And, with a team of 18, Greco, who finds that 80-90 percent of his business is listings, says it’s even more important to have a system set up for feedback. “We use the Leap RE software (www.leapre.com) which allows us to track and coordinate activities of all team members.” The system isn’t cheap. “There’s a $500 set-up fee and it costs a couple hundred dollars each month, but that’s peanuts compared to the $25,000 a year you would have to pay a person to do what the system does.”

While each of Greco’s team members has specific duties, he or she is also required to fill in on the spot. Because of this, and the fact that they close about 200 transactions a year, he wanted a software system that allowed every team member access to schedules, showings and property information.

The benefits are many, says Greco. “The client knows what people are saying about the property—pricing, condition, etc. This helps if we need to reduce the price or have things repaired.” In addition, he says, the client has access to the feedback and can see that Greco is working hard to sell the property.

Here’s how he uses the system to organize his business.

1. Sync schedules. With the Leap RE system, Greco can schedule a showing by email. “The software pulls data from the MLS system, so, if someone calls in for a showing, one or two clicks and you can set up the showing through email,” he says. “Then it automatically sends a confirmation email to us and to the other agent.” A few hours after the showing, the system then sends to the buyer’s agent a request for feedback. “If it doesn’t get a response, it automatically tries again the next day. I find that 60 to 70 percent of all buyer’s agents send back the feedback.”

2. Stay in touch. “Every one of our team members must know what prospective buyers and agents are saying about our listings. Each of our schedulers can easily look things up without me there,” says Greco. “We all have a BlackBerry, and we create memos by property address so if a question comes in by email, I or someone in the group can reply and/or answer objections, even if it’s not my listing. The system is centralized. Anyone can answer questions about the listings even the marketing person who’s never been [at the property].”

3. Follow through. While Greco finds that more than half of all showing agents do provide feedback, he says it’s important not to ignore the ones who don’t. “Your feedback is only as good as your reputation for getting it. Just because it’s automated doesn’t mean you don’t have to do anything else,” he says. Greco personally contacts showing agents who don’t answer the automated response to get their feedback. Also, he says, “When you do get feedback, you might not get exactly what you need. For example, prospective buyers may say they don’t like the style, but that’s vague. It may actually be the paint color or furniture, so I try to get more details.”

“Sellers love feedback,” says Greco. “I can see a potential seller’s eyes light up when I tell him or her about the feedback we offer, explain our system, and show the detailed feedback spreadsheets we keep for each listing.” And, says Greco, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. “There are a thousand different things the system can do. We focus on the feedback and meshing the personal touch with the technology.”

Other similar products:

* Showing Suite: Showing Suite® is an all-in-one real estate productivity software suite to help real estate agents, real estate teams, and real estate offices harness their full sales potential by automating time-consuming tasks to allow more focus on sales.

* Real Estate Success Tools (REST): REST can handle up to 250 users simultaneously. Users can share access from anywhere in the world because REST uses the Internet in a more private way.

Greco is ranked No. 26 in the Nation by The Wall Street Journal and LORE Magazine’s 2009 Top 400 Real Estate Professionals
Written by Tracey C. Velt and reprinted with permission of REAL Trends. Copyright 2010

Recently, 600 N. Kingsbury #TH106, one of Mario’s elite listings, was featured in a video and article in Chicago Magazine. You can read the article here.  600 N. Kingsbury is a 3 bedroom, 3.1 bath duplex with an amazing view of the river.  It is surrounded by a huge, quiet park in the heart of River North.

The property is completely customized – ranging from the exquisite stone, tile, and glass work, to the massive, 2-story windows that promise an unsurpassed view of the river.  Even the staircase was designed to be see-through, preserving the views in a sweeping array of steel and wood.  There are a number of custom wood finishes throughout the interior, ranging from Wenge (imported from Africa), to pecan, bird’s-eye maple, and black and yellow walnut.

Huge stainless steel columns add a polished, crisp feel to the living areas, which are offset by the incredibly soft 100-knot wool and silk Tibetan rugs.  The kitchen features ultra-high end appliances, custom cabinets, and a stainless steel backsplash.  Entertainment is provided by a myriad of built-in speakers (14 to be exact) and flat screen televisions, while comfort and relaxation can be found in the custom baths which feature spa-like amenities.

The outdoor space is Christy Webber Designed, featuring trees, flowers, a fountain, and a large park just a step off of the patio.  Gas, water, and electricity lines have been run outside, turning the patio into the perfect space for entertaining.  Even guests can be treated to heated, indoor parking since 6 private parking spaces are being sold with the unit.

For more information or to schedule a showing, please contact Mario at mgreco@rubloff.com or 773.572.6505.

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The Real Estate Top 400 honors four categories of top-100 residential agents and teams: Individual Agent, Sales Volume; Individual Agent, Transaction Sides; Agent Team, Sales Volume; and Agent Team, Transaction Sides.

For its $131 million in sales for 2008, the Mario Greco Group ranked 26th in sales volume for an agent team. Despite the down economy, in 2008 the group beat its 2007 MLS volume of $112,239,179. The Mario Greco Group also ranked 88th in transaction sides for an agent team, for the 224 buyers or sellers it represented in 2008.

“It’s a nice reward for a really good year in 2008, and also for six years of hard work in this business,” Mr. Greco said of his group being included on the lists sponsored by the Journal. “It’s nice to be recognized by your peers and by a legitimate national publication.”

Mr. Greco’s staff includes 15 additional agents. “Without them, I wouldn’t have achieved what I achieved,” he said. “It’s a testament to them that in the worst market in our lifetime, we still managed to increase our sales volume.”

He credits the team’s success, and that of Rubloff as a firm, to being a reliable brand in tough times. “We didn’t do anything differently in 2008 than we did in previous years, other than concentrate even more on pricing and customer service,” Mr. Greco said. “In any bad market, in any industry, the established brands tend to get stronger.”

At an average of $5 million, sales volumes per agent are higher at Rubloff than at any other Realtor in Chicago.

Tom Horwich, the company’s co-owner, said that Rubloff provides its agents with state-of-the-art business communications and IT support. In April of 2008, Rubloff rolled out a new version of Rubloff.com, and a new luxury-marketing program called Rubloff Residential Elite, which targets affluent buyers and sellers of luxury real estate with both print and Web advertising.

“We don’t want to be the biggest,” said Howard Weinstein, co-owner of Rubloff Residential Properties. “We simply want to be the best.”

Rubloff has been a household name in Chicago real estate since 1930, when it was founded by Arthur Rubloff. Owned by Weinstein and Horwich since 1996, Rubloff Residential Properties is one of Chicago’s most respected real estate firms. Rubloff provides real estate services to a diverse set of communities including the North Shore, Lincoln Park, the Gold Coast, the South Loop, and Michigan’s Harbor Country.

Visit Rubloff’s award-winning Web site at Rubloff. For more information on The Real Estate Top 400, visit The Wall Street Journal Top 400 Agents article.

Article Courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

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Chicago – They say two heads are better than one. But what about 17? Or 30? Broker teams across the country are growing in popularity, but also in the number of people involved in the team. While some Realtors might be hesitant to start sharing profits from their businesses during tough economic times, two teams in Chicago have found that synergy is working for them.  “When I first started in real estate by myself, I was working 75 or 80 hours a week sometimes,” says Fred Scovell of Scovell-Sabatini Team, a part of Chicago’s Rubloff real estate brokerage company. “I wanted to hire an assistant, but I realized the kind of person I would want as an assistant wouldn’t want to stay an assistant for very long.”

Scovell, who had recently left a law firm where he had been a minority partner specializing in real estate law, started his brokerage in 2003. By 2005, he decided it would be beneficial to hire a partner and his friend Maria Sabatini was looking to get out of her advertising job and into real estate.

The two decided to join forces. They sell mostly condominiums along Chicago’s lakefront from the South Loop to Rogers Park.

The team is somewhat of an odd couple: Sabatini likes designing and marketing, while Scovell is best at scouring the details of a deal, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Sabatini likes working outside of the office, and Scovell prefers to work in it. But the differing personalities also help them gain clientele.

“Buying or selling a home can be kind of an emotional experience,” Sabatini says. “When we first do a presentation, a lot of times we can see that that person is a little better fit for Fred or a little better fit for me.”

While clients often work with just one of the pair, sometimes they’re switched over to the other.  Both partners perform equal roles in the business, so they both know what is going on with each client and listing at any given time. They meet each week to discuss ideas: what to do with a listing that won’t sell, or how to get a buyer interested in a listing that might not initially appeal to them.

But having a partner means more than just support in terms of ideas and business. It also helps the team stay personally sane, Scovell says.

“When you’re going through a trying time like many people are right now, it’s easy to try to control all the events that are happening and to do it isolated from everyone else,” he says.

“When you get out of the framework of the individual and tell someone how you’re feeling or what you’re working through, things can get a little easier.”

The team is currently working with almost $7 million in inventory, with $725,000 under contract at the end of March. Their business has increased each year, partially because people have started to recognize their names, faces and branding, Sabatini says. Having two names and two personalities can attract even more sellers and buyers to the table.

While the two-person team remains a popular option for Realtors, some are choosing to work in even larger group settings.

Another team working to bring in business on Chicago’s north and northwest sides is the 17-member Mario Greco Group, also a part of Rubloff. According to Greco, his group is the top producer in Chicago’s Lincoln Park, Roscoe Village, North Center and Irving Park neighborhoods.

Instead of dividing work evenly, though, each person plays a specific role in the sales process in order to get a deal done. Greco hired his first partner in 2002, and his office steadily grew each year. He got the idea to build the group after reading “The Millionaire Real Estate Agent,” by Keller Williams founder Gary Keller and co-authors Dave Jenks and Jay Papasan.

“I hired without worrying about whether or not I could afford the person,” Greco says. “I knew that when we had more people we’d be able to do more work more efficiently.”

Some group members work in the office, dealing with marketing, closing or creating new business while others focus on showings and working outside of the office. Clients do their initial presentation with Greco, but subsequently work with a series of other members of the group as they progress through the real estate transaction process.

“We have a lot more resources this way,” says Adam Garvey, the contracts and closing manager and group manager for the Mario Greco Group. “We’re always on our BlackBerrys communicating with each other. If I don’t know a certain thing, I can call someone else or e-mail someone else who does know.”

Unlike Scovell and Sabatini, salaries at the Greco Group aren’t always divided equally. In-office staff members earn a salary and a bonus based on Greco’s commission. Out-of-office personnel earn a combination of their own production volume and the bonus based on Greco’s commission.  Group members say they enjoy this division of labor.

“I don’t have to do everything,” says Brent Garcia, sales manager for the Mario Greco Group.  “It’s to my benefit that there’s somebody here at the office who’s better at doing the paperwork or better at the closing contracts, or better at generating new business.”

While Greco admits that sometimes sellers are skeptical about the fact that several different people could potentially be showing their homes, he says that most clients enjoy the team format.  In recent months, the group has been very successful in selling homes under $417,000 — the
federally established conforming loan limit in Chicago.

Greco said the group has sought to break the stereotype of Realtor teams in creating an image and brand beyond the Rubloff name.  “We’re not just a husband-and-wife team with a couple of assistants working for us, or two brokers sharing the cost of advertising,” Greco said. “Everyone contributes; everyone’s an expert, so you get better results.”

Most of Chicago’s leading real estate companies, like @properties, Keller Williams and Koening and Strey, have only a handful of teams working among their hundreds of brokers.  But the number of teams nationwide is growing across the country, says Ralph Roberts, author of the
book “Power Teams,” a guide to starting a real estate team.  Roberts said he started a real estate team in Michigan in 1975 because he felt he needed
assistance from others — his team has now grown to about 30 members.  “If you’re not in a team right now and you’re not doing short sales, you might as well get out of real estate,” Roberts says.

He said he interviewed more than 200 teams across the country for his book. Overall, teams tend to be more profitable per person than individual Realtors, plus they allow themselves time to take vacations and breaks, he said. Each year, according to Roberts, more real estate teams start in the
country, and it’s only logical.  “Most professions work in teams and it makes sense to,” he said. “You see surgeons, lawyers,
even electricians working in teams. You can get a lot more done that way.”

While Roberts says there’s no guarantee a team leader will make more with a team than on his own, he says it’s easier to do more volume in a team and create synergies that drive sales and profits. It also helps to create more jobs for more people.  “It’s better for us, and it’s better for the clients because we have time to personalize their service,” Sabatini said. “There’s always one of us there for them when they need it.”

Maureen Wilkey is a freelance writer in Chicago.
***
Copyright 2009 Inman News
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF INMAN NEWS

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Bank of America not only helped Countrywide dodge the blow of Bankruptcy but also increased its own mortgage and lending capabilities in Chicago and the scope of its influence with the government. By rescuing a corporation whose collapse would have so adversely affected Chicago’s real estate market, Bank of America assumes a benevolent posture that will help raise its credibility with regulatory institutions. As a result, BoA may be more eligible for some benefits which include passage of certain mergers and acquisitions that otherwise “might not have passed muster,” tax-breaks, and/or raising the federal cap on the total US Bank Deposits. Most feel this will reinstate confidence for current and future investors of Countrywide, since bank of America is such a well established financial institution. “Bank of America is a strong-enough name that the consumer will take solace,” Greco told the Tribune. Bank of America has assured Countrywide patrons will benefit as well and that “Countrywide customers will gain access to a broad set of consumer products including credit cards and deposit services. “Home ownership is a fundamental pillar of the U.S. economy and over time it will be a key area of growth for Bank of America,” said Kenneth Lewis, an executive of BoA.

Original article from Chicago Tribune.