About Me

My Average Days On Market??

by John Rice

I HATE getting asked that question.  Not because it is longer than average, but because that info is sooooo easily manipulated by Realtors today that it has no real meaning.  Plus, it doesn’t really give a good indication of how good a job a Realtor will do at selling your house.

See, Realtors are the ones who enter the date a listing goes pending.  Realtors are also the ones who can delete a listing and put it back on with a new MLS number, making you think it is a new listing.  When it sells, the report they can print and show you DOES NOT SHOW the days on market from the previous listing!!  They can do the same thing with price changes.  I have seen several times on LBAR where the price of a listing was reduced the same day it went pending.  Then, when it closes, it shows that the house sold for 100% of the asking price.  That is a way to be able to tell prospective sellers that you get a higher that normal List-to-Sale percentage.  It is all a game, and one I don’t play.

I have no idea what my average days on market are at the moment.  To be quite upfront (as I always am), I have sold several houses very quickly and some take what seems like forever.  Last summer, I sold one before it even hit the MLS just by networking.  When I get asked about things like this, I usually tell people about the ones that I have sold fast and the ones that have taken a longer time.  Then I tell them I put the same effort in all my listings.  The difference in one that sells fast or slow has a lot to do with the house and the seller.  An over-priced listing is going to take a longer time.  One in a poor school district will take a longer time.  I then tell them that every seller who has taken my advice about price and work that needs done has sold their house quickly.

So, what is a consumer to do when a Realtor can quote manipulated statistics?  I say ask them questions that make them think.  How about asking them what they are going to do any different from the next agent.  Maybe ask how they get  their clients.  If you hear the word referral, that means that they did a good enough job that somebody promoted them to a friend/family member.  Most agents just think about marketing when they are on a listing appointment.  Ask them questions about what happens AFTER you get an offer on your house.  What is their negotiating strategy?  How do they usually handle inspection repair lists?  What do they do to make sure the buyer’s loan is getting done?  The goal is to get to the closing table with as little drama or surprises as possible. 

And if you do ask about their average days on market, be sure to ask if that includes their deleted listings.  Also ask how far back they went in history to average those numbers.  They could have had two that recently sold fast and are quoting you just the average of those two.

Goodbye to my old Kenwick house

by John Rice

 

I use to live here.  Kinda.  back in the mid 1990’s my wife and I rented the little shack that sat on this lot and has since been relocated to the Fayette County Landfill.  I drive down this road frequently to get home after taking my son to school and one day the house was gone.  I would love to have been there to see it one last time before it came down.  It was originally a 4 room house that had a “Great” room addition on the front.  It had to be on the front because the house was built practically all the way back on the lot.  Many of the houses you see in Kenwick are like this.  I was told by long time Kenwick residents that there was some deed restriction loophole that allowed smaller houses to be built at the end of the lot.

I’ve actually lived in Kenwick on Lincoln Avenue twice.  My parents bought the house next door to this one when I was a sophomore at Henry Clay back in 1985.  My parent’s house had two little houses set way back on their lots on one side and another one on the other side.  My rental shack was on the side with the two small houses.  Since there was such a price difference between the houses, we had our fair share of neighbor issues…..this was in the 80’s before Kenwick became trendy.  Back then, it would have been the prime neighborhood to have shot an episode of “COPS”.   A neighbor on one side never fed his chained up pets and always blasted music.  After many friendly requests from my dad asking him to turn it down, he dared my dad to call the police.  My dad did.  When the police got there, the neighbor dared the police to arrest him.  They did.  That house was bought by somebody who remodeled it and it has since been featured in the Homeseller.  Go figure.

The 2nd house down on the other side was the same 4 room shack as my house before the addition.  It had asphalt shingle style siding that looked like brick, whereas my shack had been updated with asbestos siding in the 1950’s.  It always reminded me of the house where The Beverly Hillbillies lived before Jed became a millionaire.  It was torn down in the late 80’s and a wood shake sided house was built in it’s place.

My parent’s moved less than a year after we rented the shack next door to them.  I actually liked having my folks as neighbors except when my dad would fire up his BMW motorcycle at 6 every Saturday morning.  Where the shack sat so far back on the lot, their garage was about 10 feet from the bedroom window.  I’ve always credited my parents with having the foresight to see that Kenwick was on the verge of a transformation.  They were some of the first people to move in and fix up those old houses with something better than wall paper and paneling.  In reality, they wanted Chevy Chase but couldn’t afford it back then.  That’s how it goes for old neighborhoods.  Right now, there are people who’d love to be in the first block of Kenwick but can’t afford it, so they have settled for the second blocks.

I have a few funny memories of life in the house we rented:

1)  The mailbox was on a fence at the sidewalk.  I would park my car at the top of the driveway, get the mail, and then coast down in neutral to the house in my manual transmission car.  One day, I got back in the car, but instead of putting my foot on the brake, I put it on the clutch.  I didn’t figure this out until after I had rolled all the way down the driveway and crashed through the doors of the wooden shed at the end of the driveway.

2)  One night when my wife was away on a pharmacy rotation, a sheriff showed up after midnight to serve a warrant for the previous tenants.  After this house, I have always decided that any time I am thinking about moving to a new place, I would first randomly stop a sheriff and ask if he knew where the street was.  If he said he didn’t, then that would mean I wouldn’t mind living there.

3)  One day, I was doing some yard work and lost my wedding band.  That was kind of sad.  Some kid will be playing in the back yard 100 years from now and find it I bet.

Well, I am sad to see that old shack go.  I have a lot of good memories from my time on Lincoln Avenue.  I hope the people building this house enjoy their new place!

Before & After Shots of my house…..See what paint & carpet can do?

by John Rice

I’ve been pretty darn pumped up to do this post for quite some time now.  It gives me a chance to show off the work I did on this house and gives me a great platform to yell some more about what a difference carpet, paint and presentation can make.  Plus talk about investment property.

See, this is my house.  I bought it to rent it out…..gotta pay for college for my boys and keep my supply of cool cars fresh you know.  I paid $78k for it.  The foreclosures in this area go for in the mid $60’s.  In fact, an identical house to mine on the same street sold for $65k this summer…..So why am I bragging about paying $78k?  Well, I have been in the other one before and after its renovation.  That one needed a new kitchen and bath.  Mine didn’t.  That one didn’t have the wood trim wrapped in vinyl.  Mine did.  That one had a 27 year heat pump.  Mine has a 4 year old heat pump.  Once you get down to the nitty-gritty and compare apples to apples, I paid about $4k more for mine, but didn’t have to spend as much time to get mine ready nor did I have the risk of unearthing expensive issues during a major reno.   In the end, about the only visible difference between the two houses are color choices and I didn’t put in a dishwasher.  That house was flipped and just sold for $95k.  I think I did pretty good since that house was the same floor plan just about 5 houses down the same road….doesn’t get better than that for comparison sake!

These two pictures are of the same master bedroom.  Can you tell which one is the after?  All I did here was paint, carpet, an $80 ceiling fan, and new outlet covers…..and had a professional photographer snap the picture.

These next two are of the kitchen.  The cabinets and counter top were new just a few years ago.  Literally all I did was paint, a new range and a new ceiling fan….well, I did have an electrician add GFCI outlets just to make sure everything would be safe for my tenants.

These last two are of the bathroom.  All it got was a new toilet to conserve water and fresh paint.  The previous owner had recently redone the bathroom and made great selections!

So, there you have it……if this isn’t a testament to what paint, carpet and presentation can do, I don’t know what is.  I dropped about $3500 in paint, carpet, 5 light fixtures, 2 ceiling fans, a range and a toilet, but added at least $15,000 in value.  This is why I always tell sellers to do these little things because they can get such a big return not only in the sale price but also shorten their days on market.  (The other one just like mine was only on the market for a short time while being surrounded by others that have been on the market forever!)

Realtors & Car Sales……Here’s Hoping for a Difference Someday!

by John Rice

I’ve been out car shopping this week.  The whole process reminds me of why people hate most realtors.  Let’s face it, nobody likes to be “Sold” anything whether it is a car, a house, or some wacky extended warranty you get hit up with while checking out of Best Buy.

I went to one lot and got the usual pushy guy.  He was talking like it was just a given that I was buying his car and I couldn’t do it soon enough to make him happy.  He called me twice a day.  Then when he got nowhere, he started emailing me.  I replied that I was thinking about going with another car….to which he replied with all the “Special” things his dealership does that I won’t find anywhere else……even though every dealer I have ever been to that sells decent used cars does the same thing.  For some reason, being pushy always makes the person think that the buyer is an idiot.  After deciding a 350Z was too small for my needs, I switched my search to a Mustang Convertible……got to have a backseat or it becomes a big paperweight in the garage.  To get this guy off my back, I told him that I now wanted a Mustang GT Convertible, thanked him for his time, and did the old “Don’t call me-I’ll call you” routine.  He then told me that he had 2 Mustangs on the lot.  I checked, and neither were convertibles.  Which was to be expected, since his goal was to sell me a car and it didn’t matter if it was one I actually wanted.

I went to another lot to look at a Mustang.  This one looked nice on the computer.  Once I got there, it was all scratched up and had worn tires.  I was told that the car was priced under book value.  I was nice to the guy, but I told him that since I was a realtor, I know how value works.  It would have sold by now if it really was such a deal.  The reason it didn’t sell is because I found out that there are much nicer ones with better tires for the same money.  I wasn’t going to pay the same amount for a scratched up one needing new tires as one with new/newer tires and in better shape!

At the end of the day, I decided to have one shipped to a local dealer from up north.  If it looks nice, I’ll take it.  If not, I won’t.  You’ll know if my next video blog is out of a red Mustang convertible.

The whole process reminded me of why so many realtors can’t make it in this business.  See, they act too much like these car sales people-always wanting the consumer to do what they want to see happen rather than wanting the best for them.  People just aren’t into that!  I’ve said it before, one day I am going to write a book on how to be a great realtor.  I’ve also said that nobody would buy it because most realtors don’t want to be great, they want to make easy money.  I must have a lot of saying because I’ve also said personal success comes AFTER you’ve done something for the sole reason that it benefits your customer or client.  The public is looking for somebody they can trust and who has the guts to give them the advice/guidance they need even if it means creating more work and/or less money for the realtor.

I only wish there was a car lot out there that subscribes to my business paradigm.

(FYI-I have a 4 door sedan too…..Don’t want you thinking that if you call me, you’ll have to ride in the Mustang….unless you want to!)

The LEXpert & THANKSgiving

by John Rice

Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday all year.  You don’t have to buy anything and it is fun to eat pumpkin pie.  I always am reminded of how lucky I am this time of year.  Since I have always wanted to be in real estate, that is one of the many things that makes me thankful.

Here’s how I got here:

I’ve always been into houses.  I had Lincoln Logs and Legos….always built houses.  As soon as I figured out how to use a ruler as a straight edge, I started designing houses.  My parents always kept me in graph paper.  One box was one square foot on normal sized houses, or two square feet on bigger ones.  For a long time, I wanted to be an architect.  The dream ended when I figured out that most architects spend their days doing mundane things like redesigning new roof lines for Kentucky Fried Chickens. 

About that time Donald Trump started becoming a household name.  Other than the bad hair, I wanted to wheel and deal in real estate like he did.  That was back when all most people knew about him was that he was professionally successful…..long before the divorces and bankruptcies.  My goal was to be a builder, landlord and realtor.  I’ve done two of the three so far.  One day, I am going to have break down and build a house.

By now, I am in high school and thinking about having fun waaaaay too much.  One of my favorite after-school jobs was delivering pizza.  It let me go up and down many streets and get to know neighborhoods…..at least those in 40502 near the old Mr. Gatti’s in Idle Hour.  I’d also drive around neighborhoods all over town looking at houses, only during school hours….didn’t know it then, but I was really doing something kind of like Vocational Education!

I remember I was in a drafting class in high school.  There was a contest to design a house that a builder would use on a lot in Cumberland Hill.  Back then, that was way the heck out Tates Creek Road.  You use to be able to get into that neighborhood off of Tates Creek on Fairhaven Drive.  I’ve often wondered if the person living at the very end of the street knows that the road use to be right where their house is now?  I think I must have designed too nice of a house.  I didn’t win, but it was fun to go out to the site and think about how I wanted the house to turn out.

When I got to college, naturally I took a lot of classes about drafting, building materials & mechanical systems of buildings.  Plus the easier engineering classes about things like calculating live loads and translating that into how thick of a beam you need to keep the building from falling.  I worked at Lowe’s at this time too.  It was good to be able to see the parts that I had drawn while drafting or seen in a textbook.

Another job I had was being an estimator for a contractor.  I started out helping with estimates and running errands.  Once the boss started seeing that I was really good at figuring out how much material we needed to do a job based on the blueprints, I was able to stay in the office more.  My fondest memory was having to go to a jobsite one day and I didn’t have a hard-hat.  The boss gave me his to use.  He was known to be tough to deal with.  As I walked around the site, I wondered why everybody looked at me like they were scared.  When I got back to the car, I saw in the rear view mirror that the hard hat had his name on it.  Most of the workers had never met the boss, only heard of him.  They thought I was him!

I got lucky when I bought my first house since it didn’t need much.  I wasn’t so lucky with my second house.  It is hard to believe that I am now thankful for all I went through with that house.  It needed about everything.  I did a lot of the work myself.  What I learned there that benefits me jobwise is that I know what things cost, how complicated a repair/remodel is going to be, and most of all, I developed a sixth sense about whether a house is junk or not.  I also learned how NOT to pick home inspectors since that guy told me that “There isn’t anything wrong with the house that can’t be fixed.”  I just didn’t know it would take all my time and all my money.  I am glad to be on this side of the work now since all the place still needs is new windows.  I was able to turn it into investment property after we moved out.  When I bought it, I could have never guessed that it would cross “Landlord” off my bucket list.

While I lived in that house, I finally decided to go to real estate school to get my license.  The mother of a high school friend who was also a realtor helped me out by paying for half of it.  Those first few years were slow, even though the market was hot.  I didn’t want to do things like mail time change post cards or chase people who didn’t want to be caught.  I remember telling my broker that I wanted to be spending my time becoming a great realtor rather than licking stamps and trying to find a client.  The market changed.  The public started expecting more from realtors, and I started blogging.

Flash forward to now:  I’ve just had my best year ever.  The past few have been great too.  I wake up everyday and get to see houses, talk to people about houses, study the values of houses, give people advice, be out and about.  I also get to use everything I just wrote about to help other people.  This is what I always wanted to do, and for that, I am very thankful.

BTW, since I don’t send time change post cards, I better remind you that it changes this weekend.  I don’t know who decided it was the responsibility of realtors to make sure everybody know about them.