Magazine Out With National List of Top Power Brokers National Relocation and Real Estate magazine, one of the nation's leading independent real estate publications, is out with its lists of top U.S. brokerages, naming NRT Inc., HomeServices.com, and Weichert Realtors as the country's volume leaders in 1999. NRT, the descendant company of the old Coldwell Banker-owned franchises, is far and away the largest for-profit real estate organization with 1999 sales volume placed at $94.3 billion. Either as Coldwell Banker or as NRT, the company has lead the magazine's list every year for the past 12 years. NRT also disclosed that it participated in 362,368 transactions in 1999. It has 734 offices and 32,705 agents. HomeServices.com, the No. 2 company in the nation, trailed NRT substantially with 1999 volume of $13.8 billion, 93,593 transactions, 160 offices and 7,300 agents. In third place, Weichert - the largest privately owned (by Richard Weichert) real estate company in the country - boasted volume of $17.2 billion but participated in fewer transactions than HomeServices with 77,100. Weichert has about 200 offices and 7,300 brokers and sales associates. National Relocation's report indicated the country's 350 largest firms continue to do a huge portion of the nation's business. While National Relocation reviewed just the largest 350 firms - out of an estimated 60,000 firms in the United States - its study showed that collectively those 350 accounted for more than 2.2 million transaction sides. There were an estimated 6.1 million homes sold last year. The study also showed that some 170,518 licensed sales associates (almost all of them members of the National Association of Realtors) work at the 350 top offices. Overall, the NAR has about 750,000 members. The magazine said its calculations showed that agent productivity was about the same in 1999 as it was in 1998 - about 13 closed transactions per agent. Prior to 1998, the average number of closed transactions per agent had hovered just above 12. The average sales volume of agents working at the top 350, however, was higher than ever. The magazine said the average sales volume per agent was $2.6 million in 1999, compared to $2.3 million the year before. National Relocation also said gradual shift toward franchises continued in 1999. It's report covering 1997, the magazine found that about 40 percent of its largest "Power Brokers" were affiliated with franchises. This year the magazine reported that more than 62 percent of the largest companies were franchise affiliates. Overall, there were 121 independent brokerages on the list, 94 RE/MAX franchisees, 42 Coldwell Banker, 28 Prudential, 19 Better Homes and Garden (now GMAC), 18 Century 21 firms, 8 Realty Executives companies, and 7 representing ERA. | 
