Real Estate Franchisor “Raises the Bar” via Introduction of “Character-Driven Real Estate©"

Oct. 25, 2008 - PRLog -- PLYMOUTH, MI - An existing franchisor, Professional One Real Estate, is further differentiating itself on the basis of character and integrity via the adoption of a system that specifically pre-screens its professionals for these qualities.

Michael McClure, CPA, the CEO and President of Professional One Franchising, LLC, stated, “As our name – Professional One – implies, our core philosophy has always been “professionalism and excellence” first.  Since our inception over five years ago, we’ve been looking for a way to objectively demonstrate our commitment to these priorities.  Without something scientific and tangible to measure these things, our assertions of having better people lack credibility – we end up sounding like every other company.”

“But with this character assessment tool, we’ve found a way to do exactly what we’ve always hoped to do: prove - via scientific, objective measurement - the character of our people and of our organization. When agents decide to join us, they will be subjected to a battery of tests, the most significant of which is a “profiling instrument” that is specifically designed to identify a person’s basic integrity.  Going forward, this will be the basis upon which we elect to engage – or not engage – Realtors and franchisees.  Over time, this will create a culture that is truly unlike anything that has existed before in real estate. Other professions – like law and public accounting, which happens to be my background – have inherent screening processes that create natural cultures that encourage and perpetuate excellence – that’s what we’re going to do here.”

McClure continued: “I won’t win any popularity contests for saying this, but the real estate industry hasn’t done an effective job of policing itself, and the barrier to entry has historically been too low.  Many of our current macroeconomic problems at least in part link back to this reality.”

During the bull market in real estate that lasted for approximately two decades before the bubble burst in 2006 , the Realtor population in America exploded as housing prices accelerated at unprecedented rates, particularly from 2000 until the market peaked and subsequently collapsed.    

McClure explained: “This Realtor population explosion occurred for two main reasons: (1) the belief that “big money in real estate was easy” - and it often was - and (2) the reality that the barrier to entry was extraordinarily low. Common sense and logic would support the belief that many of the problems that have surfaced in recent years - in terms of fraud, misrepresentation and simple human greed - were exacerbated by this low barrier to entry.  The very fabric and foundation of the industry have been damaged by the unbridled pursuit of easy money on the part of many Realtors and brokers in America.”  

The industry now appears to be paying the price for its lack of self-control.  On July 10, 2008, the National Realty News published an article entitled “Fact – People Don’t Trust Realtors - Now What?” Within that piece, it was noted that a Harris Poll conducted on the issue of professional trust reported that only 7% of those polled “completely trusted” their real estate agent, and a full 20% “didn’t trust their real estate agent ‘at all.’  The article concluded by saying that Realtors were “again among the least trusted professionals.”  

McClure responded: “The overall dissatisfaction with the performance of the real estate industry is unfortunately justified – I’m not at all surprised by these statistics.  The end result is that the public has enormous pent-up demand for professionalism and integrity from the industry. We’re taking practical, proactive steps to ensure that our professionals exceed what passes for the industry standard today, using objective techniques that make sense.”

When asked to defend the veracity of the character assessment, McClure replied, “Please understand that I too was skeptical of this entire concept.  I thought it was a great idea in theory, but I didn’t think that it could be done in reality.  I couldn’t get my arms around the idea that you could actually measure the level of someone’s character.  But then I did some research, talked with a few people who were familiar with the concept and had seen it implemented with great success elsewhere, and spoke with the senior executives of the company that created the assessment.  The icing on the cake was when I and several of my management team members took the assessment and reviewed the results.  At that point, we became believers.”

McClure concluded by saying, "In the end, we believe that adding this Character-Driven Real Estate© component to the other drivers of our model - our powerful passive income component, which we call Commission $haring Income© (see at http://www.professionalone.com/careers/commission-sharing...), the things we do to help enhance our agents' income levels (see at  http://www.professionalone.com/careers/P1-AV-How-Realtors...), our Referral $ource Program©, our Professional Call Center (which makes a broker/franchisee's life much easier and results in an immediate increase in profitability in most cases) and our complete commitment to staying ahead of the curve in terms of technology - creates what we feel is the most powerful brand image in the industry (see at http://www.professionalone.com/careers/P1-AV-Branding-Str...)."

See Professional One videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/mmcclurep1

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Professional One Franchising, LLC is a "Next Generation" real estate franchisor located in Plymouth, MI. Professional One's proprietary brand concept features the most powerful residual income model in real estate, the only quantifiable character measurement profiling in the industry, and cutting-edge technology designed to increase agent and franchisee profitability.