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Bio
Christopher Ballard, co-founder and principal of McWilliams|Ballard, began his career in residential development sales and marketing over 30 years ago working for Washington, D.C. developers such as Hazel/Peterson and Charles E. Smith.
Christopher and his business partner Ross McWilliams founded the firm in 1996. McWilliams|Ballard’s primary focus is collaborating with developers in the conceptualization, design, marketing and sales of new condominium and townhome communities. To date, the firm has sold over 40,000 homes in 13 states, representing over 14 billion dollars in sales. Other services include market research, feasibility studies and best practice consultation. McWilliams|Ballard is consistently ranked among the top 10 national firms with a focus on project development sales and marketing.
Christopher is an active member in his community of Alexandria, Virginia and currently serves as a Commissioner for the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority. He has participated as an expert witness in multiple real estate related trials and arbitrations. Christopher holds a BA in Economics from George Mason University, and an MS in Real Estate from Johns Hopkins University.
Show Notes
Overview, Origins and Education
- Clients are developers of condominium projects, primarily. Three stages: 1. Predevelopment, 2. Marketing the project and 3. Closing (6:15)
- Initially B To B- To developers and then B To C- To consumer/buyers (7:15)
- Origins (8:00)
- Raised in Cincinnati, OH and then Ann Arbor, MI before moving to Northern Virginia when he was 6 yrs. old (8:15)
- Dad worked at FCH, an affordable nonprofit housing finance business. Coordinated with HUD in facilitating their investments. (8:30)
- Grew up in Annandale, VA (10:20)
- Attended Bishop Ireton HS (10:30)
- Mom treated him like an adult as a young person (10:45)
- He was confident at an early age in speaking to adults (12:00)
- Was “hyperactive” kid (perhaps ADHD) (12:30)
- Wasn’t a great student, but didn’t apply himself (13:45)
- “Classic broker” personality- Light the spark of activity (14:40)
- Story about moving to NJ when he was in 5th grade and lived in a model home in a job his Dad worked (16:00)
- Around real estate his entire life…his Dad was his inspiration (18:40)
- When a Senior in HS he joined his Dad on a construction job and found out that getting up at 5am was not for him (19:30)
- His Dad then introduced him to the sales and marketing (20:50)
First Job- Mayhood Company
- Joined Mayhood Company when he started college at George Mason University (21:15)
- Reference to EYA (Bob Youngentob) (21:30)
- David Mayhood was his first boss and inspiration
- Started in early 1989 and his first job goes into foreclosure (23:20)
- He learned that joining then was actually a good experience to work hard to get any sales (23:50)
- Learned how to refine skills in challenging times (24:40)
- While in college he became a salesperson and was told he was too young to be put on a job except when he met Milt Peterson who hired him and he did a good job for him (26:30)
- Worked National Harbor for Milt and he was one of their best clients (26:45)
- Milt takes control when all the data is compiled and says “Let’s go!” (27:15)
- With the Mayhood Company from 1989-1996 (30:00)
- Ross McWilliams, who is older, asked to join him as a partner there (30:20)
- Work was more his focus instead of college (31:15)
McWilliams/Ballard
- Started his own with Ross McWilliams in 1996 when he was 25 yrs. old (32:00)
- Never fought each other (33:15)
- Chris more analytic and operationally focused (33:20)
- Ross is an incredible judge of talent and very outgoing (33:30)
- People are the business (34:00)
- Charles E. Smith was their first client and they worked two jobs of theirs full time (34:30)
- Hired by Christopher Companies subsequently in Alexandria, VA (39:30)
- Stopped selling themselves from 1997 to 2002 when they began hiring salespeople (40:00)
- Recruited by using the “sales first” mentality (40:30)
- Competed with Mayhood and other brokers by applying attention and focus to win and retain business and differentiate themselves (41:30)
- Business generated from alumni of the Smith company who liked their efforts (42:30)
- Treat every person at the client the same way (43:15)
- 2001 is where things changed for them- Hartford project in Clarendon, VA with Holladay and Akridge (44:20)
- Started their current strategy of predevelopment marketing (44:30)
- Driving by the Pentagon on 9/11 (45:30)
- Worried about their project opening in the wake of the Pentagon disaster (46:15)
- Yet, they actually were successful (46:50)
- Began working with JBG in 2002 and did several jobs with them (47:30)
- Carlyle & Kettler
- In 2005 he sold 5,200 condos in one year (worked over 100 hrs. a week and he sold thousands of units) (48:30)
- June 2006- After launch he hears from a cab driver that he has contracts on 7 condominiums and that was the signal that the market had turned (50:15)
- FICO score requirement increase basically shut down the market (51:30)
- Got sick with migraine headaches in 2006 and went to Mayo Clinic and his brain was leaking fluid and it lasted almost three years to resolve it (52:30)
- He’d miss 15 weeks of work straight due to his issues (54:45)
- Very grateful for his business partner, Ross, and his wife in helping him through it (55:30)
- Four surgeries in three years. (56:10)
- Got to the middle of 2008 and was able to keep it going after his successful surgery (57:00)
- He had to let go dozens of people during the GFC (58:15)
- He gave them 90 days notice to leave (58:30)
- More than halved his staff from 256 to 110 (59:20)
- Ton of workouts- Institutions became clients (59:40)
- Grew market share during downturn (1:00:15)
- Creative strategies learned in other markets- South Florida experience (1:01:10)
- Fractured deals- do lease ups instead of sales (1:02:30)
- He had to let go dozens of people during the GFC (58:15)
- Barbell effect (1:03:30)
- Mid market- renters converting to homebuyers (1:03:40)
- Markets mature in the apartment market enough to where condominiums can be delivered (1:04:00)
- Larger luxury product- aimed at empty nester market coming out of a larger single family home (1:05:00)
- Mid market- renters converting to homebuyers (1:03:40)
- McWilliams Ballard services- 5 years on jobs for the three stages of projects (1:06:20)
- Predevelopment services- look at design and offers suggestions (1:07:00)
- Marketing approach (1:07:50)
- Resale is only 10% of business (1:08:00)
- Case Study Scenario (1:08:50)
- Come in at the site identification stage and what the unit mix for the project (1:09:30)
- Tweak the proforma to make the numbers work for the land purchase (1:10:00)
- Engaged with a mix of upfront fees with commissions on sales of units being the largest compensation (1:11:20)
- Augment design process with consumer demand input (1:12:00)
- Usually a year to a year and a half in advance of unit delivery for marketing (1:13:50)
- Securing a certain amount of pre-sales to meet the needs that the lender requires for releases (1:14:45)
- Banks rely on what they can do in sales to meet the goals of disbursement (1:15:30)
- Discipline is important in estimating sales pace (1:16:30)
- Come in at the site identification stage and what the unit mix for the project (1:09:30)
- Reference to Michael Broder’s product RCKRBX (1:17:50)
- Other tools he uses
- A custom CRM to address customers’ needs- had 88 active jobs in 2005 and built it then and improved it since then (1:18:20)
- Visualization product that helped them interpret the market- business intelligence software (1:19:45)
- Statistics built to support proposals and sales strategies (1:20:15)
- More surgical in marketing approach (1:21:15)
Markets
- Residential market (1:22:15)
- Interest rate market (1:22:30)
- Jurisdictional issues (1:22:45)
- Market “halved” overnight
- Consumer confidence was down last year considerably, yet up this year (1:23:30)
- There are methods to make projects work in higher interest rate markets (1:24:00)
- Tough sledding in DC due to pandemic impact (1:24:30)
- Until GSA returns to work the market is off considerably
- Virginia is the beneficiary of DC’s exodus (1:26:30)
- Office market impact on residential market (1:28:00)
- Five active office and hotel conversions to residential in Old Town Alexandria. (1:28:15)
- Bay depths are the issues for conversion from office to residential (1:29:30)
- Rental is the predominant market (1:30:45)
- Outside of DC there are several opportunities
- Facade upgrade makes a difference
- Park & Ford in Alexandria example cited for rental conversion (1:33:30)
- Sales Successes
- Ritz Carlton Residences in Chevy Chase, MD (1:35:30)
- 2/3 of units are sold
- Brand really matters for many reasons (1:37:45)
- JW residences they are working on with Comstock (1:38:00)
- The Mather Seniors project in Tysons Corner (1:38:45)
- Erickson project in Bethesda (1:39:00)
- Age restricted and Continuous Care is an extended sales process (1:40:00)
- Ritz Carlton Residences in Chevy Chase, MD (1:35:30)
- Failures
- Have a sit down to learn how the project didn’t work or that they didn’t win (1:40:30)
- Lost business with a long time client where another firm told them that the pricing could be higher and they told the client they didn’t like the site and they were proved right as it did fail as a condominium; however the client did come out whole and let them know that he was right. (1:41:30)
Team and Philosophy
- Team
- Grew team with seasoned people with “sales first” focus (1:45:45)
- Brought in sales people outside of real estate and train them…commit to three weekends to sit on listings (1:46:30)
- Mentorship in pairing experienced people with new salespeople (1:48:00)
- “Time in the saddle” to address situations both with clients and consumer customers (1:48:45)
- Added to the ownership pool of company with three new partners recently (1:49:15)
- “Think like an owner” (1:50:00)
- Lead person with each client- consistency is key to clients (1:51:15)
- Core principle- “Consistency is key” (1:52:00)
- Brokerage business evolution
- Size of communities are smaller now- average of projects dropped from 150 to 75 units per job now (1:53:30)
- Work with twice as many clients now to generate the same amount of business
- Identify at the front end who will build a 20 unit job now and eventually will offer more sizable projects in the future (1:54:00)
- Technology is now critical in marketing and in information generation (1:55:30)
- Consumers now know more and they need to be on top of it (1:56:00)
- What’s hot now?
- The world is more transactional now. (1:57:00)
- Need to tell story is still there, but not as important as it used to be (1:58:15)
- Proximity to office used to be important to office leaders…not as much now post pandemic (2:00:00)
- Doing their business on Zoom is very difficult- Type B people can do it (2:01:45)
- Ownership of projects
- Have invested in projects, but don’t want to compete with clients (2:03:00)
- Hard to make clients feel that you aren’t competing with them
- Personally he has built a few rental projects on his own (2:04:00)
- Relationships
- His Dad was the top influence (2:06:00)
- Ross, his partner
- Group of people that own their own businesses who are his friends…5-6 people that communicate frequently…a bit of a mastermind group for him (2:06:30)
- Wins, Losses & Surprises
- “Run towards problems”- Bring a solution when reporting a problem (2:09:00)
- Story about a South Florida operation in 2009 had imploded- an auctioneer called him to advise them on clearing product (2:10:00)
- Fort Myers project with 450 units where all the contracts cancelled, but one unit (2:11:30)
- Just show up on Monday after an 18 hour series of flights from Wyoming
- No preparation for a presentation- two hour conversation about what they had done and won the business- believed in them and they completed the sellout in 2 years (2:15:00)
- Surprise- Abruptness of change in the markets (2:19:00)
- His health issue (2:20:00)
- Learning Stories
- Preparing for moments where one doesn’t have a script (2:20:30)
- Example of sellout of 500 units where there will be a complete loss and he needed to prepare for a presentation where his client put a box of keys on the table where he needed to tell the lenders about how he could handle it. (2:21:00)
- Preparing for moments where one doesn’t have a script (2:20:30)
- Life Priorities (2:25:00)
- Family first
- Has people working for him the same age as his children (2:27:30)
- Likes to rock climb and knows Dan Mathews, an earlier podcast guest, who climbs, as well (2:28:45)
- On board of the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (2:31:00)
- Been on the board for 12 years and when joining thought he could accomplish quite a bit in the first year, but it took 9 years to do it, yet it’s been very rewarding
- Advice to 25 Yr. Old Self
- “Life, It’s a marathon, not a sprint” (2:37:45)
- Billboard Answer
- “You Never Want to Peak Too Early”
Postscript
- Rameez Munawar shares his 3 takeaways:
- Chris showed perseverance in fighting through the tough times
- Examples of why in real estate one must be “client focused” and “relationship driven”
- Chris’ gumption and willingness to things that other people wouldn’t do or can’t do
- We discussed:
- The brokerage business cyclicality
- The business being both Business to Business and Business to Consumer
- The shift from 50/50 condo to apartment projects to 10% condos/90% apartments after the GFC
- Their proprietary CRM software
- Storytelling and Branding
- Workout strategies with large properties
