CBHMF Leads Way In Booming Market

For the third consecutive year, a Fayetteville-based firm topped the rankings on the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s 2014 real estate firms list.

Coldwell Banker Harris McHaney Faucette, which also has Benton County branch offices in Rogers, Siloam Springs and Bentonville, topped this year’s list (see page 18) based on its 2013 total volume of $499.51 million. That total makes up about 22 percent of all combined total volume of the 19 firms that qualified for this year’s list.

Firms had to have a total sales volume of $15 million or more in 2013 to be included.

Lindsey & Associates, also based in Fayetteville, is No. 2 on this year’s list, although its distance behind CBHMF shrank in 2013. Lindsey, which has a branch office in Rogers, had a total volume in 2013 of $473.54 million, up 31.9 percent from 2012.

Crye-Leike Realtors of Rogers ($316.55 million), Weichert Realtors-The Griffin Co. of Springdale ($202.65 million) and Keller Williams Market Pro Realty of Fayetteville ($170.21 million) round out the top five.

The Keller Williams franchise began operations in March when Market Pro Realty of Rogers merged with Fayetteville’s Keller Williams Realty of Northwest Arkansas.

In addition, Kendall Riggins of Lindsey & Associates topped the top-grossing residential agents list (see page 21) for the fourth straight year with a whopping $45.57 million in total volume last year. Toby Crawford of Crawford Real Estate & Development ($30.17 million), Meza Harris of Lindsey & Associates ($29.19 million), Sean Morris of Walker & Associates ($27.56 million) and Martha Haguewood of Lindsey & Associates ($23.34 million) round out the top five.

Among top-grossing real estate teams, The Limbird Team with RE/MAX Real Estate Results of Bentonville increased its total volume by more than 50 percent in a year-over-year comparison, ending 2013 at $44.94 million to also stay atop this year’s list (see page 20).

To see a list of the top residential firms, click here.

To see a list of the top-producing agents, click here.

to see a list of the top-producing teams, click here.

MLS Data

There are 228 Realtors included in this year’s list ranking the top-producing residential Realtors.

And despite raising the minimum qualification from $2.5 million to $3 million, that’s up about 5.5 percent from a total of 216 that appeared on last year’s list.

For the second year in a row, the Northwest Arkansas Multiple Listing Service, with the permission of the Northwest Arkansas Board of Realtors, provided the data used to rank residential real estate firms and agents.

The data reflects residential properties sold by agents of the NWA Board of Realtors and listed with the MLS.

In the past, the Business Journal asked the firms to supply their own sales figures. A third-party supplier adds a higher degree of validity, though critics of the listings suggest that — even though the MLS data is correct — they can be skewed because of reporting errors or homes sold that were not listed with the MLS.

For example, Kristin Boozman, who owns Portfolio Luxury Real Estate of Rogers, said the firm recently closed a $1.9 transaction and will close a $1.51 million sale later in March. Neither of the high-end properties were listed with the MLS, and therefore will not be counted toward the firm’s 2014 total volume.

However, firms were still responsible for providing their own sales figures for team sales, as those transactions are not tracked separately by the MLS.

And because of the way the industry calculates its numbers, the figures do not actually reflect the value of properties sold.

For example, when a home is sold for $200,000, the listing agent and the selling agent both get to include the full price — $200,000 — in their totals.

By the Numbers

Among top-producing Realtors, this year’s group combined for a total volume of $1.54 billion, the highest total in five years.

In addition, 108 of the 228 Realtors showed a positive increase in year-over-year comparison with their 2012 totals, and 37 Realtors showed an increase of 50 percent or more.

The number of agents with a total volume of more than $10 million also increased in 2013, with 33 agents reporting more than $10 million, compared to 29 in 2012.

Using $5 million as a benchmark, there were 85 Realtors who had at least that amount in total volume in 2012. In 2013, that number increased to 119.

Among firms, this year’s list includes one newcomer, Beck Haus Realtors of Fayetteville. Veteran real estate executive Leigh Anne Beck started her company in late 2011, ended 2012 with $6.18 million in total volume and surged to more than $16 million in total volume in 2013.

Among the top 20 Realtors on this year’s list, 18 enjoyed a better year in 2013 than in 2012.