This episode of In Our Expert Opinion Podcast features a casual conversation spotlighting the exciting momentum at Saunders Real Estate. Tyler Davis, President of our firm, and David Hill, Regional Managing Director in Arkansas, are “Talkin’ Shop,” sharing a behind-the-scenes discussion on what our team is seeing, building, and planning across the Southeast.
From standout recognition at the RLI National Land Conference to the upcoming Lay of the Land Market Reports and Conferences coming to Georgia and Arkansas, Tyler and David share company updates, market trends, and some personal stories along the way. They also discuss several of our new team members in Arkansas and the firm’s growing presence in markets like North Carolina and Alabama.
Below is an excerpt from the interview. Listen above for the full podcast.
Tyler Davis, ALC, President of Saunders Real Estate
Land conferences & market reports. (Tyler Davis) Our Lay of the Land Florida Conference–and the release of our Florida market report–was at the end of February. It was a great conference, we had wonderful attendance, great speakers, and it was very insightful. We had a lot of networking opportunities.
One of the exciting things that we're starting to do some marketing for is our inaugural Lay of the Land Conference in Arkansas. There'll be more info to come, but as a firm, we want these conferences to be a pillar for landowners that we're serving in different markets, and a resource for them. We’re taking our Florida blueprint into some of these other new markets. We did our first [Lay of the Land Georgia Conference] last year, and we're going to do another one this fall as well, but this is the first one in Arkansas.
(David Hill) There's going to be a lot more details to come, but in conjunction with it, we're going to be releasing our first-ever Lay of the Land Arkansas Market Report. It's been fun to watch that process come together, but in terms of the conference itself, we're actually going to be hosting that on October 17. We’re really excited about the speakers that we've got.
Learn more about our Lay of the Land Conferences
New recruits in Arkansas. (David Hill) Greg Hay has been with us since the beginning of the year. He's based in Conway, but he's a timber guy through and through, and I'm really excited to have him on the team. He's also the president of the Arkansas Forestry Association.
David Hill, Regional Managing Director of Saunders Real Estate in Arkansas
Chance Creighton is our row crop specialist, and he's based in Little Rock. Then we have two interns [Dawson Wagner and Kennon Jones], which I would be I would be remiss if I did not give them a shout-out because they did a ton of the legwork to bring our market report to fruition.
Market expansion. (Tyler Davis) We're very excited about our expansion into North Carolina. Bill Frisbie is going to be part of that team. Bill has been a client of ours for a long time, representing Gladstone, which is an ag land REIT–he ran their East Coast operations for a long time. He reached out, wanted to get into the brokerage business, and asked about our interest in expanding into North Carolina. It fits right in with our growth strategy to go into Southeast markets where we feel like we have the right people to build around.
We're extremely excited to have him as part of our team, and excited about the possibilities for our firm in North Carolina. It's similar to Florida or Northwest Arkansas in that there's a lot of ag in the state, but there's also a lot of development land and transitional land. So I think there are a lot of opportunities for us to get our foot in the door from an ag land perspective, but then that grows and transitions into servicing development land and land of all types.
We want to take that blueprint into some other Southeast states as well. Bryant Peace has really been growing the team in Georgia over the years. He's great with relationships and recruiting, and is just the right guy that you want to be the face of that. Bryant still does a lot of brokerage at a very high level, but he's now involved in helping us from an agent recruiting and business development perspective in some of these other Southeast markets.
Alabama is the most logical next step for us. We're already licensed there as a firm, and we're already doing some deals in the state. We just haven't found somebody yet to plant a flag for us there and build around. We have North Carolina going, maybe something in South Carolina, but Alabama would probably be the most logical next step for us. We just have to find a couple of team members to build around and put resources behind them.
It's not just growing to grow–it's trying to do it with the right people while still maintaining the quality, the culture, the tools, and the resources that have helped separate us in Florida. I think as we grow our firm, there are more opportunities for our existing agents to get more business and be able to refer business across state lines. That's the whole goal of this: we want to help our agents make more money, and that's admin support, that's marketing, but it's also the quality of our team members and their footprint.