Update: Closed, Real Estate of Jackson Hole
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
By Ben Cannon
“Certain” stakeholders, economy blamed
Jackson Hole, Wyoming - With the sudden closure this week of Real Estate of Jackson Hole, the valley lost its largest locally owned and operated real estate firm. REJH announced Monday it would close immediately, following stakeholders’ decision to turn down an anonymous investor‘s offer, as well failed plans to restructure.
CEO Christopher Johnston told employees that the company had exhausted all its resources, and he requested that agents turn in their state-issued “pocket” cards, rendering them unlicensed until they sign with a different real estate broker or set up other arrangements. By midday, many of the firm’s brokers had begun taking steps to secure employment with some of the valley’s other firms.
At a meeting on Monday, employees asked Johnston to reveal the identity of the anonymous investor, but he refused, saying the investor explicitly asked not to be named.
Rob Cheek, a top commercial broker who has been a realtor in Jackson Hole nearly 30 years, began working for REJH when it bought his small real estate company in 2003.
>“The market is really struggling – almost to the point that it has atrophied,” Cheek said Monday afternoon. “It’s been really difficult for everybody, but I feel sorry for the staff. They deserved more than that. We brokers will be fine.”
Cheek said market conditions are similar to those experienced during the recession of the mid-1980s.
Johnston did not return calls before deadline, but an e-mail he circulated to employees and stakeholders over the weekend partly blamed “certain” stakeholders’ decision not to accept the anonymous investor’s offer and “certain” stakeholders who “indicated no commitment to remain or adjust commissions to assist in a proposed restructuring.”
“We feel terrible but have no choice but to close,” the e-mail said.
Employees were asked to remove all personal items from company offices, ASAP, “blizzard” permitting, and they were told to remove all REJH yard signs from properties.
“We are working on a solution for the few pending transactions,” the e-mail said.
The news came as a shock to some watching from the outside, and some firms are opening their doors to a flood of brokers – among them some of the valley’s top agents – seeking new agencies. REJH had 70 agents listed on its Web page Monday.
“For us, the cup is half-full,” David Viehman, an associate broker and partner of Jackson Hole Real Estate, said Monday. “We have tons of interviews today and lots more coming.”
Viehman, who compiles Jackson Hole real estate data and analyzes trends in his newsletter and Web site, The Hole Report, said he expected the REJH closure and market slump in general to cull as many as a couple hundred licensed realtors from a market some have said is oversaturated with brokers. There are currently about 850 licensed brokers in Jackson Hole and nearby areas in Wyoming.
Viehman said he was not sure why the valley’s largest locally owned brokerage toppled so quickly, but said Johnston had been aggressively growing the company when the bottom dropped out of the housing market and the economy tanked.
“Sometimes bigger isn’t always better,” Viehman said. PJH
Additional reporting by Matthew Irwin.PERMALINK:
Update: Closed, Real Estate of Jackson Hole | Planet JH News Article: General News
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