Keeping It Real Podcast Episodes

In our October episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties and Christie’s International shares tips that have worked for her while negotiating in creating a win-win situation for everyone. Carrie emphasizes the importance of knowing what your client wants but also paying attention to the desires of the other side of the negotiation.

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.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
Today we’re going to be speaking with one of the top Realtors in the country about exactly how she negotiates for her clients. 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. Their 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 Parris. I’m your guide and host through the show today, as always, is our monthly series called The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carey McCormick Real Estate Group with AP properties here in Chicago. She Carrie is a top top one she’s more than a tough 1% Pretty she’s a top point 00 1% producer in Chicago with over 20 years of experience helping buyers sellers and investors. And just to show you how much production she does. There’s about 47,000 realtors in the Chicagoland area Carrie is often ranked in literally the top 15 Sometimes the top 10 sometimes higher than that. So she is an amazing superstar. And she is 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 Kerry at our website, Kerry McCormick rt.com. And also please follow her on Instagram, Carrie McCormack real estate, we will have a link to that in the show notes and want it by the way, Kerry’s Instagram, or social media in general is so effective, that she was just recently nominated for Best real, it’s the best realtor social media in Chicago. And you can actually vote for her by going to the link in our show notes for Chicago agent magazine. So if you’d like Carrie and loved listening to her episodes, please consider voting for her in she’s actually social media influencer of the year. So check, check that out and vote for her please. All right, Carrie, welcome once again to the show.

Carrie McCormick 3:16
Thank you. Thank you. And I’m just trying to think how long have I been on your show?

D.J. Paris 3:21
Five or six? Well, ever since the beginning. So I think it’s been at least five years thinks six years.

Carrie McCormick 3:26
I just I think back to the beginning. So thanks for having me. And I love being part of it and sharing my knowledge and listening to all of your guests as well. I think it’s a great community to be part of. So thank you.

D.J. Paris 3:39
Well, whenever I run into You’re welcome. And thank you. And whenever I run into agents here locally in the Chicagoland market, they always reference your episodes, in particular, because you are so well respected and regarded in Chicago, and you know, of course elsewhere, but it is it is always fun. You know, because we don’t I don’t do so many Chicago episodes anymore. And so it’s nice to when I run into people, they’re like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe you have carry on the show every every month, like you’re very much looked up to in this industry. So what would you like to talk about today?

Carrie McCormick 4:12
Well, we’re in the fall market here in Chicago. And you know, we’re in q3. And I feel like negotiations on deals have been changing a little bit. So, you know, there’s all different types of negotiation strategies. And as everyone knows, each deal is different. We have a lot of different personalities in the deal. You know, the sellers, the buyers, the brokers getting obviously are involved. Families sometimes get involved. So there’s just a lot of personalities and I just wanted to share some tips that I have in that have been successful for me in negotiating in creating a win win for both. I mean, I think that’s a common term that people say is you know, everyone feels like they want When are both sides are upset, you know, you’ve got a great negotiation going. But you know, there’s ways to strategize and get to the finish line. So I thought it’d be helpful to share what I know. And the first one is to figure out what the other side wants, and what drives them to be making these decisions. So in our industry, obviously, it’s buying and selling a home. So think about your first showing with the person, that’s your time to really interact with that buyer, or the seller and the broker to ask questions, obviously, we’re there to sell the home. But throughout that process, you know, we can ask questions that are about, you know, where do you live? Where are you currently living? Now? What do you not like about your house? Is it too small? Is it too big, and obviously, don’t ask it the way I’m asking them now. But you know, you you learn about their family, you learn if they’re renting, this is going to help formulate, if they are to make an offer on your listing is now you’ve got a little bit of background on them. Right. And again, it’s not it. It’s about leveraging your position, but it’s also the point of it is figuring out what they want, and what drives them. Right. So if they’re renting, Oregon, if they’re in a house in the neighborhood, and they’re having a child and schools are important to them, they really want to play room, you know, again, asking the right questions is going to lead to understanding your position when shooting, and you learn what’s personally important to them. Right? I also think it’s a good idea to not only understand what the buyer’s or seller’s want, but also you’re in front of their representative their broker. So you know, learn a little bit about that broker, what’s their negotiating style? Like? What is their track record? Have they sold in the neighborhood? Do they understand the cups? You know, maybe that broker doesn’t really know, the Linkin Park, single family home market, you know, so you can be an advocate to them and say, Hey, listen, I know that you haven’t sold a lot of homes and Linkin Park. So I went ahead and I prepared the CMA for you, Mr. Broker, you know, this might help just kind of show you what the last six months have looked like here.

D.J. Paris 7:16
Wow. So I just want to pause for a second because that is a very, very interesting, I’m curious. So basically, you have a buyer, and you’re bringing them to a listing, and then you can do some due diligence on the listing agent. And you can actually see if they’ve sold homes via the MLS in that market before, if you don’t recognize the name, or if it’s somebody that hasn’t doesn’t have a track record, you then will reach out and say, Hey, I know you may be new to this area, or you know, not as familiar with it, here’s some information that might help you. And is that usually well received? Because I could see agents getting offended. But that but I guess it’s all in how you present it.

Carrie McCormick 7:55
And it’s the delivery of the information, right? You know, and yes, I’m sure some people would get offended by that. But it’s not in a it’s just more of an educational, but I really don’t go that route. And unless I know my clients interested in the home, you know, I’m not gonna go do do all that due diligence. But sure, you know, and again, you the showing process is kind of like an interview process, right? Because especially if I’m with a buyer, and well, let me just reverse it, I’ve had buyers come into my listing, and they’re very difficult, right, they just they rip apart the home, like, Oh, my God, look at the way that this looks, this person hasn’t taken care of the home, and you can just tell with the personality, you know, they don’t like it or you know, they’re not there, they’re going to be difficult or you know, so you just kind of need to observe and understand. You know, what is the buyer, maybe the buyer wants to get the kitchen, you know, so I know now that when they come in with an offer, it’s going to be lower, because they need to factor in their costs. So again, during the showing process, of course, our job is to sell the home and highlight everything, but be observant, ask the right questions. So if that person was to make an offer on your home, you do have a little more information of what’s important to them, what drives them, and how to successfully get to a reasonable price when they make the offer. The other one is which I think is very important. I I’m primarily what we call a seller’s broker, I represent sellers, right. So understanding what my leverage is, right? So if I have a listing that’s on a wide lot, modern finishes in a great school district and there is nothing else on the market like that in Lincoln Park. I’m just making up a story. I know what my leverage is in this market, right? So when I’m there presenting the home, again, I can point out all of these facts and my cost per square foot. You know the age of the home the attributes that my home has that no other home has it it, if my home has everything every other home has, I’m not going to bring it up, I don’t have any leverage because there’s 10 other homes in the market that have the Sub Zero fridge up, right. But if my home is the only home that has x, I am definitely going to make sure I point that out and pointed out that I am the only home that has x. That’s my leverage, right. So again, understanding what that buyer wants. And then knowing what my leverage points are, make sure that I highlight those during my showing. And these are all very done, obviously, professionally and in good spirit. But again, the underlying message is preparing for that negotiation and preparing to get this house sold. The other one I wanted to mention is I love this one is agree on when you get an offer, agree on the easy stuff at the beginning. And what I mean by that, obviously, price is always going to be the contentious point of a negotiation, but agree on the small stuff, whether it’s a closing date with that not that small stuff, but you know, closing date or their pre approval letter or I don’t know, whatever it is, if there’s small stuff that they’re negotiating, just agree on that stuff. It just sets the tone for a nice negotiation. Two examples that I just had recently is we were kind of in the standoff of $100,000 apart on a deal. I’m on the seller side, you know, the natural thing is to meet in the middle, right? And that’s kind of everyone’s Oh, just let’s meet in the middle. When when. And so I prepped my seller for that. I said, Listen, we’re $100,000 apart on a multi million dollar deal. It’s it’s peanuts at this point, I’m the buyer is going to come back and split the difference, right? And he’s like, okay, a typical negotiation, right? The buyer came back with 60,000, instead of splitting the difference. And, and the broker said, We’re doing this to show good faith, that we’re a good buyer, and we want to get it done. And I thought, What a great move, he just made art. You know, it was $10,000. But what that did was my seller was so happy with this buyer. And said, let’s take it I mean it was done deal, sealed and delivered. Now we’re gonna go into negotiations of inspection items. Well, what did that seller just or the buyer just do? Sorry. He set himself up that if anything comes up in negotiations, my seller now thinks he’s $10,000. Ahead of that split in the middle thing he may give into it. But anyways, I just thought it was

D.J. Paris 12:43
Oh, that’s easy. I didn’t think about that. That’s yeah, that’s great as well. Yeah,

Carrie McCormick 12:48
that guy’s brilliant. Listening, he did a brilliant move. Another thing that just happened, which I also thought was brilliant, which came from me, so I have to take credit is I did a showing, and the client fell in love with a chair. Love this chair, you know, and so when they made the offer right out the gate, we said, you know, thank you for the offer. You know, we understand how much you love that chair, we just want to give you the chair, if you get if you buy the house, we want to give you Yeah, and the buyer was so happy. And we set that tone of that negotiation. In a good spirit. The buyer was so we thought that was so thoughtful. The broker came back to me said, Okay, now what do you guys want. And I said, nothing. We don’t want anything. I mean, obviously, we’re going to negotiate. But that was just a good gesture. My client knew how much you guys love that chair there, it’s not going to fit into their new home. If we come to an agreement, no strings attached, we want you to have the chair.

D.J. Paris 13:49
And that really requires you as the listing agent paying attention to the buyer and noticing Ooh, there’s something we could maybe we could do something for them. Because it’s probably not that common that somebody walks by or walks in and goes, oh my god, I gotta have that chair. Because they’re obviously thinking, you know, they’re gonna probably replace all the stuff that’s movable anyway. But I guess when you hear that, that’s an opportunity for you to come back because people get so emotionally tied to things. And yeah, and that is a great way. Especially furniture, I mean, furniture is a thing we just get, we get really excited about when we see a piece that really is like that would look cool in my place. So yeah, that’s a great, so those are two unbelievably good suggestions.

Carrie McCormick 14:34
So writing from a place of goodwill, right. So, and understanding again, in the beginning of a negotiation, you know, what is your purpose? What is your leverage, what the buyer wants, what the seller wants, and you can convey all of that and be strategic. And of course, at the end of the day, you know, you want to get the we’re fiduciaries to our client we want to get you know the best deal possible, but there’s ways to kind of maneuver that where everyone comes Out of the negotiation, feeling good about it. And that’s what we want. We want everyone to feel like they won.

D.J. Paris 15:07
And do you often if you don’t, maybe often, if you don’t know what the other side wants, I guess this is where good relationships come in where you could talk to the to the, you know, the buyers broker and have those conversations of yes, okay, well fit well with negotiating the price. But what are there any little things that we can agree upon now? To get them out of the way? I love that? Yeah,

Carrie McCormick 15:30
no, it’s easy. And my last tip to you this one, I say, exercise with caution with severe caution is, sometimes we need to put the decision makers in a room together, not physically, but maybe sometimes over the phone, I have done it in the past physically, which worked out really well. But you do have to be careful. And when I say the decision makers, I mean, the buyers and the sellers, because sometimes the agents, you know, there’s a lot on tag, right, that happens through the negotiation process. Sometimes there’s a lot of things that get misinterpreted based on an email tone, or text tone, or voicemail tone, or whatever it is. So I’ve had some negotiations that I’ve just put the buyer and seller together with us present, of course, on a phone call together, you know, and like I said, I’ve had them face to face as well. Sometimes when you have the decision makers together, you have a very successful outcome. I’d say every time I’ve done it, I’ve had a very successful outcome where, you know, like, they’re friends now. And it just especially when you’re dealing with certain personalities, it does work. But you that’s where you have to know your client, and you have to understand and know the know if it’s a good idea. So that’s why I say exercise with caution. But if you feel you’re at a point with good personalities you feels can be done, you know, getting the decision makers in the room.

D.J. Paris 16:59
It’s a great idea because we humans are wired for connection. And so we’re wired to get along mostly. So when you get two people who are in kind of an adversarial position, you know, competing against each other negotiating against each other, and you’re able to bring them into a room and it’s not a contentious environment, hopefully, then they actually like you said they actually bond closer together, they end up probably liking each other a little bit more at least, than they did before. And they end up wanting to work together and get the deal close. So I think those are all Wow, this is a great episode. We’re let’s cap it there because those were those were three amazing things in Karis. Gotta go more. Go ahead. No, you do. Okay. Well, that’s enough. Because that will save it will save other things for for next episodes. And boy that those are three amazing tips of great negotiation tips there for for our audience, please consider using that Carrie uses these herself and she is incredibly successful. So it would be behoove everyone to consider implementing some of these into their process. And please a couple of things to please remember to follow Carrie on Instagram. So you can find her at Kerry McCormick real estate, we’ll have a link to that in the show notes or websites Carrie McCormack RT. And if you are an agent in a another part of the country, Carrie works the Chicagoland area. But maybe you have clients that move to Chicago, she would love the opportunity to partner with you. And also she has clients that move out of Chicago. So if you are an agent that would like to maybe connect with Carrie, you can do that. Fine, you know, hit her up on Instagram or you can, you can email her she’s super easy to find just Google Carrie Carrie McCormick. And also, if you are an agent’s know Carrie has a team and if you think you would be a good addition to Karis team, certainly feel free to reach out. And you know if she has any openings or any opportunities, she will let you know. But and also, let’s remember to vote for her for influencer of the year with Chicago, I will have a link to that in the show notes. So even if you are not a Chicago broker, you can still vote. So we will have a link to that in the show notes. So please do that support our guests and our our fellow hosts like Carrie. And guys, let us also know what you would like Carrie to talk about on future episodes, she is going to be giving away you know her processes. So she is incredibly high producing agents. So let’s let us know what you would like to see from her hear from her. And on behalf of the audience. Thank you Carrie. As per usual, she has been with us since the very beginning. We love having her on and she is just a part of the show. So we’re so grateful for you on behalf of the audience. Thank you. And on behalf of Carrie and myself thanks to the audience. And please remember to tell a friend think of just one other agent everybody that could benefit from maybe somebody who needs some negotiation help send them a link to this episode and you know, just any Podcast Directory has our our links or you can send them to our website keeping it real pod.com By the way, we just crossed over 3 million downloads. So thank you to everybody for listening to You want to support our show, please also support our sponsors. They’re the reason we can keep doing these. So anyway, we will see everybody on the next episode. Thank you Carrie. Thank you

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

In our November episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties talks about the slowdown as we near the end of the year. Carrie also talks about the decreases in the market regarding listings and under contract single family and attached homes in Chicago. Next, Carrie emphasizes why now is a great time to start drafting your business plan for next year and shares tips on how to draft your business plan. Carrie also shares 7 tips for marketing strategy for 2023. D.J. shares his marketing tip of the month. Last, Carrie and D.J the importance of building relationships with realtors in other markets.

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.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
Are you worried about 2023? Well, let’s talk to a top producer and see what she’s thinking for the next year. 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. Their 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 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, in the last 12 months out of 46,000 real estate agents here in the Chicagoland area Carrie is in the top 15 producers on out of 46,000. That’s incredible. She’s in the top like 1/10 or 1/100 of 1% of all the agents here. She’s a 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 who have to choose her to represent their high end developments. Please visit Carrie at our website, which is Carrie McCormick, r e.com. And also definitely follow her on Instagram, I believe she has the very best Instagram account I’ve ever seen for a real estate agent, which you can find her on Instagram at Kerry McCormick real estate and by the way, those links to her website and Instagram will be in the show notes. So you can find her there. Carrie, welcome once again to the show.

Carrie McCormick 2:52
Thank you, you always have such a nice intro. It makes me so happy. So thanks.

D.J. Paris 2:56
Well, well, I’ll tell you, I’m always happy to talk to you because and I just it’s gonna sound like a like a humble brag. And maybe I guess it is but it’s not really my intention. We’re prefacing this by saying please forgive, please, audience and carry forgive me for the brag, but we just crossed over. Maybe we didn’t. But we’re right on the cusp of crossing over 2 million downloads in the lifetime of the show. And I bring that up because you’ve been with us almost since the very beginning. So part of the reason why we’re now doing even higher numbers than ever before is because of because of you. So thank you for helping us get to

Carrie McCormick 3:30
know amazing, yes, yeah. Awesome podcast, and you’ve got great followers and, you know, continues to grow. So I’m happy to be part of it. So thank you.

D.J. Paris 3:40
Thank you. So what’s what’s going on this month?

Carrie McCormick 3:43
All right, November. And I know we’ve got listeners, not only here in Chicago, but we have listeners all over the United States. So I just wanted to kind of talk about a broad United States market. Data and I know everyone knows this. But as we move into fall, our market continues to slow down. And we know that consumer prices and higher mortgage interest rates are squeezing our buyers and it’s just an affordability challenge and even hearing people talk about not only from homeownership, but you know auto loans and grocery everything, everything seems to be going up and people are getting squeezed. So right now mortgage rates are at 55% higher than they were a year ago. It’s just in I was saying it’s we were going 150 miles an hour last year. And now we’ve come to this I feel like it’s like 50 miles an hour. It’s like this screeching halt. We’re still, you know, driving at the limit or you know, our speeding limit, but it just feels like it’s just so quiet. So it’s it’s tough. And just here in Chicago, for those that are here in Chicago are new listings in the city of Chicago for single family homes. was down 2.7%. And it was down almost 30% For attached homes, which is our condo and townhome market, which that’s a big number are under contract. So that’s was new listings were down or under contracts for single family homes is down 22%. And down 28%, almost 30%, also for attached homes. So these are big decreases in our market. And I know that Chicago acts like a market within a market, each neighborhood is very independent. And again, those stats are just over the city of Chicago as a whole. So we’re down, you know, so it’s a message that we have to give to our sellers, all the stats, all the data, the information, we’ve got to communicate that to our sellers, so that’s important. But every November, I’ve been doing this for 22 years and been a broker here in Chicago for 22 years, every November, I look back at the year and figure out what I did, right, I figure out what I did wrong. And I tried to create a business plan for the next year into 2023. Because with the holidays coming, it’s going to go quickly, now’s a great time to to start your business plan. And it can be a daunting task for a lot of people if you’ve never done one. And I’m going to give you just a few quick tips. And anyone that wants more information or to have a quick phone call, I’m always available to talk to people about it, not to say that what I do is 100% Correct. But what I do for me, at least it works. So let me give you some quick tips on a business plan. Gather your numbers. And when you look at them, figure out what worked and what did not work. That is the important part of it. So think about the number of listing appointments you’ve taken for 2023 I’m sorry, 2020. To look at your calendar, look at the number of listing appointments that you took, look at how many deals that you closed this year, number of buyer appointments, number of days and hours that you worked each week, that’s a hard one. But for me, it’s I don’t know if I can even calculate it. But just look at your calendar of the time that you’ve taken off and look at the days that you’ve worked. Look at your number of conversations you had each day a big one is look at your marketing budget, how much money have you spent, and then look at where you spent the money. And the lead sources that came from what worked, what didn’t work. And again, just look at your GCI and then look at your volume. These are all data numbers. And hopefully through the year, if you were organized with a calendar, or writing things down, this will be easy to calculate. And you’re going to quickly see where you spent money and it didn’t have a good return or you’re quickly going to see oh my gosh, I had you know these 10 listing appointments and they were all came from this one ad that I ran or came from the one postcard that I sent out. And then you know going into 2023 Those are the things that you should double down your marketing money on and focus on so you can get more business.

D.J. Paris 8:16
I’m curious when as you’re reviewing what I would love to ask you what did you think you didn’t do a good that you have room for improvement for next year? Do you have anything as you’re reviewing the year? What you what you wish you would have done different?

Carrie McCormick 8:30
Yeah, I think, you know, I spent, I spent a lot of money online, which, through 2022, I’ve, I’m very focused on what is working with it and what is not working, and I’m constantly changing it. So I think monitoring it, and not waiting six months, you know, but monitoring your online spend monthly is important because you’re gonna those are, you know, quick stat. So you’re going to really see what’s working and what’s not working through engagement through responses on it. So I think that’s something that you do have to focus on, I would say I do a lot of print advertising as well. That’s a little bit harder to gauge the ROI. So to answer your question, I think what I need to focus on is my postcard mailings and just mailings in general of it’s a lot of money to do that. And I’m not getting as good of return. So either I’m gonna cut back on it, or I need to perfect it. And I think I’m gonna perfect it.

D.J. Paris 9:27
You know, what’s funny is the development that that I bought that that you represent, represented as as, as the seller, your group represented, I was just realizing I’ve been there a year and a half and I have I have not received one postcard not from you, because I wouldn’t expect to receive it from you, of course, but from any realtor or anywhere now under understanding that this is a new development that people just moved into. Are we looking to move anytime soon? No, obviously not. Or least we just don’t know. I hope nobody’s thinking of moving. So everything’s going great. We all love the place. But I would think now would be a great time for another agent to sort of swoop in and be like, hey, hope you’re loving your place. I know, you’re probably not going to make a shift anytime soon. But I just wanted to start a relationship because we know that a lot of realtors who represent buyers end up the person buys the home, and they don’t hear from the realtor ever again. Now, my realtor was my boss, so he doesn’t know why he and I did it together. But the point is, is I wouldn’t expect him to send me anything but no, not other one other realtor. And again, it would take just a little creativity for someone to think about that. But I don’t know, it seems like a good idea.

Carrie McCormick 10:37
It does. And you know, that’s another thing is Think outside the box a little bit, I think doing postcards or mailings, templates all over the place, there’s companies that do it, they all start to look the same. So you have to be a little bit creative think outside the box. Because you know, like, if you received something a little bit different than mail, maybe you would open it or it would stand out to you because it was a little bit different than just, you know, a glossy postcard. So again, think out of the box a little bit if you’re going to spend some money on postcards. Another thing is, think about where you’re spending your time and your energy. And this again, sounds very easy. It took me years to start kind of time blocking and looking at things that got me distracted and figuring out where do I need to spend most of my time and what do I like a time audit you know, what, what’s effective of my time what is not effective of my time and and figure that out? And you know, make a daily routine of what works for you and what doesn’t work for you. It’s different for everybody. There is a saying by Tony Robbins and it’s it’s sometimes it’s not what what what you’re willing to do that makes the difference. It’s what you’re no longer willing to stand. So there’s things that are time sucks in our day, right? And I’m just trying to think what it is but there’s there’s definitely things that you know are not productive. And you really have to realize that when it when you’re doing it and avoid it or give that task to somebody else. So they can focus on that and you can do income generating activities.

D.J. Paris 12:13
I want to pause for a moment to talk about our episode sponsor are one of my favorite companies out there follow up boss. Now after interviewing hundreds of top Realtors in the country for this podcast, do you know which CRM is used by more than any other by our guests. Of course, it is a follow up boss. And let’s face it, following up is the key to taking your business to the next level follow up boss will help you drive more leads in less time and with less effort. Do not take my word for it. Robert slack, who runs the number one team in the US uses follow up boss and he has built a one and a half billion dollar business in just six years. Follow up boss integrates with over 250 systems, so you can keep your current tools and lead sources. Also, the best part they have seven day a week support. So you’ll get the help that you need when you need it and get this follow up boss is so sure that you’re going to love their CRM that for a limited time, they’re offering keeping it real listeners a 30 day free trial, which is twice as much time as they give everyone else. And oh yeah, no credit card required. So you can try it risk free. But only if you use this special link visit follow up boss.com forward slash real that’s follow up boss.com forward slash real for your free 30 day trial. Follow up like a boss with follow up boss. And now back to our episode. Yeah, I agree. I think that’s it’s, it’s, you’re right, like we can’t control rates, we can’t control buyer sentiment. As much as we can try to influence it. It’s hard to influence sellers and buyers right now with the state of the market. And deals are falling apart at the last minute, we’re seeing a record number of those. So things are outside of our control, and in a lot of ways. And then there are things that are always within our control, which is our activity. And actually, I have a quick little story I thought I’d share with you and the audience because I think this is perfectly apropos to how it may be what agents can do right now. While maybe things are a little slower than normal, and everyone’s stressed. And yes, all of that is true. And there’s things you can still do. So this just happened yesterday. It was my one of my closest friends and his wife’s anniversary. It was their ninth anniversary. Here’s how I knew that I had put it in my calendar or in the contact list form. Or sorry, the contact. You know, I have for each of them. I have their anniversary date because I was there at their wedding and I wrote it down or I asked them later whatever it was because I thought this is what my closest friends I probably should know when his anniversary is so that all I could no I’m not a Producing Realtor. There’s no I’m not looking for anything here. I just want my friend to feel that I care about him. So I sent so I have in my little calendar every day if it’s Sunday. nice birthday, if it’s one of their children’s birthdays, if it’s an anniversary, it’s the only way I would ever remember to do anything is even my own family with stuff is, you know, I write it down because I don’t when it’s my parents anniversary, I think it’s, you know, April, something, but I don’t always remember it perfectly. So I put all of my friends information and so I sent a text to my friend and his wife yesterday. Oh, hey, happy ninth anniversary, it was literally took two seconds. And his wife who I’m not as close with, I don’t know her as well as I know him. She wrote me back and she’s like, You were the only person every year outside of their, like immediate family that knows it’s our anniversary, and or if they know it, nobody else writes us about it. And it was just took two seconds. And I’m like, that is so easy to do. And, and she was like, how do you do that. And I was like, why just put it in a calendar. And you know, but it’s like, there’s no magic to it at all. But the point is, is is now is a great time to think about your communication strategy for staying in touch with everybody over the next year. And now’s a great time to call your all your clients and say, Hey, I’m just updating my, my contact, you know, whatever my marketing system, I just want to make sure that I have all your data correctly in here. But I want to make sure your birthday is on such and such day. Right? Great. Okay, hey, just out of curiosity, what what’s your anniversary date, I’d love to, you know, just know that. So I can, you know, give you guys a quick hello, or something on your anniversary, like people will tell you this stuff, especially if they’re past clients. I mean, that shouldn’t be any problem at all. But certainly the you what I’m trying to the point I’m trying to make is you want to stack the deck with reasons to reach out to somebody. And it doesn’t have to be, Hey, you want to buy or sell a home. It’s like, Hey, I remember your anniversary, like people care very much when you demonstrate, you know that you care for them and that you’ve taken time to build it into your life that their their lives are important. And really simple and easy. So I know I’m talking about this a lot. But guys, this is a great time to just update your database, call all your clients say hey, I’m I’m just getting my you know, getting some things together for 2023. Just wanna make sure I have the right data for you. You know, and you can say, Oh, by the way, you know, I would even ask if you’re, if you’ll feel close enough asking when their kids birthdays are ask them what grades their kids are in. If not birthdays, ask them, hey, you know what grades are they and so you have an idea so that when school rolls around, you maybe have a list of people to you know, give some you know, care packages for kids in grade school or high school or college or I think there’s lots of cool ways you can demonstrate care, that don’t have anything to do with market conditions. And that maybe will pay dividends when people are ready to buy or sell.

Carrie McCormick 17:37
I think that’s so good. And sometimes it’s the little things that matter. And I just wanted to finalize in this, our call by saying the seven tips that I have for marketing for 2023. So I’m gonna say my seven tips will be video video video, you have to do video, you have to do video, I’m I know people don’t like to do it, or they don’t want to be in front of the camera, but it’s just, it’s going to dominate in 2023. So just get used to it and do videos. So that’s number one. Two would be teamed up with a mortgage lender to strategize you know, as we are in this market with these crazy interest rates. We do need a professional on our side to strategize there’s all these different bite down programs and different ways to message it. So definitely team up with a mortgage lender. I’m also going to tell you to create a blog which I don’t have one. So I’m going to try to do that for 2023 newsletters, your website, you know get all of that in, in the right place, refresh your social media profiles. And that’s another thing, these are all good reminders for me to do to you know, make sure that all of your profiles are up to date and refresh your headshots. You know, there’s brokers out there that you know, I’ve looked them up online, so I just know who I’m meeting and I meet them and they look nothing like their head did their picture. So you know, it’s a good time to refresh your headshots, QR codes, use those utilize those in your marketing campaign to capture client information. I don’t know where I’m at with number wise but clean up your CRM, strategize on a system just like you said, to stay in touch with your clients. There’s different tools, you know, you can call people, you can email them, you can send them a survey to get information. And then just I think, finally, a marketing tip for everyone is work on your messaging and what your purpose is. I think when you know, and you can communicate who you are, what you do, what your purpose is, to your clients, they’ll better understand you and what your job is to do for them.

D.J. Paris 19:47
Yeah, I agree on all of those are such such great ideas. So I think you know, great time to take a step back from the craziness of where inventory and rates are and sort of say well, I can’t don’t do much about that right now. But now is maybe a time to invest in some more learning some more skill development, you know, getting the marketing down for next year. And I’ll just give this one final tip for from a marketing perspective. I say it all the time. I’ve said it probably on the show a bunch. So I apologize for the review. But it’s a great fundamental. LinkedIn is really great at a couple of things. And one of those is work anniversaries. So I was talking about romantic anniversaries, you know, wedding anniversaries, dating anniversaries earlier. But work Anniversaries are another thing. So this is something that usually nobody knows it’s their work anniversary. So in a way, if you can find out like, I don’t even know it’s a work anniversary for me until I start getting messages on LinkedIn going, Hey, congrat, right. Like, we never know, most people don’t know, their actual anniversary. So another great reason is you just go to the LinkedIn act activity feed, and you’ll literally can just check it every day. And you’ll probably see when people get promotions, when they get a new job when they have a work anniversary. All of these are things that people would never expect you to, to reach out to except on LinkedIn, when they tell people it’s their work anniversary that you get a lot of messages. But how about a phone call? How about a text message? How about going a little bit beyond and noticing something like that? And again, just demonstrating care. So anyway, I love that, I think, yeah, I think it’s I think it’s a great place to wrap up. We should also mention two quick things. Right now, you know, I think is also a great time to build relationships with realtors and other markets. Right? It’s a wonderful time to really say, okay, my clients tend to move or retire to or have vacation homes in X, Y and Z places. And so for example, if you have if you’re a realtor, and you have people that live or that want to live in Chicago, some time of the year, or maybe a second home here, they’re moving to this area, or you know, down to Florida or Texas or wherever people are moving these days. You know, Charlotte, not Charlotte, but Charleston is a big one Nashville, of course, lots of places are having these big booms. now’s a great time. And so Carrie would love the opportunity to work with you if you have clients that are interested in the Chicagoland area. She’s literally one of the very most successful Realtors here. She does it all herself. It doesn’t get passed over to a team member. It’s literally her so if any and if anyone’s listening who isn’t a realtor, but just a buyer or seller or renter or investor or developer who wants to work with the top realtor here in Chicago, Carrie, we could not more highly recommend her she’s the best. Carrie what’s the best way that someone can reach out to

Carrie McCormick 22:43
always call me 312-961-4612? Or you send me an email at Carey at@properties.com.

D.J. Paris 22:52
Awesome. Well, we will bring this this episode to a close Don’t. Don’t let it bring you down. As the as the song says. This is this is a tough time most brokerages are down. production is down for agents. It’s just kind of where we’re at. We can’t do a whole lot about that except keep moving forward. Again, people want to work with people who demonstrate competence and care. So up lets up your competence level. Ask more from your from your brokerage about skill development, knowledge training, and then ask more from yourself about staying in touch so that next year, you’re like, Alright, everybody in my database, I have five different times throughout the year that I’m calling them for different milestones or reasons to reach out birthdays, anniversaries. Hey, just checking in how’s everything going? You know, school, starting school, ending whatever it might be, come up with five or six reasons to reach out not real estate related to each person in your contact list. And you’re gonna have a great 2023 At least I hope so. So anyway, I’m Carrie and on behalf of Carrie and myself, as always, thank you to the audience we are, this is our Believe it or not our most our highest month ever is this month as far as number of downloads. I don’t get I don’t say that to brag. I’m just so encouraged. And it’s really we don’t spend any money on on marketing. I wish we probably did, but we don’t. And so we’re so grateful to everyone for telling a friend about our show. Please continue to do that. Think of one other real estate agent, maybe even a new agent who wants to hear cash and wonder how somebody gets to the very top of the mountain like Carrie Well, this is how so definitely send them a link to our website, keeping it real pod.com. And also again, if you know anyone who is looking to buy, sell, rent, or develop in Chicago talk to Carrie. So I’d be happy to carry myself we say thank you on behalf of the audience. We say thank you to Carrie. This is it’s so incredible to get somebody of hers have her skill level and her busyness level to be on our show for years and years now we are so internally grateful. We’re so thankful. So anyway, I’m Carrie thank you again and we will see Everybody on the next episode.

Carrie McCormick 25:01
Thank you guys

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

In our April episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties talk about social media. Carrie shares 10 tips about social media to help you build a better presence. Next, D.J. shares his marketing tip for this month. Finally, D.J. shares a very specific tip about listing photos.

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.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
On today’s show, our guest in the last 12 months did 161 million in production all herself no team and today we’re going to focus on how she runs her social media account and how you can do the same. 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. Their 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 agents 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 for real estate agents and my 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 from Carrie McCormack Real Estate Group here in Chicago with at properties Christie’s International. Now Carrie is a top 1% producer here in the Chicagoland area 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 Chicagoland area Carrie is currently ranked number 13 in production and 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 at Carey McCormick real estate. Carrie, welcome once again to the show.

Carrie McCormick 2:35
Thank you. Thank you happy spring.

D.J. Paris 2:38
Happy Spring happy Passover. Happy Easter. I’m not sure what other holidays happened this past weekend. But there were those were the big ones. Yeah, it’s and it’s the sun’s coming out again, finally, although today. But yeah, let’s talk about what’s going on with you this month. I know you’re pretty busy.

Carrie McCormick 2:59
Actually, the markets extremely busy, as everybody knows, but I thought I would take a break from the boring market stats and low inventory and all that, you know, information that we keep hearing over and over again and talk about something fun, like social media, a lot of people ask me questions about Instagram and social media and what to do and how to do it. So I thought I would give everyone a little bit of some tips. And I think when we tell our stories on social media, people feel more connected to us. And when people are connected, it leads to conversion. So that’s what I want to talk about. So can I dive right in?

D.J. Paris 3:38
Let’s do it.

Carrie McCormick 3:39
Okay, so I’ve got I think about upset, don’t count, but I think it’s about 10 tips that I’m going to share with everyone. And the first one is make sure that you’re let’s just talk about Instagram, right so well I guess any platform but Instagram in particular, make sure that your profile is optimized. Think of your profile as your resume people will decide to connect with you based just you know, very quick, you know, snap judgment on who you are based on your profile, make sure your picture is clear. Make sure what you do is clear. Make sure where you work, what you do your contact information. It’s all clear people don’t want to go hunting around and trying to find your information. So again, tip number one, make sure that your profile is optimized. Number two, use hashtags. A lot of people will do one or two or three hashtags. You have 30 hashtags to use. So make sure that you use hashtags that are relevant to whatever you’re posting. It’s an easy way to find ideal clients when you create content that matches the hashtag. I’ve seen some people put hashtag I don’t even know good example. Like Chicago Bulls, but the post has nothing to do with the Chicago Bulls. So again, just make sure that your hash tags are relevant to Whatever you’re posting, the next one, which is number three is use polls. If anyone knows how to do that, in your stories, polls are a great way. And I have to do more of this a great way to engage people out there by asking them their opinion, like example, which kitchen Do you prefer this one or this one, or if you have two or three or four different types of kitchens, outdoor space, you know, whatever it is, it’s great for engagement when you use polls, and people find it fun, and they find it easy. And the best thing is, sometimes people will go back to the poll, because if they chose kitchen number one, you know, the day will go by, and they’ll want to see how many people agreed with them. So it’s kind of self serving, but they come back to your page to see how well their choice did against other people. Number four, is use more video. People love to watch videos. And actually the platforms themselves, whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, they are rewarding you if you have video posts, and it’ll give you more organic reach. So make sure that you do more videos. I know everyone hates doing them. I hate doing them too. But you just have to do it and get them out there.

D.J. Paris 6:23
And you can you can easily do videos now where if you have a listing, or if you’re going to see a showing if you’re on the buy side, you know, you can show up ahead of time when the client isn’t there maybe and do a little walkthrough with your phone turned around. And you know, that’s I was just at a Zillow conference. And they were saying that this isn’t exactly apples to apples with what you just said. But they were saying that in their listings, because they have more data than anything. They understand consumer online behavior better than anybody. They said four homes that are listed, that have a virtual tour, a 3d virtual tour, that they’re that 63% of home shoppers expect a home virtual tour at a listing and they they won’t even look at listings that don’t have them 63% of their their shoppers blitz past listing, so So yeah, so this just the video craze is, it’s there.

Carrie McCormick 7:19
I’m just I just wrote down a note. That’s pretty impressive. So yes, I mean, even on that front, I think that’s super important. I think I’m I’m number five, correct me if I’m wrong, I think I’m And tip number five, which is tag the people that you’re working with, again, something I need to do a better job with. But when you’re with people, and you tag them, it, you’re seen by their connections, their friends, their followers. This helps you not only in your current network, but also through mutual connections. So again, we’re trying to reach more people get more connections, get more followers get more traction, definitely tag people that you’re with, and also tag where you are, you know, some people search by location. So if you’re in Lincoln Park, if you’re in Bucktown, if you’re in Winnetka, wherever you are, people want to see you know, again where you are. And then there they do hash tags based on locations too. So make sure you tag the location that you are. Number seven ish. When we tell us we say tell a story. Every home has a story, every every event in your life has a story. So when you tell a story on social media, people feel more connected to you. And again, connection leads to conversion. So share a story about your clients and how you help them buy or sell a home. Share the story of moving or share some sort of story about your business. Again, people love storytelling, and it leads to connection. Number eight, use stories. This is a fun one. As you know, it’s easy and quick for people to to view your stories. Sometimes I struggle a little bit too with what do you share every day. If you think about your day from morning to night, there’s something great that you can do a quick, quick snapshot of what’s going on maybe what’s behind the scenes that you’re at a photo shoot, you’re attending a final walkthrough you’re attending, something’s happening, so share something behind the scenes. Again, these stories are quick, quick tidbits of your day and people love to see that. Especially if it’s something funny. People always love to have humor right or dogs. Everyone loves the dogs, cats and dogs, cats and dogs. Number nine is highlight a local business. People love to hear what’s happening in the neighborhood. Love support, have a local business. And keep in mind if it’s a restaurant, a clothing store, your favorite flower place, whatever it is you tag them In your post, and guess what, they may start sharing that as well. So again, more exposure for you. And my last tip, which I absolutely 100% agree with, and I live and breathe by this one is Be your own brand ambassador. I’ve said this for years. And this is one of the reasons that I think that my social media took off, because it’s all organic. To me. It’s authentic to me, I try not to copy other people, when I say when I try not to. I mean, there’s some words like that, you know, they’re just standard words in our market, but you have to be your own brand ambassador. And the more authentic you are, the more engaged people will be with you. And you just have to take action on it, and the results will follow

D.J. Paris 10:54
you I think people really want to know what, especially on social media, they want to know what you stand for, they want to know and since realtors are their own brand, I was at a branding conference, I was telling Carrie earlier, when I was at the Zillow conference, my sister was speaking at a branding conference a few miles away I got to go watch her speak and I got to watch some leaders from different industries talking about marketing and branding trends. And they were saying that right now it’s imperative that brands have a some sort of larger mission outside of just whatever they’re providing to their customers is like what is the company stand for? What do they believe in what what is their commitment to giving back contributing outside of just you know, what what they make and produce? And so this is social media is a great opportunity I think for a for your your following to see not only am I you know, a real estate agent, here’s here’s how I service my clients but oh by the way, this is really important to me, whatever those those issues might be or organizations that you support so I’m I’m a big believer in yet be your own brand ambassador share, like every everything that you’re comfortable sharing about your life that you know really tells people who you are.

Carrie McCormick 12:10
Right and I agree with that I was also at a branding conference different one but one thing that they were talking about the new generation, or the younger generation is being you know, luxury is less of a status symbol meaning you know, people used to wear Gucci belts, I shouldn’t say used to people would wear, you know Gucci, Gucci, Gucci, this or Chanel or you know, a ton of stuff and you know, whatever it was that that was their status symbol, but luxury is becoming less of a status symbol. And millennials and the Gen Zers influences a change of values towards like sustainable sustainability. It’s hard to understand well being diversity and inclusion and all of that stuff. So that’s kind of this new era, I think of luxury is going to be just about more of well being and being authentic. And like you said, it’s it’s, it’s a whole new change that I think’s gonna happen, and I love it.

D.J. Paris 13:09
Yeah, I agree. And that really dovetails nicely into a couple of suggestions I have on the marketing side, as a quick little tip for our listeners and viewers. Number one, Carrie, you had said this is one of your tips, which was highlight local business. So we’re talking about real estate being hyperlocal. Right. And being that agents typically service a specific geographic area, you know, this is a great opportunity for you to support via social media, some of these businesses that that you believe in, so I was at a little cafe near where I live, actually, you’ll know at Foxtrot Amil they have a bunch of them here in Chicago, they’re these little kind of like half kind of grocery fun groceries and then they have also food that they make, and I was picking up some breakfast tacos that they make, which are breakfast burritos, rather, and they’re really cool, but I think there’s a lot of people that don’t know they make those and they’re, they’re really fun and nice. And so if I were a producing agent, I would have contacted Foxtrot when I was making that order and said Hey, is it okay if I shoot a little you know 32nd video when I come to pick up thing highlighting how much I love your your products and then I’ll I’ll tag you guys in the post as Carrie was saying by tagging other people in the post or other brands oftentimes their followers will see that but you can also of course tell the people in the shop or the store oh by the way I’m going to put this post out just keep your eye out for and maybe I can email it to you guys in case you miss it and then they might want to read reshare it of course with their followers but but that’s just a huge way to to get your social media channel exposed maybe to someone else’s followers and other brands businesses. shoot a little video about how great you know someone’s breakfast burritos are do it in the store. You don’t have to make you know a big deal about it but you can do a quick little Little highlight reel or story, do that, shoot it out and see what see how many more people followers you get. And then I just have one other tip, this is a really specific tip that I just, I just didn’t know this Carrie, I’m curious if you knew this, and you probably do, but I didn’t. So I was at the Zillow conference, and they had this one statistic that was really just kind of jumped out at me. It’s so funny. They, all they do is just, you know, look at so many different variables for data and they try to figure out what consumers want, they have, they have determined that if they if if in a listing photo in the photos for a listing, if the bedroom, if the bed of the shots of the bed, rather, and I’m sort of stumbling over this, if I’m just trying to get really specific, if the shots of the bed, the camera shots of the bed, if they show white sheets, white pillowcases, and a white comforter. And this is it’s they know that consumers are 23% more likely to schedule a showing versus a printed pattern, like a floral pattern, even like a dark color, even if it’s a single color, anything that’s not white, there, they see a decline in the number of appointments that are scheduled. So it’s a silly little thing that I mean, it’s almost 25, almost 25% More showings. So if I were an agent, I would go out and buy a bunch of comforters of different sizes, all white, maybe some do vase with some white, you know, white sheets, or at least a white duvet with some white pillowcases. And I would just have that, you know, in my garage or wherever I could store that. And whenever I have a listing, I would, you know, again, it’s not going to always make sense to do that. But it certainly can make sense. A lot of times, instead of having the client go out and buy all new stuff, or I guess you could probably color it with Photoshop or something if you really wanted to in the photos, if it’s a different color, you guys, you can make it white. But I think it’d be just a good idea to buy a couple do vase and bring them along with you to do at the

Carrie McCormick 17:10
shade that was for the primary suite or just all bedrooms,

D.J. Paris 17:13
you know, they didn’t they, I’m assuming its primary. I don’t know about all bedrooms, they just kind of blitz through it. So I can find out and get back to talk about it.

Carrie McCormick 17:23
I think it’s I think it’s definitely probably the primary but it that’s very interesting. And now I’m just thinking back to some of my listings that sold extremely quickly. And guess what, they all have white bedding.

D.J. Paris 17:36
And I wonder too about white walls. I’m going to reach out to my Zillow friends. And I wonder if white walls do a similar thing as well. Maybe in the primary? Again, I don’t know. But gosh, I mean, that’s a really interesting stat that you can just literally bring it especially to like if you’re at a listing presentation, and everyone’s got the same marketing materials and you know, you’re in competition with three other agents and you’re all great agents, and, you know, all of your stats look great. And, you know, little things like that might just make a bit of a difference. But 23% increase in showings based on white bedding is that just bloom. I mean, I have all white bedding and all white walls. Just because I’m lazy and that’s that’s how it came. And I was like, that’s what I want. And apparently that’s that’s, that’s that’s the way to do it these days. So

Carrie McCormick 18:24
yeah, that find out what they say I love all the stats, you know, yeah, so interesting.

D.J. Paris 18:29
So while the white trending while the white trend is very invoke, this is a great opportunity to bring some additional value to your listings. And you know sub separate a little bit so anyway, I think I think those are some great tips all throughout this this episode. So I think this is a good opportunity for us to to just keep it short and sweet this time. So everyone who is listening though, if you have clients that are you know want to work with a top Chicago agent, maybe you’re in a different state and you have people moving to Chicago Carrie works with you know, all sorts of clients, especially referrals from other agents and other areas. Or if you yourself are looking to buy or sell a property here in the Chicagoland area. Or just looking for advice about maybe maybe you’re in a different area but you’d like you know a top Realtors sort of perspective on your situation. Definitely reach out to Carrie she’s she’s a great, amazing resource and is happy to chat with you Carrie, what’s the best way somebody who might want to work with you or speak with you can get in touch?

Carrie McCormick 19:32
Yeah, so always call me 312-961-4612 You can email me Carrie it’s ca RR ie at@properties.com or connect with me on Instagram. It’s Carrie McCormick real estate.

D.J. Paris 19:49
Yeah, that’s great everyone Visit our website to carry McCormick our e.com Please follow her as she said on Instagram at Carey McCormick real estate and everyone who’s listening of course Thank you for continuing to listen and support our show, please tell a friend and CO one other realtor that could benefit from hearing this great episode with Carrie about social media and send them a link to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit the subscribe button. And also, if everyone could leave us a review of the show in whatever podcast app you might be listening to, whether it’s Apple podcasts, formerly known as iTunes or Spotify, Google Play stitcher or Pandora wherever. Let us know what you think of the show, give us leave us a review that helps us continue to improve and also gets us in front of more people based on the number of reviews we get. So we appreciate that. As always, Carrie, thank you so much for being on our show for years and years now providing so much value to our audience and our audience. Again, thank you for sticking all the way to the end, and we will see everybody on the next episode. Bye everybody.

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

In our November episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties talks about planning for 2022 from an agent’s perspective. She talks about inventory challenge also. Carrie and DJ discuss the importance of analyzing the previous year and bring out the lessons learned and investing in your business. Last, DJ shares his tip for the Holidays.

Also, if you have a challenge, frustration or something funny you’d like to discuss with Carrie and DJ, please share them by sending us a message here.

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.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by gogos bootcamp Are you a real estate agent looking for the very best media training program on the planet? Gogo Beth key is considered the top Instagram Realtor in the country. And her step by step training program will take your social media game to the next level, keeping it real listeners receive a special discount. So please visit Gogo podcast.com That’s Gee oh gee Oh podcast.com for your special discount, and now on with the show.

Welcome to keeping it real, the largest podcast native for real estate agents and buy real estate agents. My name is DJ Baris. I am your guide and host through the show and today is our monthly series Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carrie McCormick Real Estate Group with App properties here in Chicago. Now Carrie has been a top 1% producer in Chicago for over 20 years she has this incredible amount of experience helping buyers, sellers and investors. She’s 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. Now please, everyone visit Carrie at her website, which is Carrie McCormick r e.com. And that’s McCormick with two C’s. So Carrie McCormack r e.com. But also, I want you to follow her on Instagram, she has a truly impressive Instagram account. She’s consistently ranked as one of the best realtor Instagram accounts in the industry. And you can find her at Carey McCormick real estate and we’ll have a link to that, as well as to our website in our podcast show notes. You can always find it there. Carrie, welcome once again to the show.

Carrie McCormick 1:58
Thank you. Thank you, I love that introduction. Makes me feel old that I’ve been around forever.

D.J. Paris 2:04
Well, at least you’re a top producer for 20 years. So at least you have a lot of success. And that’s one of the reasons why of course you come on our show. And you’ve actually been with us since the very, very beginning. We are so grateful Carrie has been our oldest and was the oldest she’s she is not the oldest, but but somebody who’s been with the show the longest as one of our regular guests. And we are super grateful, because she is incredibly busy every each and every year and she just does more and more production every every single year. So what would you like to talk about today now that we just finished Thanksgiving? We’re closing in on the end of November. What’s on your mind today?

Carrie McCormick 2:42
Yeah, so as we round out the year just you know, kind of looking back of this crazy year that you know, it doesn’t matter what market you’re you’re in right now, we all have had such an amazing 2021. So we just started now looking ahead and planning for 2022. So I think just to start off the conversation of 2022. I just want to talk about mortgage rates. I am not a mortgage lender. But we all know that the rates I shouldn’t say we know but you know the rates are going to start ticking up. And I have a quote here. It’s from Doug Duncan at Fannie Mae. He says right now we forecast mortgage rates to average 3.3% in 2022. So 3.3%, which is just a little bit higher than 2020 and 2021. But by historical standards, it’s very low. So even though we’re going to start hearing things about mortgage rates ticking up, again, they will but it’s going to be at a very moderate pace. So what does that mean? So of course, we see mortgage rates go up, we’re probably going to see some pricing go up as well. So the affordability factor for homebuyers is going to become front and center. So these are all terms that we’ve been talking about over the last, you know, year is interest rates, pricing, supply and demand, the affordability factor. So again, this is probably going to carry into 2022. And same with home pricing. So in all of our markets, we’ve seen these record breaking levels 1819 20% There’s been some markets that are 40%, which I wish I was licensed in those states. But you know, we’ve all seen these really incredible home appreciation prices. And I think in 2022 we are still going to see pricing escalate, but not as much as we did this past year. So I think it’s going to be important to communicate to our sellers, because right now they’re expecting you know, their pricing just to keep going. But I think again setting the expectation that we will see moderate, slower price increase in 2022. And of course, every market is different. I always say Chicago itself, because I’m here, obviously in Chicago is a market within a market and even some neighborhoods will appreciate a little bit differently than another neighborhood. So from those two points, if you think about mortgage rates, you think about the pricing of the home, you know, what does this all mean to us. So it’s going to be more expensive to own a home, no matter where you’re at. So in 2022, we’re still going to see our inventory challenge as well. And again, I’m tired of talking about inventory challenge, but we’re gonna see it. I am seeing, especially here in Chicago builders, being a little bit more active in the market, which is great, even though their supply chain issues, but we’re seeing more building happening here. So hopefully, it’s going to help continue with our supply issue that we’re having here as well. But I don’t see, I don’t see a slowdown here.

D.J. Paris 6:01
Well, that’s, that’s exciting. And I was thinking as you were talking about the pricing, which cross the country is most markets seem to have benefited from, well, depends on if you’re a buyer or seller, but but for homeowners seeing more appreciation than then maybe they would have expected. But I almost wonder if and I’m curious to get your thoughts. I’m almost wondering for people that were thinking of selling, but going to stay in the same general geographic area. I wonder if a lot of those people didn’t sell, because they have to live somewhere and buy the appreciation of the homes that they and also the competition from because rates being so low, I almost wonder if that prevented a lot of people from moving thinking, well, I could share, I could cash out sell my home, but then I have to buy something that’s appreciated just as much. I almost wonder if maybe, maybe that will, you know, bring those those sellers back into the market. I’m just curious if you saw any, for people that stayed local and didn’t, you know, go down south or wherever they could now work remotely, maybe didn’t feel like they were chained to their geographic area. But I think most of us still feel like our our geographic areas is where we want to be, especially if we have kids. And you know, we are in schools. So I’m just curious if I know like this happened to my sister, she many, many years ago, bought a place a little tiny, 475 square foot one bedroom, not even a studio in, in the West Village in New York. And just a like, amazing, desirable area. She was right in the middle of everything. And her home appreciated within seven years about $150,000, which is just incredible. It was a sixth floor walk up it had no no air conditioning, just just oh my gosh, it just incredible. But when she sold it, she was like, Well, I can no longer live in the West. You know, she made all this money. And then she went out to Queens, because that’s where life sort of took her. But she had priced herself out even though she got a nice and it was perfect cuz she left the area. But I’m just curious, if you think maybe this will the slowdown in the price increases, maybe we’ll get more active sellers who are thinking about staying local?

Carrie McCormick 8:12
Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s definitely been a challenge with a lot of this, the people that did want to sell is where am I going to go? No, what am I going to buy, you know, they couldn’t find something that they loved. And even if they did find something else that they loved, the price was too high on that. But you know, again, they sell their, their home at a high price, they’re gonna buy at a high price. So some people just, you know, sat on the sidelines, or they decided not to sell. So we definitely saw all different types of situations in 2021. But I do think just as you said, some of those people that were selling, and they held off, I think we’re gonna see them in the market in 2022. And hopefully, again, it’s gonna bring back some inventory, too. So it’ll be an interesting year. But you know, at the end of the year, as we all typically do, I always like to reflect back on the year, you know, what have I learned? What can I improve? And I think it’s important for all of us to do that. And, you know, since I’ve been in the industry for so long, you know, back in when the market crashed in 2008, I learned so much from from that time, you know, and is when things are, you know, either going really bad or really good. You can always take things out of, of those situations. So, this past year 2021 was a phenomenal year. And so I just wanted to share with you a few of my reflections that, you know, I’m going to focus on for 2022 which is to invest back into my business, right and we all do that from a marketing standpoint, but also to invest in the people around around us, and to invest in the staff that’s around us. So like for myself, you know, I’ve got some wonderful admin staff that I adore and help support my business. So you know, it’s gonna be important for me to give back to them and support them. Because they’ve worked hard all year for me. So again, it’s my job to support them and invest in them, and everyone around me. So just to be thankful, and again, support that staff. So that’s number one, investing in your business from an advertising standpoint, so invest in your brand, we’ve seen a lot out there of just, you know, recognizing who you are, as a broker, you know, building a brand, that’s true to you. And that’s something that I’ve worked really hard on, through my advertising, through my social media, and through my video content. So I’m going to definitely focus a little bit more on that this year. Via good listener, I think that is one reason to that I’ve been extremely successful is, as a salesperson, we like to talk a lot, right? We like to be center stage. So I think for me, you know, I can really sit back and listen to people and there’s times I do want to jump in and, you know, give my two cents or, you know, whatever it is, but I think it’s important for all of us to sit back and be a better listener, and be kind and patient to people around us. Right? It’s been, again, a great year, but it’s been a little bit of wonky, with people being short tempered, or, you know, I can use a lot of words, but you know, it was kind of a crazy year, but it’s just being patient and respectful to people around you. I think that’s going to be important going into 2022

D.J. Paris 11:45
Yeah, I’ve always thought of this job, and I’m not out there doing it. So this is just my observation of, of being around a lot of brokers for a lot of years, and I’m a broker as well, but I, I don’t go out and practice, like, like our listeners in like you do. But it seems to be that that I’ve always thought of this as if nothing else, it’s a customer service job. And it’s being being able to, to understand what someone’s stresses and anxieties may be be in the process of buying or selling a home and, and being that that comforting sort of, you know, ear to to absorb all of their their stress, which I can’t imagine is always easy for agents. But But I think you know, that is such an important skill. If you really want to develop a skill, I think not you in particular. But our listeners, of course, is really, really look into the importance of empathy and empathy, meaning that you are sympathy at the very least which sympathy is feeling, feeling for somebody when they are when they’re struggling. And this whole buying and selling process is just a lot of struggle for even the most simple of transactions. And then But then empathy is sort of the next level, which is I’m going to suffer with you, but but I’m also going to be there to comfort you. And to sort of validate someone’s position where they are, I think is it really can’t be overstated. And the best agents I know, you know, really do that quite well. They don’t always have to have the answers. But they certainly have to have the, you know, the open ears to say, tell me what’s going on. And you know, let’s get through it.

Carrie McCormick 13:31
I mean, at the end of the day, we’re all we’re fiduciaries to our clients, right? That’s the most important thing. There’s a lot that comes around with it, like you said, in different situations. And we have to navigate them professionally through the situation. So it’s, you know, be kind, be patient, be a good listener, but you know, most importantly, be a good fiduciary to your clients. And I think we just need to all step back and remember those goals.

D.J. Paris 14:00
I also think too, like the I think the vast majority of the public has no idea that realtors are fiduciaries, I don’t think that’s a that’s a word, that unless you’re maybe a financial adviser, or you’re in the real estate industry, you probably just don’t associate with realtors at all. And it’s really an important conversation I think to have, or it’s an opportunity to say, you know, my primary goal here is is not just to get you everything that you want, although we are going to try to do that, but to do it in a way that’s fiduciary ly responsible. And here’s what that means. And I think even working on that conversation really will separate you from other realtors who maybe don’t even think to use those kinds of words.

Carrie McCormick 14:43
Yeah, I agree. I agree.

D.J. Paris 14:45
And I was curious to what do you think we’re and I know we’re kind of going back a little bit but But thinking back over the last year what were sort of the main reasons, you know, obviously, appreciation will certainly drive this but in low rates. But what were the main reasons that that people that in your experience that people decided to move this year, this last year?

Carrie McCormick 15:06
I know, isn’t it something that it seemed like the whole world wanted to move last year, it was unbelievable. And I did a little bit of research on that. And through my own clientele, you know, and just research. And if you look at Think of a pie chart, it really is kind of split four ways. And the main four reasons that people moved was one, they wanted different home features. So whether it was I don’t even know like, they wanted a pool, or they wanted a fireplace, or they wanted a new kitchen, their needs of their home changed. The second reason was, it didn’t fit their family needs. So whether they had more kids or someone was working, wanted to work out in the house or something. So it was that didn’t meet their family needs. The third one was they wanted to move closer to friends and family, which I thought was a very interesting reason for moving. And I don’t know why I do it, just, you know, I think what the pandemic did for a lot of people was make them feel like they wanted to, you know, be around their loved ones a little bit more, right. So I saw a lot of people moving again, to be closer to their parents or parents want to be closer to their kids, or, you know, whatever the reason, family reasons were, they wanted to be closer to the people that they loved. So there was a big movement of that. And the last one, which was the big one was home office, you know, as though that pandemic pushed everyone back into their home. So it really was those were the main four. And it just it moved. It moved everyone across America, people are going everywhere.

D.J. Paris 16:59
Yeah, it is. It is remarkable. I mean, even I, we were just I was just at the narc, the National Association of Realtors Conference in San Diego, and a couple of weeks ago, and my girlfriend and I were there. And we said, we could live here this is this is pretty nice. As much as I love Chicago, and boy, the weather there is hard to beat. And could I technically do my job there. And I’m gonna I’m not a practicing agent. I’m pretty sure I could, somebody did come in to see me this morning that was interested in joining our firm. And that was maybe three people in a year have come in the rest of all just talk to me on the phone. So I probably could do it remotely. And so really is opened up the freedom. And I think for everyone listening, if you haven’t had these conversations with your sphere of influence, like, hey, has anything changed? Have you guys are you guys thinking about now making a shift now that people have seen the first wave of people, you know, go out and be able to work remotely, I bet there’s a lot of people now the second wave that are like, Oh, this is really doable. And maybe we’ll start looking at some of those other areas of the country that we always thought would be great to live in. And then I think for an agent, that’s a great opportunity to start finding realtors in those areas, or maybe even getting licensed yourself in those areas, but but certainly finding a referral source to say, hey, I have clients that are interested in Nashville, or, you know, wherever it might be.

Carrie McCormick 18:20
Exactly. So I’m excited to talk about what’s coming up for next month. Do you want to tell them?

D.J. Paris 18:28
Yeah, so we have a couple of things. We would love to find out what your biggest frustrations are when dealing with other realtors. So if you have any ideas, and you can tell us your story, or you can ask questions, because we know this is a cooperative business, but it isn’t always and always feel cooperative. And there may be challenges that you’re experiencing, you know, just working with other agents. And Carrie has seen and been through all of it many, many, many, many times. And so we would love to get her opinion on how to help solve some of these problems. I see a lot of this online, on in forums with realtors, where they go, you’re not gonna believe what this realtor just said to me or did to me. And then there’s all sorts of great advice there. We want to sort of do the same thing here. So if you have a challenge, or a story you want to tell or just want to get some help in dealing with other agents, we want to we want to know about that and we want to answer that. So please, a couple of ways you can you can get those questions to us. Number one, you can email them right to us, which I will put the link in the show notes but you’re gonna send it to his actually I’m gonna give you an even easier way. We do have the email in the show notes. But I want you just to go to our website keeping it real pod.com There’s a contact us form, send it there it goes right to zonna our producer and she will send those to us and we will be able to address those. So any challenges that you’re having? Or frustrations with other agents honey, send us some yeah Funny stuff to boy, I, you know, is realtors, I’m sure you deal with stuff all the time, probably daily where you’re just like, wow, that is, and I’m sure can be very frustrating and hard for especially a newer agent to sort of know what to do. You know, there are some bullies out there. And there are some people that, you know, aren’t don’t always play nice. So we want to talk about, you know, whatever challenges you might be having with other agents. And I also have just a quick little tip for for the holidays, right now is the time where you might be thinking about getting your clients a holiday gift. Hanukkah has already started. Christmas, of course, is coming up and other holidays, New Year’s Eve, and then even other religious holidays. But I would say you know, if you’re not going to if you haven’t already put something in place, I say my advice and you can certainly send something is think about maybe sending something in January. That’s like a New Year’s gift. Certainly, there’s a lot fewer of those and it maybe won’t get lost in the December shuffle where everyone’s so busy. And you know, also getting a lot of things in the mail. But I think there’s nothing wrong with sending on New Year New you kind of gift and it doesn’t even have to be an expensive one. But don’t worry too much about a new year Christmas or a holiday gift. Being that you know, you can always send it in January two.

Carrie McCormick 21:20
That’s pretty good.

D.J. Paris 21:22
Yeah, I just I just think you know, there’s ways to do it where you don’t have to worry about, oh, gosh, I just sent out all these gifts. And it’s the middle of December and I haven’t really heard anything. Well, yeah, because people are busy. And they’re going to parties, and they’re dealing with family and they’re buying gifts themselves. And they’re getting a ton of stuff in the mail. And it’s just easy to sort of get lost in the shuffle. But so think about sending a January gift. I mean, no one’s expecting that. And that would be a lot of fun and probably separates you from everyone else. So that’s just my little tip of the day if you’re going to send a gift. Yeah, just just and then you don’t have to worry but you should know which of your you know which of your your sphere of influence are celebrating Kwanzaa or Christmas or Hanukkah, you should know that and if you don’t know it, now’s a great time to find out because even if you don’t send a gift, you could certainly call everyone and say hey, if you’re they’re Jewish, for example, and they’re celebrate Hanukkah. Oh, by the way, I know it’s the second day of Hanukkah, I just wanted to say hope you guys have a great Hanukkah, which it happens to be today. The second I think it’s the second day or the third day. Anyway, the point is, is no this stuff and it gives you a great opportunity to contact your clients and say I hope you just have a good holiday season. And they’re probably not getting a lot of those phone calls, too. So that’s another great reason to reach out. Well anyway, that’s all I got. So please send us your your agent frustrations and send those to us over at keeping it real pod.com our contact form there. Also, I want everybody to follow Carrie on Instagram, which is care at Carey McCormick then again McCormick with two C’s Carrie McCormick real estate. So at Carey McCormick real estate also visit our website Kiri McCormick, r e.com. And if there are any agents out there that have people moving to Chicago, Carrie would love to talk to you about your clients. Or if you’re just a buyer or seller investor and you want to work with a top Realtor in Chicago because you want to you want to you know, find some opportunities here. Carrie is a great resource. And so Carrie, if an agent or an investor or a buyer or seller wants to reach out to you what’s the best way they could find you

Carrie McCormick 23:26
always call me 312961461 To I always have my phone with me.

D.J. Paris 23:34
She does. And she is always responsive, and which is why she is so well respected here in the Chicagoland area. So we want to thank Carrie again. She Gosh, was this a record year for you? Or I know it’s not over yet. But I think you’re right at you’ve got to be almost at the is this like the very best year you’ve ever had? It is it’s a good one. She’s very humble. That is that’s pretty impressive. With with her history, so she’s she is killing it. And she takes time out of her day to help our show. So we appreciate that so much. So thank you, Carrie, on behalf of the listeners and on behalf of Carrie and myself, thank you to all the listeners for continuing to support our show. We’re almost finished up with another year here. And so we say thank you. But please tell a friend. Think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from great, amazing people like Carrie and send them a link to our show to send them to our website keeping it real pod.com We appreciate it. All right, Carrie. Well, we will see you next month in December and have a great day. Have a great December and end of the year everyone and take some time for yourself. It’s the holiday season and you know it’s a good time to relax and enjoy time with family and friends.

Carrie McCormick 24:41
So absolutely. All right.

D.J. Paris 24:44
All right. Thanks Carrie. Bye bye

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

In our July episode of Monday Market Minute, Carrie McCormick from @properties she talks about a new exciting development in Lake View which will be announced shortly. Carrie shares statistics on the real estate market in Chicago. Carrie emphasizes that it’s a great time to be a buyer as there’s less competition in the market at the moment because of vacations. Carrie and DJ discuss supply-chain issues and how the increase in the wood prices has impacted the prices of renovation and also buyer’s decision making. Last, DJ shares his marketing tip for July.

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.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by prac tina.com Are you tired of not receiving enough leads from social media prac Tina will help. prac Tina’s easy to use low cost system helps real estate agents outperform their local competition, connect with more homebuyers and become the face of real estate in their area by simplifying social media marketing. prac Tina automatically informs your audience regarding new properties, open houses, and price changes on any and all of your listings. You can also reach specific new clients based on their location and interests, which will help your ads be seen by the right people on Google, Facebook and Instagram. And best of all prac Tina provides you with your own dedicated marketing specialists that will work with you one on one keeping it real listeners will receive a $50 credit by using the coupon code real. Learn more today at practice tina.com That’s pra si t i n a.com 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 Paris. I am your guide and host through the show today. On the show is our monthly series The Monday market minute with Carrie McCormick from the Carey McCormack Real Estate Group with add 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 44,000 real estate agents here in Chicago. Carrie is currently ranked number 14 in production. 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, including the one that I just purchased and live in. So she is everywhere. And everybody knows her and we’re so excited to continue continually have her on the show and she’s been with us for years. Please visit Carrie at her website, which is Carrie McCormack R e.com Carrie McCormack rt e.com. And also definitely follow her on Instagram, which is at Carrie McCormack real estate. Carrie, welcome once again to the show.

Carrie McCormick 2:26
Thank you and I’m excited to share I can’t give too many details yet because it has not been announced. We have a new exciting development coming in Lakeview, it’s going to be 18 Amazing single family homes. The location can’t tell you anything about it. But we’ll be able to announce it I think in about a week or two. So for anyone that works in the luxury real estate or luxury, single family home market, please reach out to me I’ve got something really amazing and exciting coming in the Lakeview neighborhood.

D.J. Paris 3:01
And these are you said townhomes or single family homes. Oh, wow, wonderful. Well, there’s and there’s never that much construction like view because it’s so just built up. This is very exciting.

Carrie McCormick 3:11
It’s very exciting. So there’s your little sneak peek of the day. But you know, stay tuned and feel free to reach out to me if you’ve got someone looking.

D.J. Paris 3:21
And yet actually Carrie was at the building that that I live in now this morning, but I was not there. And so we weren’t able to say hi, but we’re talking virtually now. But yeah, tell us what’s going on in the Chicagoland market since you’ve got your ear to the streets at all

Carrie McCormick 3:36
time. Low. Absolutely. It’s really been a you know, a fun kind of reporting year on the real estate front. Will June, March June 2021. I gotta remember what year we’re in really March the 11th straight month for double digit increases. So it’s still flying, it’s still busy. The median price of homes, believe it or not, is up 20.4% From June of last year. So 20.4% is a huge number of an increase in one year in Chicago believable and your inventory still remains low. We’re at 2.6 months, which it’s down from just you know, June to June. So June of last year was 3.9 months. And now we’re at 2.6. So it still indicates a tight inventory. And then median prices are up so we’re still moving strong. For the month of July though July has been a little bit slower. And we’re hearing that across the board and all different markets. And the reason is, I think is because people are vacationing Yeah, it seems like every other person I talked to is on vacation. Things are opening up people are enjoying a little bit of the summer months weddings, graduations, again the travel so we’ve seen a little bit of a slowdown for the month of July, but as my manager said to me, he said, You know, we’ve been going 150 miles an hour, we’re going 120 miles an hour now. So it’s definitely not slow. It just, we let off the gas a little bit, if you will. So, so take advantage of it, everyone and just, you know, give yourself a little bit of time to breathe. But I do anticipate that August, September, October, rolling right into the end of the year, we’re going to be busy again.

D.J. Paris 5:26
Yeah, I was at an event, an in person event last night here in Chicago with about 150 realtors. And I it seemed to be the general consensus. When I asked agents, how their business was going. They said it’s finally slowing down, but not in a bad way. But in a I can catch my breath way. Right. So I was it seemed to be a general sort of calm, calmer. Realtors seem to be more excited to breathe a bit. So let’s, yeah, so let’s see the market is so we have people on vacation. I guess that means it’s probably a good time for buyers right now. Because there’s maybe not as much competition people aren’t as active we putting in offers. Are you seeing that as well?

Carrie McCormick 6:12
Absolutely. And I said this on the last podcast when we spoke is it really is a good time to be a buyer right now, just because there is less competition out there. So just the multiple offer situation is not happening as much, you just don’t have that organic competition happening. So yeah, it’s a great time to still be a buyer. slim pickings on the inventory. So we’re going to expect to see more coming in August. But what’s been interesting is I feel like outside of a real estate broker, I feel like I am a furniture broker. Because with the supply chain being so backed up, you know, when you walk into a home, and they’ve got a beautiful outdoor seating area, or a beautiful living room set, when people are making offers, we’re now including some furniture in our in our offer, because again, if you’re buying a home that’s got a fabulous roof deck, and you don’t have furniture to order that is going to take months, you’re not going to be able to enjoy your back until next year. So I’ve been negotiating and brokering a lot of furniture, which is interesting.

D.J. Paris 7:22
Do you do? Yeah. And I can appreciate that, because I’m dealing with with some of those issues as well. Thankfully, my outdoor furniture came in. So I could enjoy it this this season. But I know that if I had purchased if my if the property I’d purchased was not a new construction. If there had been previous owners, I might have thought about that. And I guess that’s a great opportunity for agents really on both sides to think about being making things more competitive by saying, hey, you know, we’ll throw in the furniture or we want that furniture, let’s say let’s add it to the to the contract.

Carrie McCormick 7:56
Yeah, it’s, it’s very interesting. And yeah, let’s

D.J. Paris 7:59
talk. So what what about, you know, in the same idea of supply chain issues, and again, I, I’ve got my outdoor furniture has been delivered, but some of my interior furniture is some of its delivered, some of it isn’t. And I get these emails all the time from these furniture companies saying we have supply chain issues. We know it we’re working on it. Thanks for your patience. What about on the renovation side? So, you know, we know there’s a wood shortage or, you know, wood prices are certainly going have been through the roof for the last year. So how is that affected? renovations?

Carrie McCormick 8:32
Yeah, so it’s been really tough renovation. Can you hear me? Oh,

D.J. Paris 8:39
I think we lost you. Let’s see, I think we might have the mic got switched maybe.

Carrie McCormick 8:47
Can you hear me?

D.J. Paris 8:48
Hmm. Can you see if you can switch the microphone under mute? Or the little up arrow where it says select a microphone

Carrie McCormick 9:01
Let me see.

D.J. Paris 9:02
We’ll fix this in post production. So no big deal.

Carrie McCormick 9:07
What am I switching? Oh,

D.J. Paris 9:13
perhaps it’s me. Hang on. Do you hear me? All right, Carrie. I think it’s me one second. My apologies. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I’m having an issue. One. Sorry. Sorry. One second. It’s me, not you.

Sorry about that. That was me. He was not your child. I don’t know what the issue was. But can you hear me now? Yep,

Carrie McCormick 9:42
I can hear you. Okay. Yeah,

D.J. Paris 9:43
I can hear you. Sorry about

Carrie McCormick 9:44
that. Okay, so we’re gonna start with Can you patch all this together? Yeah. So you asked maybe go back to asking the question about renovations.

D.J. Paris 9:57
Yeah. So I know that with the woods one shortages, that, you know, there’s been massive delays in in getting lumber and how has that affected renovation time? Yeah.

Carrie McCormick 10:11
So I mean, that’s a great question. And really what’s happened is people are pausing or being a little more cautious and careful buying homes that need the renovation, whether it’s a bathroom renovation or a kitchen renovation hardwood floors, just because they know that trying to get workers in right now is so difficult. And again, there’s a long lead time and doing that.

D.J. Paris 10:36
Yeah, we we’ve, I’ve been experiencing very similar things. Are there any types of

Carrie McCormick 10:42
DJ Hang on one second? Because this

is it for me, guys? There’s a little button. That looks like top up top down. Okay, just sit in a car. Turn it on. So I have a convertible and it’s pouring rain.

D.J. Paris 11:06
Oh, just started pouring. Okay. Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, no, I owned convertibles for 10 straight years. And I cannot tell you the number of times I got rain. So or my car got rained on. So

Carrie McCormick 11:20
I’ve got so much stuff in my car. Oh, I just didn’t even think about it.

D.J. Paris 11:25
Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been there. I’ve been there.

Carrie McCormick 11:29
She’s gonna go do it. Okay.

D.J. Paris 11:33
Grab some towels.

Carrie McCormick 11:38
Thank goodness for an okay.

D.J. Paris 11:40
So we’re talking about a timeout renovations and which renovations you know, you’re What are you talking about? What are what are your clients asking renovation wise right now? And what are you suggesting to them?

Carrie McCormick 11:52
Yeah, so renovations are tough right now. So I am advising my clients that if we know we’re buying something that needs bathroom renovations or kitchen renovations, again, it’s a time thing you know, you the supply chain is is taking weeks to get it done. So you have to have patience. And I do foresee from a seller’s side that if you are selling a home that is in need of renovations, you’ve got to at least give a little bit of a discount on the house, you know, because again, time is money for people and you just you know, they need to know that every buyer is not going to be open to you know, doing all these renovations. So it is a tricky thing with the supply chain right now. I mean, I’ve had people order dishwashers or refrigerators, washers and dryers, and again, their weeks and week leave weeks lead time. So it definitely is a conversation that we have to have before someone purchases. Also, from an inspection standpoint, that’s also become a little bit of an issue. So for example, if you have an inspection on a property, and it needs a new roof, or it needs tuckpointing, or new furnace, or whatever it is, again, the lead time to get this stuff done is taking so long that some of the sellers can’t get it done by closing. So we have to escrow for for it. So again, part of our job is being brokers, you know, is educating, advising, and making sure that our buyers and sellers are positioned properly.

D.J. Paris 13:19
Are there are there some buyers where you’re encouraging them to sort of deal with the imperfection of a particular room? And then wait until the supply chain issues seem to seem to be corrected? And lumber becomes more readily available? And it’s cheaper? Maybe next year? Or are you You know, I’m just curious. And those kinds because I wonder if that’s pausing some buyers from making offers going well, I really need to fix this stuff up. But maybe it’ll be three for six months,

Carrie McCormick 13:52
everyone’s got their different threshold, I have zero patience. So I am one that I would pay for something just to have it done. You know, so that’s just it, it just depends you got to have patience or just know you’re gonna pay a little bit of a premium if you want to have it done now.

D.J. Paris 14:08
Wonderful. Well, I here’s my marketing idea for the week or for the month rather. And it’s really based on something you just said I had a different marketing tip and then you said something at the beginning that I thought was pretty profound, which is that prices on average have have risen about 20% Here in the Chicagoland area. And so knowing that if I were a Producing Realtor, but I was maybe not as busy this month because people are you know, things have slowed down just a little bit and in general, I might be reaching out to everyone I know who owns a home and just saying hey, by the way, Mr. And Mrs. Owner, it you know, Ben depending on the type of property I do a little research first to make sure that I was you know about to give them a reason to talk with them a legitimate reason. I would say you know homes in your area have appreciated by X percentage. Has anyone read On Any, any updated comps for you, I’d be happy to do that and send it over to you. I don’t know if you want to sell or not. But I always know as a homeowner, I would like to know what my place is worth. And most homeowners probably aren’t checking, you know, the Zestimate on Zillow very often, and we know that that isn’t always super accurate anyway, but maybe making a proactive phone call to every owner. I mean, it’s such a simple idea, but maybe not the worst idea when homes are up 20% And as a really big number. The problem of course is then they’re like okay, well then I gotta buy something that’s appreciated. 20% Well, okay, yes, that’s possibly a challenge. But maybe they want to rent for a few years, which again, is probably you know, that’s also a very difficult thing. But it starts it’s the beginning of a conversation and maybe more importantly, whether they ever sell or not, they’re going to feel that the agent really cares about them in this thinking about them.

Carrie McCormick 15:50
I’m going to do that. As we speak when we’re done with this call. I’m going to start making some phone calls. I liked that idea.

D.J. Paris 15:57
Yeah, and again, I suspect it’s not a lot of people who are going to want to sell but boy it’s a that’s a good phone call to make because hey, did you know your home is worth a little bit more than it was a year ago quite a bit more cash if I made 20% in the market on my you know my investments every year I would that would be the best year I’ve ever had. So to know that homes have appreciated like that is a very exciting thing whether or not they move it’s still a fun phone call. And certainly a great opportunity just to remind people that the you know that you exist and that you’re around and you’re thinking about it, so love it. Love it. Awesome. Well, I know we probably patch this together in the final edit but Kerry’s poor car got rained on she has a convertible and so she needs to raise out and address her car that is filling up with water. So thanks Carrie. Thank you so much for being on the show. I’m sorry, sorry about your car getting rained on I know that I’ve been there. So that’s why I don’t like convertibles anymore because I’m not I am not responsible with getting the the top but I’m

Carrie McCormick 16:58
starting off on a great foot with this car so

D.J. Paris 17:02
well anyway we appreciate your time and we appreciate you you soldiering through even though your car is getting filled up with water. But as as always everyone please visit Carrie she by the way, you can reach out to her if you have questions as as an agent. And also if you’re a buyer or a seller or renter and investor somebody that is looking to work with one of the top Realtors in the Chicagoland area. Carrie would love to chat with you. Her and her team are excellent. They’ve been doing this for 20 plus years. Everybody in Chicago land knows Carrie in the real estate world because of how professional and excellent she is. So reach out to her. So Carrie, what’s the best way somebody can reach out to you?

Carrie McCormick 17:41
I always tell people to call me on my phone gals. 23129614612 you can text me you can email me whatever you prefer, I’m always available.

D.J. Paris 17:52
And you please visit her on our website Kerry McCormick our e.com You can find all of her information there and links to all of her social profiles, but in particular, please follow her on Instagram. She has an amazing Instagram account. It’s a real model for what agents should be aspiring to in their social media and Carrie does it all herself. But you can find her on Instagram at at Carey McCormack real estate. Carrie once again, thank you for being on our show for four years now. And we are so thrilled to have you and for everyone listening we want to thank you for continuing to listen and support our show. Please tell a friend think of one other real estate agent that could benefit from hearing from top producers like Carrie and send them a link to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Every episode we’ve ever done can be streamed right there. Carrie, thanks so much. And we’ll see you next week.

Carrie McCormick 18:41
All right, bye bye.

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