Christian LeMere, President & Founder, Move Up Home Group, affiliated with Keller Williams

Christian LeMere, president and founder of Move Up Home Group, spoke with Invest: about how to best navigate a competitive home real estate market. “The key to our success is understanding what opportunities are out there and becoming the bridge between the buyer and seller.”

What changes in the Nashville housing market over the past year have most influenced how you and your team operate?

When the market was hot and there were nine buyers for one home, anybody could have sold that home. We’ve since transitioned to a skill-based market. You need to know not only how to price homes correctly, but price homes in a way that it becomes the obvious choice. Sellers in Nashville are outpacing buyers by 97%, and 30% of homes are not making it to the closing table. There’s a good chance that a home doesn’t sell, goes under contract during the inspection period, or the terms change before getting to the closing table. Being honest and upfront with people and understanding their goals are the most important factors. We work with them to price the home correctly from the start. Our team trains weekly, sets monthly goals, and runs comparables together. Going into a home and having an honest conversation is what people deserve. 

We also highlight our marketing strategy. We market online with the highest quality content that stands out from the competition. We are very hands-on whenever we take a listing and articulate that to our potential clients.

As someone who has worked across multiple markets, what makes Nashville and Middle Tennessee unique right now in terms of buyer and seller behavior?

The market is going back to a balanced market, and we are seeing a correction on pricing. It’s a benefit for both parties. Anybody who bought a home from 2022 until now does not have equity in their home. If one of those homeowners can break even after closing costs and agent compensation, that’s a huge win. Buyers currently have an opportunity to see a home online, schedule a showing request, look at the home, and submit an offer with terms that make sense. They can ask for things like seller-paid concessions, help toward a rate buydown, or help toward closing costs. Now, more than ever, buyers have the ability to make educated decisions, find a home they like, and purchase it at the correct price.

How are you using systems, data, and technology to give your clients an edge in such a competitive market?

We focus heavily on listings, and the most important factor is price. We don’t simply suggest a random price. We are pulling homes that are active on the market, homes under contract, and homes that are closing. We are using technology, 10 years of experience, and sitting down with our team members to collectively find a price that will cause a home to sell. After we analyze the condition of the home, we can finalize the price with our client. From a strategy-based standpoint, we need to think like buyers and help the seller think like a buyer. If 92% of buyers find their home online, and the majority of those buyers go to Zillow, they will find a pricing bracket. If we price a home in between pricing brackets, we can attract up to four buyer pools for one listing. We are creating urgency in the sales process. When we introduce a home to the market, we list it as “coming soon” on a Tuesday and make it active on a Friday. Inside the public remarks, we make all of our offers due by Sunday at 8 p.m. The home gets exposed online on all the major real estate websites. We tag our buyers’ social media post to increase eyes on the property. The moment it goes active on Friday, showing requests are already scheduled.

How do you see your aggressive launch and marketing model evolving as buyer expectations continue to shift toward digital and high-impact media?

The way people are searching right now is how we cater our sales and marketing process. If the majority of consumers are searching on major real estate websites, that is how we will communicate to them. We lead with the best photo possible to get the buyer to click on the listing. The first thing they will see on the listing is that all offers are due by Sunday at 8 p.m., inspiring potential buyers to take action. If I can get them into the house, it gives the buyer’s agent an opportunity to close. I’m helping people make decisions through specific marketing tools to create urgency. 

With your group ranked No. 1 in families served and volume, what strategies have proven most effective in scaling without losing the personalized experience?

The secret to Move Up Home Group is our people. I spent almost 10 years at a publicly traded builder before jumping over to general real estate. I learned that a system is creating a duplicatable process where people can produce magnificent results. As I faced challenges and objections, I created a manual for the entire company that tells us how to make an outbound phone call, how to handle an objection, and how to have a difficult pricing conversation, among other things. This allowed me to focus on recruiting top-level people who are passionate, competitive, and love a fun sales environment. We selectively hand-pick top-producing agents and sales people with Middle Tennessee. 

What role do off-market opportunities and strategic networking play in creating wins for your clients?

Thirty percent of listings are coming off the market between day 60 and six months. There are a lot of opportunities where somewhere in the process, the seller decided to sell their home, they hired an agent, started showing the property, and then the home didn’t sell. 

To illustrate our process, we put a house on the market in Franklin, Tennessee, and had three offers in eight days. We pulled up the MLS with our client, showed him four houses, and he decided he didn’t like anything on the market. He thought he was going to be homeless. But we are solutions-based, so we pulled up all of the expired and canceled listings within the client’s school district range. We cold-called every seller listed in the last 90 days. We found a house and married the buyer with the seller. Our client wasn’t homeless, and the seller got his home sold. 

The key to our success is understanding what opportunities are out there and becoming the bridge between the buyer and seller.