The former Coldwell Banker office in Taunton, one of 15 closed by the company.
With real estate agents and consumers relying more heavily on technology such as mobile phones, e-mail and the Internet, the need for large offices with desks and elaborate phone and computer systems has gone the way of the dodo, industry experts say.
For example: About six months after shuttering a dozen sales offices in Massachusetts and cutting staff, Carlson GMAC is opening up a series of smaller-sized offices.
The company has opened a 750-square-foot office in Milford in place of a 2,500-square-foot office it closed late last year. Carlson is also planning an office in West Springfield, a market where it shut four offices.
The smaller offices are being driven by changes in the industry and the way real estate agents do business, according to Judy O’Brien, Carlson GMAC’s president and chief executive officer.
“The offices just don’t get used to the extent they used to,” O’Brien said. “They go fairly empty.”
The boutique-like locations are also saving Carlson GMAC money at a time when the housing market is slumping in many areas of the Bay State.
“It allows us to reallocate our dollars into technology and other tools,” O’Brien said. O’Brien noted that agents working in the satellite offices will get support from the company’s larger regional offices. Milford agents, for example, will get assistance from the Framingham office.
The downsizing comes after Carlson GMAC went through a restructuring process. Fifteen offices were consolidated in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and Carlson agents were folded into other offices. About 50 employees were cut from the company’s management and support staff.
Carlson GMAC isn’t the only company that has consolidated offices.
Close or Merge
Market conditions have forced many companies to combine offices. Companies are either shutting offices because they’re not profitable or they’re merging them to reduce overhead costs.
Consolidation isn’t always negative if done correctly, said Brian D’Amico, one of the owners of Century 21 North Shore/Citiwide in Saugus. It can allow a company to save on fixed costs, but still maintain agents and its coverage area. Century 21 North Shore sold seven offices over the last four years and consolidated two.
Many agents and consumers communicate via e-mail and text messaging, so large offices aren’t as necessary as they once were, said longtime Natick broker Ralph Miller. Most agents only need a conference room to meet clients and complete paperwork, he noted.
“You don’t need 3,000 square feet of office space,” he said. “The bricks and mortar operations, in my opinion, they’re slowly on their way out.”
Bruce Taylor, president of Whitinsville-based ERA Key Realty Services, said most of the office closures and consolidations have already occurred.
“I think most of the large companies have tackled it,” he said. “The smaller offices have been tenaciously holding on.”
It’s hard to get a handle on the exact number of offices that have closed. There is no entity that tracks that information in Massachusetts. And there is no regulatory requirement that brokers notify the Board of Registration of Real Estate Brokers and Salespeople, the entity that licenses agents, according to the board’s executive director Joseph Autilio.
Office consolidations that have occurred in the last year include:
Carlson GMAC shut sales offices at the end of 2007 in Marlboro, Milford, Agawam, Holyoke, Palmer, Westfield, Chelmsford, Danvers, Lynn, Swampscott, Plymouth and Wareham.
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage closed offices in Taunton, Brockton, North Attleborough and Wilbraham.
Jack Conway & Co. shut its Milton and North Attleborough offices. A spokesman said the Milton office, which had been open for 30 years, was combined with its Quincy office.
