Weichert Realtors Press Release
Weichert Relocation Resources Launches Relocation 'Next Practices' to Improve Workforce Management
5/15/2008
MORRIS PLAINS, N.J. –
Besieged by a tumultuous real estate market, global talent crunch and mounting
competitive pressures, today’s HR and corporate relocation managers will need
to look for solutions beyond the status quo to keep their relocation programs
on track to meet vital business objectives and leadership development goals.
To assist
these progressive organizations and provide strategic guidance, Weichert
Relocation Resources Inc. (WRRI), one of the world’s leading relocation
companies, has developed Next PracticesSM—the
next generation of relocation and assignment management solutions, designed to
deliver compelling results under all market conditions.
“Our Next Practices are designed to challenge
the conventional wisdom that has dominated our industry,” said Aram Minnetian,
President of WRRI. “Companies need to become serial innovators, relying less on
how they’ve always done things in regard to relocation and assignment
management by targeting goals that lie beyond today’s best practices. That is
the thinking behind our two critical real estate Next Practices—Valuation Management and Portfolio Management—which
were designed to help our clients achieve a higher volume and faster rate of
home sale closings, while reducing overall home disposition costs.”
Valuation
Management combines the internal expertise of WRRI’s team of certified
valuation consultants and the local expertise of its network of third-party
appraisers to forecast the most probable sales price for each property; a price
that will produce an acceptable sale within a defined marketing period. Signaling
a break with tradition and a shift of focus to predictive values, this solution
combats the compound effect of inaccurate buyout values and appraisal
variances, which are the root of most employee dissatisfaction and the primary
cause of higher loss-on-sale and inventory rates.
“Valuation
Management challenges traditional industry thinking that says the best way to
determine a guaranteed buyout figure is to simply average two appraisals,” said
Minnetian, one of the chief architects of WRRI’s Next Practices. “Instead, we focus on forecasting the anticipated
price of each property, and quality score and rank each appraisal across seven
criteria to ensure that we have the most reliable buyout value and marketing
data.”
Portfolio
Management is the strategy of making a market and creating demand for employee
homes. Aided by WRRI’s proprietary Portfolio Management Worksite, real estate
agents, in-house portfolio managers and relocating employees work
collaboratively to identify the target buyer for each property so that they can
develop a dynamic, custom marketing plan to achieve the forecasted sales price
in the shortest possible timeframe.
“In the
past, appraisers, brokers and other real estate specialists worked in a vacuum;
they didn’t have the holistic perspective that the home disposition process
demands. This is an especially risky approach under today’s market conditions,”
said Minnetian. “With Portfolio Management, we’re reinventing the way that
relocation real estate is marketed and sold for the foreseeable future.”
WRRI’s real
estate Next Practices have been
adopted by some of the most progressive companies in America, and have yielded
compelling results. In 2007, WRRI sold 37 percent more homes than it did in
2006, despite record increases in foreclosure rates and restrictive credit
guidelines. The company has also witnessed a 25 percent reduction in days on
market for portfolio-managed versus non-portfolio-managed properties.
“Many of
today’s brokers, appraisers, relocation professionals and relocating employees
have never experienced a depreciating market. Consequently, the need for our
subject matter expertise and innovation has never been stronger,” said
Minnetian. “Our dedication to proactively reinventing even the most
time-honored processes through the use of Next
Practices is what helps us transcend our role as a service provider and
become a trusted and strategic business partner.”
About Weichert Relocation Resources:
Weichert
Relocation Resources Inc. (WRRI) delivers innovative Next PracticesSM—the next generation of relocation and assignment
management services—that help some of the world's leading companies avoid
inventory, increase employee home sales, enhance mobile workforce management
and reduce program costs. WRRI is recognized as the growth-oriented industry
leader, providing a unique combination of stability, financial expertise and
seasoned leadership that has made the company a trusted, proactive partner to clients
throughout the world. A progressive, independent company, WRRI is committed to
delivering Raving Fan® service; investing in new capabilities, technologies and
talent; and bringing unmatched innovations to market, such as the industry’s
only complete, end-to-end global workforce mobility solution. For more
information, visit wrri.com.
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