Front Porch Realty: Prepped for Growth

Laura McCorry has been selling real estate in the Triangle area since 1996. After working for a franchise realty company for the first 9 years of her career, her referral base had grown so large that she decided to open her own real estate company in 2005.

Now the owner of Front Porch Realty, with offices in Cary and Fuquay Varina, she and her team serve the communities of Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay Varina, Garner, Angier, Lillington, Buies Creek, and Raleigh.

Tackling today’s real estate challenges

McCorry says that educating clients is one of her biggest challenges these days. The DIY industry gets people motivated to tackle home renovations or to buy, sell, and flip on their own, but it doesn’t prepare them for what is actually involved in an actual real estate transaction. Without help, they are often stuck in limbo.

“I heard a lot of things like ‘The agent listed my house and put the sign in my yard, but then I never heard from them again.’ So I’m really big on communication with my sellers and buyers, and I encourage my agents be really big on communication too, because no one wants to have their house for sale and not receive any feedback,” McCorry says.

Additionally, with the housing market recovering as quickly as it is, changing from an extreme buyers’ market to an extreme sellers’ market, a lot of appraisals are not coming in as high as expected. This makes it difficult for buyers to get approved for the loans they need.

This is also a great time to have a knowledgeable advisor. Some customers might inadvertently price houses too high, “Yet,” says McCorry, “there is nothing on the market in the price range, so going a little higher seems okay.”

By counseling their clients at each step in the selling or buying journey, McCorry and her team make sure new properties are listed at the best market-appropriate price as possible.

The chance to grow

Her clients aren’t the only ones looking for new spaces. In 2014, McCorry began to plan for a new office in Fuquay. “I finally got in a position where everything was paid, and I didn’t owe anything except for my house,” she says.” I had been renting my office in Fuquay for 10 years and began watching for something to buy.”

With careful planning, McCorry had enough money saved up for a down payment. After finding a great building, she started the process of shopping around for a loan to buy the building.

“I didn’t know much about First Bank, but the owner of the property was a real estate broker friend who directed me to Scott Smith at the First Bank branch in Angier,” says McCorry. She spoke with several other banks in the area and it became clear that no one could match what First Bank offered.

Even though she was dealing with the Angier branch on the mortgage, McCorry was able to open the business accounts at the new Fuquay Varina branch when it opened, which is much more convenient to her new office.

Future plans for Front Porch Realty include expanding into other nearby areas, possibly even buying another office. “I’d love to buy something in the Cary or Apex area that I could work towards paying off instead of paying rent,” McCorry says.