OCTOBER BROKERAGE AWARD WINNERS

Our November Brokerage meeting kicked off with good news from Senior Loan Originator Josh Jardin of our in-house mortgage company, Brass Lending: The Fed didn’t increase the interest rate! Josh and the team at Brass including CEO AJ Sgroi and Senior Loan Originator Louisa Ritchlin went on to share that they have a positive outlook on the future of rates. Aside from getting to work with these incredible professionals at the top of their field, another benefit of working with Brass is their ability to support our agents by shopping around for the best loan rates and options. Make sure you also stay tuned for upcoming trainings designed to help agents expand their businesses and their client offerings! 

Next up, Mary Reed and Kelly Anderson of Twenty-Two Title shared two upcoming educational book discussion webinars: The Challenger Sale: A Discussion – Taking Control of the Customer Conversation (November 7, 12pm ET) and The Jolt Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision (December 5, 12pm ET). Make sure you sign up for these complimentary learning opportunities presented in partnership with First American Title Insurance Company. 

CEO Simon Thomas was next and kicked off his portion by posing a pertinent question to the room: “How many of you are nervous about interest rates and lack of inventory?” As you can imagine, quite a few hands shot up. While agents and Simon himself would love to be operating in the comfort zone (low interest rates and high inventory), we don’t need Simon to tell us that this is not our current reality. Simon drew the analogy: “While we’d all love to have sunny 70 degree days every day, how often does that actually happen in Michigan?” We have to live in the reality we’re given, learn from the past without dwelling on it, and create the future we want instead of catastrophizing something that isn’t realized yet. 

Yes, the landscape of the current 2023 and coming 2024 markets are stark: A surplus of realtors (the most we’ve seen in the industry ever) and record-low inventory leads to predictions that 1 in 3 agents will be forced to leave the business in the coming year. That’s definitely outside of every attendee of our brokerage meeting’s comfort zone. Simon doesn’t want us to sit in that discomfort but asks, “What are we going to do about it and how can we thrive?” Simon urges agents to start by reframing their thinking, taking responsibility for actions that will lead to creating the prosperous future they want in this industry, and by getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. He asked, “Do you wake up hoping your phone is going to ring? Or do you wake up with purpose, direction, ambition, ready to take on the world?”

The future is uncertain, but our leader happens to be comfortable outside of the comfort zone. Simon firmly believes that if we commit to thinking differently, taking responsibility for our own futures, and embracing opportunities to perform under pressure, we can emerge stronger on the other side. With this mentality, we’ll grow or maintain during these times as other brokerages go under. As a factor of other brokerages failing to meet the challenges posed by the current market, agent count will go down and opportunities for existing agents will go up. Together Simon believes we can weather the current state of the market and go on to take the real estate world by storm. 

Speaking of agents and staff taking the world by storm, please help us congratulate our monthly brokerage winners below:

Our Big Wave winner is peer-nominated by agents and staff. This month, DOBI agent Alex Boles earned this recognition with big closes and multiple deals in the works. Even while facing challenges, Alex Bossed Up and made it happen.

Best in Class is given to the DOBI staff member representing our core values, peer-nominated by fellow agents and staff. This month the win goes to Selina Patto in our recruiting department for her tireless work to recruit more agents and launch our training program: The Blueprint. She’s been stepping up doing pretty much anything and everything and her efforts have not gone unnoticed. We see you, Selina!

Our Broker’s Choice award is awarded to the agent caught our broker’s eye by making a difference. Aside from a fantastic month with two closings and two pendings, Scott Pulus threw an epic “Scottoberfest” event celebrating 5 years in business and the client relationships he’s built along the way. All of this together earned the attention of our Broker and the win for Scott in October’s Broker’s Choice Award category. 

Our Grit Award goes to the agent with the most units sold in the month. We have no shortage of grit in the DOBI family and these three ladies hustled hard to sell the most units for the month resulting in a 3-WAY TIE for October’s Grit Award with 3 units each. Congratulations to Brooke Azimi, Amber Lauer, and Lisa Lipari! 

Our Top Dog Awards are an honor bestowed on the individual and the team with the highest sales volume for the month. Our October Top Dog Individual award winner was Laurie Rouse with 2.9 Million in sales and our Top Dog Team Award winner was The Rahaim Group with a whopping sales volume of 4.8 Million and 11.5 units closed. Keep up the great work, Laurie, Doug and Lauren!

As always, stay tuned for next month’s winners and make sure to give us a follow on social for market updates, listings, and all of your real estate needs.