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Thrown Out of Business
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"Oh it's like a yard sale," one woman exclaims, before paying for a small bookcase, and asking another man to help lift it into her Ford Explorer. The principal from a local high school picks up a small wooden cabinet on wheels for $10.
This is generally how many businesses disappear; quietly and with little fanfare. According to U.S. Small Business Administration data, only two-thirds of all small-business start-ups exist beyond their first two years and within five years, half go belly up.
The real estate salesman, Charles N. Pemberton, whose card identifies him as a "multimillion-dollar producer" later explains the situation:
"If you have your brokerage set up where agents basically are paying desk fees or office space, and you have a large facility and not enough agents making business, you either have to find a way to boost sales, find some agents or look at the size of your facility, and think about going to a smaller location."
A corporate spokeswoman for ReMax said office consolidations are not uncommon in the current real estate market and asserted the D.C. region is still strong.
Pemberton, who has watched other brokers turn to bartending or other jobs, thinks the market will turn.
"Come back in a couple of months," he said. "We'll be selling more than filing cabinets."
