Dave and Gail Liniger founded RE/MAX in Denver,
Colo., in 1973, prompted by their dissatisfaction with the
way real estate business was conducted at the time.
Regardless
of an operation's size, most real estate offices used the
commission-split system, requiring sales professionals to forfeit
half of their commissions to their brokers in exchange for
an office environment and company services. The top producers
contributed the most to the operation's overhead, thus supporting
the amateur, part-time and low-producing agents. Most salespeople
left the business within two years, making residential real
estate a high-turnover industry comprising in large part inexperienced
and unprofessional staffs.
The Linigers
wanted to change all that.
They
believed that to attract and retain the best agents in the
business, brokers must offer them maximum compensation, advanced
support services and the freedom they need to succeed. Agents
would share office overhead and pay management fees, and
in return would receive a wide variety of traditional real
estate franchise services and high commissions.
The
strategy worked.
RE/MAX has grown every
single month for more than 30 years. Very few companies with
a worldwide presence can make such a claim.
Recognized by the homebuying and selling
public for its red, white and blue hot air balloon logo,
RE/MAX has been the No. 1 residential real estate network in
Canada since 1987 and is a leading industry force in the United
States and many other regions.
The most significant growth for RE/MAX in
recent years has come outside the United States, with expansion
into Africa, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, Central America,
Europe, Mexico, New Zealand and South America. RE/MAX takes
proven techniques and adapts them to local markets, thereby
developing a series of tools that real estate professionals
find invaluable.
Some
of the innovative services created by RE/MAX International
to help its members become ever more professional and successful
include relocation and asset management, commercial investment,
an international referral network, advanced training courses,
state-of-the-art technological tools, Internet and extranet
Web sites, and national television advertising campaigns.
It was the first - and remains the only - real estate network
to invent and maintain a satellite television network (RE/MAX
Satellite Network) dedicated to real estate professionals.
In
an industry rife with mergers and acquisitions, RE/MAX is
the only major real estate network still owned and directed
by its original founders.
