In our January episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties and Christie’s International shares some interesting facts about 2023 and also shares tips and tricks for 2024 on how to generate leads. Carrie emphasizes the importance of collaboration in 2024. Carrie also shares top 10 ways to find leads she is planning to use this year. Last, Carrie and DJ discuss how you can use AI to gather information on the property you’re showing.
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.
This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00
Are you curious about what one of the top real estate agents in the country thinks is going to happen? In 2024? I know I am. 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 by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show. And today on the show 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. Now Carrie is a top 1% producer in Chicago with over 20 years of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors. In fact, the past 12 months out of 46,000 real estate agents here in the local area. Carrie is currently ranked in the top 12 of agents in the entire group there, which is I shouldn’t even say 1%. She’s in the top point 00 1% which is actually even bigger accomplishment, of course. So she’s a true superstar and an expert in everything from first time homebuyers, veteran investors and luxury property. She also works with a lot of developers, and is often chosen to represent their high end developments. I happen to live in a Carrie McCormick development. So I can speak to that. And she does get to do some really cool things. So we are so thrilled to have her please follow Carrie on Instagram, which is Carrie McCormack real estate, I will have a link to that in the show notes and our website, which is Carrie McCormick, r e.com. If you’re an agent who has clients, maybe you’re in a different area of the country, and you have clients that move in and out of Chicago, Carrie would love the opportunity to network with you and maybe, you know, create a referral relationship because she has lots of clients that move out of Chicago. And she’s always referring those to other agents. So definitely reach out to her Carrie, welcome once again to the show.
Carrie McCormick 3:10
Thank you, it is the end of 2023. And I’m so excited to talk about 2024. So I’m going to give a few interesting facts about 2023. I’m going to give some tips and tricks that I think would be good for everyone for 2024 to generate leads. But just coupling on what you said is collaboration. I think that’s going to be a big deal in 2024. And anyone who is listening who wants to follow me on Instagram and wants to collaborate on posts, I would love to do that. People are moving all over the world right now, though, especially obviously through the United States. If we collaborate and share properties and post our properties in different markets, we’re going to start moving everyone in collaborating much better. So you know, I’m happy to do that. So please reach out to me if you’d like to collaborate on Instagram, but I want to share some interesting facts that I found. And this is about the typical homeowner. So in the past, a typical homeowner has accumulated more than $100,000 in housing wealth over the last three years. Wow. So if you’ve been home in the last three years, you’ve accumulated more than $100,000 in wealth, obviously approximately, in comparison to renters. It says actually, I take that back. I take that back. The average was I gotta get my facts straight. The average was $396,000 in wealth, versus 10,000. For renters now this is just over the United States is just as not in Chicago. But the general was you’ve accumulated more than 100,000 the average was 396,000 in wealth over the last three years with your home Um, especially if you live in Florida. Sure, or a renter, it’s, you’ve accumulated $10,000 in wealth. And that’s an important fact to know why you should buy a house, why you should invest in real estate and not be a renter. So that was just kind of a fun fact, I found that with the Fed out of the Federal Reserve data, so I thought that was an interesting fact to share with people. Obviously, we’re in December of 2024, on 23, going into 2024, everyone’s asking what the prediction is, nobody knows. Right. But you know, being boots on the ground and hearing and feeling the market, I think we’re going to have a good and exciting 2024, mortgage rates are starting to come down a little bit, they’re projecting in 2024, that they’re going to continue to come down, the only thing we’ve got to worry about is inflation. So you know, it’s always a balancing act. But I can see and tell that there’s so many buyers on the sidelines right now, they are waiting for these rates to come down, which again, they are, they’re waiting for more inventory to come into the market, which I’m seeing more and getting more calls for inventory. So that is going to be the strength of our 2024. Market. So with that, I think it’s important as brokers that we find the leads, right, and I am sure that’s what everyone’s trying to do is find the sellers find the buyers, where are we finding these leads? And what I thought we would do is go over, I started compiling a list of the top 10 ways to find leads in 2024. I love it. Is it okay, if I share that with you guys? Yeah,
D.J. Paris 6:44
let’s know this is great. Because right now everybody is struggling on both the buyer and the seller side. So yeah, let’s talk about it.
Carrie McCormick 6:52
Yeah, so for over the last couple of months, I’ve been strategizing of what I’m going to do in 2024. And here is my top 10. So one is QR codes, there are so many different ways to use QR codes, I know that they’ve been around for a long time. And there’s free QR code generators, there’s all different things that you can do, you can actually tie them to a lead sheet. So if someone scans your QR code, it goes into a lead sheet, which then all of us or I’m sorry, like an Excel sheet to capture the information. And then down into you can just drop it right into your CRM, you can use them for your videos, your social media, your property tours, those QR codes can track. So make sure you find a way and a system to make sure that those are capturing data, YouTube videos that educate that is going to be a lead generator, right? You want to treat just like your podcast here, right? You you create a platform that people learn. And as soon as they understand that you’re a source of information, they’re going to follow you and they’re going to want to work with you. The third one, which is my favorite is AI we know it’s here it’s coming. It’s such an incredible source. I don’t think that’s going to replace us, it’s just going to help us right, it helps us with all different types of property descriptions, the one thing I started asking is like, what is a social media post, it’s going to attract attention in December, let AI tell you what it is let it help you come up with hashtags and keywords. Use it as a partner for your business. So AI is going to be important in 2024. Number five is link your Instagram stories to lead capture pages. So if you have a business account on Instagram, you can put a link in there and say you want to know more, click here, it links to a lead generation page where you can capture their information. And then once you have their information, of course, then send him send them make sure you follow up and send them the information that you’re looking for. So again, use your Instagram stories as a lead caption, or lead generator, which I think is amazing. Next one is buy lunch, not leads. So I used to be big into buying leads and you know, they’re really just kind of hit or miss. So instead, if I was going to spend $100 a week on leads, I’m going to spend $100 on lunch. There’s nothing better than meeting someone face to face, creating a relationship with them. That $100 That you invested in a lunch is going to be a lifetime of leads. And you just make sure that you’re obviously keeping up with your relationships. So I think that’s going to be important deepen the relationships. Another thing that I’ve done this is number seven is finding properties that are second homes. Right so here in Chicago we have a lot of second home buyers, the second home Um, clients are not sometimes using their homes. So I’m reaching out to them, let’s say they’re in Florida or Arizona, and say I see that you own a home at, you know, the Waldorf Astoria. You know, if you’re not using the home, we’d love to talk to you about getting it on the market. That’s been a way to generate leads of properties that are just sitting here, people aren’t using them. But let’s try to reach out to those sellers and see if they want to sell them.
D.J. Paris 10:24
How might, how might we find those? Those properties? What’s is there? Is that just through sort of word of mouth? Or is there a directory we can go to? Or how do you locate those, you know, second homes? Yeah.
Carrie McCormick 10:37
So within the MLS, there is a search function in there, it’s called Remind, so you can go through that their sales, Genie also has it, you can go through a website called Ben verified people search, it takes a little bit of work to locate and find these people. There’s also an app on our phone, or on my phone, it’s called forewarn, there’s a lot of companies that use that as well. So of course, it’s a little bit of digging, right. So but you know, once you find you find that they’ve got two addresses, gosh, online, there’s so much information you can find on people, you know, and it’s just, it’s an introductory call or email to them. If you’re not using this property, please let me. So a little bit of work, but it definitely pays off. So second home owners, I think are important lead source. And then just really going back to the basics, you know, always you know, dig into your CRM, dig into your database, go to where the people are that you want to meet. So whether, you know, we hear this all the time, whether it’s a golf or a charity event, or an art opening, go to where the people are, and network with those people. My last tip is an A this is another statistic that I read is don’t forget about the baby boomers. So the stat was that the baby boomers control 70% of wealth in our country right now. So they’re getting to the age of pure retirement. So make sure, again, go where the baby boomers go, you know, connect with them. Don’t forget about them, because I believe they’re going to be selling and buying a lot of property in the next few years.
D.J. Paris 12:16
Awesome. I’ve got some additional thoughts to some of these that I was taking notes of. So that was an awesome, amazing list. I mean, amazing. And I just wrote a couple of notes that I thought would be helpful. I was this is kind of funny for our audience. So I was actually messaging Carrie last night on tech school, I just found this really cool thing. And I sent it to her I got really excited. So So I happen to live in this in a development that Carrie wrapped and works with a developer and I was like, I’m curious if I typed in this particular development into AI, just the address, hey, tell me everything you know about this address. And I put it in and it knew everything about our development, it knew the kind of countertops we typically have. It asked it even it knew the average price point, it knew what kind of bedrooms and bathrooms were available. It summarized our development or carries development just perfectly. So if you’re not gonna believe this, you got it. I’m sure it just scraped a website and which had all this info, but it pulled it out. And I thought boy, if I wasn’t if I was a practicing agent, before I went to anybody’s property. And again, I don’t know, I don’t know how well this would work for single family homes. There’s probably not as much information, but I don’t know, I would be typing into or using. I use Bing if you don’t want to pay for chat. GBT, Bing has the app, you can download it and it has what’s called assistant, which is chat, GBT, you can literally just speak to it and say, Hey, tell me everything you know about x address. And within 15 seconds, you have tons of information. So for everyone listening, please do that when you before you go to a showing. Or if it if, if the AI can’t find anything about the property, say, give me five interesting facts about the neighborhood or the you know, the suburb or the or the neighborhood in the city or wherever, you know, just some cool things so that when maybe there’s a lull in the conversation during the showing, like, hey, there’s couple cool things I can tell you about this area, you know, that sort of thing. buying lunch, I wanted to write about this carrier. So Right. And I wanted to give you an additional idea for buying lunch, reach out to everybody you know, who’s a client or a prospect and say, Hey, I would like to buy lunch for your office, you know, they’re people because they’ll come into the office, hey, great, I could do a little 15 minute, you know, here’s what you need to know about the market for 2024 and buy everyone pizza or something and, you know, still keep it to probably $100 and come in and provide some value. And you know, no one else is doing that. So this would be a great opportunity. Everybody wants to know what’s going on with housing and 2024 Buy some pizza, bring it in for the office, and you could reach even more people. And then my last suggestion is about the baby boomers, as Carrie was saying 70% of the of the wealth in this country. His is controlled by by one demographic group. So what are those people typically doing to protect that, that wealth? Well, they’re typically going to an estate planning attorney, and they’re talking about do I need to put a trust together, or I need to put my property in LLC? What do I need to do for my kids, you know, etc. These are the people you want to make friends with, you want to make friends with these estate planning attorneys. Also in a negative way, the divorce attorneys also have a lot of these issues they deal with. But this is where Realtors really can can develop strategic partnerships, not just with a lender, not just with an inspector, go to where as as Carrie said, Go to where the clients go, they go to these attorneys, and they say, help me make sure I protecting everything. And you could start to develop these relationships. And when they say, oh, you know what you should buy another property or you should have an investment property. And you know, those are or, you know, hey, so and so’s getting divorced, here’s an opportunity to help them find their next property or sell their existing. So just a couple of add ons to what Carrie said, guys, this is this is the kind of stuff we like to do on the show. And Carrie has been with us, since the very, very beginning. Literally the very beginning. In fact, I, I have a picture of Carrie and I when I first started, we took these professional photos together, we both we it’s so funny, it’s like they’re like five or six years old now. But they look very cute. So after they’re older. They’re older than that. Well, we have both aged very gracefully, I will say or at least you have I will say but we both have. But we she has been a fixture on the show, guys, if you hear all those beings in the background, by the way, we’re trying to avoid that Carrie tried her best to remove those, we’re we’re working on it. It’s no big deal. The reason what all those things are, are people trying to email Carrie going, I need to I need something or so she is literally that busy. And she is still making time for the show, guys. So please bear with us through the bangs. I know it’s annoying, but that just goes to show you how busy she is and how sweet she is for working through that and helping our audience. So please, please, if you’re looking for a realtor in the Chicagoland area. I mean, that’s this is why I would choose this is my and I’m a realtor, and I would still choose Carrie, because she really is that good. And I did choose her.
Carrie McCormick 17:20
I’m gonna give you one more tip, though, I’m what you were saying. Just a couple, unlike with the attorneys and the horse attorneys, wealth managers is how you know I’ve created those relationships is I’ve always given back to them. So for example, I said to a few of the divorce attorneys, if you are going through a case, and the people are trying to keep the asset trying to keep the home, but they just want to know what the value is, I’m happy to give that to free of charge. You know, it’s just it’s me give providing you data happy to run a CMA for you happy to be a resource for you. So giving to them first, and being a resource to them, versus asking them to give you clients, right so it’s the you know, give them and they’re gonna give back. So you know, even sending them a postcard an email, just letting them know that you are going to, you know, be a resource and free CMAs or whatever it is for them, our free quarterly updates for them. You know, that’s a good way again to give, and then one day you’re gonna get back. And
D.J. Paris 18:20
a suggestion for that is what you can ask an estate planning attorney, a divorce attorney, hey, if I come across anybody that might be somebody that you you could be able to, to work with, or somebody who already has an attorney, but once a second opinion, what’s the language I should use? How should I do that? And then literally, anytime you know, somebody that’s like, Yeah, I’m getting a divorce or I do need to review my estate plan and my will be like, You know what, before you even if you already have somebody, I’ve got a really good person for a second opinion. And you because everybody should get a second opinion on big things like that. They just should, you know, we get second opinions before big surgeries and things of that nature. So, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that you want. And by the way, might as well make those relationships with doctors too. Now that I’m thinking about it, like orthopedics, for example, are increasingly more important as people age. So find a good orthopedic doctor and say, hey, you know, I work with a lot of, you know, people of a certain age and you know, they talk about different aches and pains, is it okay, if I can refer them to you? Believe me, a doctor is gonna say absolutely, or, you know, if they’re too busy, they’ll know who to refer to. But these are the strategic partnerships you can put together. Well, Carrie and I both have heart outs. And this is a great place to end because I mean, this is just this was a really great, great conversation with all sorts of tips and tricks. So please, for anyone who would oh by the way, Carrie is so sweet too. If you have questions, she is not. She is busy so so give her some time but if you have questions for her, you can reach out to her. Carrie what’s the best email to reach to reach you up?
Carrie McCormick 19:55
Yes, it’s Carrie ca RR ie at It is an apple T as in Tom properties.com. So that’s Carrie at@properties.com or call me 312-961-4612.
D.J. Paris 20:11
Awesome. Well, thank you Carrie. Once again, we I almost feel like we’re we’re like brother and sister in a certain way. So I love the fact that you come on here, every single week, every single month, rather. And you’re going to be doing that through next year as well. So thank you. Thank you, on behalf of Carrie and myself, also, thank you to the audience. We appreciate you we have we have I can’t believe it at some point, I’m sure my this will go down in popularity, but it is it is still increasing in popularity. So I’m so thankful. I don’t think that has anything to do with me. But I’m grateful that people are sharing the podcast and certainly telling the other agents about it. So please continue to do so it’s the best way you can help us grow. And also let Kerry know how much you appreciate her being on the show because she doesn’t have time for this. And she makes time every month. So thank you, Carrie. Thank you the audience. This will actually go out in January early January. So hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season in New Year. And we will see you on the next episode. Thanks Gary.
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