REAL ESTATE HARDBALL BROKER WALKS

Last year Susan Arledge was named Top Producer at The Staubach Company. But, this summer, it looked like she might not be a producer at all.

Arledge joined the hard-charging real estate brokerage firm in 1982 and quickly rose into the ranks of the big commission earners. Her successful style is described by some in the real estate community as “highly motivated.” But when most brokers and developers talk about Arledge, they choose words that are at home in a baseball dugout. It seems that Arledge was the hardest-hitting of the Staubach pack, long known for beating up developers on their rental rates. And this summer, as the story is told, Arledge did herself in by finally throwing one punch too many.

While bantering across a negotiating table, rumor had it, Arledge was shot down after turning the screws too far on a developer. And the protest came not from the developer she was aiming for, but the tenant she represented. It seems the tenant just couldn’t stomach Arledge’s “highly motivated” style-even if it was saving him money.

Well, Arledge says that’s not the case, that she left Staubach because the company stopped paying brokers commission and made them salaried employees.

Meanwhile, she didn’t have the easiest time taking her act elsewhere. Jerry Fults, of Fults & Associates, says Arledge asked him for a job after she left Staubach. But Fults and his partners decided that Arledge was too controversial. “I told her she was too strong for us.” Fults says, adding he didn’t think she would have any trouble finding a job. But as Arledge hit the pavement, she found the story stayed the same; only the names changed. In the end, Wayne Swearingen picked up Ar-ledge’s contract. Look for some of the “Staubach way” to show up there. . .