The press release sounds impressive:
Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realtors Inc., headquartered in Traverse City, Michigan, and headed by CEO Ken Schmidt, merged with Woodland Realty, based in Holland, Michigan, and AJS Realty in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The newly formed company will have the largest real estate presence in northern and western Michigan. The company does business as Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realtors in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, Coldwell Banker Woodland Schmidt in Western Michigan and Coldwell Banker AJS Schmidt in Grand Rapids. All told, the company now has more than 600 sales associates and nearly 40 offices.

The largest real estate presence in Northern Michigan.  But does it really make a difference?  No disrespect to my friends at Coldwell Banker Schmidt Realtors^® but sellers don't really care how many agents you have, especially if they are spread throughout half the state.  Sellers want results.  They don't care, for the most part, about how big your company, or office is.  They want to know about you, the individual agent.

This chart shows the top 10 offices in my local area, based on the sales volume of their agents.  Rather than name names, I've just listed whether they are a national franchise, or a  non-affiliated office.

Top Ten Offices Based on Agent Dollar Volume

			Units	Volume
Rank	Office	Agents	Per	Per
			Agent	Agent
1	Franchise	3	18.667	$2,013,021.67
2	Franchise	12	19.083	$1,908,965.42
3	Franchise	22	12.909	$1,258,258.09
4	Independent	6	9.333	$1,222,500.00
5	Franchise	8	9.25	$966,943.00
6	Independent	5	7.6	$795,682.40
7	Independent	2	7.5	$738,750.00
8	Franchise	1	6	$705,900.00
9	Franchise	18	6.4444	$622,623.67
10	Independent	3	5	$563,300.00

As the chart shows, more agents isn't necessarily the best thing for home sellers.  More important is the reputation, and professionalism of the individual agents.  In the chart above, if you combined numbers 1 and 2, with 15 agents they would exceed the sales volume of #3 with 22 agents.

Congratulations to Ken and the Schmidt family but locally, it doesn't mean a thing.

Classified Intelligence, LLC has an interesting press release.  In part it says: real estate agents are spending more money on advertising this year than last, but are actively using free-classified sites like Craigslist and Google Base and are planning to steadily reduce their advertising in newspapers, a new report from Classified Intelligence shows.

More than half the real estate agents (51 percent) who participated in a Classified Intelligence survey said they were advertising on free classified sites, and many said they plan to cut their newspaper advertising because it is no longer necessary.

I'm not sure how much I agree with them but I know some of my clients have started using both Craigslist and GoogleBase. Right now about 7% of the agents in the local MLS are using Craigslist.  Not sure how many are using GoogleBase.  I'm interested in seeing what kind of results my clients see.

Interesting article on marketwatch this weekend by Amy Hoak.  The link from the Marketawatch Real Estate  page is, "Can home buyers, sellers benefit on the Web without agents?"  Sounds kind of like your typical "we've got all the information so we don't need you over paid agents" article.  Then you go to it and find the article is titled "Virtual vindication for real estate agents."

Here's just a few quotes to wet your appetite:

• Without brokers, home buyers and sellers find limited success on the Web
• His story helps illustrate how the Internet, while undoubtedly growing in popularity as a tool for buyers and sellers alike, has turned out to validate the role of the real estate professional.
• the housing slowdown now unfolding only underscores how crucial of a role that brokers have
• What the Internet does is educate consumers about what's out there, preparing them for the real estate road ahead of them.
• the Internet has become more of a research tool for prospective home buyers and sellers -- not a replacement for a real estate professional
• sellers may want to consider an agent's online marketing plan before giving him or her the job of selling their house

Interesting reading.