RE/MAX WORLD WIDE.

• Author: TAYLOR, MIKE
• Position: RE/MAX Properties Inc. - Company Profile - Statistical Data Included

DENVER'S RED-WHITE-AND-BLUE BALLOON RIDES THE JETSTREAM

IT'S KNOWN AS THE AMERICAN DREAM, BUT THE QUEST FOR home ownership is universal. Judging from the overseas inroads made by real estate franchiser RE/MAX International, so is the American style of home salesmanship.

Since 1995, when its only presence outside North America was a few offices in the Caribbean and Mexico, Denver-based RE/MAX has expanded to 38 countries, with about 700 overseas offices spread across the globe. Granted, no overseas city is going to be confused with Denver or Chicago or Calgary where RE/MAX agents carry 30 percent of listings, but the firm's international growth has been impressive, and in some places remarkable.

A visitor in Madrid, Tel Aviv Rome or Berlin today would stand as good a chance of seeing a RE/MAX sign as a McDonald's restaurant.

And yet, the selling points of RE/MAX overseas are much different from what they were in the United States 28 years ago when Dave and Gail Liniger launched RE/MAX. The "maximum commission concept," which made RE/MAX a renegade in the eyes the real estate establishment but which also attracted real estate's top producers, hasn't been much of a factor in the company's overseas growth. In its purest form, the "maximum commission" concept means agents keep all their commissions rather than splitting them 50-50 with a broker. Instead they pay the broker a monthly fee.

Seeing -- and often suffering from -- the success RE/MAX had with that formula, every major real estate organization in the U.S. has adopted some form of a high-commission structure in an effort to hold onto top producers. That's one reason RE/MAX International touts other competitive advantages.

Another reason: "The maximum commission concept doesn't work in many parts of the world," Dave Liniger says. "If you go to some of the socialist countries in Europe, for instance, the so-called maximum commission thing doesn't work at all. In many of those areas you (brokers) have to pay a minimum wage to the real estate agent; you have to provide them with insurance. And in some places you have to give them their car. Which is the exact opposite of what the RE/MAX commission concept was."

Liniger says the appeal of RE/MAX overseas has more to do with the RE/MAX track record in the United States and, increasingly around the world.

"They're looking at the fact that RE/MAX has a significant market share worldwide," he says. "And it brings all the traditional tools of...