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What Realtors need to hear

by John Rice

So much of my industry is about growing your business.  How to get more leads.  All the places you should go online to try to hook up with buyers or sellers.  How to use Zillow to get more work.  More work is what it is all about.  More more more.

It is never about being a great realtor.  Nobody sees the old school benefit of making your first priority taking care of your clients.

Since I have always wanted to be one of those motivational guru real estate dudes who tells large audiences of realtors what to do, I think I’ll share my story/POV/Logic behind how I do things.

From the beginning, I never wanted to be the agent that sat in the office and licked the back of stamps, sending post cards to everybody I knew.  I wanted to “Do” real estate.  That was the business.  The business was not about promoting my business.  People thought I was crazy.  I probably am a little bit, but that has nothing to do with the model of real estate I was incubating in my brain.

What did I do instead?  I studied the market.  I already knew the neighborhoods having lived here for so long.  Also, when I got a client, I wanted to keep them for the rest of their life.  I wanted them to be so excited about me that they told friends/family members about me.  What I had to do to earn that was put their interests above mine, protect them, fight for them, etc. It is all about trust, wisdom and experience.

Did any of this happen over night?  No.  It took about 4 years in a terrible market,  But it did happen.  Last year about 75% of my work was repeat clients and referrals from past clients and LEXpert fans.  This year so far, I have 24 deals pending/closed.  Only 5 of those came to me without somebody recommending them to me.

So, my advice to new agents that might be reading this:  Wake up every day and do whatever work you need to do to push your deals one day closer to a closing.  Care about your people.  Don’t worry about trying to get the next deal.  I know in this business you wake up everyday unemployed and have to always look out for new work, but focus on what you have in your hand right now.  Advertising and social media are okay to use, but if you are not going to be the best agent you can be, I sure hope you always have a stream of new people…..because you will never get repeat business and referrals.

Be the best agent you can be and watch what happens in a short period of time.  It’s a simple old school model of putting others first and giving them the attention they deserve.  And it works!

LEXpert first time buyer advice

by John Rice

The most important house you buy will be your first one.

It will be the one that sets you up for the next house and the next one and so on.  You want to carry as much equity into your next house as possible.

Buy a good one and it should be easy to sell when you want to move up or take that dream job out of town.

Buy the wrong one and it can be like having an iron ball shacked around your leg.

The hardest thing for most buyers, especially first time buyers, is to think about the exit plan.  One day, you will want to sell your house as much as you wanted to buy it.

Here are some unchangeable features that are often deal killers:

1.  Steep driveways.  Kids can’t play.  Nobody wants to slide down it in the winter.

2.  A bunch of small rooms.

3.  A busy road, either in front or back.

4.  A sloping backyard.  Slopping downhill from the house is a little better than sloping uphill.

5.  Noise.  Could be a bus stop, traffic, a train.

6.  Lack of privacy.  People do not want to be in their backyard and feel like they can’t scratch their butt without a neighbor seeing them.

Keep in mind that in a fast market, ANY house will sell.  We are in a market like we were in 2005 where there are not a lot of choices.  Buyers are feeling happy to get any house.   Many people who bought 2nd tier houses back then realized their mistake in the bad market of 2007-2012.  Just because the market is hot now does not mean it always will be.

If you are a home owner who has a 2nd tier house, then now is your time to sell it!

The LEXpert tours Timber Creek

by John Rice

It was a beautiful day yesterday.  Had to put the top down and talk about one of my favorite neighborhoods in all of Lexington in the $120-160k range……Timber Creek.

If you want to be near Hamburg in this price range, your choices are pretty much the neighborhoods off of Liberty Road or Timber Creek.  I’ve always recommended Timber Creek.  It just has a lot of things going for it.  It’s got a park close by, a walking trail, banks, restaurants, gas stations, a veterinarian and other businesses, it is just across Man O War from Hamburg, and it is in an area with much higher priced houses.

I tend to think of Timber Creek as two neighborhoods really.  The earlier section has bigger lots.  It feels a lot like Eastwood, which is another neighborhood I like.  The newer section has smaller lots and more of a Masterson Station vibe.  My favorite section is the older one just because it has more space, but the location is so good that I can recommend both.

Here is a video I did of the park that is within walking distance from Timber Creek:

“Local agents won’t show your house if listed with a Lexington agent” T or F?

by John Rice

Maita yardsign

I was heading to Mt. Sterling today to stick a sign in the yard of a new listing.  I took Route 60 all the way from my neighborhood in Lexington.  It was a beautiful day to put the top down, so I did.

As I am driving down there, I was thinking about how some sellers believe agents when they say stuff like this:  “If you list with a Lexington agent, none of the (insert small town surrounding Lexington here) agents will show your house.”  I guess in the old days when agents were the gate keepers of info, that might have been true for a very small percentage of selfish realtors.   Today, buyers are seeing the houses online and they tell their agents which ones they want to see.

Even now when I list houses outside of Lexington, many sellers ask me if that is true.  All I know is that I have never met an agent that would let where the listing agent was from stand between them and selling a house.  A few years ago, I even did a some research on a little town just outside of Lexington.  I wanted to see how many houses were listed by Lexington agents verses local agents, then compare the average days on market between the two.  Well, the Lexington agents actually sold their listings faster than the local ones.

So if you live outside of Lexington and would like your yard sign delivered in a 1990 Miata, have no fear.  Local agents will show your house because that is their job and their buyers will see it on every real estate website that exists.

Guess these 2 neighborhoods that are so much alike?

by John Rice

This neighborhood use to be on the edge of Lexington.  It was a rural setting with high end houses on acre lots.  There is a section of land that later became available.  Those houses are still on larger than normal lots, but less than an acre.  It is close to upscale dining and shopping.  It has other equally desirable neighborhoods around it.  When you are in this neighborhood, you still can feel a little bit of how it use to be in the country.

Know what two neighborhoods I am talking about?  I bet some long term Lexingtonians who know 40502 will say Lakewood.  Everybody else may think Greenbrier.  Both are right.

Back in the 50s when Lakewood was being developed, it was on the edge of town.  There were no curbs on the streets.  The lots were big.  It was a rural setting.  Things like New Circle Road and The Lansdowne Shoppes did not exist.  There was no Alumni Drive.  Just a country road called Mount Tabor.  It eventually became surrounded by other nice neighborhoods.  Then in the mid 80s to mid 90s various bits of a large chunk of land became available and were developed.

In the 70s and 80s, Greenbrier was in the country too.  There was no Man O War nor Hamburg.  You took Winchester Road or Bryant Road to get there.  Greenbrier is now surrounded on 3 sides by neighborhoods like Walnut Grove Estates, Bryant Oak Place, Ashford Oaks and The Reserve at Greenbrier (which has absolutely nothing to do with Greenbrier….guess you can’t trademark neighborhood names?)

Greenbrier is in for some changing.  It has already begun.  It really isn’t a rural neighborhood any more.  It is turning into the classic upscale 40509 neighborhood much like Lakewood, or Ashland Park are to 40502.  What makes both unique are not only the larger lots, but the feel of the neighborhood that just can’t be matched elsewhere.  Those newer streets in Lakewood were full of much nicer houses than the others when they were new.  Right now, the Jimmy Nash houses are much nicer than anything in Greenbrier proper.  But what can’t be duplicated is the mature landscaping and the peaceful easy feeling you get in the older parts of Lakewood and Greenbrier……those features were part of developing the neighborhood.  Developers just don’t do that any more.

So, I think we will see more buyers viewing Greenbrier as a unique neighborhood surrounded by other upscale neighborhoods in a convenient location.  When I moved here in 1985, Greenbrier was way out of town.  It is hard to believe there is a Costco less than 5 minutes away now.  Lakewood 2.0, here we come!