Since 1994, the real estate brokerage industry in the United States has seen and sustained its longest and most lucrative boom. During this same decade the industry has seen more significant changes than in all of its combined history. The boom and the changes have created opportunity but also, stress associated with the demands placed on company's to keep pace.

Brokerage models such as RE/Max and Realty Executives realized that brokers were no longer in control of the real estate transaction and they introduced an economic model that recognized the agent-centric nature of the business. This new model relieved brokers from providing all of the services associated with traditional office affiliation. They stripped away the fluff, cut the fat, reduced the relationship between the broker and agent to its lowest common denominator and essentially empowered thousands of agents to simply take charge. These and other companies were the early pioneers of the "freedom" approach to real estate brokerage. Rather than trying to control the policies necessary to sustain traditional offices these companies simply acknowledge the agent as the transaction gate-keeper and handed them control of the policy book along with a monthly invoice for core services. It worked and large numbers of agents have shifted from the traditional to freedom model.

During the ten-year emergence of the 100% brokerage company real estate company operating costs escalated. Today brokerage costs are at an all time high. Traditional brokers who are hanging on to the "if-we-build-a-big-office-with-a-lot-of-support-services-they-will-come" business model are feeling the increased pinch associated with overhead increases in a culture where the agent is the central controller of the transaction.

e-Partner believes that a third wave is beginning to emerge, the cyber-brokerage, freedom agent model that removes almost all of the costs associated with operating a traditional and even 100% brokerage firm. With brokerage operational costs at an all time high, a new economic model is evolving...the office-less, work from any location brokerage firm.