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How do you say CRYE-LEIKE?

I am often asked "How do you say CRYE-LEIKE?" I have included a 30 second video with the answer to that question. As you will see (or hear), there is several different ways that we have heard how they pronounce it but now you will know for sure.

CRYE-LEIKE?

I am a Realtor in Searcy, Arkansas and I sell new homes, existing homes, commercial property, farms and land as well as manage and own rental properties. If you are looking for real estate for an investment or a home, I will be glad to assist you! You can call my personal cell number at 501-278-7659 or e-mail me at Larry@Searcy4Sale.com. Visit my website at http://www.searcy4sale.com/

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 05/01/2008 04:55 PM

Comments (1)

cryeleike

Brandon DeGroat on Information Technology Ethics

My son is a junior at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas. He is going for a bachelor degree in Business Management with emphisis in banking. He wants to work in the real estate industry when he gets out. He is very outgoing and loves to deal with people. He also loves music! He leads worship services and plays in a band in Jonesboro at Central Baptist Church.

In one of his classes, the instructor gave an assignment dealing with Information Technology Ethics. They were instructed to be creative in their presentation of this subject. As I said before, he loves music. He wrote a song dealing with this topic and since the instructor was out of the country he had to post it on YouTube for his review. I have posted it below for your viewing:

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ETHICS by Brandon DeGroat

I am very proud of him and he is doing well in school. I look forward to him joining me in the real estate business and I am sure he will be good at it.

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 05/01/2008 10:44 AM

Comments (5)

brandon

CRYE-LEIKE, Do you know about it?

There will probably be some of you that have never heard of CRYE-LEIKE (pronounced "cry like"). It is the #1 real estate company in the mid-south and the 4th in the nation. Dick Leike and Harold Crye created this successful business over 30 years ago and it has grown significantly. Even though the economy seems to be all bad (or at least that is what is being reported on the news), CRYE-LEIKE is building new offices in the mid-south, mainly Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina and Florida. If they are doing all of this and they have been this successful for the past 30 years, you might want to consider changing companies. They offer much more for their agents than any company I am familar with.

CRYE-LEIKE ventured out and Franchised their business several years ago. There are about 38 franchise offices in these states. I am currently a co-owner of the CRYE*LEIKE Real Estate Leaders, Inc. in Searcy, Arkansas. I am a franchise owner and it seems to be working pretty good. I am in rural Arkansas and was an independant prior to getting involved with CRYE-LEIKE. I was with RE/MAX prior to being an independant and worked in a small office with my father-in-law prior to RE/MAX. If you are looking for a boost in your business or want some of the competing systems that is being offered through CRYE-LEIKE and to be involved with a growing and successful real estate business, you might want to consider CRYE-LEIKE or even purchase a franchise of your own. (you may have noticed that there is a - or a * between the name CRYE-/*LEIKE, the asterick is actually a five point star and it represents a franchise office and the dash is a corporate office)

I would be glad to answer any questions that you may have. I got all of this good feeling for this blog because I attended a class in the CRYE-LEIKE college that is offered through their local offices (which is all available to the franchise offices as well) and was pleased with a session I was in. I feel if more real estate companies would offer this to their agents, they might be a little more successful than they are now.

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 04/02/2008 06:51 PM

Comments (13)

cryeleike

ActiveRain WORKS! Call from ABC's Extreme Home Makeover!

ActiveRain hasn't produced a customer yet but it has produced a call I never expected to get. I posted a blog about the tornado's that hit Clinton, Arkansas in February 2008. I was sitting at my desk and working along and then out of the blue my cell phone rang and it was a representative from the famous ABC Extreme Home Makover show. She said that she was on her computer and read my blog on ActiveRain about the tragedy in Clinton, Arkansas. She told me that the show wanted to do a house in Arkansas this year and they were searching for a project and wanted to know if I knew of someone. I asked what the criteria was and she told me. The church I go to, Trinity Baptist Church in Searcy, Arkansas, is working on rebuilding a widows home that was damaged by the winds we had in our area and I thought that would be great if ABC would do a house here in Searcy. She told me that they want to do a family and preferrable someone with a story (you've seen the show) someone that is active in the community and well known. I couldn't think of one but told her that I would contact the Pastor in Clinton that we worked with in bringing relief supplies. She gave me her contact information and I did some checking. I also told her on my blog that someone from Clinton posted a website for the Clinton area. She couldn't find it so I logged in and helped her navigate to the comment section where she found the areas website. I also told her that Atkins was hit worst and she was going to look into that as well. It was a great feeling that I may have had a hand in helping someone in these areas.

You never know who will be reading your blogs and that you may help someone! It could be a situation like I just described or it could be something that may help a fellow Realtor work through a situation they are involved in or just some technical advice. I know I have received some information that I am using in my business.

REAL ESTATE IS GREAT!!! :-)

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 04/02/2008 06:25 PM

Comments (17)

abc

WOW! has it been 2 weeks since I posted a blog?

This can be very addictive and informative. I have read several blogs since thelast post and alot of times I don't even respond (maybe that is the difference between a view and a click). It is hard to read everyones post but there are some very good information there. I really liked one where they created a group and asked for the best marketing idea. I looked through them and even posted where I have a FREE moving truck that I provided for my clients and customers. I have been doing this business for 15 years now and there really isn't any new tricks out there. You just have to stay in peoples radar and do a great job. If you can manage to stay out of trouble and provide great customer service, you will go far in this business. I am amazed on how many houses people buy. I have had several customers over this time in the business and they have purchased five or more houses and we have become very good friends. I am thinking I might create a new group and come up with something new but it is probably already there. Anyway, I am babbling now and I will end this post but wanted my friends to know that I am back but with the weather getting nicer it may be awhile before the next post.

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 04/02/2008 06:09 PM

Comments (6)

hello

Are you in a Flood Zone?

I live in Arkansas and we have had a lot of rain. There was a report from an individual in a city in the Northern part of Arkansas that they received 12.1 inches of rain. The weather center said they only received a little over 8 inches, either way, that is a lot of rain in a two day period.

Some may not know that their homeowners insurance policy will not cover their property in the event of flooding. You don't have to live in a 100 flood zone to have your property flooded. There are times when there is a large amount rain, a property that normally doesn't flood could get some damage. If you do live in a flood zone, most lenders will require you to purchase flood insurance. If you are wondering if you are in a flood zone, FEMA has a website that you can go to and type in your address and it will show the flood map for that area. Click HERE to see if you are in a flood zone.

I hope this has been helpful. I use this sometimes in my listing to show perspective buyers how the land lays and what you may or may not have to contend with concerning flooding.

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 03/20/2008 11:19 AM

Comments (2)

info

Are you in compliance with real estate law?

I know some of us are posting real estate listings in our blogs and hopefully doing it in the public section and have clicked on advertising. If you're not doing this, then you are losing out on exposure of your listings. But this is not the reason for this blog.

What I want to say is that according to Arkansas Real Estate Law if you no longer have a relationship with your client, you are not allowed to continue marketing that property. If it is a seller and the property has expired or been withdrawn for any reason and you have posted it in your blogs then you would need to take it off. If you are working with the buyer and seller and you have sold that property and you have that listing on your blog, I would recommend that you edit your blog post and mark it sold, and if it was mine, I would even take the price off at the time of the edit.

I recently experienced a contact from the Arkansas Real Estate Commission asking me about a property that I no longer marketed (and I hadn't for several months) that I had on the internet. I thought that was impossible. I stay on top of my business and had no clue what they were talking about. I was given a url address and sure enough, it was there. I researched that site and found out that they basically strip other sites of listings and use it to populate their site. Hey, that's great huh! Well, it is until you get that contact like I did. I was wondering how can you combat that and came to the conclusion you really can't. I sent an e-mail to the webmaster of that site and asked that it be taken off immediately and forwarded that e-mail to the commission. I didn't think I would ever hear back from the internet company, about three days later I received an e-mail from them stating they were sorry and that they have removed that listing. This event forces us to be diligent in keeping our marketing TRUTHFUL and if we have expired, withdrawn or even sold listings on our blogs and we haven't updated them, we could be found in violation of real estate LAW.

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 03/20/2008 08:53 AM

Comments (5)

law

How do I change my font size and color in my blogs?

I was helping one of my Realtor friends about putting a big red SOLD lettering on some of their sold listings that they have blogged about in the past. This is how you would do that. Once you have found your blog (you have to be logged in) click on edit. Once you are in the edit mode, click on the HTML tab. This will show you the programming language used for the internet. It will look a little confusing but don't let that scare you. At the very top, left hand side, type in the following line

This will make a big red sold in the center of the page and will be very clear that the property is sold.

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 03/20/2008 08:16 AM

Comments (8)

how to

How much is it and what did they pay for it?

How much is it and what did they pay for it? How many times have you been asked that question. It really doesn't matter on both of them (kind of). Lets take a look at both of them.

How much is it? What I am referring to here is when I visit with a seller about selling their property and they say that they called about the house down the street and they are asking X number of dollars, shouldn't mine be worth the same? If you're smart you will say "I don't know" unless you have personally inspected that property and done a comparative market analysis (CMA) on it. That other property may have gold covered trim or expensive additions that are driving up the price, they may have a different motivation, they may owe more than it is worth and so on. I had a second hand conversation this morning and it went something like this: The house down the road is being sold by a short sale (not in my town, for the locals) and it is $150,000 less than what they were asking for it before and the property down the street is listed for more than that. That doesn't matter. You have to look at what SIMILAR properties are SELLING for, not what they are listed for. You have to take into consideration things like; what are their motivation for selling (divorce, bankruptcy, loss of employment, just testing the market etc..), what is the condition, how many days on the market, square footage and the list goes on. If you are looking to buy a home, be sure to work with a Realtor that will do a CMA on the property your are considering purchasing. Besides, if you're getting a loan you want to be sure it will appraise before you shell out $400 for an appraisal.

Secondly,

How much did they pay for it? It really doesn't matter! Yes, I do look it up in county records. I want to know an idea of what they might be thinking but I don't let it influence my opinion. Again, you have to do a CMA to determine a listing price or a price that you want to offer on a property. Look at what other properties that are similar in size, condition and location to come up with your value. I recently wrote an offer on a property and the offer ended up being just a little more than what the seller purchased it for two years earlier. With the current market conditions, the property didn't seem to appreciate based on the CMA and that will occasionally happen. Sometimes, and I have been in this boat, if you want a particular property, you have to pay the top price for it or even a little more just to get it bought. We seldom think that we might have to sell it in a year or two. But that was known on the frontend.

All in all, we need to give our clients ALL of the information. We need to explain to them that we are not responsible for the market conditions. When we sell a property, that property in turn will end up being used to determine the value of the next property being SOLD! Happy Selling :)

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 03/18/2008 02:58 PM

Comments (3)

advice

Feds cut rates .75 rates again? How do you feel about it?

I try to stay up with all that is going on in the financial market and with the Feds cutting the rate again, will that really help. I know for me personally, I like for it to drop because it will decrease the rates I pay on my in-house bank loans that are tied to the fed rate. But, will it really help everyday people that are trying to get by. They are faced with rising gas prices which will in turn raise the price on consumer products because of shipping and the lowering of the value of the dollar.

I understand economics, with lower rates, businesses and others entrepuneuers will spend money and expand their operations and in turn create new jobs or services. I don't think that will work this time. Look at the Bear Stearns fallout, I think everyone has opened their eyes wider (or at least I have). I feel I am ok with my assets and how they are leveraged but I am not wild about jumping into further debt. Think about it, if I am buying rental properties to rent out, do you feel tenants will be struggling and therefor not paying their rent on time or even at all. I currently have someone moving out of a rental because he says he can't afford it and will be moving back in with his mother.

Don't get me wrong, if a deal comes along, I will probably be the first in line! We have to be smart about what we are doing and I just feel more people are going to be a little more wiser in their decisions and be slower to act. What do you think?

Posted by Larry DeGroat on 03/18/2008 02:25 PM

Comments (4)

finance

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