2005 Top Performer Diaries: July
Tight Inventory Fuels Sellers’ Market
Linda Rike and Ed Daughety of Morehead City, N.C., help buyers and sellers navigate a hot market where prices appreciate by the week.
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.
Summer weather has finally arrived, and the beaches are filled with resort and second-home owners, vacation rentals, fishermen (and women and children), tourists, and buyers looking for a piece of heaven. We continue to have a sellers’ market with a shortage of inventory and rising prices. In the current environment, Ed tells buyers who are sitting on the fence that the only mistake you can make is not to do anything.
Appraisals continue to be a problem since prices are increasing 10 percent to 30 percent almost weekly! We have two properties ready to close with short appraisals, which can mean the buyers have to come up with any extra money not covered by the mortgage amount based on the appraisal. One buyer had to switch lenders, which meant a new appraisal. We’re confident that this one will work out because the original appraiser was from out of town and not familiar with our market at all. On the other deal, the appraiser contacted us directly to let us know he was having difficulty with comps, so we researched some ourselves. We shared the comps we found that were more applicable with him, and he used them to check his facts and figures and adjusted them accordingly.
Despite the tight inventory, we listed four condos last week, and two are already under contract with calls still coming in and buyers asking to be on a waiting list for future listings. We’ve seen multiple offers on several properties, and some selling prices over list price.
We also have listed two large tracks of land—one is 90 acres for $900,000, the other is 84 acres for $400,000—and we are searching for developer/buyers. Our total production for the past month includes 12 offers on our listings, 10 signed contracts, 27 buyers, nine closings, 28 new listing appointments, 66 showings of our listings, and mailing-outs of 176 relocation packages and 29,810 postcards.
June also was the month of the 47th Annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament—our biggest marketing event of the year. This year’s six-day event drew 181 boats, some as large as 67 feet, from as far away as San Juan, Puerto Rico. The local economy was boosted by all the anglers and their families competing, vacationing, dining, and playing here for the week. We also had TV, radio, and print media converge for daily coverage on local network affiliate stations. As the Official Real Estate Sponsor of the tournament, our logo and Web site address was printed on the 15,000 tournament tee shirts so we got great exposure. We also were busy networking with the participants at all the parties and entertainment events, which always nets us at least one new client every year.
“Size Matters” a Maryland boat with a woman angler, Gigi Wagoner, won the tournament this year with a 529-pound blue marlin. She was only the fourth woman to win Big Rock. She reeled in a big check for $677,800 from the total purse of $1,378,375. The tournament also will distribute $114,000 to area charities.
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