Don Caudle Group ranks in top 1% nationwide

by Jan K. Allen

SBJ Contributing Writer

The Don Caudle Group at RE/MAX House of Brokers produced more than $22 million in sales last year and projects a total of $27 million in 1999. These figures put Don Caudle and his team in the top 1 percent of the industry nationwide, the top 100 in the RE/MAX organization internationally and No. 3 in a seven-state region.

Caudle, who originally hails from Kansas City, graduated from Drury College in 1967. He obtained his masters in business finance at Drury in 1970 and spent two years with John A. Morris Companies.

Caudle worked with Jones and Company early in his real estate career, then bought into House of Brokers in 1986. The firm bought the RE/MAX franchise in 1989, amending the name to RE/MAX House of Brokers.

From 1986 to the early 1990s Caudle employed a number of office assistants, trying to carry most of the workload of listing, selling and record keeping himself. It was after he hired licensed agents to share these duties that he was able to channel his efforts into examining the many facets of real estate to find a new way of doing business.

Meanwhile the industry was changing, with new laws concerning agency, and many agents becoming specialists in working with buyers or sellers. Caudle put his carefully selected five-member team together with a plan in mind: to let people excel at what they did best.

Initially, Caudle's efforts were focused on the high-end residential market. "There was a point when I was known locally as being one of the brokers who specialized in high-end listings," Caudle said.

However, the pressure of working with such properties, which typically do not move quickly, coupled with the patience required to work with upper-end buyers, took its toll. Caudle even considered quitting the business altogether.

The solution was diversification. He got back into the mainstream and diversified his practice. He made a commitment to himself to make 30 percent of his business come from first-time home buyers, and the daily schedule became challenging and fun again.

He found that his assistant, LaDonna Dillon, enjoyed working with buyers, so he concentrated his time on listings. He added agent Tanya Fisher, who enjoys detail work, as office manager and coordinator. The clientele continued to grow, calling for the addition of listing agent and staging specialist Lin Hill, and buyer specialist Steve Inmon.

The concept by which Caudle manages his agency is that buyers or sellers working with the group have not just hired a single agent to help with one side of a real estate deal or the other. They've hired a team. Each team member has his or her own specialty, and each has access to records of all transactions, clients and listings stored in a central database.

Caudle said he takes time in late November each year to assess his business and set up both a plan of practice and a budget for the coming year. Together, he and the other agents have devised a pre-listing package to walk prospective sellers through the process and give them tips on how to prepare their properties for the market.

Once a property is listed the seller is presented with another package of helpful hints and answers to frequently asked questions. Hill goes through the staging process with the seller to remove clutter, highlight key features, and clear high-traffic areas.

"What I love about this team is that I can concentrate on what I love best, working with sellers," Hill said.

The motto of the group is: "We handle cottages, castles and mainstream properties," according to Hill

Under the RE/MAX umbrella, the Caudle Group tries to maintain an inventory of at least 35 to 40 listings at any given time, and 50 to 60 is optimum, Caudle said. He predicts a total of 240 sales will be closed by the team this year.

There are still a number of long-time clients who want Caudle to work with them personally, and he is always willing, but he is trying to educate clients on the concept that each member of his team can handle their needs as efficiently as he can.

Along with a team Caudle said is second to none, electronics help keep the office running. Six computer terminals tap into the database to pull up information about a property, a buyer or a contract in progress.

All team members wear pagers and carry cell phones for instant communication.

Caudle has set up a 24-hour hotline that people can call for a recorded message of detailed information about a property, mortgage rates and other financial tips. Each access number is coded to the source, so he can gauge which advertising method has generated the most calls. He said this helps when setting up the ad budget each year and shows where to concentrate the most effort.

"Everything we do is to help serve the client better," Caudle said. "I think if the dollar becomes the most important thing to a person in this business, he won't last long."

The Caudle Group has a Web presence both at Realtor.com and on Ozarks Marketplace.

Caudle developed a home page, but then dropped it. Without the links to draw people to the site, there wasn't enough activity. He said he expects to develop a new home page in the near future.

As for what lies ahead, Caudle said that electronic communication is the wave of the future in real estate.

There will come a day, he said, when contracts are written and closings handled all through e-mail.

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