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BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking with Scott Webber, the new owner of Fuller Sotheby's International Realty here in Denver and Scott, welcome to the show.

Scott Webber: Yeah, thanks.

BrokerIPTV: Glad to have you here.

Scott Webber: Thanks. Good to be here.

BrokerIPTV: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Scott Webber: Little bit about myself; well, I am actually from Utah and was born and raised there, I have lived there most of my life. Actually, I am a third generation realtor. I was going to be the first Webber to do something different [laughter] and actually I never worked there in that family business and started my career in Salt Lake City back in 1976. So, you know, my interest is certainly always been in the real estate business. <watch video>

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Posted on November 21, 2008 09:07:39 by Mark.Eibner

Posted in Headlines, Denver Colorado Real Estate, Real Estate Industry, Luxury Home Market

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BrokerIPTV:  Today we are talking with Scott Webber, the new owner of Fuller Sotheby's International Realty and Scott, welcome to the program.

Scott Webber:  Dan, thank you.

BrokerIPTV:  Glad you are here.  In our first segment, we talked about you purchasing Fuller Towne and Country Properties and converting it to Fuller Sotheby's.  Obviously, any time you come in and you change ownership and you buy a new brokerage firm, you have got a lot of challenges.  The first is how do you keep the natives happy so to speak, how do you keep all of the agents staying with the company?  Were you concerned about that change over and their perception?

Scott Webber:  Yeah, that's a natural concern and with about any other brand and with about any other organization, I would have had a lot more concern, but you know having been part of Sotheby's now for about six or seven months in parts of the Utah and it has just been my experience that as people discover it, that they discover the actual value and they are excited about it.

BrokerIPTV:  People on the outside looking in would say, "That guy has got a lot of guts buying a real estate firm in this economy."  Did that ever occur to you?

Scott Webber:  Not really.  You know having been in this business since 1976 and in a variety of markets, I would like to think that I have seen it all.  You know, that's never a good thing to say because just when you say that you find you are now seeing something that you have never seen before, but this is a long term commitment and in the long term and in the long run, you have these kinds of things happen and I have managed in soft markets before.  It's nothing unusual and I am just... I am really grateful to be able to be part of the Sotheby's International Realty Organization to manage through that because they bring a lot of great resources and strength to the table.

BrokerIPTV:  What is your gut feeling about the economy?

Scott Webber:  Well, you know, I think that this was inevitable given the gravy train or the crazy ride we have all been on for so long, it just couldn't continue and I would like to think that the extreme times that we are seeing right now really are what we have had to go through to kind of get to the bottom and I really feel like we are starting to see the bottom and you know, how long it is going to take for us to dig out of it, it is hard to say, but I think we are experiencing the pain and the challenges associated with finally being at the bottom, getting all the skeletons out on the table, and working through them and now starting the process of rebuilding.  I think it will be nice to get the election behind us.  A lot of... you know, there is so much instability and uncertainty right now and that's a big part of it, the fact we don't know who is going to be President and so I think when we get that behind us, then we can start working on the rest of it.  So, I just think that we are going to get better from here, but Denver is a unique place.

BrokerIPTV:  You got a two pronged challenge ahead of you.  You have got to introduce Sotheby's to the Denver market which didn't have a huge presence here, it had some, and you have got to market and sell high end properties in a tough economy.  What's the strategy?

Scott Webber:  Well, you know, introducing the brand here is really a privilege and it is amazing how well known the Sotheby's brand is.  A lot of people have experience with Sotheby's from the Sotheby's Auction House and there is a lot of affluent people in Denver and while our brand is largely oriented to the luxury segment of the market, we still serve the entire marketplace.  Today, like never before, you know to get a property sold at the highest price, exposure is what it is all about and to be able to expose a property literally on a national, international platform, just I think gives us a competitive advantage in a market where that's what sellers need today like never before.

BrokerIPTV:  Scott, [Inaudible] much success.  Appreciate you coming in.

Scott Webber:  Dan, thank you very much.

BrokerIPTV:  Thanks.

Posted in Headlines, Denver Colorado Real Estate, Real Estate Industry, Luxury Home Market

BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking with Greg Morris, CEO of Fuller & Company Commercial Real Estate. Greg, welcome back. Love to have you.

Greg Morris: Thanks Dan.

BrokerIPTV: We were joking on the phone that you know you always keep up with everything, you are right on top of it. You are a news guy and you on vacation in September and we have the worst credit crisis beginning[Phonetic] maybe 50 years. That had to be incredibly frustrating for someone like you.

Greg Morris: I would like to take full responsibility for the crash [laughter] [Voice Cross Over] it was interesting to watch it from afar.

BrokerIPTV: Your thoughts on the turmoil that we have seen in the last month?

Greg Morris: Well, I think you know, what we are seeing is a deleveraging at every level within the economy; on a personal level, you are going to see people with lot less debt, more savings; at a corporate level, lot less leverage and I think that's going to be a healthy thing frankly. If we look back at what has happened, we frankly were too leveraged and we were anticipating and planning on too much growth that at some point was going to stop and that's what we saw.

BrokerIPTV: How about the response? Were you a guy that was in favor of this bail out?

Greg Morris: I think to answer that question, you have to look at what the alternatives were. I mean there were not very many alternatives and if you compare what we are seeing today to the great depression of the 1930s, what happened back then of course we did not have the FDIC, so you didn't have a safety net; #2 and most importantly, you didn't have any liquidity put into the marketplace and as comparison now we are going to see now 700 billion dollars of liquidity put into the system and that's going to be healthy and one thing I think people have to remember is that 700 billion dollars relative to a 14 trillion dollar economy is only about 5%. So, it's significant, but it is not going to end the world.

BrokerIPTV: I stopped watching the market on a daily basis for obvious reasons and stress level because you are watching one day you are down 500, you are up 600, you are down 200, you are up a 100. Your take on what's going on there?

Greg Morris: Oh, I think it's right back to what I originally said about the deleveraging and taking stock prices from where they were which were probably unrealistic. These companies frankly were not worth what they were trading at and now the sell off has brought it down to a more realistic level. One interesting fact that we need to take a look at is I think a positive sign is, let's take IBM for example, their stock has dropped 25% in the last 60-90 days. Does that mean they are 25% less of a company? The answer is no and so what you are seeing now these big US large cap companies buying your stock back where they are saying, "Hey, this is a value. Our company did not devalue by this much. It is just being pulled down by the tide of the rest of the market."

BrokerIPTV: All right. So, the average citizen is saying how long is this going to take to recover? What is it going to take for things to kind of stabilize and level off and your answer would be...?

Greg Morris: If I had the answer to that I would not be...

BrokerIPTV: [laughs]

Greg Morris: Sitting here with you right now.

BrokerIPTV: Right. How about an opinion?

Greg Morris: Well, my opinion is we are going to need confidence built back into the system, both at a consumer level and a global level and that's just going to take time. I think the things that the federal government are doing right now with the liquidity they are adding and some of the fundamentals we are seeing moving forward are positive, I think we are going to see a lot more regulation in the system which is probably not a bad thing. We probably got away from regulating some of these financial institutions and so, it is going to take some time, but if you want a spot answer from me, I think a year from now we are going to be going on and things are going to be much better; I think in 2010 we will be fully out of this thing.

BrokerIPTV: That's what I like to hear.

Greg Morris: All right.

BrokerIPTV: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Greg Morris: Sure.

Posted in Headlines, Denver Colorado Real Estate, Real Estate Market Conditions, Real Estate Industry

BrokerIPTV: Today we are talking with Larry Simpson, real estate broker and one of the former owners of Fuller Towne and Country Properties. Larry, welcome to the show. Glad you are here. (Fuller Towne and Country sells to the power Sotheby's brand

Larry Simpson: Thank you. Glad to be here.

BrokerIPTV: I said former owner of Fuller Towne and Country Properties, we will talk about the sale in just a second, but I want to talk a little bit about your decision to start Fuller 10 years ago with your other fellow brokers.

Larry Simpson: Well, I believe it was in the late '90s, '99, we basically were all the top producers that had a little niche company called The Devonshire Company. It's a high end boutique company that just did a great job on the premium high end properties and unbeknownst to a group of us or to the whole company actually, it was sold and much to our surprise and so, they were going to take the company in a different direction and this was just, just an ideal opportunity for us to start our own company and specialize in the high end that we had done before and expand on that, just take it to the next level. So, that's what we decided to do.

BrokerIPTV: Well, as all of the owners, you had success quickly. I mean in 10 years you built a heck of a company. How did you do it?

Larry Simpson: You know, I would like to say, we were all brilliant, but the truth of the matter was it was a good market at the time. Just as we got started though, we were a year or two into it, we had the great crash in the tech sector, which kind of slowed us down a little bit, but we were able to grow the company because of just kind of word of mouth and the number of years that we had been in the business, we were able to attract a lot of good brokers and a lot of folks came with us and over the years we started out with maybe there was a dozen of us to today well over a 150 brokers.

BrokerIPTV: Last month you and the other owners decided to sell. Why?

Larry Simpson: The... a couple of reasons. #1, the company had grown to a size and complexity that it was just difficult for us as we are salesmen. We... our job is to sell properties and that's what we like to do. This had become a very formidable task to run a company this size, well over a billion dollars in sales, four offices, 150 brokers. It just grew to a size that it was just difficult for us to deal with.

BrokerIPTV: Over the years, there have been other people interested in buying Fuller Towne and Country Properties. You essentially, you know, said no to all of them, but you said yes to Scott Webber and his affiliation with Sotheby's. Why?

Larry Simpson: Because it was a value added deal. In the past, it was primarily just either individuals or companies who wanted to buy our organization and fold it into their existing companies and this was a chance for us to take that Sotheby brand and advance the company further. It was a value added transaction. Believe me, it wasn't about the money. As you might know, in the real estate market today, real estate brokerages aren't selling for a great deal of money. It's not why we did it. We did it for the power that the Sotheby brand brought us.

BrokerIPTV: You go back to now being a regular realtor instead of an owner.

Larry Simpson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

BrokerIPTV: What does that mean for you?

Larry Simpson: Lot more time.

BrokerIPTV: [laughs]

Larry Simpson: Actually, this is fantastic. I have got a lot of time to spend with my family and just doing other activities, but also too it has given me more time to focus on my business and I... basically it has been about 50% of my time in management and 50% of the time in sales. So, now, I am at the point where I am going to be focusing entirely on sales and it feels good and I have a little time off as well.

BrokerIPTV: Okay. Larry, thanks so much for being with us [Voice Cross Over].

Larry Simpson: Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it.

Posted in Headlines, Denver Colorado Real Estate, Luxury Home Market