"The loss includes the GAAP treatment of the exchange of the company's preferred shares for common stock in conjunction with the 10-million-share public equity offering that closed in July 2006, as well as a gain from the company's sale of marketable securities in the second quarter of fiscal 2007," Pehlke says. Without those, there was a net loss of only $294,000, or 1 cent per diluted share.

The company began a five-year growth plan 18 months ago and has hired 250 brokers while it "transitioned out more than 200 brokers, most of whom were lower producers," chief executive officer Mark Rose said in the conference call. During the quarter, 51 brokers were "transitioned out," he says.

Of the brokers that have left the company since the beginning of last year, 82% were earning less than $200,000 in annual commissions, he says. Grubb & Ellis does not expect to continue the "culling," as one caller termed it. "We expect to stabilize and focus management attention on more traditional turnover rates," Rose says.