Mel Crothers, a partner in Royal LePage Wildrose Real Estate, says that franchise is still going strong, despite the collapse of Royal LePage Foothills, one of 37 company franchises in the province.
On Dec. 14 it was announced that one of the Calgary franchises, Royal LePage Foothills, is shutting down, closing all six offices. Its 163 realtors are moving to other company franchises in Calgary.
In a statement, the company's head office said although the downturn in the Alberta economy played a part in the shutdown, the closure was basically due to “the performance of this individual business.”
Crothers stressed that point during an interview with the Albertan.
“It's a local issue. He had kind of run amuck the last five years and had some fairly phenomenal leases on offices. He had six offices, four of which were in very, very, prime locations, and very expensive,” Crothers said.
Crothers said things are “slow” in Olds, Sundre and Didsbury and area, thanks to the economy, but in contrast to the Foothills situation, he and franchise partner Mitch Jones have been very careful to cut costs.
“It's suffering a bit. It's certainly slower. We've been very careful with our overhead,” he said.
“We rent office space here in Didsbury and Sundre and Olds. We've done deals with our landlords and they've been really good, so yeah, we're quite comfortable.”
“We keep an eye on everything. You've got to do it,” he added.
“We sold our property management business that we had. That's one of the things we did to cut our overhead.
“You make money with property management, but your risks are considerably higher, so we sold it to a group in the city who manage properties. We had 140 properties. So Mitch and I sleep much better at night,” he added with a laugh.
Crothers said despite the downturn, the Wildrose franchise has only lost one realtor, and he said that that was a personal decision.
Crothers was asked if community residents expressed any concern about the viability of the Wildrose franchise in the wake of the situation with the Foothills one.
“No, it's mostly casual,” he said. “A fellow that had moved from Didsbury out to Vancouver Island said, ‘hey, what's going on with Royal Lepage? Are you guys impacted at all?' I said, ‘oh, OK, maybe there is a shadow thing.'
“Then I had somebody else at one of the local restaurants in town. ‘That doesn't impact you guys does it?' she asked.”
He said technically, the Foothills franchise still exists.
"We keep an eye on everything. You've got to do it." MEL CROTHERS PARTNERROYAL LEPAGE WILDROSE
