Random Real Estate Thoughts

What to expect from me for the next 17 years

by John Rice

It feels so strange to think about how real estate has changed over the course of my 17 year career.

Back when I was a newbie, agents hung around the office. We had like 14 phone numbers on our cards and one of them was a fax number. We dressed up….well, others did. I wore shorts year round back then. We licked the back of stamps and mailed people silly stuff like calendars. I did it once but thought it was pointless. All I’ve ever done is Christmas cards.

Then the PDF came along and changed it all. It was so much easier than a fax. There was nothing and I mean NOTHING worse than getting a fax from somebody that was illegible after several rounds of counter offers. Then electronic signature programs made it even better.

The biggest change has been to everything being online and consumer driven. When I got into this, many old school realtors back then didn’t realize that being online meant they were dealing with the public. The MLS had mostly been just for realtors. Before computers, they had books that came out once a week with listings. Since space was limited, you got stuff like “Cute 3/2 on unfin, dining room chandelier does not convey. Lockbox on backdoor.” A lot of realtors were putting that in the marketing remarks still. Also, there was one tiny black and white picture of the outside.

While so much has changed, some things remain the same. At the core, this business is really about people more than about sales or houses. It’s about helping and advising people on something that most people think they know a lot about but don’t really. I often describe my job as “Talking people into good decisions and talking them out of bad ones.”

I’ve probably got at least another 17 years left of my career. The trendy things (like the short lived QR codes) will come and go since the next generation always wants to reinvent the wheel, but I am sure that the core of this business will remain the same. I will be talking people into making good decisions and talking them out of bad ones and I will still be wearing shorts (at least on warm days).

Best way to get top dollar

by John Rice

It’s sort of a given that almost any house is going to get multiple offers, but how do you get buyers to do even better than the offer they submitted?

Common these days is the quickly becoming old school way of having a deadline for submitting offers. That makes it easy for the realtor, but doesn’t really give the buyers much motivation to get an amazing offer in as quickly as possible.

What I like to do is have the deadline, but add that the seller reserves the right to accept their ideal offer at any point prior to that.

This does a few things: 1. It gets you an offer in hand fast so that when realtors ask “Do you have an offer yet?” you can say yes! 2. It usually gets at least one buyer thinking they might get the house if they throw out a crazy high offer. Sometimes this works if the offer is higher than the seller and I expected or if it is that high and cash. 3. It also helps you if you don’t get more than one offer at all…..but more on that in a minute.

If I have more than 3 offers, I will let the realtors who sent the offers know I have several offers and I will highlight some of the best terms. You have to have 3 or more offers to do this though since each realtor knows what their offer was. I might say “I have 3 offers, all over list price, 2 of them waived the home inspection, etc. This lets realtors know that somebody has a better term than they did on their offer. I usually can get realtors to revise their offer with more competitive terms.

From here it is mostly waiting for the deadline.

But what do you do if you only have one offer and it isn’t that good? Well, a few hours before the deadline, you call up the realtor with the only offer. You let them know that you are willing to cancel the remaining showings and not wait for the deadline if they agree to whatever counter your seller wants to make. I have NEVER had a realtor not take me up on this. If you wait until the deadline and then try to counter, you have lost all leverage because they know they had your only offer. There has to be the fear that one of those remaining showings could be the buyer who outbids them.

So that’s it. It has never failed me and unless every realtor in town reads this, it will be our little secret.

Good John Rice vs. Evil John Rice

by John Rice

Sorry to be clickbaitish with the title of this post.

There really is a Good John Rice and there really is an Evil John Rice. Both are realtors too.

(I am the Good John Rice by the way!)

How do I know this? Because I often have to prove I am not the other John Rice. When you are a party to an FHA or VA loan transaction, the underwriter has to submit everybody’s name to see if they are on the Naughty List of banned people. You get on this list by doing something shady. Once you are on this list, you can’t be a party to FHA or VA transactions again.

It was about 17 years ago when this first came up. Back then, just about every time I sold a house where the buyer was using FHA or VA financing, I had to give my social security number or driver’s license number so they could verify I wasn’t Evil John Rice. I started putting my middle name on the contract for FHA and VA sales and that helped a little bit.

I hadn’t had to prove I am not him for quite some time, but it happened again this week. I had to write an email stating I am not Evil John Rice of Lake Providence Louisiana……which is better than my social security number or driver’s license number floating around out there with half the mortgage companies in town.

I hope I never meet this Evil John Rice. He has caused me to prove I am not him for my whole 17 year career. I might punch him right in the nose if I ever get a chance, lol.

Here is a letter I had to write to an underwriter several years ago. I decided that I should at least have a little fun with proving I am The Good John Rice.

Off to a great start!

by John Rice

You know two of the absolute best parts of being a realtor?

One is making friends with your clients and the other is when they call you back to work with them again.

If the past couple of weeks is any indication, my 2022 is going be a really fun year!

I’ve got a client/friend I don’t get to see all that often who needs me again. We have had Indian food for lunch twice to discuss the plans. It is always nice to get to see people face to face after mostly keeping up online.

I have another client/friend who is leaving town. I will miss them. We have had so many good times and drank a lot of coffee over the years.

I woke up this past Saturday morning to a text from a client/friend. It was actually my own contact information, so I figured she was probably trying to send it to somebody she knew. Sure enough, once I got out of bed, I got a text from her mother wanting to see a house that had just come on the market. I have met her mother before and really liked her. Her and her husband bought the house and now I get to help them out. I absolutely LOVE it when I become the Family Realtor and get to know everybody.

I closed a house for some out of state sellers who I have worked with a few times. Unfortunately one of them is in poor health. I did everything I could to not only make it a smooth transaction for them, but I also tried to handle some things along the way so I didn’t need to bother them. One of those was a home inspection repair. We only had one item on the list, which was an HVAC thermostat problem. I sent my HVAC person over and told him to do whatever is needed to satisfy the buyer. Then I paid him for it. I only filled the sellers in after it was all said and done since I didn’t want them to have to deal with it. I wasn’t expecting to be repaid, but they insisted. After the closing, they sent me a nice gift and a card. They wrote “John, please accept this small token of appreciation for all the extra help you did every time we needed you! Thank you for being not just a realtor but a wonderful human being. We really appreciate you and everything you’ve done for us during this difficult time.”

Reading that card meant so much to me. I remember when I was in my early 20s, I was as lost as anybody that age about what I wanted to with my life. I really enjoyed helping people out back then. Stuff like helping people move, shoveling their snow, pet sitting, dropping off/picking up people at their mechanic and such. I remember sitting in my basement apartment on Redding Road thinking “I wish just helping your friends was a career“.

Turns out that was a viable option after all!

Of all the emerging trends, this is my favorite

by John Rice

I’m as tired of talking about COVID as anybody else in the world, but I’ve got to bring it up because it has fueled two trends in the real estate market. One is that everybody is moving up the real estate ladder due to low interest rates and the boost in equity the market has given them. I am seeing far more sales over $1,000,000 in the past year. Some of these buyers are wanting to get into their favorite neighborhood and a lot of them are wanting a place in the country.

The other trend is scaling back. Many people just want a more simple life and/or are into the F.I.R.E. movement…..meaning Financial Independence Retire Early.

I’ve been wanting to scale things back myself the past few years…….including myself since I was so overweight. Here’s my story. I think sitting around the house during the lockdown got me thinking about it more.

I grew up in the 80s. I’m a Gen Xer. I wanted the American Dream just like everybody does. I never considered myself all that materialistic. I knew stuff wasn’t going to make you happy if you were not already happy. I viewed stuff as icing on the cake of life. I have had a good life. I married when I was young and still am happily married 30 years later. I had great kids who I love in a way they will never know until they become parents. Life was and still is good. I thought stuff would make it better. As my real estate career took off, I got the chance to do a lot of things I couldn’t before, some of them I never thought I would do. I took nice vacations. I had a big house in a prestigious neighborhood (that was very outdated because I hate remodeling a house while living in it.) I was able to collect cars and waste a fortune on them. I was able to write 5 digit checks to one of my favorite charities.

The more stuff I had though, the more stress I had. Stuff needs your attention. Stuff needs maintenance. I started realizing that this stuff I thought would be fun to have was actually making my life worse. My friends would tell me to hire people to take care of my stuff for me. While that saves the time of doing it yourself, telling somebody what to do and then checking that they did it still takes a little time and mental energy.

As I was considering upgrading my Porsche 911 S to a 911 GT3, I realized that better stuff wasn’t the answer. Why? Better stuff is still stuff. Remember, stuff needs your attention. Stuff needs maintenance. So, I jumped off that train and decided that I only wanted stuff in my life if it made my life better. I still have far too many cars and I think it is time to let a couple of them go even though I really enjoy them. I just think my life would be better with less since good stuff is still stuff.

Those are the two trends I am personally seeing with my clients. Most of them want to get the biggest and best house they can afford and others are wanting less house than they have had. I’ve personally done both so I get the appeal of each one. It’s fun working with both of these type of buyers since they are both getting what they want.