Five or six years ago, a client walked into Sara Posey's office needing help buying a commercial property in Fort Smith. Today, she has sold that same man a second commercial building, then a third, and eventually his house. Later, his children needed houses—three of them. After that, it was his brother-in-law. And then his nephew.
"That, to me, is like everything that I need in real estate," Sara said. "Someone that has thought that I did a good enough job for them, that their whole family is now invested in me."
It's the story she reaches for when asked what keeps her in the business. But it's less a story than evidence of the way Sara works.
Real estate, she's quick to point out, runs almost entirely on referrals, the same way most service industries do. Do a bad job, and the recommendations simply stop.
"It's like a bad pool builder," she said. "No one's like, 'Well, we had a terrible experience with him, but here's our pool guy.'"
When one family trusts her enough to send another relative her way, the referral system is working exactly as it should.
The road to becoming a real estate agent wasn't a straight line. Sara grew up riding along with her mother, a longtime realtor, and later played basketball through junior college in Harrison before transferring to the UofA. A business degree and a handful of real estate electives planted an idea she wouldn't act on for years. She spent time managing restaurants in Fayetteville and nearly a decade in outside sales in the liquor industry, watching as a glass ceiling closed in on her.
When she and her husband, Brock Posey—founder of Southern Brothers Construction—picked up a few rental properties, becoming a real estate agent, as she puts it, just kind of fell in her lap. She left a career she'd spent more than a decade building to start over.
Starting from scratch left little room for shortcuts. Every client mattered, and every relationship became an opportunity to earn the kind of trust that eventually grows into referrals.
She trained at Keller Williams before moving to Collier & Associates, where she could take commercial deals. The move expanded her referral network beyond residential real estate and into the commercial market.
Her liquor-industry background turned out to be its own referral engine. Knowing permitting and ABC regulations made her the obvious call for a few early commercial deals, including a million-dollar sale on Dickson Street that put her on the map fast.
The competitive edge that once took Sara through college basketball followed her into real estate. Being told she can't do something, she says, tends to have the opposite effect, making her more excited, determined, and successful in getting the job done for her clients.
Much of Sara's success is tied to the community she serves. She sees Springdale as the true crossroads of Northwest Arkansas—close enough to the UofA to draw in young professionals and close enough to Benton County's corporate growth to keep them here. Investors are catching on too, Sara says, pointing to the Walton family and local investment reshaping the area.
Through a commitment to her clients, a competitive streak that's followed her since her college basketball days, and an understanding of the region, Sara Posey has built her business the same way she started it: one relationship, and one referral, at a time.
Sara Posey has built her business the same way she started it: one relationship, and one referral, at a time.