Most agents worry that narrowing their focus will shrink their pipeline. Amanda Poulsen, a Christie’s International Real Estate agent in Southlake, Texas, did the opposite: she works only Southlake, Colleyville, Grapevine and Westlake, within about 15 minutes of home, and says the tighter focus has brought her more business, not less. A former D1 and pro volleyball player who spent ten years on a team with her father, she now gets most of her business from referrals and from people who already feel they know her through Instagram.

Amanda explains why move-in-ready homes in her market are still drawing multiple offers at $2 to $3 million while overpriced fixer-uppers sit, and why having disclosures, receipts and a “what if it doesn’t sell in a week” plan ready before listing matters more now. She also covers how to decide what your Instagram is actually for before you post, why consistency beats perfection, and her father’s advice for newer agents: stop chasing every new tool and remember that activity gets rewarded.

https://www.atproperties.com/site/AmandaPoulsen

https://www.instagram.com/amanda.m.poulsen/

Epic Agents Podcast:
https://epicagentspodcast.com/

About the host:

Jeff Hamm is a real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving Lake Norman & Charlotte, North Carolina and Banner Elk, North Carolina. He specializes in luxury, waterfront, mountain, and investment property, with a focus on buyer representation. He is also the founder and host of The Best of LKN and Banner Elk Living.

Learn more and contact Jeff:
https://lknreal.com/
https://bannerelkliving.com/

Jeff's Marketing Agency:
https://aidawerks.com/

Jeff Hamm is a North Carolina real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving two of the state’s most sought-after markets: Lake Norman and Banner Elk and the greater High Country. He specializes in luxury and second-home property, from Lake Norman’s waterfront, golf, and lakefront communities to High Country communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, and Echota. He also works with buyers of condominiums, homes in active adult and family-friendly neighborhoods, and short-term rental and investment properties. His focus is buyer representation, where his relationships with each region’s top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of two local media platforms, The Best of LKN (since 2020) and Banner Elk Living. Each includes a podcast and newsletter that spotlight the area’s most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. He publishes the annual Lake Norman Visitors Guide and Banner Elk Guide, produces regular market reports for both regions, and hosts The Best of Lake Norman Business Network and the Banner Elk Business Network.

In Key West, a single transient rental license can run up to a million dollars, and the city no longer issues new ones. Krystal Sheehan, a Key West Realtor with eXp who started out managing $20,000-a-week vacation rentals, explains why that one license changes how a property is valued, moving it from comps to an income approach. She also explains why more than half of Keys transactions are probably cash.

Agents will get Krystal's rule of thumb for pricing licensed rentals (gross rental income of roughly 8–10% of price). They'll also hear how the 20-year sunset clause on Truman Annex Special Transient licenses can blindside an investor who buys with only five years left. On the business side, Krystal explains "appreciation marketing," the referral approach behind her sphere-based business, including the 14 Mother's Day cards that brought her two buyers.

https://www.kskeywest.com/

Epic Agents Podcast:
https://epicagentspodcast.com/

About the host:

Jeff Hamm is a real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving Lake Norman & Charlotte, North Carolina and Banner Elk, North Carolina. He specializes in luxury, waterfront, mountain, and investment property, with a focus on buyer representation. He is also the founder and host of The Best of LKN and Banner Elk Living.

Learn more and contact Jeff:
https://lknreal.com/
https://bannerelkliving.com/

Jeff's Marketing Agency:
https://aidawerks.com/

Jeff Hamm is a North Carolina real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving two of the state’s most sought-after markets: Lake Norman and Banner Elk and the greater High Country. He specializes in luxury and second-home property, from Lake Norman’s waterfront, golf, and lakefront communities to High Country communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, and Echota. He also works with buyers of condominiums, homes in active adult and family-friendly neighborhoods, and short-term rental and investment properties. His focus is buyer representation, where his relationships with each region’s top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of two local media platforms, The Best of LKN (since 2020) and Banner Elk Living. Each includes a podcast and newsletter that spotlight the area’s most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. He publishes the annual Lake Norman Visitors Guide and Banner Elk Guide, produces regular market reports for both regions, and hosts The Best of Lake Norman Business Network and the Banner Elk Business Network.

Ty Martin, SIOR, MBA, a tenant rep broker in the Charlotte and Lake Norman market, says more than 78% of commercial real estate transactions are leases, yet by his count fewer than 20% of commercial brokers represent tenants. He also argues that many residential agents already have commercial clients in their database: the business owners they’ve helped buy homes.

Ty explains how a dentist with several leased locations can become a referral that keeps you top of mind long after closing, and why that conversation beats another market-update email. He also covers the seven commercial asset classes and four broker disciplines, what actually changes when an agent moves from residential to commercial, and why he thinks trying to do both is a mistake.

https://kwcnational.com/the-team/ty-martin/

https://www.instagram.com/tysdoingnumbers/

https://www.instagram.com/the4ambroker

Epic Agents Podcast:
https://epicagentspodcast.com/

About the host:

Jeff Hamm is a real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving Lake Norman & Charlotte, North Carolina and Banner Elk, North Carolina. He specializes in luxury, waterfront, mountain, and investment property, with a focus on buyer representation. He is also the founder and host of The Best of LKN and Banner Elk Living.

Learn more and contact Jeff:
https://lknreal.com/
https://bannerelkliving.com/

Jeff's Marketing Agency:
https://aidawerks.com/

Jeff Hamm is a North Carolina real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving two of the state’s most sought-after markets: Lake Norman and Banner Elk and the greater High Country. He specializes in luxury and second-home property, from Lake Norman’s waterfront, golf, and lakefront communities to High Country communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, and Echota. He also works with buyers of condominiums, homes in active adult and family-friendly neighborhoods, and short-term rental and investment properties. His focus is buyer representation, where his relationships with each region’s top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of two local media platforms, The Best of LKN (since 2020) and Banner Elk Living. Each includes a podcast and newsletter that spotlight the area’s most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. He publishes the annual Lake Norman Visitors Guide and Banner Elk Guide, produces regular market reports for both regions, and hosts The Best of Lake Norman Business Network and the Banner Elk Business Network.

Erin Ward is 10 years into her real estate career and still scripts and role-plays five days a week, with partners from around the country. She says it's what separates the agents succeeding in 2026 from everyone else. Erin is a Hampton Roads agent with HRVA Homes - an LPT Network affiliate - and a Glover U coach. She has been a military spouse since 1995 and made 19 PCS moves. She built a business centered on VA and military buyers, drawing on earlier work in hospitality, the Department of the Army, radio marketing and data analytics.

Erin explains why she rotates role-play partners every 30 to 60 days so practice never gets comfortable, and why internalizing a script beats memorizing it. She names the two places practice pays off most: initial lead conversion, and buyer and listing consultations. For consultations, she builds a slide deck as a prompt for herself rather than for the client. She and Jeff also cover why accountability is usually what moves the needle in coaching, and how a coach can help agents avoid burnout.

https://www.hrvahomes.com/

https://www.instagram.com/realerinward/

Epic Agents Podcast:
https://epicagentspodcast.com/

About the host:

Jeff Hamm is a real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving Lake Norman & Charlotte, North Carolina and Banner Elk, North Carolina. He specializes in luxury, waterfront, mountain, and investment property, with a focus on buyer representation. He is also the founder and host of The Best of LKN and Banner Elk Living.

Learn more and contact Jeff:
https://lknreal.com/
https://bannerelkliving.com/

Jeff's Marketing Agency:
https://aidawerks.com/

Jeff Hamm is a North Carolina real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving two of the state’s most sought-after markets: Lake Norman and Banner Elk and the greater High Country. He specializes in luxury and second-home property, from Lake Norman’s waterfront, golf, and lakefront communities to High Country communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, and Echota. He also works with buyers of condominiums, homes in active adult and family-friendly neighborhoods, and short-term rental and investment properties. His focus is buyer representation, where his relationships with each region’s top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of two local media platforms, The Best of LKN (since 2020) and Banner Elk Living. Each includes a podcast and newsletter that spotlight the area’s most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. He publishes the annual Lake Norman Visitors Guide and Banner Elk Guide, produces regular market reports for both regions, and hosts The Best of Lake Norman Business Network and the Banner Elk Business Network.

More here: https://epicagentspodcast.com/

Beth Boulware spent nearly a decade as marketing director and relocation director at Charter One Realty, the Low Country's top brokerage, before moving to the sales side. Now an agent with Kevin King Associates of Charter One Realty in Hilton Head and Bluffton, she explains why there's no single Low Country market. As she puts it, two homes 10 minutes apart can come with very different fees, memberships and lifestyles, so choosing the right community can matter as much as choosing the house.

Beth explains why print still works in a market with a large 55-and-older population. She sends direct mail for longer than three months and skips the usual beds-and-baths details, an approach that recently brought a call from a homeowner in his 90s. She also shares how she turns the questions clients ask her each week into social content, and how a community shortlist questionnaire and a monthly newsletter, promoted with a QR code on her mailers, keep her mail, email and social working together. Her advice for newer agents: pick one to three communities to farm, learn them better than anyone, and follow up with the leads who won't move for a year or two.

Website: https://www.charteronerealty.com/agent/beth-boulware/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebethboulware/

Epic Agents Podcast:
https://epicagentspodcast.com/

About the host:

Jeff Hamm is a real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving Lake Norman & Charlotte, North Carolina and Banner Elk, North Carolina. He specializes in luxury, waterfront, mountain, and investment property, with a focus on buyer representation. He is also the founder and host of The Best of LKN and Banner Elk Living.

Learn more and contact Jeff:
https://lknreal.com/
https://bannerelkliving.com/

Jeff's Marketing Agency:
https://aidawerks.com/

Jeff Hamm is a North Carolina real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate, serving two of the state’s most sought-after markets: Lake Norman and Banner Elk and the greater High Country. He specializes in luxury and second-home property, from Lake Norman’s waterfront, golf, and lakefront communities to High Country communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, and Echota. He also works with buyers of condominiums, homes in active adult and family-friendly neighborhoods, and short-term rental and investment properties. His focus is buyer representation, where his relationships with each region’s top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of two local media platforms, The Best of LKN (since 2020) and Banner Elk Living. Each includes a podcast and newsletter that spotlight the area’s most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. He publishes the annual Lake Norman Visitors Guide and Banner Elk Guide, produces regular market reports for both regions, and hosts The Best of Lake Norman Business Network and the Banner Elk Business Network.

After the COVID building boom, 30A's $1.5 million segment is full of look-alike spec homes, and buyers can negotiate again. Kersten Bowman manages the Miramar Beach office of Christie's International Real Estate Emerald Coast and leads The Locals Group. She calls the current market "a breath of fresh air": stable, with room for both sides to get a win at the closing table.

Kersten explains why Florida's state-mandated condo engineering studies and the large special assessments that followed still make buyers wary of condos. She also covers how steady rental demand from military families, hospital staff and remote workers helps protect investors. For your own business, she walks through how her team runs monthly local events with partner businesses (including a Grinch and Mrs. Claus event that draws about 150 people) to build relationships and hear about off-market listings early. Her advice to newer agents: ask for the business, farm two or three neighborhoods and get really good at two or three marketing channels.

https://www.realestatetlg.com/

Epic Agents Podcast:
https://epicagentspodcast.com/

Hosted by:
Jeff Hamm, Real Estate Broker
Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate
Lake Norman | Banner Elk
(980) 422-6069
https://lknreal.com/
https://bannerelkliving.com/

Jeff Hamm is a top North Carolina real estate broker serving two of the state's most sought-after markets: Lake Norman and the greater High Country region. He specializes in luxury and second-home property, from Lake Norman's waterfront and golf communities to High Country communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, Blue Ridge Mountain Club, and Echota. His focus is buyer representation, where his relationships with each region's top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of two local media platforms, The Best of LKN and Banner Elk Living. Each includes a podcast and newsletter that spotlights the area's most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. He publishes the annual Lake Norman Visitors Guide and Banner Elk Guide, produces regular market reports for both regions, and hosts The Best of Lake Norman Business Network.

After losing her mother in 2019, Amber Spivey's family sold four houses and built one: a multi-generational home on three acres on the river, with separate kitchens, living rooms and bedroom suites for three households under one roof. Amber is a second-generation Realtor with Twiddy Realty in Williamsburg, Virginia. She has worked in the market for 25 years and spent more than two decades inside the Newtown community, and she thinks this kind of home is an underserved niche that builders are overlooking.

Amber explains why she tells buyers anchored to 3% mortgages that today's 6–7% rates are healthy, and how she talks sellers past that "mental hurdle." She also covers why long-term rentals do well in Williamsburg while HOA and county rules keep short-term rentals scarce, and how she uses month-to-month timeshares to house clients between homes. She closes by explaining why she left lead-gen and cold calling behind for a buyer-focused business built almost entirely on relationships and referrals.

https://www.twiddyrealty.com/amber-spivey

Epic Agents Podcast:
https://epicagentspodcast.com/

Hosted by:
Jeff Hamm, Real Estate Broker
Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate – High Country Office
144 Poplar Grove Rd, Boone, NC 28607
(980) 422-6069
https://bannerelkliving.com/

Jeff Hamm is a North Carolina real estate broker serving two of the state's most sought-after markets: Lake Norman and the greater High Country region. He specializes in luxury and second-home property, from Lake Norman's waterfront and golf communities to High Country communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, Blue Ridge Mountain Club, and Echota. His focus is buyer representation, where his relationships with each region's top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of two local media platforms, The Best of LKN and Banner Elk Living. Each includes a podcast and newsletter that spotlights the area's most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs. He publishes the annual Lake Norman Visitors Guide and Banner Elk Guide, produces regular market reports for both regions, and hosts The Best of Lake Norman Business Network.

Charleston and Beaufort are only about 90 minutes apart on Highway 17, but Michaela Burkett calls them "apples and bananas." She's a Lowcountry agent who spent nine years in Charleston and now lives in Beaufort. She explains how she steers relocation buyers between the two: Charleston has the airport, MUSC, the job market and the restaurants, and Beaufort is a quiet military town with a lot of VA buyers. She also shares the short-term rental she bought in Charleston that got hit by new city rules. The regulations changed a few months after she closed, and she had two weeks to get an application in and pass inspection.

Agents will also hear why a South Carolina second home is taxed at 6% instead of the 4% primary-residence rate. Michaela says that gap can mean about three times the tax bill. She talks about managing sellers who are still pricing like it's 2021. And she shares a lead-gen habit most agents skip: sending a DM to every new Instagram follower, starting with an open-ended question.

Michaela Burkett
eXp Realty
South Carolina
https://www.instagram.com/michaelasellssc/

Hosted by:
Jeff Hamm, Real Estate Broker
Ivester Jackson | Christie’s International Real Estate – High Country Office
144 Poplar Grove Rd, Boone, NC 28607
(980) 422-6069
BannerElkLiving.com

Jeff Hamm is an expert real estate broker with Ivester Jackson | Christie's International Real Estate, serving Banner Elk and the greater high country of North Carolina. He specializes in luxury communities including The Lodges at Eagles Nest, Elk River Club, Farm at Banner Elk, Diamond Creek, and Echota. He focuses specifically on buyer representation and short-term rental and investment purchases, where his relationships with the region's top listing brokers, builders, and designers give his clients a measurable edge.

Jeff is also the founder and host of Banner Elk Living, a podcast, newsletter, and media platform that spotlights the Banner Elk area's most admired small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs every week. He publishes the annual Banner Elk Guide, regular market reports, and hosts the Banner Elk Business Network.