Name: Berkshire Home Services CEO Secret to Brand Growth
Uploaded: 2016-04-30
Duration: 3 min 12 s

Ron how's the housing market doing these days? Well actually I would call it a normal market. It's a it's good, it's not over heated and it's certainly not bust. You have real estate brokers working all across the United States what markets are the strongest and whats not? Well I think the strongest markets are the largest most Populous centers. New York, Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, all very very good markets. I think where there's job growth and wage growth, there's housing growth. It looks also like home prices are going up. What are you seeing? They are going up. And they ave been going up since the collapse. Which is now nearing 10 years. We've seen recovery in many markets. Home values have totally recovered. And in some of the markets with slower job growth and wage growth is still trailing. But all recovering across the country. So are you seeing that as home prices are going up that it is pushing out some would be buyers? It is. I think a couple of things are going on. You know, the markets started to recover from the top down, people because of the credit standards, so luxury market recovered first. The slowest market was, largely because of jobs and the economy, was the entry level housing. We are seeing there's a resistance wall in the luxury end rate now Entry level housing is very, very hot. Just when you think that mortgage rates can't go any lower, they go lower. I mean to what extent are low mortgage rates a motivating factor for people to buy a home? I think low mortgage rates are a very motivating factor. I think the gating factor has been You know the fact that, particularly on the lower half of the buying market, is the credit standards have been exceedingly difficult. Obviously business is going well, because your company, Berkshire Home Services, has been buying up real estate brokers all across the country. What are your expansion plans? While we continue to expand and we continue to identify great companies and great markets, our real vision is to be the premier provider of homeownership services across the US. But we are Suzy, interestingly enough. we're Starting to expand and we're going global and we have spent the last two years preparing and before the year is out we'll probably have a stake in the ground in some places outside the common US. Like where? Where are you thinking of? Where's the hot spot? Well, the financial centers of the world would be primary targets. Certainly Paris, London, Munich, we certainly like Beijing, we like Hong Kong, and markets that you might think, or certainly would recognize very highly desirable markets, and very Very strong economically. Those are a lot of countries, how aggressive are you going? Is there one that you're targeting as your number one priority? We like Western Europe at least as a starting point but I have to say that there's an awful lot of pressure and push for China. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]