After Nine Years, Lindsey & Associates Bumped From Top Spot

It’s been something to set your watch by.

In terms of residential sales volume, Lindsey & Associates Inc. has worn the crown for nearly a decade. The industry giant, with headquarters in Fayetteville, has been the top-ranking real estate firm on the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal list for nine consecutive years, averaging better than half a billion dollars in sales volume per year in that stretch.

Well, another firm now wears the crown, and the name shouldn’t be all that surprising.

With a tidy total of $337.00 million in 2010 — technically its first year of operations — Coldwell Banker Harris McHaney & Faucette leads this year’s list of the top-producing firms in Northwest Arkansas.

Each year the Business Journal requests and compiles sales figures from real estate firms in the area, ranking those with annual sales volume of at least $5 million. Realtors and realtor teams who did a minimum of $2 million in sales are also ranked.

In February 2010, Coldwell Banker Faucette Real Estate of Fayetteville and Harris McHaney Realtors of Rogers merged to create the new company, which maintains headquarters in Fayetteville. The two principals — George Faucette, president and owner of Coldwell Banker Faucette, and Pat Harris, owner of Harris McHaney — are equal partners in the new firm.

Before the merger, each of those firms consistently appeared near the top of the Business Journal list. Had their 2009 totals been combined ($375.44 million), the merged firms would’ve produced the top sales volume in Northwest Arkansas that year as well.

Faucette said the synergy of the merger helped drive the firm’s success in 2010.

“Everybody got on board pretty quickly,” he said. “Both companies had similar cultures and Pat and I have the same philosophy of how to do business.”

Faucette also commented on the market for upscale housing, saying that while there is still “no doubt” an oversupply of homes, the total inventory is falling.

And, he predicted, 2011 will be a great time to buy.

“The facts really support it now as opposed to five years ago when the facts didn’t,” he said. “There were more houses than there were buyers. Now you have the 30-year money that’s still (less than) 5 percent and the affordability index is so much better. I’ve been in it for over 40 years and without question it’s the best time to buy that I have ever been in. Far and away.”

Among realtors, Melanie Gabel with Lindsey & Associates made the biggest leap among those in the top 10. She vaulted from 52nd to eighth with a sales volume of $11.05 million in 2010, an increase of 86.7 percent from the previous year’s total of $5.92 million.

“I sold one home in Champions for around $1 million,” she said. “But honestly it was a lot of $300,000 and $400,000 transactions.”

Gable said the current market in Northwest Arkansas is stable.

“Last year it was tough to go on a listing presentation,” she added. “People were shocked and almost hurt to hear how low their property value was. It’s definitely not going up, but it’s stable.”