A brokerage is not the two names on the leaderboard. This week’s pair are two of the people who keep it running: the Managing Broker and the Chief Financial Officer.
They also happen to divide the two problems this market handed us in the last five days, one each.
The Split They Straddle
Two things happened this week, and they are not the same problem.
One is a pricing problem. Across the four counties, 123 of the 243 houses in our own feed — 51% — have reduced their asking price, and not one has raised it. The median reduction is $10,000. In Marion on Wednesday we found the asking median sitting 26% above what the town was actually closing at, and in Carterville on Friday nearly two thirds of our listings had already moved once. Half the market is discovering its price in public.
The other is a financing problem. Yesterday the 30-year fixed came in at 7.28%, a quarter point higher in a single week — the highest since November 2023, and a move that size has happened 62 times in the 2,897 weeks Freddie Mac has published. Hold a monthly payment flat and that week cost a buyer $4,938 of borrowing power. Nobody did anything wrong; the number simply moved.
A seller with a pricing problem and a buyer with a financing problem are not helped by the same skill. Which is the argument for this particular pair.
Angie Smith — Managing Broker
Managing Broker · Sellers & Buyers, Residential, Multifamily & Land · Marion and all of Williamson County · Direct 618.925.9767 · angiesmith@sirealtyexperts.com
A Pittsburg, Illinois native — a Williamson County town, not the Pennsylvania city — who has spent her whole career in this market. Her page puts her at 15+ years in real estate, with 174 homes sold and roughly $16 million in the last five years; those are our own records of our own broker, not an audited count.
The part worth knowing: her specialties include multifamily and land. Of the 427 active listings in our four-county feed right now, 110 — 26% — are land or multifamily rather than houses. That is a quarter of what is for sale sitting in categories that take different work from selling a house — different comparables, different buyers, different financing. Multifamily in that feed runs from $129,900 to $350,000.
Jennifer Broadway — Broker · CFO
Broker · Chief Financial Officer · dually licensed in real estate and mortgage · Buyers & Sellers, Mortgage & Financing, Residential · Marion, Carbondale and all of Southern Illinois · Direct 618.925.8750 · jbroadway@sirealtyexperts.com
14 years in the business and licensed twice — as a real estate broker and as a mortgage professional. Her page makes the practical case better than we could: most buyers “work with an agent who hands them off to a lender and hopes for the best,” and the alternative is one person who can read “a contract and a loan estimate.”
As CFO she also runs the finances behind all three offices and the brokerage’s 23-plus brokers. Her page notes she is “at Greg’s side in business and in life — his fiancée and partner in building it all.”
Why the Pairing Is the Point
Angie is a Managing Broker whose daily work is pricing and negotiating, in a market where half the houses have already cut once. Jennifer is dually licensed, which means the financing conversation and the contract conversation are the same conversation with the same person — in a week when the financing conversation changed by $4,938.
That is also the honest version of the “one-stop shop” line every brokerage uses. SIRE runs brokerage, mortgage, title and property management, and the reason that matters is not the brochure, it is that a deal touching four companies has somebody who can see across all four. Jennifer’s page makes exactly that point about her own role.
And the practical version for a seller: if your house is one of the 123 that has already cut, the next conversation is not about cutting again. It is about whether the price was ever the problem.
🔮 What Greg Watches Next
This four-county 51% figure, measured the same way again in a month. Do not read a trend into the three numbers in this post — 51% regionally today, 54% in Marion on Wednesday and 64% in Carterville on Friday are three different places on three different days, not a line going up. The regional share is the one worth tracking against itself, and the thing to watch is not the first cut; it is a second cut on the same house, which would say the first one was not enough.
Reaching Them
Angie Smith, Managing Broker — direct 618.925.9767, angiesmith@sirealtyexperts.com, full profile. Marion and all of Williamson County; sellers and buyers, residential, multifamily and land.
Jennifer Broadway, Broker and CFO — direct 618.925.8750, jbroadway@sirealtyexperts.com, full profile. Marion, Carbondale and all of Southern Illinois; buyers and sellers, mortgage and financing, residential.
Or tell us which side of the table you are on and we will put the right one of them on it.
👤 Want Angie or Jennifer On Your Deal?
Pricing a house in a market where half the shelf has already cut, or working out what you can borrow after a week like this one — tell us which side you are on and we will put the right one of them on it.
📱 Got a Question About This Market? Text Greg.
Buying? Selling? Not sure where to start? Text Greg Holthaus directly — just tell him you saw his blog. He'll help you think through your decision, match you with the best broker for your situation, and point you in the right direction. He's open to a text any time.
Text Greg · 618.925.8654
Who is Greg Holthaus?
Greg Holthaus is the Owner and Designated Managing Broker of Southern Illinois Realty Experts, with 25+ years in Southern Illinois real estate and more than 10,000 transactions closed. He leads a full-service operation — home sales, mortgage, title, and property management under one roof — with offices in Marion, Herrin, and Carbondale. Meet Greg ›
About this post: Biographical details, titles, specialties, service areas, direct lines and email addresses come from each broker’s own profile page on this site, read on October 4, 2026, and quoted marks indicate that page’s own wording. The production figures are our own records of our own brokers — 15-plus years, 174 homes sold and roughly $16 million over five years for Angie Smith; 14 years and oversight of three offices and 23-plus brokers for Jennifer Broadway — and are not an audited or third-party count. Jennifer Broadway’s engagement to Greg Holthaus is stated on her own profile page, which is the only reason it appears here; we do not publish relationships between colleagues that their own pages do not state. Active-listing figures come from a same-day pull of active local MLS listing data across Williamson, Jackson, Franklin and Union counties carried in our own brokerage feed: 427 records, of which 243 are residential, 103 land and 7 multifamily. Price-change figures describe only those 243 houses, because our own feed is the only set where a previous asking price is visible, and a price-change record shows just the most recent change — so the total reductions are understated rather than overstated. The by-town shares quoted (54% Marion, 64% Carterville) are from our September 30 and October 2 posts and describe those towns’ own smaller samples on those dates. The mortgage rate figures are the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week of October 1, 2026, read from Freddie Mac’s published weekly history file; that is a national survey average, not a quote. The $4,938 figure is arithmetic — the difference in loan principal that an identical monthly principal-and-interest payment supports at 7.03% versus 7.28% — and not a statement about any particular borrower. Nothing here is an appraisal, a loan offer, a rate quote or a commitment to lend. Southern Illinois Realty Experts is an Equal Housing Opportunity brokerage.