If wanted to sell these all together, I would probably think the way to go would be a commercial broker or at least a high volume residential broker.

(His volume is much larger than mine, so not comparing myself in that way.) 

When the internet has compressed commissions everywhere, it's amazing people are still willing to pay 5%.Given volume is down, why doesn't the real estate industry just lower their commission costs to increase volume?

It created standardized, more efficient time usage and consistency which correlated to more volume, and in turn more profit.  

2) Fixing the fireplace won't resolve the tenant's underlying complaint that its getting cold without a functioning fireplace.A fixed fireplace won't generate that much heat to warm the rental because the fireplace was designed for only low volume natural gas.

He's offloading a few (1-2 to me) because his crews can't handle that much volume.

NO you dont you can try a different closer .. some maybe discount for volume.. i know i get discount but volume for us is 50 closings a year...But as its base for sure commish is negotiable and there is no problem doing that.

We are flexible however based on volume, etc.

Yet, over the last couple of years after jumping into this full time after doing it on and off from 2003 to 2012, I've seen more and more evidence that just the term "FLIP" is absolutely POISONOUS to a surprisingly large number of serious buyers and what really scares and bothers me is hearing from several local agents who do a lot of volume (I really just buy and sell my own stuff now) that they've had a fair number of buyers who may see a home online that they like or even love based on the pictures and description, but won't even bother to do a showing if it turns out to be a F@#P!

For your team of four how much more volume do you think they can handle before hiring more people?