Darlene Morris is a Realtor with The Jack Coden Group in Miami Beach.

Every week, we ask a Miami real estate professional for their thoughts on the top three stories from the week before.

This week, we talked with Darlene Morris, a Realtor with The Jack Coden Group in Miami Beach. A native to South Florida and graduate of Florida State University, where she studied criminology/criminal justice and minored in English, business marketing and business finance, Darlene specializes in Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, Surfside, Bay Harbor Island, North Bay Village, Miami Shores, Belle Meade, Morningside and Miami Beach.

Miami Agent (MA): What trends in the real estate market are you paying the closest attention to, as 2014 takes shape?

Darlene Morris (DM): The first things that I’m noticing is, the property values in 2013 were going up continually each month, but I think that they’ve started to flatten out.

The other thing I’m noticing is that there are a lot of new development projects for condos now. The good news is, that means there are going to be many condos available in the next year; the problem is, I think they sometimes overdevelop, and too many units become available at the same time. That does not help property values for those who are looking to sell their condos.

I think we have the pattern of overdeveloping, and then we have to catch up with ourselves – and then they start developing again; instead of developing a few at a time, they seem to give permits so that everyone can develop at the same time. It looks like we don’t learn our lessons, so I’ve begun to send my buyers in other directions, namely single-family homes rather than condos.

MA: A recent blog post on our site covered follow-up, and why it’s so critical for real estate professionals; can you speak to that point, in terms of your own business?

DM: I agree 100 percent; a large part of my business is follow-up, because when you keep in touch with people who have been your clients, you’re on the front of their mind and they refer you people. Before I leave the house every morning, I always try to call at least one or two past clients to say “hello.”

For instance, I have a client that I just closed on a property with. He’s a Canadian client, and he was buying a vacation home in Hollywood. We closed about a month ago, and I just called him this morning to to see how he and his family are doing, and when they are going to come down and use their new home. He was so excited to hear from me.

For him that’s what sets me apart from other Realtors, because I first started working with him awhile ago. It was a pretty extensive home search. He’s already been referring me clients, and I’m sure he will continue to refer me many clients in the future.

MA: Finally, what kinds of technology do you find most beneficial to your real estate business?

DM: I only started using the iPad last November, and it’s been so useful. I have been trying to get away from using so much paper – still, when I do showings, I print out listings to hand out to clients while I’m driving them around, because I think they should have something in their hands to take notes – but I try as much as I can to get way from paper.

All of my contracts are now written up on my iPad, and I use DocuSign to sign all of our documents, so there’s no more scanning and sending; by the second round of that, you can’t read anything.