2005 Top Performer Diaries: April
Listings Don’t Meet the Demands of Buyers
Linda Rike and Ed Daughety face brisk sales and buyer demands that outpace listings in Carteret County, N.C.
Linda Rike and Ed Daughety are a husband-and-wife team and broker-owners of Linda Rike Real Estate in Morehead City, N.C. With their business motto "Just add water to your lifestyle," Rike and Daughety dominated their market with 162 closed transactions and $45.5 million in sales volume in 2004. The couple focuses on Carteret County, which has a population of just more than 60,000.
A surprise FedEx package arrived with a copy of "Power Pack 2, Zillions of Scripts, Checklists, Forms, and Tips!" It’s a spiral-bound real estate marketing book put out by GEEROY Productions. The book features us as one of six real estate professionals with great marketing techniques. We had sent them a sample packet of our different marketing materials—including our “Just add water to your lifestyle” theme on postcards, flyers, logos, and various advertising pieces. The book features a whole chapter on just us! We are really honored to be included in this book.
Spring is in the air. Although it has not quite arrived, we’re seeing strong activity. Buyers are buying, and we are working really hard to get new listings.
Activity has increased: 13 properties closed in the past month, 20 offers came in on our listings, and 16 went under contract. We had 60 showings on our listings, worked with 23 buyers, and sent out 17,310 postcards and 382 relocation packages. Our two problem transactions from last month both closed successfully.
Paige, our new buyer's representative, is doing great. She wrote a purchase contract her first time showing property. We’re very excited that she has surpassed this very important landmark and hope to see much more activity from her in the coming months.
To show just how brisk the market is here, we listed three condos—two oceanfront and one soundside—and put each of them under contract in just a couple of days. The problem is we need 10 more just like that right now. We also listed a fourth-row beach cottage ($500K+ price range) and had it under contract in less than a week. Again, the problem is we need more just like that. Meanwhile, we have several buyers just waiting for a new listing to come on the market. We are sending out thousands more postcards everyday saying, “We need listings!” just to try to get more inventory. Every real estate professional in our market area is dealing with this low inventory. It’s a problem!
On other marketing fronts, Linda Rike Real Estate supported the Carteret General Hospital's "2005 Change of Heart" Hospital Gala as the invitation sponsor. The fund-raising event was successful and raised more than $50,000 to assist in meeting the cardiac needs of our community. We love to sponsor high-profile events like this—in addition to the annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament—to get our name out to the community.
We have received several e-mails from REALTORS® across the country praising us on this REALTOR® Magazine Online series and some have asked for advice. We’re so glad to be a part of this series and to share some of the secrets to our success with other practitioners in the country.
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