada.
Unlike other real estate brokerages with several offices in each metropolitan area, Keller Williams tends to centralize its operations. In Austin, it controls about 40 percent of market share with 2,200 agents and three offices.
Keller’s Latham hub is only 8,000 square feet, though most of its agents work from home. The firm has other offices in the Hudson Valley, Long Island, Syracuse and Buffalo.
“We’re definitely finding a new equilibrium,” said Weiss, who previously worked as a real estate agent for Re/Max realty. He also owns the Malt River Brewing Co. at Latham Circle Mall; his father owns the mall.
Slump may continue Buyers and sellers will find that equilibrium is the big question for 2008. The Greater Capital Association of Realtors had expected sales to pick up by last autumn, but now it believes the slump could continue throughout this year. One bright spot in this market is the continued increase of home values, which have fallen elsewhere in the country.
“What you’re experiencing today is a fair market,” said Bob Eberle, a broker associate with Keller. Six months after launching his Hallmark Properties real estate firm, he folded it and his 13 agents into the Keller office in Latham. He said Keller’s in-house training and support services attracted him to the company.
In Latham, Eberle now runs the Eberle Team. He is still president of the New York State Real Estate Investors Association, which he formed in July 2006.
In 2007, there was a lot of push and pull between buyers and sellers. And as they haggled over home prices, some mortgage bankers tightened their lending practices, reacting to the subprime mess. The tighter lending standards contributed to the slower pace of sales. But the Albany area largely escaped the mortgage crisis, industry experts said.
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