Editor’s Note: RISMedia recently released its 2023 Top 1,000 Power Brokers, exclusively for RISMedia Premier Members. In this special interview series, we talk to some of our top-ranking brokers to garner their insights and strategies for sustaining their firms’ success. For more information, click here.
Despite flat numbers as a result of the shifting market last year, Memphis-based Crye-Leike REALTORS points to its new offering of the industry’s first and only retirement plan program for 1099 independent contractors as its biggest achievement of 2022.
“No other company has anything like this,” says company President Harold Crye. “We are already seeing our recruiting increase because of the value of this program.”
This year ranking No. 28 in sales volume and No. 18 in transactions and its continued standing as the largest real estate company serving markets in Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia and Mississippi, Crye-Leike sees its biggest opportunities in future acquisitions.
Here, Crye shares a look back at what shaped his company through this past year, some potential plans ahead and why his company’s new retirement program is so successful.
Crye-Leike REALTORS
No. 28 Sales Volume
No. 18 Transactions
Harold Crye
President
What was the biggest contributor – positive and/or negative – to your results in 2022? The biggest contributor to our flat numbers for 2022 was the rising interest rates that hurt our fourth quarter sales volume.
What’s the biggest threat to business in the coming months? Our biggest threat to real estate sales in the coming months is if interest rates continue to increase and the U.S. economy is in an official recession. I personally believe we are already in a real estate recession when most markets are off 20% to 25% in the last few months.
What are the biggest opportunities for growth ahead? Our biggest opportunities are to grow our company by acquiring smaller companies that were startups during the past few years.
If you had to pick your biggest achievement from 2022, what would it be? Crye-Leike is now offering the industry’s first and only Retirement Plan program for 1099 independent contractors. This plan will pay a monthly retirement check to our participating agents. The check’s amount will be 25% of the agent’s best three years averaged. This free-to-the-agent program will pay the agent a monthly check for 180 months. Example: if an agent’s best three-year average is $200,000, they will receive $50,000 per year (paid monthly). They will receive this check for 15 years. No other company has anything like this. We are already seeing our recruiting increase because of the value of this program. It basically blows away every other company’s commission program.
