How me and Mike Holmes are alike

by John Rice

Any of you ever watch that show on HGTV called Holmes on Homes?  It is about this dude that goes in somebody’s house after the owners had a bad deal with a lousy contractor.  He fixes everything, gets it right, and in the end, he almost always gets a big hug from the people he helped.  While he is a great contractor, what folks like about him is that he cares about them and how what he does affects their lives after he is done.

I’ve noticed that I’m also getting a lot of hugs lately.  I had a closing where I represented both the buyer and the sellers.  I put together a deal that made both of them happy.   Got hugs from all of them.  Helped a couple buy their first house.  It was a foreclosure, so it was a little more complicated of a deal, plus I did a minor repair to the house so that it would pass the FHA inspection.  Got a hug at the closing.  Worked with a neat family that was pretty new to Lexington.  It was a really smooth deal until the radon level wouldn’t go down.  Got a hug at the closing.  Today, I had to say goodbye (for now) to a family that I’ve spent a lot of time with this week.  They are hopping back on a plane tonight after buying a really cool house while they were here.  We looked at a lot of houses, ate a few lunches together, and had a lot of laughs.  I got another hug.  I figure I must be doing a pretty good job because I am sure it isn’t as easy to hug a fat middle aged Realtor as it is a buff good looking contractor, even though I likely smell better.

I know I am making light of this, but it is pretty important to me.  I don’t know about you, but I’m only gonna hug somebody that I really like, trust, or has done something special for me.  Fire fighters, police, Mike Homes…..and now me, get hugs.   I think that is pretty neat.

Beaumont, Stay at Home Sellers, & The General Lee

by John Rice

I’ve been so busy the past couple of weeks.  Thought I’d share some of it with you.  They’re kind of random, but I think you’ll enjoy them.

I took my people to see a fabulous house in Beaumont Reserve that was well over $600k.  The seller must not have wanted a lockbox on the door, so she had to be there to let us in.  She kept us in the foyer while she basically chanted verbatim the marketing remarks we had already read, then told us how desperate she was to sell, but thought her price was fine.  We saw the pictures.  We read the marketing remarks.  We are here for crying out loud, just let us past the foyer.  Greet us and go.  To me, the only thing she sounds desperate for is getting her price.  It was a nice house.  Just not what my peeps wanted.

We had a similar deal at a house that was over 6000 square feet.  The seller was there, so we got to hear a bunch of useless info.  This guy even told us to follow a certain route through the house.  We had to start in this room, then go here, there.  Then up the stairs, ending the tour at the back stair case and coming down in the kitchen.  I was having a hard time remembering all of it, wishing there was tape on the floor, or arrows on the wall.  It felt like we were on a one way road, or like when you go to a museum and traffic flows in a circle.  If you are a seller, and end up meeting the buyer and their agent, realize we are there to see the house.  Just welcome us, smile, them make yourself scare.  I don’t mean to be mean, but it is just awkward and doesn’t aid in getting your house sold.  Plus, in this case, we were so anxious about staying on our route that we forgot to notice if there was a fireplace or not!

I’ve been in Beaumont a lot this week.  Mainly Beaumont Reserve and Beaumont Crossing.  I really like Beaumont a lot.  I mean, what isn’t to like.  But there must be some algorithm on pricing out there that I can’t crack.  You can have 2 very similar houses out there that are very close, and one will sell for $100k more than the other?  Now I do CMA’s, so I know what values to add for finishes, square footage, etc.  I secretly (not anymore) believe that since there is such a wide range of comps for the neighborhood, that conservative agents pick the more realistic comps and other agents use the higher priced houses.  What I try to do is find 3 comps that are similar in size and finishes.  That way you don’t have to cut and paste so much.  You cut and paste too much and your CMA starts to look as un-natural as Michael Jackson’s face.  Another approach would be to take the larger, better finished houses and subtract out the differences.  You will almost always end up with a higher estimated value that way.  Just my 2 cents, but that is what I think.  My folks want a house that sold for over $500k in 2008.  The comps I used put the value around $480k.  Go figure!

I did have one thing that made me a little mad this week.  The agent for the #2 house texted me to see if my peeps had made a decision yet.  I told her which direction they were going to go.  She took a negative tone toward the house they may buy, and basically told me good luck selling that one in the future.  I didn’t even reply, since I don’t like to burn bridges and it is still their #2 house, but c’mon, be a good sport.

I also saw an orange Hyundai in Nicholasville on the way home from listing a house down there.  It has “01” on the doors just like the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard.  In my head, I could have sworn I heard the narrator of the show say, “Now folks, that just ain’t right.”

Why Am I Wearing a Suit?

by John Rice

Why am I wearing a suit?  I’m the shorts and sandals Realtor!  Well, there’s a little story behind this, so I guess I’ll do like TV shows do sometimes where they tell you the end first, then the rest of the show is all about how they got to what you already know.

This all started out when a way cool couple found me online.  Actually, they found me twice!  I have an old friend from High School that I keep up with on Facebook who recommended me to them (Thanks Cathy!), but they already knew about me from this blog.  I truly felt like a rock star.

This way cool couple bought a house listed by an agent I knew from my old office.  She was kind of like the Grandmother of the office.  She has been an agent for several decades, and always shared her wisdom and high standards with all who listened.  I don’t think she really appreciated me wearing shorts and sandals while I practiced real estate, but I saved myself from getting a scolding with my charm.

So, when we got to offer time, I told Miss Anna that if her people would just accept our offer, I would wear long pants to the closing.  She chuckled…….probably in disbelief.  I guess if she thought I was serious she would have insisted we write that into the offer.

We had a great time working on this “Transaction” as she prefers us to call it.  She was always reminding us around the office that the word “Deal” cheapens what we do.  She had some fantastic sellers who had lived in the house since the early 1960’s.  Her client was happy that a way cool young family would be enjoying her home.  My people were happy to find something in that neighborhood and with a basement.  I was happy.  Miss Anna was happy.  It was all good!

So, for closing day, I busted out a suit I haven’t worn in over 2 years, put on a tie, and fulfilled my promise that I’d put on long pants for her.  Now, I never said ANYTHING about shoes and socks, so I just stuck with my shiny new sandals that I recently purchased for the 2010 Real Estate season (kinda like new clothes for the 1st day of school.)  The guy closing the loan had never seen me in anything but shorts, so he snapped this picture with his phone, sent it to the loan officer and the guy that owns the title company.  It is kinda hard to believe.

So…..that is why I am wearing a suit in the picture!

On a side note, I know I am critical of Realtors some times…………..okay, most of the time.  But I have to say Miss Anna is one fine agent.  She was polite, professional, willing to work through obstacles, kept her cool, remembered that the goal is that somebody gets to sell and somebody gets to buy.  Once we got past the contract, she was just as much on top of the “Transaction” as ever.  She communicated with me, took care of her client while understanding I needed to do the same.  I mean, that is pretty much what is missing in today’s modern agent.  I wish there were more like her out there!

How I look at the pictures

by John Rice

I can’t tell you how many times my clients says things like “It looked so much nicer in the pictures.” or “This just doesn’t look as big as it did online.”

I guess since I’ve looked at so many houses online, I’ve kind of developed a sixth sense on this picture thing.  I thought I’d share with you what I notice.

1)  For starters, anytime you can see 3 walls of the room in the picture, they’re using a wide-angle lense.  No sin in that.  I do it too.  In fact, I kind of think all agents should do it.  It would prevent those pictures of a corner of the dining room where you can’t even see the floor or the ceiling.  But FYI, they do make the room always look bigger.  Look at the furniture and kind of use that to determine the size of the room.  If the room has only a love seat and a chair, and they are reaaaaaally close, you know its gonna be small.  The same thing with bedrooms.  You know how big a twin, full, queen, and king sized beds are, so you can see how much of the floor space the bed takes up.  Oh, and look out the windows that are in the picture too.

2)  When I am looking at the kitchen pictures, I take a close look at the cabinets.  If I see what looks like a nice, rich dark brown cabinet, then I look and notice the house was built in  the 1970’s………They are most likely from the LAST time dark cabinets were in style.  You know this is the case if the countertop is a butcherblock laminate.   Sometimes I’ll notice that a cabinet door is crooked, the range hood doesn’t match, the vinyl flooring is pulled up at the toe space because there isn’t shoe mold or quarter round.  Also, a house built in the 1990’s may have cabinets that look like a really light stained wood, but odds are they’re the  nasty pinkish looking pickled cabinets.  I have that kind in two of my bathrooms.  I just don’t know what people were thinking back then.

3)  Bathrooms can tell you a lot too.  Take a good close look at the faucets, or how they cut the tile around the toilet…if there is tile.  You know you have a tile job by somebody who just got their Lowe’s credit card if they didn’t cut the tiles to go under the toilet, but just filled the whole area with a lot of grout.  Speaking of tile.  Look at the grout lines across the whole picture.  If it looks darker in some areas, it will be stained up once you get there.

4)  This is one of my favorites.  I have been trying to come up with a name for it, but I haven’t had any luck.  I guess for now I’ll just have to call it “The backyard has some really bad feature and the agent just turns her back to it when she takes the picture” type of picture.  Some signs you are dealing with this is when you see something maybe really nice, but the angle is weird, or it is a close up of only one section of the yard.  Then when you go to see the house, you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t know it backed up to New Circle/a retention basin/Wal-Mart/a 4 story apartment building.”  While you’re looking at the backyard pics, see if the wood fence matches all around, or if there are missing or loose looking planks.  The same goes for the deck. 

Of course, all of this only really applies if there are enough pictures to see.  I always get a little freaked out when I see only a couple of pictures of the outside of the house………especially if I know the agent doesn’t usually do that!

Another place you can use this info is when you’re booking a house or condo for vacation.  We just booked a house on Anna Maria Island and did all this.  We got burned once with this dump that must have had pictures from 10 years ago online……but that was before things like satellite pictures and some tech stuff that can help.    Any more, I look at every detail because it is just too easy to put lipstick on a pig with a camera. 

Anybody remember in the back of Parade Magazine where there’d be two pictures of the same thing, but  there were like 9 things that were a little different between the pictures?  It’d be something like a candy store, and in one picture there would only be 3 candy bars on the counter, but 5 in the other…..  Or one cookie jar was empty in one of the pictures.  If you know what I mean, just look at the real estate pictures under the same scrutiny.

Helping out of town buyers

by John Rice

Well, I’ve got several out of town buyers busting into Lex soon.  Kinda got to thinking about how an out of town buyer is a little different that somebody that already lives in the area.

Obviously, they know nothing about Lex, traffic, schools, neighborhoods, the market.  They are kind of lost.  What they need is somebody that can be feeding them all that info before the drive or hop on a plane to look at houses.  I guess in the old days, and still today if you’ve got an old school agent, you didn’t really do anything except wash your car before they got here.  Didn’t have much choice before e-mail, satellite views, and the internet.

The beauty of all the info that is just clicks away is that a buyer can sit wherever home currently is for them and narrow down what school district they want to be in, see if the lot for a house they like is odd shaped, or backs to something undesirable, etc.  I guess I could also turn this post into why a house needs to be presented well online to even get anybody to come out in person to see it, but this is about out of town buyers………..maybe the next one.

I guess what I have learned to do is to work even harder BEFORE they get here.  Moving is stressful, but can you imagine coming to a town you know nothing about?  Lay in bed at night and wonder if you can really find a house you like in the short period of time you’ll be there?  Worry that you’ll make a bad decision just because you are pressed for time?  Run out of time because you’ve wasted so much of it looking at houses that won’t work for you?  All that really sucks.

So, what I try to do is narrow down the search to certain parts of town.  Usually a job or a school are the biggest things buyers need to work around.  From there, of course comes price range, old or new house, amenities they want, and the million other things they have in mind.  I usually spend a lot of time e-mailing answers to questions, telling them about neighborhoods, sending links for more info.  One thing that has really been sweet is that I bought a HD camcorder.  It is so cool to answer their questions with video.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and most realtors including me can probably go past that, so I guess it is also a real time saver too.

I’ve got some cool peeps coming to town this week.  I am excited to meet them in person.  I got a Facebook friend request, so this is actually going to be the first time I’ll know what an out of town client looks like when I arrive to pick them up.  I usually wonder around a motel lobby, make eye contact with anybody around until one of them smiles at me, then I say “Are you______?” 

I’m hoping after all the e-mails, all the previewing houses with the camcorder, all the info I have given them, that they will come to town and kind of feel like they already know enough to make a good decision.  That when they do see the houses, they feel like they kinda have already been there.  To me, that is really what it is all about:  Making it easy for them to make this huge decision…………and have fun when they get here!