About Me

What’s changed with The LEXpert?

by John Rice

I’m gonna try something new here. I have always used this blog to give practical advice and updates about real estate. I’ll confess, the original goal of blogging was to attract clients. The past several years, most of my work has come from people I know and have worked with before and those referred to me from those same people. I occasionally get found by great people through this blog or a dormant Youtube channel I made 10 years ago. Long story short, I have enough of a pipeline that I don’t have to chase new work. It finds me. I am also at the point in life where I can really just enjoy my work. Whether I sell 25 houses or 100 houses a year doesn’t matter to me.

I still plan on using this platform to give practical advice and my thoughts on real estate. I think since most of my readers are now people I know, I might occasionally get into a bit about what I am up to personally. This will be one of those ideas that will be great or terrible, so let me know what you all think.

Here we go!

A lot has changed with me since the beginning of COVID. I don’t think much of it really has to do with COVID, just more of a timing thing where many other things that were on the burners all came to a boil at the same time.

I had a mid life crisis. Nobody ever noticed though since I already had several sports cars, lol. My business peaked about the same time my kids were grown and didn’t need me as much as they used to. I realized that I could no longer grow my business without forming a team, which I did not want to do. I want all my clients to have me 100% of the time when they need me. I was doing as much work as a team of two or three realtors. I simply could not do any more work so I realized I had reached my peak. I sort of didn’t know what to do with myself. I had spent the past many years trying to get to where I had just arrived. All I knew how to do was climb. I wasn’t prepared to maintain. I had no other hobbies other than cars. I sort of felt bored with life really. I didn’t know what to do with myself other than just work. I went back and forth on if I should just be happy maintaining my business like it is or if I should start a second business. Well, I did something else. Instead of basing my personal feeling of success on how much time I spent working or how many houses I sold, I made the goal just enjoying the time I spent working and being with my clients. I am much happier now.

Then I had the perception of a financial crisis. I guess this is the only thing that was sort of related to COVID. I have 11 rental homes in Lexington, Winchester and Nicholasville. When the government started the eviction moratorium, I thought nobody would pay me and I would end up in a mess. I am a good planner. I try to think of every possible risk and have a plan for it. I never once entertained the idea that I might collect no rent from any house AND not be able to evict for non-payment. Fortunately I have a knack for picking the best tenants and maintaining a great relationship. I am told all the time that I am the best landlord my tenants have ever had. I respect that while I own the house, it is their home. I am responsive to fix things when they break. None of my people missed a payment. Crisis averted. What this did for me though was make me not afraid of losing it all. I learned that while losing these assets would most definitely change my life, it was not the end of the world. I might not have had as nice of a retirement or felt as financially secure had I lost the houses, but I could still be happy because ultimately happiness is a choice and it is within you. Things and money can make your life easier, but I know several people of lesser means who are some of the happiest people I know. If they can do it, then I could too. I am much freer now.

Right before the quarantine, I got really sick. No, I don’t think it was COVID. I didn’t really have any of the tell-tale symptoms but it was before any testing was available. I really just felt like I had the worst cold ever, the worst flu ever, and the worst stomach virus ever. I lost about 5-10 pounds. I had always been fat. For the past several years I would tell myself that I could lose a lot of weight if I would just commit to it. Well, this was a head start. I decided I was sick and very tired of feeling fat, being bloated all the time, and eating way too much. I started eating less and better. Then I kept eating even less and even better. Then I started exercising more. Funny thing happened, I started losing weight and feeling much better. I’ve lost close to 130 pounds now. I wish I had done it years ago. I’ve never been into looking good since I didn’t think that would ever be possible for me. I’m still not into that. What I enjoy the most is feeling better. I have energy to do things now. We tend to think weight loss is all about physical health, but I feel mentally better too. I am much thinner now.

I spent most of the quarantine walking around a very large house. It was nice when both my boys lived at home but we didn’t need all that space. Cleaning and maintaining it felt like a giant anchor to which I was chained. It was a burden. I also had so many cars that I never drove. Some were what I call “Precious cars.” Those are ones that you want to preserve and you spend more time not driving them. They are the ones that you don’t want to drive in the rain or you worry about parking safely so you end up leaving them at home to collect dust. I had worked so hard to achieve the American Dream and I didn’t really want it any more. I was realizing with the weight loss that eating less was better. It made me start to think about how having less might also be better. I sold a few cars. I still have more than I really should. We also ended up moving to a humble little home out in the country worth half what our old house was worth. It is less to maintain other than mowing. I would rather mow for hours than vacuum and trim 70 bushes. Life is much simpler now.

So, if you see me and wonder why I am much happier, much freer, much thinner and my life is much simpler, now you know!

I’m really proud of this…….

by John Rice

“If I have to send them postcards and basketball schedules to make them remember me, then I don’t deserve to be remembered.”

That’s what I told my broker back in 2005 as a new agent when I was told what I needed to do to keep people coming back and referring people to me. Back then about the only way to keep up with your clients was to send postcards reminding them of time changes, packets of seed in the spring, calendars, basketball schedules, etc. There was also a schedule for calling people and taking them out to lunch periodically too.

I think I sent calendars the first year but did nothing else like that ever.

I wanted to be a realtor. To me, realtors did real estate work. Licking stamps and always looking for the next house to sell didn’t appeal to me. I wanted to show houses, answer questions, do research on values, give my opinions on houses and neighborhoods, negotiate deals and work them to the closing.

Many agents in my office thought I was crazy. And not just because I wore shorts all the time. They didn’t think I would make it since I didn’t do all the status quo things they did.

My plan was to just do a really good job for my people. I thought if you left the closing and they thought you did a good job, there was no need to keep reminding them you are still a realtor.

It worked obviously since here I am today, but I’ve got one special story to share.

15 years ago I sold a house for an elderly lady. I met her daughter too. I really liked them both. I closed several weeks ago on the daughter’s new house and am closing on her old house next week. I have not seen or talked to her since that closing back in 2006.

She went to a lot of trouble to track me down. I have since gotten my brokers license and stated my own business. She just remembered my name and the real estate company I was with back then.

I had forgotten how I met them so I recently asked. She told me her and her mother came to an open house I had in 2006. They didn’t like my listing, so I told them about all the other ones in the condo complex. I told them the good and bad of the whole complex as well as the good and bad of other ones that were for sale. She said she liked how helpful I was so they decided to use me to sell her mother’s house even though she had a good friend who was also a realtor.

I don’t feel old enough for that to have been 15 years ago, but it was. What an honor to be remembered by somebody after all that time.

My first day of being a Realtor

by John Rice

The prep work to become a realtor is sort of crazy.  Take classes.  Take a test.  Pass the test.  Take the state test.  Pass the state test.  Find a broker to hold your license.  Transfer your license to them from the Real Estate Commission.  Join LBAR.  Take LBAR new agent classes.  Set up the LBAR profile.  Get an agent ID number.  Get your picture for cards.  Order cards.  Get set up at your new office.

Then nothing because you don’t have any clients.

I do remember sitting at my computer at home in March of 2005.  It was the first time I ever logged into the “Agent only” access to LBAR.  I was so excited.  I got to see selling prices, what type of financing the buyer did, who the buyer’s agent was, the agent only remarks, seller disclosures, if there were any seller paid concessions, etc.

After I spent about an hour playing around on that site I think I went outside and played with my kids because there was nothing to do.

That was the last day I ever had nothing to do.  I think I have worked literally every single day since then, at least a little.

I would have never imagined what today was like.  Doing about everything online.  Back then I would send maybe 10 texts a day and spend hours on the phone talking to people.  Now I spend 10 minutes talking to people and all day texting.  I would have been shocked that there would be a giant website to look at houses for sale anywhere.  I would have been even more shocked that the Great Recession would wipe out about 20% of the property values here and make being a new realtor a bit more challenging.

Sometimes when I log on to LBAR in the morning to see new listings, pending and sold houses, I remember sitting at my old computer that day.  Keeping up with the market is one of the few things that really fascinates me…..the other two are cars and the beauty of nature.  It’s been a good time and I sure hope to be doing this for at least the next 15 years.

How I knew I would become a Realtor

by John Rice

I think I’ve always known I would be in real estate, even long before I knew what it was called.

Some of my earliest memories are about neighborhoods, houses, floor plans, etc.

I remember the street my grandparent’s lived on.  It was mostly built in the 1940s.  There were a lot of Tudor looking houses with dramatic roof pitches.  Most had asbestos tile siding.  There were a few brick ranches from the 50s/60s.  I always wondered why those houses were different.

A kid named Chris lived across the street.  His backyard was a hill.  I always liked the better view he had over my grandparents house but I did like the flat yard and privacy my grandparent’s had.

We lived in an apartment complex for a while.  I really liked the design of the buildings.  Our unit faced an open field that was great for playing.  I had a friend who lived across the parking lot.  His building was sort of built into a hillside.  There were lot of steps and turns you had to take to get to his front door.  I remember thinking I liked our easier access and view better, but I thought it was cool how getting to his front door was more eventful and intriguing.

Then I lived in a house sitting up on a hill.  The house right next door was the mirror image of our house.  I remember noticing that we had the only “Ditto” houses on the street and wondered how that happened?

Next was a fairly new house in a neighborhood still under construction.  We had a vacant lot behind us.  When a house was built, it ruined the backyard for me.  It sat higher than our house and that bothered me.  It was like the house was casting a shadow on our house.  We had some drainage problems too.

All of this and I wasn’t even 10 years old yet.

Now nearly 40 years later, it is still hard for me to believe that I have made a living out of telling people what I think about houses, neighborhoods and floor plans.

It’s been really good!

Once I was 7 years old & was already The LEXpert

by John Rice

Any of my clients can tell you that I am always making random observations about any house I show them.

I was just thinking about that this morning and realized I have always done that, ever since I was a kid.  I have always been critiquing, comparing/contrasting houses as long as I can remember.

When I was probably 7 years old, I noticed that our backyard was flatter, more private, but smaller than the houses across the street.  Ours was better for playing hide and seek and my best friend’s house across the street was better for playing baseball.  That same house had an addition built on the back of it that had this smaller section of a larger L shaped room.  I never got why it was built that way.  It was wasted space.

We moved into a very small house that had a shared driveway.  It was very steep.  So steep that nobody ever used it for cars.  I remember thinking “Who would do that do a house?”  It was a two bedroom house.  One of the bedrooms was more than twice as big as the other.  That bothered me a bit.  The house next door was the same floor plan just reversed.  You could look out our hall window and see into their hall window….which led to the first time my 9 year old eyes saw a girl in her underwear, lol.

Then we moved to another town.  Our house sat lower than the ones to the side and rear.  That really bothered me.  The house behind us wasn’t there when we moved in, so I knew how much better it was without a house there.  Once the houses behind us were built, we started to have some drainage problems.  This is probably why I am always trying to help clients visualize what might be in the empty lots and fields around them when they build a house.

Then we moved to Lexington when I was in high school.  We had a cool house.  The house on both sides sat way back in their lots.  It was strange to see a house on either side of your backyard fence, but it made it nice to look out the side windows and see grass instead of having a brick wall 10 feet away.  It was this neighborhood that taught me a bit about traffic patterns and which roads got more cars than others.

Then I got married and we lived in an apartment on Redding Road.  I loved that location.  Close to everything.  We had a basement apartment. I didn’t like that.  There wasn’t much natural light and everybody parked right at our front door.

Then we moved into one of those houses that sat way back in their lot next door to my parent’s house.  It sat lower than their house.  I felt like my parent’s house was about to jump over the fence into my front yard.  I didn’t like it.

The first house we owned was in Winchester.  I really liked that house, but it began a trend of me living about 2-3 houses in from a busy corner and having a busy road a block behind me.  I don’t like a bedroom on the back of the house when you have a busy road back there.  Makes it harder to fall asleep.

The next house didn’t have a flat ten square feet anywhere on the lot.  I don’t like sloping lots.

The next house had a flat lot.  Other than the noise from the busy road behind it, I liked it a lot.

All of which brings me to my current house.  It broke the curse of the busy road behind me.  I’m about as far into my neighborhood as you can be.  There are only two ways in and out of the neighborhood.  Nobody comes down my dead end road unless they are lost or neighbors.  I like that.  I keep saying I want to move but I haven’t found anything I like any better.  About all I would change is to have more natural light and maybe taller ceilings on the main level.

So, when I say:

“Will that busy road being so close bother you?”

“If you were to have kids, do you know that there is no where to put a swingset or sandbox?”

“This house is dark inside.  Will that bother you?”

“Does it bother you that the neighbor’s deck sits higher than your deck and you won’t have much privacy if both of you are outside?”

You now have an idea of how I came to notice these types of things.