It All Adds Up to Meza Once Again

(Click here for the list of the region’s real estate agents, and here for a list of the region’s real estate firms.)

As sure as there are going to be beads at Mardi Gras and cheese heads at a Green Bay game, so is Meza Harris at the top of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s annual real estate agents list.

No matter how you compile the statistics, it always adds up to Harris.

For the fifth straight year, Harris is the top sales producer among the area’s agents. And only six other agents sold the margin of difference ($15.43 million) between Harris’ $35.6 million and second place Rick Hawes’ $20.17 million. It’s the widest margin between first and second since the Business Journal began compiling the statistics for 1996.

Harris’ sales would rank No. 10 among real estate firms in Northwest Arkansas.

Harris is an agent for Lindsey & Associates’ Rogers office. Hawes left Lindsey in 2002. He is now the principal broker with Rainmaker Real Estate in Lowell.

Pat Moore, perennially among the top five on the list, teamed with son Topher Moore in 2002 for a third-place finish at $20.13 million. They are also out of Lindsey’s Rogers office.

The top Washington County agent for 2002 was Margie Moldenhauer of Re/Max Associates in Fayetteville with $19.9 million in sales. David Mix of Bassett Mix & Associates Inc. in Fayetteville was No. 5 with $18.3 million.

Teresa Sanderson of Coldwell Banker Faucette Real Estate’s Siloam Springs branch was a newcomer to the top 10 at No. 6 with $17.66 million. She was tied for No. 43 a year ago with $5.7 million.

Otherwise, most of the names are in familiar territory. Harris has averaged $23 million a year for six straight years with $137.8 million in sales during that stretch. Mix has finished in the top five for four straight years. Moore’s lowest mark was No. 6 in the last six years. Hawes was the 1997 leader, and Moldenhauer was at the top in 1996.

In the first two years of the Business Journal’s list, you would have to take the top five agents total sales volume to surpass Harris’ 2002 total. In fact, Moldenhauer’s leading total in 1996 — $10.6 million — would have ranked only No. 18 in 2002.

Of the record 39 firms participating in this year’s list, 355 agents in the two-county area had $1 million or more in sales volume.

Lindsey & Associates is once again the top real estate firm with $377.26 million, a 20.9 percent growth from its 2001 sales. Though it is headquartered in Fayetteville, it is the Rogers branch of Lindsey that rules the real estate roost. Its 2002 sales from Rogers — $294.04 million — alone would be enough to lead all of Northwest Arkansas.

Harris McHaney Realtors of Rogers was No. 2 with $240 million, followed by Coldwell Banker Faucette with $226 million. Harris McHaney actually had more million-dollar producers (63) than Lindsey (60). Lindsey has the most agents with 150 between its two locations.

Other firms enjoyed record years. Re/Max Real Estate Results of Bentonville had a 50.9 percent growth in sales and came in at No. 6 on the list. The largest percentage of growth came from Century 21 Metro Realtors of Fayetteville at 89.3 percent, followed by Dave Fulton Realtors of Fayetteville at 81.8 percent.

Even small-town Gravette’s Key & Associates Realtors enjoyed a 26.5 percent growth in 2002.