Real Estate Brokerage in Bankruptcy

The owner of a Century 21 brokerage company in Las Vegas has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the Las Vegas Sun newspaper reports.

A year ago, Jimmy Dague's Century 21 Aadvantage Gold company had nine offices and 700 agents -- now he has five offices and 500 agents and has cut half of the hourly staff, the Sun reports. "This is the result of an exuberant market and us growing," Dague said, according to the report.

At Dague's JimmyDague.com Web site, there is a photo of company awards and a caption that reads, "Century 21 Aadvantage Gold has won many awards for its success ..." And the company Web site, AadvantageGold.com, states, "#1 Century 21 Office in the World -- 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006." It appears that 2007 is a much different story.

Dague said in the article that he expects more brokerage bankruptcies. "I think there will be more; I can't imagine how the smaller brokers are paying their bills. Maybe they can fund their overhead from their own personal savings. But I honestly don't believe there are five companies in town right now that are very profitable. There's just not enough sales going on."

According to the article, Dague said he expects the company to close about 2,000 home sales this year compared to 3,700 in 2006 and 5,945 in 2005 -- there were about 1,300 home sales in August in the Las Vegas area, split among 1,400 real estate offices.

All rights reserved. This content may not be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, in part or in whole, without written permission of Inman News. Use of this content without permission is a violation of federal copyright law.