In our February episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties talks about competition in the buyers market and the very low inventory. Carrie discusses the inflation and purchasing power buyers have now. Carrie also explains why the percentage of new listings is low in the Chicago market. Next, Carrie shares her perspective of what she’s learned working for 2 decades in the real estate business. Last, D.J shares his own tips for homeowners and renters.
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.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
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Welcome to keeping it real the largest podcasts made for real estate agents and by real estate agents My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick. She is from the Carey McCormick Real Estate Group with at properties Christie’s International. Now Carrie is a top 1% producer here in Chicago with over 20 years of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors. In fact, in the past 12 months out of almost 46,000 Real estate agents Carrie was ranked in the top 15 Not 15% The number 15 Top realtors in all of Chicago. She is true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury properties. And she also works with a lot of developers and she’s often chosen to represent their high end developments. Now please visit Carrie at her website which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. And also especially follow her on Instagram she has one of the most trafficked Instagram accounts for Chicago realtors, so Carrie McCormick real estate again so on Instagram, Carrie McCormick real estate and she does all of her own posts herself. So if you want to see what a successful agent who does all their own postings on social and gets a lot of traffic, and a lot of engagement, check out Carrie McCormack real estate on Instagram. Carrie, welcome once again to the show. That’s the
Carrie McCormick 2:46
best intro I wish I could call you every morning. Here that that’s so nice. So thank you and I love being here.
D.J. Paris 2:54
Well, thank you I’m I enjoy having having you on the show and our audience really loves having you on because you have been a top producer here in Chicagoland area for gosh, forever, essentially. And you’re so well respected and your time is very valuable. So we appreciate you spending some time telling our audience what you’ve learned. And I’m so what do you want to talk about today? You will you and I were talking about just beforehand about inventory and how that is, of course, at least here in the Chicagoland market, but most likely in other markets that our audience is paying attention to. We’re dealing with a shortage, and we just are and it’s it’s affecting everybody. So anyway, I wanted to find out what you wanted to chat about today.
Carrie McCormick 3:37
Yeah, so we’ll just talk a little bit about inventory. I know everyone’s kind of tired of probably hearing it. But just you know, I’m here in Chicago, and just like all of us around the United States are having this issue. And I think going into 2022 People were excited to have a new opportunity, you know, since they lost out in 2021. But we’re still having challenges now the inventory is at its lowest we’re at 910,000. At the start of this year. It’s the lowest since 1999. According to Well, that’s according to the National Association of Realtors, just so you know, competition is still fierce. It’s It’s really crazy out there. But now in 2022 We’ve got inflation we’ve got soaring sales prices, we have mortgage rates that are pushing up a little bit so what it’s doing is it’s reducing the person purchasing power for clients. So for example, I have a client last year we’re just going to use the number of a million dollars just for a round number. You know they were looking at a million dollar homes last year we couldn’t find what they wanted or got out beat and then this year we’re back in the market but because interest rates have ticked up a little bit and they wanted to do some renovations and those costs have gone up you know now their buying power is is less so now we’re looking at nine $100,000 homes. But again, with this inventory, it’s just it’s, it’s, it’s been just a little, it’s been tough. But as brokers, you know, our job is obviously to guide our clients and be creative with how we’re presenting offers and finding properties there.
D.J. Paris 5:16
I want to jump in for a sec, because I was just thinking about this from a psychological perspective that this idea of your purchasing power going down, because you there isn’t enough inventory to really find a place right now. And rates are raising rising. And I was thinking that, you know, it probably will all be fine. If we start getting more inventory and prices come down, maybe that’ll adjust for the fact that rates rates are going up. But psychologically, it’s got to just I was just thinking of myself, if all of a sudden somebody said, Well, now you can’t get the million dollar home. Now I can only get 808 $100,000 home, even though logically that might still just work out fine. I don’t, it doesn’t feel good to hear that news. I’m almost wondering, for agents, that’s something that to realize there’s a psychological hurdle there that somebody needs to be soothed to hear that information. Because it is a, it’s a bummer. It’s like, well, you can’t get that anymore. Now, you know, you have to go down a tear, even though the down tear might not actually be a down tear. So I just think that’s a good point that people have to there is a little bit of a loss, a feeling of loss there, even though it might be invisible, that that aid that clients need to sort of be explained that, you know, don’t let this sort of throw you, for sure. I
Carrie McCormick 6:37
mean, I love what I do every day. I’ve been doing this for two decades now. And I’ve never seen a market like this. And it is I mean, I want my clients to be happy. And you know, that’s what the goal is. So it’s it’s been challenging, and I understand their frustration. So I wanted to also share with you just kind of where again, we’re in Chicago is where our inventory is here. So new listings in the city of Chicago, right now are up 0.7% for single family homes. But this is an interesting number the what we call attached properties, which is the condos and the townhomes. That inventory is down 27%, which is a huge number. And again, that just goes into the inventory realm, I think to the challenge we’re having here again, just like every market is is that sellers don’t want to sell their home because they have nowhere to go. And DJ and I were just talking about this. I’ve got clients that are making unsolicited offers to people that their homes are not on the market. And if I were to get an offer on my home, I love my house. But if I were to get an offer on my home, I don’t think I would sell it, you know? And I was thinking like, what number would would someone have to give to me? And I was just joking around saying if someone even gave me, well, I shouldn’t even say if someone gave me a lot of money. I don’t think I would move because I don’t know where I can go to so. So when we see the new listings up, you know, the single family homes up 0.7% It’s because they you know, people just don’t have anywhere to go.
D.J. Paris 8:18
Yeah, it’s interesting. And you’re so right that people are getting these offers these unsolicited letters in the mail, or maybe they’re getting phone calls or emails, because inventory is so low. But you know, it’s really interesting. So this is just kind of a behind the scenes thing. So Kerry happened to represent the developer, sort of just coincidentally, of the place that I ended up buying. So which is really fun and cute. And I got to get a place from from carious. Actually, this is before Before COVID, or rather right when COVID was was starting. And we didn’t have as many of these issues. And so I got sort of lucky and timing. But you know, what’s funny is I was thinking about this, I just celebrated a year here are about to celebrate a year here, I have received no, not only not any sort of letters, and this is a new development, and there’s new construction. So maybe I’m not on the radar as much right now. But I’ve not received any letters, any of saying, Hey, we know you just bought your place. But are you interested in selling? And I’ve also not received any marketing materials from agents, which is kind of remarkable. If you think like, obviously, yes, somebody who just moved into a new development probably isn’t moving a year in, but I would think I’d get something even a letter that said I am actually I’m just surprised, I would have just thought somebody would have gone you know, this guy’s probably five years out or whatever the you know, the he’s not moving for a while, you know, five to seven years, but I’m going to start the relationship now and nobody has done that to anyone in our building because I asked our agent or the other owners, so just a little marketing Tip there, obviously, it’s a long term strategy. But a great opportunity is to really start, you know, relationships with people that move here, because we have even people in our building that moved from other states because of job opportunities. They’re here. They’re new to Chicago. They, they just used an agent, probably, but who knows, maybe they didn’t like their agents. So just an opportunity to think about you know, and the reason I’m thinking about this a lot is I was Carrie has a colleague, or somebody she’s worked with, I’m sure many, many times, who was a guest on our show years ago. His name is Michael Rosenbloom. He’s a Chicago based agent. And he really became he built a good part of his business by just blanketing certain buildings that he wanted to really big condo buildings. And he, he became very, very popular in buildings by just saying, sending out mailers. So I just was thinking, you know, somebody could, you know, who isn’t who hasn’t started doing that, if you have some spare time on your hand, start blanketing some of these buildings, you know, every month with a little mailer. And you know, over time, probably two, three years later, you’re gonna get some leads from that, for sure.
Carrie McCormick 11:07
Absolute thing, you know, also, just kind of what we’re talking about is I read this article about FOMO fear of missing out. And he always thought about that, as far as you know, social but it’s, it’s now kind of hit the real estate market, just like you were saying is that, you know, you know, if something’s not selling in the market, you know, if you have a house, it’s not selling people, the sellers or buyers mind selling, I hear all these articles, or a buyer can’t get a house, they feel like they’re missing out. So it’s, it’s become a real thing in the real estate market now.
D.J. Paris 11:38
Yeah, there’s just it’s people are just really desperate. And it’s I know, even from a support perspective, because I’m really on the support side for our agents. We’re getting so many more questions after hours and on nights and weekends than we ever used to get before from our brokers. Because now the urgency is just it’s so much more present. It’s like I gotta get this offer in right now, even though it’s nine o’clock on a Sunday. They’re like, Oh, okay, so, so everyone’s being being taxed a little bit more. But I know you’ve been in the business for, you know, over two decades, and I know you are also going to work on some are going to share some tips of just things you’ve learned over the years. We’d love to hear those,
Carrie McCormick 12:18
ya know, I’d love to share those with everybody. Because again, when you’re in the business, for a long time, it’s it’s interesting, because every year just is very different. And you look back and you think of, you know, what was it that made me successful? Or what? What did I learn, and I would just kind of love to share my perspective of, of what I’ve learned, and the number one, not the number one. So number one, though, is just keep learning. And I know that sounds very simple, too. But it’s sometimes you just stop growing, or you you think, you know, you’ve got it all figured out. But I will say that this industry after 20 years, everyday is very different. And I’ve always, you know, I take the time to read different articles or different or listen to podcasts or you know, whatever it is, but really just continued to learn because when you stop learning, you stop growing, and your career will begin to decline. So really just always keep an open mind. listen to other people talk to other people. Just keep doing research. So learning is is one of my my number one tip number two. Success comes through hard work, and a lot of people will ask me, you know, what did you do? Or how did you do it? And there really is no shortcut to what successful people do. And it always does come through hard work. I never met a successful agent that didn’t outwork everybody else. And there’s some point in our career that you just I mean, then that’s what I feel like I did is I just, I just you know, outworked everybody and I will continue to carry that through my career. So number two would be there’s no shortcuts to success always have hard work. Number three is and I love this one because I live and breathe by this one is Be your own brand ambassador. And what I mean by that is when I started in my career I and I think this is a good thing to do. But as I looked at other agents and said, okay, this person is successful, what are they doing this person successful? What are they doing? And, you know, to be honest, like I did the balloons on the open house signs I you know, bake the chocolate chip cookies, I ordered the pens with my name on it, because that’s what everyone else was doing. And it just really wasn’t working for me or at least it wasn’t like authentic to me, you know, it’s just kind of kind of robotic, doing what I thought was the right thing to do. And I really stepped back and I decided, you know, what is my client looking for and what’s authentic to me and that’s kind of where my brand came from is it truly is What’s authentic to me, and, and I support my brand 110%. So everything I do is about my brand. But more importantly, it’s about my client experience. So my tip number three is Be your own brand ambassador. Number four is patience. And this is something I do not have. Anyone that knows me knows, I do not have patience whatsoever. But patience is so important and not patients in in the sense that we normally think of patients. But just about being successful, I think we’re in an era of everyone wants everything right now and they want an answer, they want this and that is 100% how I am. But again, if you want to grow your Instagram account, or you want to grow your business, or you want to grow whatever it is, you’ve got to have patience, because I think if you don’t, you end up making rash decisions, you make poor decisions, you just want things to be here and now. And when things are sped up too quickly, I think they just they they fail. So just have patience in your business. I’ve got three more.
D.J. Paris 16:12
So no, these are all gold. I love them.
Carrie McCormick 16:14
I think I’m on number five. So number five, is listening. And I always say that I think listening sounds like such an easy thing to do. When you know, we’re salespeople, we like to talk. And listening is such an important trait. And I will tell you, I’ve a lot of my clients come back to me, and they thank me. And they say because you really listened to what I want. And you really took the time to pay attention to me. And I thought you know, after you hear that several times, it’s really been a really good lesson for me. But now as things change, too, I think listening in a digital era is very different, right? So we’ve got just social media, for example, or, well, social media. So now you’re listening, you have to listen to your audience. And it comes in the form of likes, or emojis, or clicks or views or whatever it is. So not only You’re now watching, you know, the engagement of your social media, but that’s listening. It’s listening to what your clients want, or listening to how they respond to your posts. So it’s become a little more complicated, but I think, you know, stepping back and looking at your business and looking and listening to what your clients want is important.
D.J. Paris 17:34
Can I jump in for a sec, I’ll give everyone so I recruit Realtors all day, that’s what I’ve done for the last, I don’t know, 11 or 12 years. It’s really all I do. And after. So we have two companies. And I think we have a total of about 14 or 1500 agents total. And I’ll just give you guys a quick tip on how I’ve recruited a lot of agents. And it’s not there’s no secret. But it is one thing that I do consistently. And it’s something anybody can do, whether they’re talking to their buyers or sellers. And you know, I don’t work with buyers or sellers. I work with realtors, but one, but the principles are the same. And the most important part of the conversation I have, which is almost always over the phone. Somebody says yeah, yeah, there’s a million other real estate companies, you want me to join yours? You know, why are you know, what do you guys have going on? And my instead of me wanting to immediately say, Oh, here’s why you should join us. We’re the greatest and we’re the best, which I don’t do anyway. But that’s what they’re expecting. They’re expecting a pitch and what I do instead, I mean, ultimately, I do tell them about our firm. But the first thing I say is, hey, if you were to think about moving firms, which I don’t know whether you’re actually wanting to move right now or not, what is it that you would be looking for, and then I shut up? And I just listen? And they say, Well, I’d like more training, or I want a better split or whatever the criteria is that they would actually want to consider moving. And I, I asked them, Is there anything else, you know, and so I get a little list of three or four things. And then I literally repeat it back and say, okay, just to make sure I understand correctly, you’re looking for more training, a better split, you know what, whatever. It’s so simple, and so easy. And people go Wow, thank you. Yes, that’s exactly right. And all you’re doing is verifying what they’ve already told you. It sounds simple, but it’s it’s it’s a bit of a lost art. And I encourage everybody to do that with their sellers and buyers too, is to say, okay, based on what you told me, here’s what I heard. Is this right? And then have them confirm it. Yeah.
Carrie McCormick 19:34
No, it’s good. And it’s it is interesting how we just don’t listen, you know, because
D.J. Paris 19:38
you probably get pitched a lot. Obviously, you’re a top producer. I mean, I don’t know how, maybe maybe people leave you alone at this point. Because they know you know, you’re happy where you are. But when you get pitched by other firms, they’re well I don’t know, I don’t know what it’s like, you know, sort of at your level, but do you get a lot of people that want to just say hey, come over to our firm, we’re the greatest or is it is is it more of like, Hey, I’d love to hear about what I could do to help grow your business. I’m just curious on,
Carrie McCormick 20:04
I’ve gotten recently by two companies. And what I’m not going to say is, what one was phenomenal. And they, you know, it was just like you said, it’s What can I do? What can I do for you? Yeah, what could we do for you and send. And, you know, the issues that I have, obviously, is really just time as I don’t have enough time in the day. But, you know, we sat and strategized and talked about ways to, to alleviate that and to solve my problems. And it was such a great phone call. And, you know, so appreciative and if they’re listening, you know, who you are. And then I got pitched by another company. And it was over text, which I, first of all, it was a terrible method of pitching somebody. And then it was, this is what we can do for you. And I responded and said, you know, thank you for the text message. Because I, of course, always want to acknowledge everyone. And I said, you know, your company reached out to me before, and they were not able to give me what I was looking for. And you said, Okay, thank you.
D.J. Paris 21:14
Goodbye. That was
Carrie McCormick 21:16
like, Oh, I mean, you know, it just I don’t know. So it’s, you know, and again, that’s why I talk about whether it’s, it’s, you know, a phone call to someone and really listening with your ears, or it’s digital social media, text messaging, whatever it is, it’s a different form of communication, but you still need to listen. And it’s how those responses are that can make or break your relationship with someone. And that second relationship to me, it was completely broken. And I just thought it was very poorly executed. So anyways, listening is extremely important. Two more. Next one is ego. So this is a very interesting and again, we’re salespeople, I think it’s an ego driven, if you’re in real estate, it’s your it’s an ego driven industry. But I think what I had to do early on is set my ego aside and realize that my job is about servicing my client, it’s not about me. And I will tell you one quick story is, I call it the number one versus number three story. And what that means is I was the fourth real estate agent, to go interview with this particular seller. within the first minute of me sitting down with the seller, the seller says, Let me guess you’re the number one agent in Chicago, you’re won all these awards, and you’re gonna tell me how great you are. And it just seemed like he was really kind of fed up, I was really upset that I was the number four agent. I actually said to him, I said, I’m not number one. And I’m not going to tell you, I’m number one. I said, But I’m number three, you actually laughed at it. And I actually had the stats of all the brokers with me not for this meeting, but just I just have it with me. And I showed it to him. And I said, I’m not number one. And I’m not going to tell you, I’m number one. But what I’m going to tell you is what I’m here for, and I went through, you know what I could do for him and how I’m going to sell his house and how I’m going to do this, you know what I was going to do? And he was so happy. But you know, the interesting thing is that the three agents that were before me that said they’re number one weren’t even on that list of 10 agents. So and the purpose of me doing that wasn’t I don’t know who the other agents were. But you know, my purpose wasn’t to do that. But it was just to show it doesn’t matter if your number 1234 Or five, it doesn’t matter. What matters is how you service your clients. So you know, I really put my ego aside for that meeting, and he was so happy, you know that it wasn’t coming in. They’re like, I’m number one, and look how much I sold. And so you really need to set your ego aside, you know, in this business, I think, and my last tip to everybody, and I truly believe this it again, it’s another one that sounds so easy, is kindness. I will tell you that saying that goes kill them with kindness. Is this such the truth. And I found that kindness is been my biggest ROI in my business. Because whether you’re dealing with an inspector and attorney, another broker, a buyer seller, anyone that impacts your business, if you are kind to them, if you are nice to them, if you’re a professional, I’m not talking like you’ve got to go out and buy them gifts. It’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about just be a true professional and, you know, just be kind to everyone it’s been it’s been the nicest gift back because obviously, being kind of people makes you feel good about yourself and you know it’s giving but it comes back to you And if they choose not to be kind back to you, that’s to me, that’s their problem. But be kind to everybody. And I think we’re at a point in this world that everyone just deserves and needs a little more kindness.
D.J. Paris 25:12
I agree, I was at an event recently with a top producer who was speaking and He made a big deal. He was talking about a different something else. And he goes, You know what, I’m gonna stop my talk now, because I want every This is a roomful of Realtors, there’s a few 100 of them, he goes, I really want to make sure everybody hears this. And please, everybody do it. He was saying, if you’re running five minutes late to a showing, you, of course, should be telling your client, hey, I’m running a few minutes late, you know, but he goes, the second text you should make is to the other agents. And you should say, Hey, I am so sorry, I’m running just three minutes late, even if it’s three minutes, and he goes, you’d be shocked how few few times agents will do that. And he goes, their time is just as valuable as yours. And you’re in Yes, everyone runs late, we all understand it. It’s not the end of the world. But letting people that’s a kind, compassionate thing to do. And I one time, interviewed someone on our podcast, and I won’t mention who they are. Because this, I’m gonna say something possibly a little bit negative about them. But then go then talk about how what a wonderful thing they did. There’s somebody I had on my show years ago, who is a very intimidating person, and I won’t even mention where they are. But somebody who’s whose reputation. Well, as I had heard, it was this person is going to be difficult. And this person was running about five minutes late to our podcast, and about 15 minutes before the show. This person emailed, I’ll just say it’s a he emailed me and said, I am so terribly sorry, I am running a few minutes behind. I know your time is valuable. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be there three or four minutes after. And I do the show 34234 times a week, sometimes. Very rarely, if anyone’s late, do they ever tell me even if it’s just a few minutes, and I thought that’s why this person is successful? Because that’s a kind and compassionate thing to do. And it made me really feel so much warmer towards this individual. So even like, it’s always little things, right?
Carrie McCormick 27:20
It is it’s it’s always the little things, but it’s to me, it’s what stuff our parents taught us to do right now? No, it just it does. It goes a long way. And that’s why I say that’s your biggest ROI on your business. Because it’s, it’s simple. It’s free. It’s easy to do. And I will tell you after years of doing it, you know, it just it does come back and people do appreciate it.
D.J. Paris 27:46
And did we have one more tip I think, or was that the last one? That’s it. That’s all I think I have a few tips. So thank you, Carrie, those tips were really good. And for everyone listening? Yes, be kind, you know, she had a lot of great tips in there that seem really simple. And they are simple. But they’re that’s why they’re that’s why their tips and the fundamentals almost always win the game. It’s always the simple things executed over time consistently. That win the race. The I had a couple of things that were I was thinking about. So I was mentioning earlier in the show that I am coming up on my one year anniversary and of this awesome condo that I happen to purchase from Carrie who represented the developers and boy, people who walk into this place. It’s called ALC. By the way, if you’re a Chicago person, I think they have still have a few units that are still available. Rucker Park, it’s unbelievable. Yes, it is. It is really a cool place. I mean, this is a great place. So I am very happy. And it’s so very fun to talk to Carrie because she’s the reason that I even learned about this place. And here I am. Now I get to live here. But I will tell you, there’s no but everything’s great. I love it. And, and I’m in the industry. And I’m sort of not in the industry to because I really don’t practice real estate. So I’m one of those dummies just like all of our clients who goes to Zillow and goes what my home’s worth these days. Even though I’m a licensed broker, I can technically go on the MLS and run a CMA except I have no idea really how to do that. So I said, I’m just gonna go to Zillow because I’m feeling lazy. And I’m just curious if my place is appreciated. Not that I’m looking to move, but people just want to know what their assets are worth. So I went on, and I saw a pretty impressive number and I went, ooh, I felt good. Now it’s an invisible number doesn’t really mean much. But it made me feel good. And I thought if I’m doing that, and I’m in the industry, I would guess that a lot of people are doing that as well. A lot of, you know people that that every one of our listeners knows whether they’re a client or just a friend. So I would think a good marketing opportunity right now. And I look and I had to I looked at the number that the Zestimate gave me and I thought, boy, that doesn’t seem right that seems way higher. Then what it should be, but maybe my home’s appreciated, I don’t know. So it was a very exciting number. But remember, when people go on Zillow and they look up their own home, you don’t get notified about that the agent never knows. That’s it. That’s a something that somebody just does. But I’ll bet you a lot of people are doing that right now. Just Just out of curiosity, what’s my homework? So if it was me, and I was maybe in between clients, right now, I had some spare time, I would consider everybody in my database running a Zestimate, which takes two seconds and saying, Hey, I just looked on Zillow. And it shows that your home is worth X. But I didn’t know if you’d seen that. But then I also ran a more thorough analysis. A proper CMA, which is through the system that we use here in Chicago is one of the ways you could do it is called Cloud CMA. That’s the one of the tools that all the realtors in Chicago have access to, which is almost as fast as Zestimate, really, but it’s a little bit of a probably more thorough investigation into it. And so you can do that. And yes, you’re gonna do a lot of them and they take time. But boy, I would be doing that for all of my sellers right now and saying, just so that, you know, here’s what I saw on Zillow. Here’s what I think your home might be actually worth today, if you want to talk about it, we can certainly have a conversation. So I was just thinking that would be because I just went on Zillow. So I was thinking probably people are doing the same.
Carrie McCormick 31:24
Right? That’s awesome. I love that.
D.J. Paris 31:27
Yeah. Because as the agent, you’re just not going to know. And if somebody all of a sudden sees their home as appreciated, too, like mine. Well, I won’t I won’t share the numbers. But but it was it was sizable. It was a sizable increase. And I was like, Well, I’m not moving. But I wonder if it’s really worth this. And so then I started looking into it. And then the other tip I have is around rental. So in the Chicagoland area. And I get I know, all of our listeners are not here in the Chicagoland area. But this is the beginning of our rental season. You know, the march to sort of March to September, October time is when people usually move for apartments here in Chicago, probably the same all over the country. But right now we have inventory shortages. But we still do have pretty low rates for people that maybe aren’t, you know, like Carrie was saying, people who have been trying to buy a place, they’re not probably appreciating the rate hike, but for everyone else who’s renting that might be thinking of buying. So pretty low rate environment. So I would definitely be having conversations with renters right now and say, Hey, I don’t know, if you’re going to rent for another year inventories low, it might be a good idea to do that. But we should start the conversation. As rates start to inch upward, we should start looking at least. And now’s the time to have those conversations as leases come do. So there’s that time in the spring. And there’s a time in the fall when leases kind of tend to come due. And this is a great opportunity, even if you don’t want to do rentals just to talk to people that are renting, and say hey, what’s the goal? You know, what are you looking at? What do you want to do in next couple of years, and then start having those conversations right now. So great opportunity to talk to everyone who owns a home, and a great opportunity to talk to everyone who’s renting right now. Love it. Awesome. Well, I also want to give Kerry a very appreciative thank you on behalf of our audience. I don’t know if Carrie even knows this. But we recently within the last three weeks, we crossed over a million downloads. And so we’re very grateful to Carrie for specifically because she was the very first partner we ever had. On our show. When we started she helped take a lot of the heavy lifting off of me so that she could make her voice be heard. And we could put out more episodes and she was the very first person that ever came on our show to on a regular basis. And here she is all these years later. I think it’s about five years now. And she is just a warm hearted wonderful person that loves to give and here we are now a million downloads later we’ve had over 115,000 individuals have listened to at least one episode. So this has made some sort of impact on the real estate. Real the realtor podcast sort of space and we are so grateful. So Carrie on behalf of everyone thank you for all the years of service to us. And we are excited to continue on into the future and for everyone listening by the way, you really should be following her carry on Instagram, the carrier McCormick real estate so that’s her Instagram also you can visit her website which she is oh by the way, Carrie is actually looking to reach you should we put out the the feelers because Carrie by the way has like one of the greatest websites ever. And she’s actually looking to redo it so I encourage everyone to check it out. But if you know of anyone Carrie was asking me Hey, who do you know who does great realtor website so if anyone out there has a good leads. Carrie McCormick R e.com is her website and it I don’t think it needs a facelift at all. because I love it. But she is always looking to grow and change. So if anyone knows of a great developer out there that can build cool websites, definitely reach out to Carrie. But Carrie, if anyone out there also has a question for you, or maybe wants to, maybe have you speak or maybe has wants you to represent them in buying or selling a property, what how should they reach
Carrie McCormick 35:20
out? Always call me 312-961-4612? Or send me an email at Carey CA, rr ie at@properties.com. And yes, please keep sending the questions coming and get a lot of interaction from brokers all across the United States. And I love it. And I’m a giver. So I’m happy to you know, talk with anyone and like you said, speaking events, I’ve been doing more speaking events, which I love to do. So happy to be a guest and any speaking event for free.
D.J. Paris 35:54
And I will also say that this is something very exciting. And also another thank you to Carrie, because we crossed over. I mentioned a million downloads about maybe three weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago. And we’ve already crossed over 1,000,001. So it took us five years to get to a million. And now we’re already at 1,000,001. So on behalf of Carrie and myself, we wanted to say thank you to everyone listening, thank you for telling a friend, we spend no money on marketing, this podcast to other agents, which maybe one day we will do that. But for now, we seem to be growing organically. And we’re so grateful. And we really have the listeners to think for that, as well as our guest hosts. So Carrie, thank you so much on behalf of everyone. And on behalf of carrying myself again, thanks to the audience for continuing to tell a friend so everyone who’s listening before you sign off, we just ask that you do two things on one, tell another friend, please tell a friend about our show, let us let them know, I had a very funny experience. And this is not it did sort of it’s an ego experience. But it was it was a cute one to have. I sat I went to an event last week. And I sat down at a random table with two realtors who I did not know from a different company and they said we recognize your voice from from your podcast. And I thought that was very cute. And and then I got to meet them. And so I was really honored that people do listen and just random people and that happened at National Association of REALTORS as well. And it’s not about me because I just kind of facilitate the conversation. But I’m really grateful to this community people are so kind you were talking about kindness being a skill. That kindness goes so far and every person on our show is that we’ve either had as a guest or we’ve had on as a host like Carrie. They’re just kind lovely people and this is an industry, if you’ll look for it full of kind, lovely people and I really encourage everyone listening to get involved with their local association to meet more of those types of people because really helps the when it’s stressful. It’s nice to have good people to be able to communicate with and carry works for a great company at properties. Who has lots of that and add properties. For those of you who don’t know, is a major major powerhouse here in Chicago, the probably the top real estate company as far as volume here in the Chicagoland area. Now they’re expanding to other markets, they just moved out to California as well. And there they have their slogan is one word love. And I think that is a amazing as a brand, and an amazing thing that they have done and they attract agents who really are kind, lovely people. So we’re big fans of that properties. We’re big fans of Karis coming on our show, but we ask everyone to please tell a friend about us. And then also leave us a review. Tell us what you think of the show. So whether you’re listening on Apple up well now it’s called Apple podcasts used to be called iTunes or maybe you’re on Stitcher or Spotify or Pandora or google play anywhere you’re listening to podcast. Let us know what you think of the show. Give us a review. Tell us what you think that helps us improve and also gets us more visibility so we reach more agents. But anyway, that’s enough about me. Thanks, Carrie for a million downloads and being here for all these years. We’re so honored to have you and we will see everybody on the next episode.
Carrie McCormick 39:20
Awesome. Thank you guys.
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