How Do Top Producers Deal With A Cooling Market? • Monday Market Minute • Carrie McCormick

In our August episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties discusses what happens to home-pricing as the market is cooling down. Carrie explains the growth in demand for luxury properties seen especially during the last year. Next, D.J. shares his marketing tip of the month. Carrie also discusses the importance of developing new skills as the market changes and shares her 5 tips on what to do when there is a shift in the market. Last, Carrie shares what not to do as real estate agents based on her personal experience.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Carrie can be reached at carrie@atproperties.com or by phone at 312.961.4612.

Please follow Carrie on Instagram by clicking here.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks and FollowUpBoss.

Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
How does a top producer doing 160 million a year just by yourself deal with low inventory and high interest rates. We’re going to talk about that today. Stay tuned. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. There agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show

Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcast made for real estate agents and by real estate agents My name is DJ Paris I am your guide and host through the show today is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carey McCormick Real Estate Group with at properties here in Chicago. Carrie is a top 1% producer with over 20 years of experience helping buyers sellers and investors. In fact, in the past 12 months out of 46,000 real estate agents here locally, Carrie is ranked in the top 15 of all producers. And I don’t mean top 15% the top 15 So she is a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. She also works with a lot of developers and is often chosen to represent their high end developments, please visit Carrie at her website, which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. And also follow her on Instagram she is consistently rated as having the best Instagram account for realtors here in Chicago. So at Carey McCormick real estate both of those links are in our show notes. So you can just go to our show notes and tap on the links. Carrie, welcome to welcome to the show. It’s nice to see you again.

Carrie McCormick 2:48
Thank you, thank you, as always, and just on the note of Instagram and thank you for always giving a shout out to my social media. I love love love doing it. Some of you who do follow me may know that my Instagram was hacked like two weeks ago, I saw that, oh, it was unbelievable. And I guess this has been happening to a lot of people where they impersonate you. And they create fake accounts. And that’s very similar. I mean, they really just clone your account and they just read they changed your name by one letter or something and then they started contacting my followers and as you know, apparently I was selling Bitcoin to people and you know, so it was kind of crazy and I filed some reports and Instagram took my account down. They blocked my account, thinking that I was the impersonator and it took several steps and not that I want to be the techy guru of how to get your account back But if anyone does lose their account or gets impersonated in need some tips, please feel free to reach out to me it took me at least 72 hours of digging and researching of figuring out how to get my account back. But successfully I got my account back and hopefully it never happens to anyone.

D.J. Paris 4:11
Well congrat congratulations on getting the account back I know how scary that can be. I’ve had similar things happen in different ways that are very, makes you feel very vulnerable and you’re like

Carrie McCormick 4:22
yeah, and you don’t realize like how attached I was to my Instagram account. I’m losing it I would just I felt lost but again thankful that it’s back. But we’re headed into September which is unbelievable that this year is flown by so quickly, September 2022 And a lot of people been asking about home prices. You know we’re coming off of our crazy 2020 21 And you know record pricing throughout the United States and you know people are saying okay, we’re obviously the market starting to cool down. What does that mean to home pricing and, you know, do a lot of Reading and of course, I’m boots on the ground and seeing everything. But we’re forecasting that home prices are going to continue to appreciate not only in Chicago, but nationwide. And really, it just boils down to the supply factor. So we’re still in very low supply of homes. And we all know that mortgage rates have jumped up. And of course, that has dampened the demand somewhat. But the demand still outpaces the supply. So again, just standard economics of supply and demand. We don’t have much supply here. So it’s keeping prices pretty steady in our market here.

D.J. Paris 5:37
You Yeah, I think we’ve been pretty lucky in Chicago, at least in the city, it seems like pricing has still been relatively steady. I know we’re seeing some pricing drop across the country. Curious, do you think that that will affect Chicago, like city pricing, or even suburban pricing in the upcoming months?

Carrie McCormick 5:58
I think that, you know, some of the sellers, there’s a little bit of a disconnect between sellers and buyers and sellers are still kind of, you know, looking back last year of what the record prices were. And, again, that was a very inflated market. So I think we just need to educate the sellers on where the market is right now. And again, there’s still great prices out there. But we just need to be a little more realistic about the new market conditions. One area, which is surprising is the luxury market. I finally closed my $6.2 million deal last year modulations. So there was a lot of you’ll see there’s just a lot of high end luxury sales going on. And I did some digging, and I found some interesting stats. So in 2020, there was a 2.2% growth in the numbers of individuals that had wealth over $5 million. So think about that. So in 2020, if you had five people who had $5 million in income, or net income in value, there was a 2.2% growth in 2021. So one year later, that number grew by 19.8%. So 19, almost 20% growth of people that have a net value of 5 million plus that’s a huge, I think that’s a huge number huge in one year. So all of these folks that grew their net worth more than 5 million, where are they putting their money, they’re putting their money into an asset, which was a home. So because what that number, what 19.8% equals is 660,000 new individuals that entered a different net worth bracket. Okay, so that that new bracket, again, 660,000 people, and again, that’s across the United States, but we saw that in, you know, the Florida market, the Arizona market, Austin, you know, Chicago, obviously, so there was this huge demand for luxury properties in 2021 and 2022. So, and that, to me, it still continues to go, I see so much, you know, cash injected into this market. You know, some of my listings that are 3 million plus a lot of the demographic are, you know, 3040 year olds, and it’s just, it’s, it’s amazing. So it’s, it’s great to see that that Mark is still thriving.

D.J. Paris 8:21
Yeah, it’s sort of got me to think about, I can actually give my marketing tip of the week right now and then come back to carry to more information from you, because you just sparked an idea that I didn’t realize, as you were mentioning the statistic about the high net worth individuals, sort of the growth there in the last year. And it’s like, wow, I didn’t know that. And I suspect a lot of our listeners didn’t know that either. So I don’t know, of an ease of a better way to do this. But you should first friend, everybody you know who’s in your contact list on Facebook. We’re not just on Facebook, but on LinkedIn, in particular, because this is the place oftentimes where businesses post updates, work anniversary, show up promotions show up, when somebody sells a business, it shows up when somebody starts a new job, it shows up. And so this, these could all be things that oftentimes maybe are talked about, not necessarily somebody’s net worth increasing, but if someone sells a business or if someone joins a new company, or if someone’s you know, some big news at the company they’re at, you know, this is you should be following the companies and following the individuals and then just look on LinkedIn once or twice a day for a couple of minutes. See if there’s any major news there and you can reach out to your clients a hey, I just saw that, you know, you started a new career, you got a promotion, and you’re now you know, a CEO or whatever. And then you can talk to them say, Hey, is anything changing for you from a housing perspective? You know, do you thinking about you know, making a move? I think that’s a fantastic reason to pick up the phone and I can’t think of any other because people don’t always post their professional accomplishments on Facebook or Instagram. They don’t always do it on LinkedIn either, but that’s usually have a place where I see that stuff.

Carrie McCormick 10:01
That’s great. And actually on LinkedIn, there’s a little bell at the top that says notifications. And that’s a great tool because it’ll pop up any of your connections have anything new, whether it’s a birthday, or like you said, a job change. It’s obviously a professional network. And it’s definitely a great tool to use. So I love that tip. Great. Well,

D.J. Paris 10:22
what else do you want to talk about this week?

Carrie McCormick 10:24
Oh, actually, I was just going to talk about too with the market changing. And as everyone probably knows, I’ve been in the industry for over 20 years. And through the years, you know, I’ve seen a lot of market shifts, and people start, when I say people, brokers, we all start to kind of retract when the market changes, and I always say, you know, what comes up must come down, right, so that, you know, the market continues to change. But when there’s a challenging market or a changing market, there’s always agents that find success, and you have to adapt, and in Pivot, you know, so you’ve got to look at developing new skills. And if you do, figure out your new skills, and how to thrive in the market, your business is going to go is gonna grow. There’s agents that don’t want to change that they stay status quo, or they just kind of put their head in the sand, and they give up, you know, or they say, you know, I’m just going to sit back and wait, you know, for the market, which is fine, if that’s what they want to do. But, you know, for those who do want to succeed, you do have to pivot and make change happen. So I wanted to share with everyone, my five tips on what happens, you know, or what we should be doing when the market changes. So my first tip is to understand the market of what’s happening, and really kind of dive into the stats and why the markets acting, the way that it is, once you understand that is really to successfully communicate that to your clients, they want to hear from you, they want to know what’s going on. And then you know, you look like a trusted adviser. So again, understanding the market and communicating that effectively to your clients. Number two would be to change your marketing plan, when the market changes, you do have to change the way you advertise or your market your properties or the again, the way that you communicate these properties online. So you know, re revamp your marketing plan, look at different ways, and different avenues for advertising. Number three is to be a resource and to be the adviser and LinkedIn is actually a great platform to do that, you know, there’s always different groups to join, or whether there’s, you know, speaking events, whatever the the topic is, people always want to know what’s going on in the real estate market, even if they’re not a buyer or seller, they just like to know, you know, their home is their biggest asset. So they want to know what’s happening. So just be a trusted resource and adviser and provide information. without expecting anything in return, I would say it’ll come around to you at some point. The fourth tip would be to learn to systemize your follow up your communication and I will say I am working on this. I’ve been working on this for years. You know, again, everyone loves communication and loves to hear from you. So if you can systemize it to some degree to make sure that you’re staying top of mind. I think that’s a great thing. If anyone’s got any tips for me on that one. I would love to brainstorm with people because it’s when you have a lot of clients. And you’re you know, it’s it’s hard to make a personal phone call every day to everybody but you definitely have to be organized and be systemized on that. And then my last tip would be number five would be to invest in your business. It’s kind of a hard thing to say at this point, especially when you know the market you know everyone feels like it’s softening or your sales aren’t as high as they were last year. But you do have to invest in your business whether it’s in your systems whether it’s in your advertising, staff now is the time to invest because again what goes up must come down and what’s down comes up eventually. So if you are prepared and ready especially for spring 2023 You have your systems in place your advertising your staff, you’ll be ready to rock and roll spring of 2023

D.J. Paris 14:15
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Carrie McCormick 17:24
yeah, I mean, there definitely is a little bit of remorse, you know, with with the rates, but you know, if they were paying higher for a property, but had a lower rate, now they’re paying a little less for a property a little bit higher rates, you know, the rates are still low, lower, you know, I mean, they’re not that they’re not 3%. But you know, they’re just hovering around five, so they’re not terrible. I just try not to focus on it is what it is, you know, there’s, and, you know, I say just capture the rate that we have now capture the home that you that you want, you know, in a year two or three of the rates do tick down again, then you can always refinance out of it. So I try not to look back, I try to keep keep it positive and look forward, I do want to share one quick thing with everybody that just happened to me. And it’s kind of more of what not to do. If I got to do so in this is a true story. I’m not going to mention any names. So don’t worry, as I start this story. And these wonderful clients that made we went to two showings on a home for them. And my client verbally said to the agent, the sellers agent, you know, he’s like, I really think that this house is really priced way too high. And he’s very analytical. And he kind of gave his reasons why and the agents response was, which was a good one. She said, you know, everything’s negotiable, just, you know, make us an offer. Let’s, let’s get it in front of the seller, and let’s see what we can do. So we felt good about that. We made the offer, never heard back from the agent for two days. kept following up, you know, did you get the offer? Can you please respond? I hope everything’s you know, first reaction is like, is she okay? Is everything okay? You know, and then, you know, two days later, and she says, you know, I’ll get back to you tonight. So she finally got back to us that, you know, two days later, and their response was your offers too low, we don’t want to respond to you. Really? I said, Okay, you know, so I called her and I said, you know, you know, here’s, you know, I hate playing the comp game. But you know, this is why we came in at this price. And again, you encouraged my client to make an offer wasn’t that bad, but you know, it was a little bit lower and not super insulting. And then she wrote back this email to me, that said, you know, in the future, if you want to win, you know, a home for your client, I would suggest that you do XY and Z and she was basically telling me how to do my job and how I should prepare an offer and what I shouldn’t do, and she’s like, maybe your clients will be able to get a house. She’s like, Oh, which agents and I was like, oh my god, like it was like in writing. So rude. And I just thought that is not I mean, I’ve got thick skin. But that is not a way to, I mean, my guess is if they would have countered us, we could have probably come together knowing where my clients would, would eventually end up, which would be a fair deal, but, and I just thought I just I’m, like, so flabbergasted that it just like the tone of the it was just so rude. And I wrote back and I was nice. I just said, Thank you for the advice. You know, like, I don’t know what else to say, you know, thank you for the advice. And then there has been no communication since but I really feel like that seller is missing out. Because they do have a client that is very interested in the home, and just the whole communication. So I guess my point of that story is, as real estate brokers, we all have the same goal, we are fiduciaries to our clients, we have to do what’s right for our client, listen to our clients totally get it. But also just being respectful to each other as brokers. It’s a tough market. And be nice. That’s my underlying message all the time is be nice and be kind to everybody, no, no reason for negativity and rude comments.

D.J. Paris 21:20
Well, that and I almost wonder if that other agent maybe didn’t do their fiduciary responsibility, in a sense, because obviously, this is where reputation comes into, right? Like your reputation as one of somebody who is incredibly successful kind does the right thing for their clients. I mean, obviously, your reputation here in the local Chicago area is is, is perfect, you have this perfect reputation of being a good realtor. And also, who plays well with others. She maybe she didn’t know you, or maybe she didn’t look you up or maybe she knows you. Okay, so who knows, who knows what the dynamic there is, but to go, my client will be insulted or is insulted is really a strange thing. Because what do you say if you get an A just out of curiosity, if you get an offer, so you’re on the listing side now, and you do get an offer that seems really low or lower than that you might worry that this might offend the seller, but I know this realtor, they seem to get things done. What would you do in that situation?

Carrie McCormick 22:28
I’m always trying to put a deal together, you know, kind of attitude. And I always tell my sellers, be thankful that we got an offer someone loves your home, you know, and I have seen deals and put deals together where they’re worlds apart, you know, and then we ended up bringing the deal together. I’m not saying that’s, you know, happens all the time. But you know, let’s try to work. It’s negotiations, you know, and you work back and forth and have conversations with the brokers. And again, at the end of the day, the client decides on what they want to do. And, you know, I mentioned worth the fiduciary here, but you know, you try and you you get it, you, you take it to where you can if the deal doesn’t come together, at least you tried, you know you just but again there’s, you know, there’s no point in in bashing another broker, especially in writing.

D.J. Paris 23:25
Yeah, and then also Yeah, it just and lecturing somebody I think that’s a maybe she was having a bad day or something, but are the Yeah.

Carrie McCormick 23:36
I’ve got a little file of emails from a few brokers that really decided to go off go off the rails, I don’t know what I’m gonna I’m just hanging on to them for a rainy day. But,

D.J. Paris 23:46
but it is such a such a funny thing. It’s like, you know, I think if, if, as Realtors we should be the ones that are less likely to get emotional about things, right. Like our job is to keep things steady and level and then just seems like this other realtor did everything wrong, in my opinion. So

Carrie McCormick 24:05
my tip of the day on that one is just be be nice to each other, you know, and just try to try to work through the deal. It doesn’t come together doesn’t come together. But Right.

D.J. Paris 24:16
Right. And also just trying to tell somebody with 20 plus years of experience like what to do better. That is that is an incredible Wow, that the audacity of that is is almost impressive, in a sense. Like to even think I know better than, you know somebody who’s

Carrie McCormick 24:33
and I always listen to people’s advice. Right? I mean, that’s just that’s life learning is listen to others and I did I write it and I mean, I completely disagree with her. But you know, that kind of that’s, you know, it’s but again, I think there’s a tone of you know, here’s some tips for you versus it was just a very interesting email. I’ll just leave.

D.J. Paris 24:56
So I thought that’s a it’s a great example of how how I’m poor In addition to play nice in the sandbox, you know, and we’re all we’re all in the same sandbox early. So let’s be kind like you said, be kind. And by the way, nothing wrong with apologizing the day after, if you realize you you said or did something wrong? No, you know, oh my god, I had the world’s worst day yesterday. I’m so sorry. I said and wrote those things. I deeply apologize. You know, there. That’s there’s nothing wrong with doing that. But I bet you probably won’t get one of those but but that’s the thing. You never get the apology. But you can always apologize. People are people are funny. But yeah, that’s that’s a great example of how not to make friends and influence people, right? As Dale Carnegie, like the anti Dale Carnegie’s, anyway, well, well, that’s a great place to wrap up. So let’s remember everyone be kind and nice. These are people that are going to help you make money, these other realtors, so help them feel good about themselves. And don’t don’t lecture them unless, unless there’s some really, really good reason to do. So it sounds like there was not a good reason this time. Anyway, so we want to thank Carrie for being on our show. For as long as she has been, she continues to show up every month and provide our audience with, with with tons of valuable insight. And by the way, she is so incredibly busy, she does not have a big team. It’s really just her doing all of these transactions. And the fact that she spends a few minutes with us every month is a really huge honor to us. So we are so grateful Carrie for you. And we are excited to continue to have you of course on the show in the future. So for everyone out there listening, please, please Well, a couple of things. First, if you have any clients that are moving to the Chicagoland area and you don’t work the Chicagoland area because you might be in another state or another country or wherever reach out to Carrie, she is legitimately one of the very highest producing agents here year after year after year. She has a sterling reputation and would love to talk with you. So if you have any referrals, send them to her or if you yourself are a buyer or a seller or renter or an investor you know reach out to hurt you know, my girlfriend who does leasing for a building downtown. She had a broker come in yesterday. And by the way, just to make sure we’re not confusing people in Illinois, every realtor is a broker. So I know that’s not the way it is in every state. But anyway, she had a real what’s called a realtor come in. And the client was a realtor and a practicing realtor. So and that was very interesting. And my girlfriend asked the practicing realtor who really was the the tenants or the future tenant, hey, I’m just out of curiosity, why did you Why are you working with a realtor? And they go I don’t know anything about about luxury leasing. And so I’d rather hire my friend who’s really good at it. And, and I thought, wow, that’s really, that’s really great. So even if you’re a realtor, and maybe you’re looking for some help buying, selling, renting or if you’re not a realtor, but you’re looking for a great agent Carrie would love to chat with you Carrie what’s the best way someone should reach out to you

Carrie McCormick 27:58
always call me 312-961-4612 For those who prefer to text I’m a big texter as well. Or email which is Carrie ca RR ie at@properties.com.

D.J. Paris 28:14
And please follow carry on social media. So she’s on Instagram, she’s Carrie McCormick real estate. And you can also visit our website Carrie McCormack r e.com. And and I guess I am glad I did not take the Bitcoin as suggested No, I saw that I thought, Oh, she’s been hacked. But I’m glad you got your account back because I know how important that is to you. And I know it’s it’s a great place also to see your activity. It’s really fun because I like following you because I sort of feel like I know what your days look like, which I think is is really helpful for other realtors that want to see. You know, gosh, if I get ever got to that top 1% level, what would my days look like? And I think you do a good job of sharing. You know what it’s like to be a realtor.

Carrie McCormick 29:00
I don’t share everything with you. The days that that I go through, it’d be a fun reality show.

D.J. Paris 29:09
Well, anyway, everyone follow Carrie on Instagram because she is just as impressive work there and she does it all herself as well which is even more impressive. So she doesn’t outsource it. So you can really see what she’s all about at Kerry McCormick real estate. Carrie, thank you so much for being on our show yet again. We love having carry on and she gets so much great feedback from the fans. By the way. If you have a moment everyone listening, please go to whatever podcast app you might be on whether it’s iTunes or Apple podcasts now or Spotify, Google Play Stitcher, any anywhere you find podcasts and if you’re listening through us through one of those systems platforms, leave us a review. Let us know what you think of the show. And also please tell a friend think of one other realtor that could benefit from hearing our show and send them a link over that’s all I got this week. Carrie this was a fun great episode. I know you’re you’re busy. Gotta get back to work. So we wish carry continued success. And thank you on behalf of everybody for coming on our show, and we’ll see everybody on the next episode. Thanks Kerry. Bye