From left: MiMa, Susan De Franca, president and CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman's new development marketing arm and Vickey Barron, Core Group managing director

From the March issue: Jobs, jobs, jobs. For months, even years now, the topic has been front and center in the minds of many Americans, not least of all President Barack Obama and his Republican presidential rivals. Yet for New York City real estate brokers, getting an accurate picture of their corner of the job market is difficult, since most brokers operate more like small businesses than employees, and make a living based on commissions, not regular paychecks.

This month, The Real Deal charted roughly 30 of the biggest personnel moves of the last year in the brokerage industry.

Survival of the fittest

Movers and shakers

Are renters ditching brokers?

[more]

The influx of foreign buyers into the New York City condominium market has added a new job description for brokers, according to the Wall Street Journal, as they’re increasingly managing the leasing process on behalf of overseas owners.

For these brokers, performing background checks on renters, collecting rent, paying utility bills and overseeing repairs and renovations have become as much a part of the job as selling apartments. While larger landlords outsource these duties to management companies, few such services exist for individual apartment owners, the Journal said. [more]

From the January issue: The real estate data website Zillow.com has launched a new program that allows clients to rank and review real estate agents on a one-to-five scale in categories like “local knowledge,” “process expertise” and “responsiveness.” While Zillow is keeping the rankings relatively quiet as they cull more reviews from users, the feature is familiar territory for Zillow: The site’s Mortgage Marketplace, which allows borrowers to review lenders, has a database of roughly 6,500 user reviews. Amy Bohutinsky, vice president of marketing with Zillow, said that she’s optimistic the feature could be a boon for top agents. “For good agents, public reviews and endorsements by past clients can be a powerful tool to grow their business,” Bohutinsky said of the feature. [more]

From the June issue: Just when things appeared to be looking up for the New York City real
estate market, the industry was hit with shocking news: Coldwell Banker
Hunt Kennedy would close its doors. The fate of CBHK remains unclear [note: since the article ran, The Real Deal learned that the company is closing up shop]. But one thing is certain: Now that traffic seems to be
reviving somewhat in the normally busy early summer market, brokers are
scrambling to make up for this winter’s very slow months by doing as
many deals as possible. And as the demise of CBHK shows, many may find
that isn’t enough to put them on par with what they’ve earned in the
past.

The nation’s 900 multiple listing services, or M.L.S.’s, are loosening
up restrictions on their listings. For years, they didn’t let Web sites
display M.L.S. listings along with properties not represented by
real estate agents, such as for-sale-by-owner homes and bank
foreclosures. Now M.L.S. data is flowing more freely to sites like
Zillow, Terabitz, ZipRealty and Redfin. In Massachusetts, the state’s
M.L.S. Property Information Network recently agreed to feed data
straight to Zillow, although it lists for-sale-by-owner homes and will
soon add foreclosure listings. Many in the industry are fighting the
changes, and some real estate sites, such as Trulia, fear that offering
for-sale-by-owner listings would cause brokers to stop listing their
properties. [more]

The New York State Department of State, the agency that issues real estate licenses, has moved some of its operations online. The department recently launched a 24-hour licensing management system
that expedites the licensing process and updates information in real
time. The system, called EAccessNY, allows real estate agents and
brokers to apply for a salesperson license, change an address, renew a
license and check the status of pending forms. Before the system launched, new agents would need to trek downtown with
application in hand to the Department of State’s New York City office
on William Street, or mail in a form and wait as long as a month to
receive a permanent license.  [more]