Rainmakers

  • Jana Caldwell
    Sales Associate, United Country

A sales associate with United Country – Scenic Rivers Realty in Imboden, Ark., Jana Caldwell has handled real estate sales for three years. Her career started in the title industry. She then joined a new real estate office as the office manager, soon moving into sales.

Her firm handles mostly second-home and retirement-home sales in the Ozarks of northeastern Arkansas. The area is nationally known for stunning riverfront property for boating and fishing, in addition to hunting and excellent golf facilities.


Email Jana Caldwell


What attracted you to the real estate field?

I was a closing agent with a title company and Angie Gallaher was one of our best customers. She worked at a United Country office in Pocahontas and was wanting to open her own office in Imboden, so I came on as her new office manager. She sent me to real estate school to get my license so I could answer questions from customers for her. Angie said I’d want to work full time in real estate within six months – and she was right! With United Country’s nationwide advertising and over 600 offices nationwide, I get to meet people from all over the United States. It was amazing when a customer from Hawaii walked into our office.

What is the source of most of your business?

We get buyer contacts through our Peak Performance (private-labeled AgentAchieve CRM system) and I work them every day. Let’s say I have 1000 people looking for riverfront property and a listing becomes available. I go into Peak Performance and hit a button to generate a virtual postcard … in 10 minutes I can send something out to 1,000 people. It’s really exciting to see all the replies come in!

What technology tools do well for you?

United Country’s Peak Performance program allows me to work online from my office, home & even my cell phone at any time. It also allows me to do virtual tours on my properties I have for sale. It provides automated marketing so my customers are always aware of what we have to offer without me having to manually do the marketing.

How is the market?

The market is going well now; I had three closings last month and two are pending now. One woman I worked with had gone through the Website and saw a property I had for sale. She and her husband drove up one weekend and I met them on Sunday after they had been touring the area on Saturday. They bought a house that day. We also still send out our United Country catalogs and brochures. Someone called me last week from one of our catalogs that was three years old.

One thing that attracts customers to Arkansas is the very low property taxes – you can pay for a year here what taxes will be monthly in other states. And there’s a $350 homestead tax credit in Arkansas as well. We’re down the road from Hardy & Cherokee Village which is are popular tourist towns. There are several area lakes & rivers in the area along with antique shops & craft stores.

 


What gets you excited about your work?

I am enjoying selling real estate. Our office also has fun. We have a 40-year-old ceramic dog we call “Giant Ugly Dog” that we photograph at our new listings as a game. We post online “Where is G.U.D today?” and give a hint. Our online friends get to guess his whereabouts and the winner receives a gift card. It has gotten so popular that our local businesses are giving us gift cards to give as prizes. It is a suitable way to advertise new listings. ‘G.U.D’ also does community service. Our office recently held a pajama drive for the local children’s shelter and donated trees on Earth Day.

From a technology and marketing point of view, our unique programs allow me to provide more and better service to my customers. For example, one thing I enjoy about using Peak Performance is in the Property Tracker feature. This allows us to see specifically what listings each customer is looking at and how many times they view them. Another feature is the Traffic Report which shows how many times a listing has been viewed online per day, per month and year-to-date.