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Listen "A 170m Producer’s Predictions For 2023 • Monday Market Minute • Carrie McCormick"
Episode Synopsis
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 [email protected] 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.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00Are 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 2:52Thank you, you always have such a nice intro. It makes me so happy. So thanks.
D.J. Paris 2:56Well, 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 3:30know 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 3:40Thank you. So what's what's going on this month?
Carrie McCormick 3:43All 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 8:16I'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 8:30Yeah, 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 9:27You know, what's funny is the development that that I bought that that you represent, represented as as, as the seller,
If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!
Carrie can be reached at [email protected] 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.
Transcript
D.J. Paris 0:00Are 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 2:52Thank you, you always have such a nice intro. It makes me so happy. So thanks.
D.J. Paris 2:56Well, 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 3:30know 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 3:40Thank you. So what's what's going on this month?
Carrie McCormick 3:43All 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 8:16I'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 8:30Yeah, 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 9:27You know, what's funny is the development that that I bought that that you represent, represented as as, as the seller,
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