Wachovia transferees fuel sluggish real estate market
St. Louis Business Journal - by Rick Desloge
Wachovia transferees Mark and Heather Rynasiewicz bought a house in the Central West End in August. They are among some 500 of the company’s St. Louis newcomers who are providing a much-needed shot in the arm for area agents.
“I’m indebted to Wachovia,” said Michelle Bennett, relocation director for Laura McCarthy Realtors. To date, her company has closed 85 sales to Wachovia transferees. “It’s made us have a great year.”
And the moves are not over. Company spokesman Tony Mattera said Wachovia expects to relocate another 150 people here between now and March 2009.
Wachovia Corp., in Charlotte, N.C., announced the moves last year, after acquiring A.G. Edwards Inc. and shifting the headquarters of its Wachovia Securities unit from Richmond, Va., to St. Louis.
The relocations have come during a period that has seen home sales shrink in the St. Louis area — down 9.2 percent from 2006 to 2007 and 14.6 percent from the beginning of this year through September, according to the St. Louis Association of Realtors. Figures from the organization show the average time to sell a home has stretched from 71 days in the first half of 2006, to 96 days in the first half of 2008.
While Realtor statistics show the average home price in the St. Louis area has fallen below $200,000 to $193,949 for the first nine months of 2008,
the “Wachovians,” as one real estate agent called the transferees, are buying more expensive homes.
Agent Jim Human said he and his partner, Kevin Hurley,
have sold four homes to Wachovia transferees, including the Rynasiewiczes, that have ranged in price from more than $600,000 to $2 million. The pair completed those deals while with Edward L. Bakewell Inc., which was taken over earlier this month by Janet McAfee Inc.
Flying transferees
Wachovia initially split the relocation work among Coldwell Banker Gundaker, Prudential Alliance Realtors and Laura McCarthy Realtors, and it later added Janet McAfee and Bakewell. Each employee was matched with a relocation counselor but was given an option to switch.
Bennett said she sought out Linda Hunt, Wachovia’s Charlotte-based relocation director for the transferees, and assembled a presentation with Laura McCarthy’s president, Kathy Beilein.
In addition to the 85 transactions that have closed so far, their company has 135 remaining Wachovia buyers. Some are closing on homes between now and the end of 2008. About 25 are buying in 2009, and others are still renting in the St. Louis area, Bennett said.
“Every Saturday starting last November we would meet with the transferees who would fly here in groups with their spouses,” she said.
Tina Niemann, an agent with Prudential Alliance Realtors, who sold 53 homes last year at an average sale price of $622,641, said she worked with two Wachovia transferees, one who moved to Kirkwood and the other to Sunset Hills.
John Ryan, who works in the Coldwell Banker Gundaker group with his mother, Anne Ryan, said his group has sold homes to five Wachovia executives and has started working with two more.
“
These executives were all high-level people,” John Ryan said. The Ryan team sold 36 homes last year at an average price of $1.7 million, according to St. Louis Business Journal research.
Human said all his Wachovia sales have been in the Central West End — a neighborhood less than five miles from Wachovia Securities’ headquarters at Jefferson Avenue and Market Street.
Continue Reading Here 
