Top Grossing Northwest Arkansas Realtors List Shrinks in Soft Market

(To see the list of the top grossing real estate agents in Northwest Arkansas, click here. Click here to see to the largest real estate firms in the market.)

There are 233 realtors on the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s Top Grossing Real Estate Agents list, down from a total of 313 realtors in 2007.

To qualify for the list, agents had to have sales volume of $2 million or more during 2008 and firms had to have volumes of $5 million or more.

The number of firms on the Top Grossing Real Estate Firms list, beginning on Page 39, fell to 25 in 2008, down 11 from in 2007.

Sales continued to decline in 2008, with only 67 of the 233 agents reporting a positive year-over-year percent change in volume.

Only three of the 25 firms experienced an increase in sales in 2008.

The number of agents with $10 million or more in sales declined in 2008, with 17 agents reporting over $10 million compared with 31 agents in 2007.

The top producers remained at the top for the most part, with eight of 2007’s top ten producing agents returning to the top ten in 2008.

There were 13 sales teams on the 2008 list, with a total sales volume of $85.97 million. Number one on the list of top producing sales teams was Fred Johnson and Janice Smith with Lindsey & Associates with $16.8 million in sales volume.

The total sales volume for all 233 agents was $1.19 billion. The total sales volume for all 25 firms was $1.77 billion.

No. 1 on the 2008 list of top grossing agents was Meza Harris with Lindsey & Associates. Harris had a sales volume of $28.6 million, a 15 percent decline from her 2007 volume of $33.7 million.

“I’ve worked so hard,” Harris said of her numbers. “But I love my work and I love this business, it’s exciting to me.”

Harris admits that selling homes had its challenges in 2008.

“You just have to keep on keeping on and never quit, not for a second,” she said. “We’ve actually worked harder, we haven’t sold as many homes but we’ve worked harder.”

Harris said her dedication to the work has paid off.

“I’m the kind of person, I never go anywhere,” she said. “I’m here pretty much seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

“It’s my business and it has been for over 15 years.”

Mary Bassett with Bassett Mix & Associates took the No. 2 spot with $25.4 in sales in 2008, down about 34 percent from her 2007 numbers of $38.4 million.

Out of the top 10 grossing agents, only three reported sales increases for 2008, including the third agent on the list, Rick Hawes with Griffin Company Realtors.

Hawes increased his sales volume in 2008 by 48 percent, selling about $23 million worth of real estate.

Hawes credited his patience and his faith for his successful year in the real estate market.

“What I’ve seen happening is that things aren’t the way they used to be,” he said. “You have to realize that and have patience with the listings, with the buyers and sellers.”

A new trend in the market also helped increase sales volume, Hawes said.

The economy has forced people to look to creative ways to unload real estate, such as house swapping.

“I was involved in trading a lot of property as opposed to doing your typical sale,” Hawes said.

Homebuyers are offering their homes to builders as collateral on a new property, he said. By leasing that home or selling it at a lower price, the builder is able to decrease their debt load get some cash flow out of the homebuyers’ property.

“That has opened a lot of doors,” Hawes said.