A real estate expert recently honoured for handling $20 million in luxury condo hotel sales at The Reef on Paradise Island has been named ERA Dupuch Real Estate top performer for 2008.

Ten-year real estate veteran Dave ?Crocodile? McCorquodale, BRI, walked away with number one honours after zeroing in on one segment of the real estate market that continued to thrive despite economic challenges ? luxury properties.

Networking, benefitting from word of mouth referrals, he nurtured relationships with second home owners who wanted to invest in The Bahamas. The result: among many other single home and commercial transactions, 10 sales at the 22-story Reef including its most expensive offering, the Ocean View Resort, a residence with a priceless view and a price tag of $7.6 million.

?Dave?s success often surprises people because he appears quiet, almost like an observer, never aggressive, but he knows the market backwards and forwards, inside out, and he really listens to people, mulls over their needs, considers their time frame, long-term plans and then he goes to work finding the exact match. He rarely misses,? said Peter Dupuch, founder and owner of ERA Dupuch with headquarters on East Bay Street.

McCorquodale?s steady rise in the industry parallels the rising profile of the real estate firm where he works. Founded in 1993, ERA Dupuch Real Estate joined the ERA network in 2001 and has since grown to singular status within the franchise, becoming the first outside the United States to earn luxury market status. It has been the top-performing ERA affiliate in the Caribbean three years running, beating competition in Turks & Caicos, Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Cayman Islands and Puerto Rico. In addition to its head office in an historic building, the firm has multi-lingual agents throughout The Bahamas.

?While I am honoured to be recognised as the top broker or sales associate for the year,? McCorquodale said, ?I know I would not have been able to achieve all that I did without the great team of ERA Dupuch Real Estate behind me. You can?t find a better, more supportive group to work with, right from flying all around the islands in our company plane to look at new listings or familiarise us with various small islands to the networking and web support we get daily. It?s the team that is number one.?

Photo: A soft real estate market didn?t stop real estate broker Dave McCorquodale, BRI, right, from having a successful year. He just worked twice as hard. Named ERA Dupuch Real Estate?s top performer in 2008, McCorquodale is congratulated by the firm?s founder and owner, Peter Dupuch, outside the company?s historic East Bay Street office in Nassau.