Just a heads up on items I found going through real estate journals.  A well respected agency here in the Dallas area was noted in the Dallas Business Journal (pg 3, Dec 5-11, 2008 issue) of another idea from thinking outside the box.  They have gone to banks and have solicited their REO departments to handle the new construction residential REO's (foreclosed on builders and/or builder inventories) and have contracted with them to not only list the REO (like normal), but to also add a service of "property management".   I had to work an new construction REO priced at $825,000 back in the summer and my first open house the AC didn't work (92 degrees inside the house), but also the lawn was being burned up from lack of water, entire inside was dusty and cob-webbed, light bulbs burned out, smoke alarm beeping, etc.  I called the bank REO department and passed on a rather lengthy list of items that needed to be correct and it took them 3 months for them to repair "most" of the items.

So I think I know where this agency above is going with this.  Just like in managing an apartment without a tenant, an agent gets an REO, new construction, empty house listing agreement signed and gets a property management agreement signed as well.  There will be two incomes on this one:  at the sale of the listing and monthly checks for managing the property, calling the yard man, calling the AC man, weekly checks on the property for cleaning for showing purposes, and generally get the property in showing condition to sell.  More later on this one....