The Hamilton County Herald published on June 10 a list of the Chattanooga real estate agents and teams included in REAL Trends’ newest edition of America’s Best Real Estate Professionals.
America’s Best Real Estate Professionals ranks participating agents and teams based on residential transaction sides and sales volume. The results include five Chattanooga Realtors and 24 local real estate teams REAL Trends identifies as being among the most productive in Tennessee.
The list compiled by the Castle Pines, Colorado-based company raised questions from members of Greater Chattanooga Realtors concerning why its results included some top-producing local Realtors but not others.
To qualify for inclusion in America’s Best Real Estate Professionals in 2020, an individual agent must have closed at least 50 transaction sides or $20 million in sales volume in 2019. For real estate agent teams, the minimum was 75 transaction sides or $30 million in closed sales volume.
Agents and teams must also apply through the REAL Trends website (www.realtrends.com) to be considered for inclusion in America’s Best Real Estate Professionals. There is a $125 application fee per agent or team.
If an agent or team does not submit an application, REAL Trends is unable to pull and verify their numbers, says Liz Smith, manager of client services at REAL Trends. This makes it possible for an agent or team whose numbers exceed the agents and teams on the list to not be included.
Greater Chattanooga Realtors, which tracks local real estate sales through its Multiple Listing Service, confirms that a number of agents and teams sold more properties and produced more volume in 2019 than some of the agents and teams on REAL Trend’s list. Greater Chattanooga Realtors does not release a similar list for its members. If it decides to in the future, the Hamilton County Herald would gladly publish it.
In 2020, REAL Trends has close to 21,000 agents and teams in its rankings, Smith says. For this reason, REAL Trends claims America’s Best Real Estate Professionals features the top 1.5% of agents and teams in the US. However, this number does not take into account the agents and teams not applying.