The headline, “working almost entirely with creditworthy national retailers” comes from an article in the Detroit Free Press on how Agree Realty has been successful in commercial real estate.

It should also ring a bell for residential agents in todays market.

Would it not make sense to always use that criteria when dealing with real estate? Take the retailers part out and insert consumers.

The housing mess could have been avoided if mortgage companies and real estate agents took this to heart. Instead we have the mess we are in now because homes were sold to those who could not afford it. It is that simple.

Let’s go back to 2005. Everyone was convinced that housing prices were in a new paradigm. They were forever going up. 

• Sellers asked for the moon, 
• buyers got in bidding wars that pushed prices even higher, 
• lenders offered loans that allowed buyers to tell them what they earned to make sure the deal got done.

And let’s not get into the pressure that was put on appraisers to put their blessings on the inflated values.

Now we are nearing the end of 2008 and that ship has sailed. Housing prices where the cycle of greed was the worst are down 25 percent in a year, the phrase short sale is part of our daily vocabulary, and foreclosures make up 40 percent of the homes sold.

But the mantra of old school real estate firms like Agree Real Estate ring true. They made their money and more importantly kept it “working almost entirely with creditworthy national retailers”. The folks at Agree did not cut corners but negotiated smart deals before they got going with construction. And surprise, surprise, they are making money out of Detroit in a down market. As they say on Long Island, “Who would have thunk it?”

Of course, the lesson is not new, remember the Aesop fable The Tortoise and the Hare?  

Agree Realty Corp., a 10-person development firm based in Farmington Hills, has built a strong and growing portfolio of small retail centers housing Walgreen’s, Meijer, Borders and other retailers who offer consumers the basics of everyday shopping.

That sort of development doesn’t generate a lot of headlines in the style of, say, Donald Trump’s projects. But the firm’s relatively anonymity is just fine with the father-son team that runs the firm, Richard and Joey Agree.

“Our core business is developing brick-and-mortar locations for retailers. It’s a bread-and-butter business,” Joey Agree, 29, the firm’s executive vice president, said recently. “We’re able to minimize our risk while having the rewards underlying real estate.” Detroit Free Press

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