Crye-Leike Inc. Celebrates Top 5 National Ranking

  • Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Crye-Leike, Inc. is now ranked as the fifth largest independently-owned real estate firm in the nation, according to the 2017 REAL Trends 500 ranking based on Crye-Leike’s 2016 sales results. 
The ranking comes at a time when the company’s continued growth and success has reached pinnacle milestones -  its 40th anniversary and 25th year of expansion outside its Memphis hometown. 

Established in 1977 in Memphis, Crye-Leike expanded into Nashville in 1992, the start of regional expansion that has grown the firm into the largest residential real estate firm in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and the Mid-South, and the fifth-largest independent real estate firm in the country. Crye-Leike’s more than 3,100 sales associates, 800 employees and 126 company-owned and franchise offices spread across nine states generated $6.36 billion in sales volume in 2016 – its biggest year ever - and is on track to achieve the company’s goal of $6.7 million in sales volume this year. 

REAL Trends 500 is an annual research report produced by REAL Trends (www.realtrends.com), the source for news, research and information about the real estate brokerage industry. Its report is an independently verified compilation of the nation’s leading residential real estate companies which identifies the largest and most successful residential firms in the country.  

Crye-Leike ranks No. 5 on the Real Trends 500 list of Largest Independents, with 29,314 closed transaction sides in 2016. (A transaction “side” refers to the firm representing either the buyer or the seller in a real estate transaction. If both buyer and seller are represented by Crye-Leike agents, then that counts as two transaction sides.) 

Crye-Leike’s record sales year of $6.36 billion in 2016 was up 10.8 percent from $5.74 billion in 2015, and topped its previous best year of $6.1 billion in 2006.  

CEO Harold E. Crye notes that the 10.8 percent increase in sales volume – more than double the company’s goal of 5 percent growth in 2016 – came “in spite of historic inventory shortages across all regions” where the company operates. “Our proven system of support for our sales associates, the best training and adoption of the best technology is propelling Crye-Leike’s growth and are why we are a market leader in all of the markets where we operate,” Mr. Crye said.  

Low inventory of for-sale homes in all of the markets where Crye-Leike operates didn’t slow the company’s growth. In 2016, Crye-Leike sales associates handled 32,834 closings across nine states, a 4.46 percent increase in the number of closings in 2015 (31,826). That’s an average of 10.4 sales per agent.                          

"In the last few years, the national norm for many large real estate firms or franchises is from five to nine sales closed per person per year," says Steve Brown, president of Crye-Leike Residential Sales, “so in spite of our size Crye-Leike is closing high numbers per agent compared to our peer firms and franchises in the United States. 

Crye-Leike’s goal of $6.7 billion in sales volume this year - a 7 percent increase over 2016 - is achievable despite continued low inventory, insufficient new home construction, rising mortgage rates, and student loan debt, Mr. Crye said. "Even though we know we will face headwinds we still think that the overall economic growth, improving employment picture and more household formation all will have an overall positive impact and increase both volume and number of sales, barring an uncontrollable event in the global economic picture.”


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