Our journey of connecting with Christie’s agents from around the country takes us to the stunning Phoenix, Arizona area in this week’s episode of the Carolina’s Luxury Real Estate Podcast- Christie’s Luxury Expert Series. Broadcast Audio Coordinator Sam Sparks is joined by Chief Operations Officer Dub Dellis of Walt Danley Realty | Christie’s International Real Estate. In this episode, they discuss the picturesque Savannah area, best social media practices, and the definition of luxury.
Background
Dub Dellis is the Chief Operating Officer at Walt Danley Christie’s International Real Estate in Phoenix, Arizona. Dub oversees Walt Danley’s daily operations and partnerships with affiliates. He also develops and implements all of the firm’s marketing initiatives.
Walt Danley Realty serves Arizona’s luxury enclaves in Phoenix, Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Arcadia, Biltmore, Carefree, Cave Creek, Rio Verde, and Fountain Hills. They have offices located in Paradise Valley and North Scottsdale. Paradise Valley, a suburb of Phoenix is one of the state and country’s wealthiest areas, with an average list price of over two million dollars.
Dub has a background in operations and marketing. He joined Walt Danley and team while they were under a different firm, and worked there in marketing, before being promoted to a role in operations. About a decade ago, Dub went to work at Walt Danley’s brokerage, which affiliated with Christie’s. “It was important for us to align ourselves with an international brand. Christie’s is as good as it gets.” They have been the exclusive Christie’s affiliate in Arizona for over 10 years.
Updates
Like many of our other guests, Dub agrees that the past two years, have shown incredible market trends. Dub says that all segments of the Phoenix metro market is bordering on “insane”, including luxury homes.
Dub’s reasoning behind this, is true to his COO nature- it’s economics 101. The relationship of supply and demand is out of it’s usual balance, creating a highly competitive market. “Right now, our demand from incoming buyers is tracking 16-21% higher than we would expect it to be, based on past averages. But, the real driving factor is the lack of supply. Right now we have 81% fewer luxury listings in our luxury marketplace than we did 5 years ago.”
Phoenix is a rising, fastest growing city, with people flocking to the area from all over the country. This means more people are competing for fewer listings. “It’s a challenging market to get deals put together and find the right house for their buyers.”
Drivers
Phoenix is one of the country’s fastest-growing areas, and has been for over a decade. The drivers of growth have been the same forever, the breath-taking beauty of the area, the year-round warm weather, and the active lifestyle. Over the past 12-15 years, the Phoenix region has matured as a destination, with many world-class restaurants, retail and golf courses.
Phoenix is a massive city square-foot wise. Compared to other major cities around the city, Phoenix is relatively spread out with plenty of wide-open spaces. This is a major driver for people coming from large, densely packed, crowded cities. The ability of outdoor living, wide-open spaces and modern infrastructure is attractive to these buyers.
Social Media
Dub knows how important it is for agents to use social media. “5-6 years ago, we had probably 60% of our agents active on social media, we kept on pushing everybody to get into this. People didn’t know the impact, or the power of this service. Dub says his agents thought that social media was full of food pictures and nonsensical topics, but he understood the power of social media. He aptly compares social media to the rise of the internet in the 1990s “In the late 90s, people thought that the interet was a passing fad. Social media is here to stay. It is an incredibly important marketing tool.”
Dub says social media is an important marketing tool on both the firm and agent level. “Agents keep their name and occupation in front of people who already know and like them.” Walt Danley Realty has grown with the times, and recently hired an in-house videographer to shoot content for their firm social channels. Like Ivester Jackson, they are also creating a podcast about their luxury market and hopes it will “create fantastic content for social media channels.”
Christie’s
Since affiliating with the Christie’s brand over a decade ago, Dub and the Walt Danley team have kept involved. They attend agent and managing partner meetings to stay up-to-date on trends and company information. These events are also important to establishing relationships with other brokerages. “Seeing people face-to-face is important for relationships, and are extended much more, when we are are able to break bread and have a cocktail, meet face to face.”
The recent addition of an affiliate in Chicago has been a huge help, as Chicago is one of Phoenix’s largest feeding markets. “Just this morning, I got a referral for a $4 million buyer from our associates in Chicago.” The reasoning why Chicago is such a big feeder market? “Any place you can think of that has 2 feet of snow on Valentine’s Day, and see people on TV playing golf in 70-degree weather in Scottsdale is a great feeder.”
Dub loves to see the Christie’s network grow, and praises the connections that the affiliate offices have. “The increase in size of the network is only going to help everybody within the network.” One of these great network connections came from Ivester Jackson’s own Tracy Davis, who referred a recently retired couple looking to move to Arizona to Walt Danley.
One of the benefits that Christie’s affiliates have is access to the art auction house. Agents are able to book private tours for themselves and clients. This VIP tour takes you behind the scenes of the auction house, where you can view incredible art that you’ve seen in textbooks and movies. “I encourage any Christie’s agent to pick up the phone and book a private tour.” The art house connection is important to luxury brand. “The great thing about Christie’s is the 250 year track record of selling the rare and the valuable. That dovetails in really nicely with our business, focusing in on luxury real estate. This provides an ecosystem where of people of substantial needs can get all their needs met. Whether it’s real estate, art, handbags, wine.”
Luxury Defined
Christie’s International Real Estate uses the phrase Luxury Defined. We’ve been asking our guests to define what luxury means to them, and in their market. To Dub, luxury means having choices. “Luxury to me means choices. I can choose to go on vacations, I can choose to skip out on work early to go see my granddaughter’s soccer game. Two years ago, he says his answer might have been a flashy item or a brand-name, but now, especially after the pandemic, luxury is about spending time with family and friends, and the ability to have a lazy Sunday afternoon.
To hear more from Dub and Sam, click here to listen to our podcast, available on all major listening platforms.
For more information on Dub and the Walt Danley Realty team, click here.