As I said Tuesday, the first of the year is when a lot of agents announce major changes and new beginnings.
One of those comes for former Ebby Halliday mega-producer Kenneth Walters, who made an official move January 1, 2016 from Ebby’s Little White House down the street (really, just across the hall) to Dave Perry-Miller and Associates.
It’s a merger, he says, that just makes sense.
“Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate specializes in the marketing of homes of quality and character, and maintains a client-first approach throughout the buying/selling process,” says Kenneth. “I live by the same credo but want to focus on all of that with a millennial approach.”
“Kenneth exemplifies the Dave Perry-Miller brand,” says the firm’s founding director, Dave Perry-Miller. “He is knowledgeable, discreet and excels in customer service.”
Kenneth racked up more than $25 million dollars over the last few years at Ebby, establishing himself as a top young producer. In 2013 he was named “Rookie of the Year”. He was the Little White House’s #3 top producer in 2015 and company-wide top producer in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2015.
Oh, and get this: Kenneth will be 27 years old in February!
“Kenneth’s success is based on a very personal approach to each transaction, expert and assertive negotiation skills and detailed, current knowledge of market conditions,” Perry-Miller continues.
He also offers customer tailored marketing plans that are heavy on digital.
“My specialty is really digital marketing,” Walters says. “I understand it and I know how to leverage it to get the right listing in front of the right audience at the right time.”
For example: Kenneth posted a “coming soon” property on the local neighborhood site BubbleLife.com (full disclosure: BubbleLife.com and daltxrealestate.com work together, wonderful folks) second quarter 2015 plus a Facebook ad, targeting users who live in University or Highland Park who also liked the schools, Highland Park Village, certain churches, and a few other criteria.
“We were able to drill down and really target certain people,” says Kenneth.
The house sold. And for those of you who swear that Baby Boomers are not on social media (but only reading newspapers), get this: the buyer’s mother, who is in her 60’s, saw Kenneth’s Facebook ad, and announced “this is the home I want for my children and grandchildren.” (Grandmama wanted the kids in HP schools.) They purchased the $1.4 million home before it ever came to market. That off a $25 Facebook ad and not even in MLS! Not even on Zillow!
I recall writing about one of Kenneth’s Park Cities homes on University where he extensively researched the history of the home, bringing out the Block Book to understand that this was a street where all the SMU professors once lived.
Kenneth was born in San Antonio, raised in Flower Mound where he went to high school, capping his studies at the University of Texas at Arlington. He got into real estate inadvertently while working for State Senator Chris Harris, who owned a title company.
“The senator taught me quite a bit about real estate through his families’ business ventures and acquisitions,” says Kenneth.
He stayed in politics, next working in Las Colinas for Linda Harper Brown, where he learned a lot about corporate re-location and commercial development. He met Dean Riddle of Riddle & Williams, a boutique law firm that specializes in master-planned communities and high rise HOAs. Thus Kenneth learned about real estate through the back end.
“I learned a lot about high rises in Dallas,” he says, “and HOAs.”
Nothing, nothing preps you more for marketing than a political campaign. Obsessed with real estate like most of us, selling it was the next natural step for Kenneth. He feels enormously lucky to have spent almost three years at Ebby’s Little White House.
Like I said, Kenneth is just going down the hall: Dave Perry-Miller Real Estate is an Ebby Halliday Company with five locations that specialize in marketing the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, Uptown, Lakewood, East Dallas, and Kessler Park. Ebby Halliday also owns Williams Trew in Fort Worth.
