Tennessee-based Crye-Leike, the nation’s 10th largest residential real estate company and largest in Tennessee and the Mid-South, posted a record sales year of over $4.6 billion in 2004, the highest sales performance in company history and a growth pattern Crye-Leike has consistently repeated over the past 27 years.
Crye-Leike officials made this announcement to its 2,800-plus sales associates at the company’s annual meetings held January 2005 in its Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and Little Rock regional markets.
Crye-Leike reported $4.61 billion in total sales company wide in 2004, up 26 percent from $3.66 billion through Dec. 2003. These 2004 figures represent Crye-Leike's sales associates handling 29,581 closings within a six-state region, an 18.5 percent increase from the 24,953 closings reported through Dec. 2003.
To put Crye-Leike’s $4.6 billion sales figure into perspective, that represents its 2,800-plus sales associates selling real estate every 6 minutes during an eight-hour work day and generating over $12.6 million in sales every day of the year, notes the company’s Chief Executive Officer Harold Crye who, along with partner and president Dick Leike, founded the company in Memphis, Tennessee in 1977.
"As a nation, real estate enjoyed a prosperous year with low mortgage interest rates and an environment of job growth and economic improvement,” says Crye, “and Crye-Leike benefited from that. We achieved our best year ever also because of the way in which our team of agents and management do business, providing our customers quality service and a ‘one-stop shopping’ experience.”
“Our company is proud to have helped 29,581 families realize the dream of homeownership,” says Leike. “Homeownership will continue to be the soundest investment most families will ever make”
“Buying and selling real estate can be a daunting task for consumers,” says Leike. “We have bundled all the services needed to complete a real estate transaction under one roof so the buyer and seller have a seamless experience and our sales associates and staff can offer and provide our customers with a complete marketing package.”
Leike says that the company’s most powerful marketing tool is how Crye-Leike embraces technology with its Web site, www.crye-leike.com, which registers over 20 million hits a month.
Crye-Leike’s business model offers its customers a full spectrum of real estate services, including: residential real estate services; relocation services; commercial business and investment real estate services; property leasing and management services; business brokerage services; REO - bank owned homes; insurance services; title services; home services; auction services; apartment locator services; franchise sales and builder resource services.
For services outside Crye-Leike’s realm of expertise, the company has developed business partnerships to facilitate the buying and selling process and to foster an atmosphere of cooperation, says Leike. Such service partners include those with First Trust Bank for Savings for mortgage lending services where a mortgage representative is found in almost every branch office of Crye-Leike and American Home Shield as Crye-Leike’s single source for home warranties.
Edging toward $5 Billion in sales. “Crye-Leike is a strong, viable company that continues to grow and our track record proves it,” says Crye. "We outperformed the market in each of our regions. Sales records were broken and rose by double-digit rates in all our regional markets, in fact, larger than we projected.”
Fourth quarter. Crye-Leike reports $1.11 billion in sales during the fourth quarter of 2004, a 24.4 percent increase over $892.7 million this same period in 2003. These figures represent 7,137 units sold during the fourth quarter in 2004, a 14 percent increase from 6,252 closings reported for the same period in 2003.
Average residential sales prices. Average residential sales prices in December 2004 for Crye-Leike’s major metro areas compared to December 2003 were: $149,584 in Chattanooga, up 14.3 percent from $130,828; $137,757 in Little Rock, Ark., up 39 percent from $ 99,373; $165,651 in Memphis, up 16 percent from $142,655; and $162,984 in Nashville, down 5.5 percent from $172,434.
Crye-Leike's 2004 sales figures include new and existing single-family homes, condos and duplexes as well as commercial properties within a six-state regional market area (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee). Sales figures also include production from 79 branch and franchise offices in operation during 2004 and represent the sales volume of both listing and selling sides of a real estate transaction, which involve a buyer and a seller.
Sales in Crye-Leike’s East Tennessee Region has consistently maintained record-breaking sales for the past seven years since its establishment in the Greater Chattanooga area in 1997.
Sales reported by Crye-Leike of Chattanooga, Inc. includes sales in five counties surrounding the Greater Chattanooga metropolitan area, including Johnson City, Tenn. in Washington County and Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. in Catoosa County.
Crye-Leike of Chattanooga’s year-end sales volume totaled $573.6 million, up 16 percent, and property sales totaled 4,000, a 7 percent increase from the sales reported through 2003.
Sales volume in the fourth quarter totaled $142.8 million, up 26 percent from same-quarter results a year earlier, representing 986 in unit sales, up 14 percent from same-quarter results a year earlier.
Crye-Leike of Chattanooga, Inc. has a sales force of over 350 sales associates who are located in nine branch offices in five counties within its East Tennessee Region in Bradley, Hamilton, McMinn and Washington counties, including Catoosa County in North Georgia.
Crye*Leike Franchises, Inc. disclosed 2004 sales volume in the fourth quarter at $ 77 million. Fourth-quarter unit sales totaled 427. Year-to-date sales volume totaled $237.8 million, representing 1,362 units sold.
Crye*Leike Franchises (www.crye-leike.com/franchises) is the real estate franchisor subsidiary of Crye-Leike, providing comprehensive training, management, administrative and marketing support for the Crye-Leike franchise system. The division focuses its marketing efforts on establishing franchise territories in smaller populated areas where it would not normally open a company office because of market size and location.
- Crye*Leike Franchises is currently comprised of 22 independently owned and operated franchise brokers who are located in 20 counties within five territories of the United States in Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky and Florida. Those Crye-Leike franchise offices in Tennessee are in Cumberland, Greene, Grundy, Hardin, Madison, Meigs, Putnam, Rhea, Roane and Sevier counties;