In October 2011, CJR spent $30,000 to rebrand itself from the former Carol Jones Realtors moniker. Has that investment paid off? It absolutely has. We worked with Ron Marshall of Red Crow Marketing to do the rebranding and felt out brand was tired. Carol was this legend that was there to be respected, but we found, with Carol no longer actively involved in the business, it was time for change. People were asking, ‘Who is Carol Jones?’ The time was right to rebrand. We wanted to make it hip, slick and cool as Ron said. We looked for something catchy, with the round CJR logo. It keeps the history, but makes it easier to remember.
The rebrand has helped further the company tremendously. During that time frame, of course, when the market was in its biggest downturn, it was scary for me. I wondered if any new folks were going to come into this business? What is the future of this company? We were all getting older, we had been doing it a long time and were looking for new agents. In 2012, we brought five new agents in, and in 2013, we are already up to 26.
We have 202 total agents currently, about 95 of those are in Springfield.
There has been a lot of talk of a switch between a buyer’s and a seller’s market. What is the trend locally? Locally, it was to the point of what I consider a listing shortage. At one point in time in Springfield, we got down to 5.8 months of listed inventory. That’s low. Right now, we are back up at around 8.6 months. That’s because the confidence level is down with the pause we are in. We don’t know how long this pause is going to last, I’d say the rest of this year. Home sales pick up in the spring. When you look at the national average of homes sales, lots of folks have 15, 20, 25 days of inventory on the market in those larger metro markets and we are at 8.6 months. When we got down to six months, we thought the train was going right, then the consumer confidence level dropped.
When you have eight months of inventory, you have plenty of homes to look at. When you have eight days of inventory, everything is rotating off the market in an eight-day time frame. As a buyer, you know you are going to give top dollar and you better make an offer now. Your options are low, you don’t have time to think about it. We have one of the longest amounts of inventory right now in the nation.
Following record lows of 3.35 percent in December 2012, 30-year fixed-mortgage rates hit 4.5 percent in September, according to Freddie Mac. How have the fluctuations impacted the local market? We are seeing a sense of urgency among buyers to some extent. It really goes hand in hand with affordability. It’s more perception than anything. Go back to the days when interest rates were 6 or 7 percent and people were thrilled about it. If you talk to your parents, they were thrilled to get the 10 percent loan instead of the 12 percent. Now, buyers don’t want to pay 4 percent instead of 3 percent. I think it’s a correction based on what the Fed does, but it’s a perception of affordability. What it’s saying to buyers is, if you want it, the rate used to be 3, now its 4, you need to get off the fence a little quicker.
What is CJR’s Vets to Realtors program that started in September? We are trying to turn veterans into Realtors. Right now, we have three signed on who are licensed and working and four in some stage of the process. You might have seen this big workforce push about the veterans being back and needing work. They are some of the most loyal and best employees you could ask for. Any veteran wanting to transfer into the real estate business, we cover their expenses. That’s about $3,000 cost to launch a veteran and get them into the world of real estate. I’m really proud of that. Our hope was, if we started this program, other companies would follow and we are seeing that.
Home sales in Missouri were up 17.4 percent in September, according to the Missouri Association of Realtors. How do home sales in the Springfield metro area compare? Local homes sales are up, too. Affordability was going up, but consumer confidence dropped tremendously when the government shutdown happened. They couldn’t make up their mind and it affected the market. That put a pause on the market moving forward. We were getting some really good traction, we had some wind in our sails and the market was moving forward. Affordability is still good, but it was going higher and higher. The average home price increased, days on the market dropped and it was making for a great market. Then, in October the brakes were on as consumer confidence dropped off. Can these government-backed loans happen? I really think it’s just a pause. I don’t think the market is going to crash again.
Industrial, office and retail vacancy rates all ticked down in the third quarter, according to commercial real estate tracker Xceligent’s latest Market Trends report. What activity are you seeing from commercial buyers and sellers? We are seeing more demand for commercial real estate and leases have picked up. Our commercial guys couldn’t be more excited. Before, it was almost at a standstill and vacancy rates went through the roof. We have a positive outlook. Springfield has seen more activity during the last six months than that last three years. We are doing a lot of commercial land sales right now and it’s getting a lot more competitive across the Ozarks. Branson has been a little slower to recover on the commercial side.[[In-content Ad]]
