What will school district rezoning do to real estate prices?

by John Rice

So, Fayette County Public Schools is about to redistrict all of Lexington for the first time in over 10 years. It has me wondering what that will do to the value of real estate.

Since I have a house in Andover Hills, naturally I was worried about the thought of losing Athens-Chilesburg Elementary (A.C.E.) That neighborhood is one of the few with this higher performing school. If you want the best elementary school in the Hamburg area, Andover Hills was really your only choice in the $200-400k range.

But you know what. Then I remembered that Andover Hills was a very desirable neighborhood long before A.C.E. was built. It sold well when it was in the Yates/Crawford/Bryan Station district.

Then my next thought was about a neighborhood called Waterford. Waterford use to be in the much coveted Veteran’s Park district until the last big district boundary change. Waterford was a neighborhood many people moved into just for that school and moved out when they didn’t have elementary aged kids. That was also when prices were rising rapidly, so people could buy a house, stay for a few years, sell and make some money. Can’t really do that any more.

Waterford is now in the Southern Elementary District. A neighborhood called Pinnacle got the Veteran’s Park school district. I’ve just had several buyers looking in the area of both of these neighborhoods. Want to know what I discovered? A similar house in Waterford sells for just about the same as it would in Pinnacle, despite not having the higher performing elementary school. So yeah, Waterford’s values survived losing one of the top rated elementary schools in Lexington.

Then this got me thinking about desirable neighborhoods that don’t have top performing school districts. Look at Hartland. It never had a top rated school district, but everybody loves it and prices are strong.

And finally I remembered some areas that got better schools and the values didn’t really change. Masterson got Sandersville Elementary. Right in the middle of the neighborhood in fact. All those neighborhoods along Liberty Road got an upgrade with the new Liberty Road Elementary. Values didn’t really change in either of the districts of these brand new schools.

So, I think there might be some very minor adjustments in value, but I don’t see any big changes unless a neighborhood suddenly hits the jackpot and gets a much higher rated elementary AND middle AND high school than they had………or had that and lost it all.

What I hope comes out of this redistricting is that we end up with less of a gap between the higher rated schools and those that don’t perform as well. Imagine how great that would be for the kids and parents. You could live anywhere and still get your kids in a good school.

A picture with a comment is worth more than 1000 words

by John Rice

2445 Doubletree - 040 new

I’ve been writing messages on pictures for years. At first, I thought it was a good idea to make my listings stand out from the others. It is a time saver too because people would rather see a picture than read a description and you can let them do both at the same time. Plus it is more fun. I’ve been saying for a long time that people come to the internet these days expecting to be entertained. Are you on Facebook? Notice how all it is now are reposts of pictures with a comment or phrase on them?

The picture above is a new listing I have. It is such a nice house, in such a nice neighborhood, on such an awesome lot, in the most desirable school district that I really didn’t have to put out much effort to market it……but I did. That is exactly how I have been describing it to my wife and friends, so I thought I’d hit those highlights on the picture. It’s had 59 hits in less than 3 hours already. Plan must be working.

Here is a link to my profile on our local MLS if you want to check out my listings:

How I got a seller to drop her price for my buyer

by John Rice

I had a funny thing happen this week. I was negotiating a deal for a buyer I am working with. We were $3000 apart. After a round of counters, we were at that point where somebody usually gives in or the deal falls apart. This one was looking like it was gonna fall apart.

What happened next has never happened to me in the past 9 years of being a realtor. The listing agent texted me saying the seller had countered where she did because she had a bad experience with my buyer’s lender. Turns out the seller “Budgeted” in her counter offer having to make an extra mortgage payment or two. She expected the loan to take longer than 30 days to close.

Once I found that out, I talked to my clients to see if they would entertain using a different lender, one I knew could get the loan done as quickly as possible. My buyers wanted in the house ASAP and the listing agent had told me that the seller liked the idea of closing quickly since the house is vacant. My people agreed to use another lender as long as the rate would be the same. I told the listing agent. She told the seller………who accepted my buyer’s last offer that was $3000 less than she had previously wanted.

Negotiating is a funny thing. I think most people view it as talking somebody into something they don’t want to do, beating them down, or trying to force their hand. Usually, those actions tend to just upset people to the point where they will shoot themselves in the foot as long as they also get to shoot you in the foot.

In this case, the seller was afraid the loan wouldn’t close on time and padded her counter offer. I was able to remove that fear by changing to a local lender so she could agree to my buyer’s price. To me, negotiating is about trying to get to the place you want to be while making it easy for the other party to agree to your terms. Often, like this situation, what is important to one party isn’t to the other. My buyers didn’t care who did their loan. They saved $3000 and it didn’t cost them anything to do so.

Did I get your attention??

by John Rice

again again

I always like to have fun with my photographer when we take pictures. I usually try to get her to do a goofy shot of me or what a call a “Find the Realtor” shot.

This started out as a “Find the Realtor” shot until I got the idea to add the comments on the picture. It was fun and creative, but what it was really about was trying to get people to click to see the details of the house. It must have worked because it had close to 200 hits on LBAR.com the first day and I even had an agent call me to say how much he enjoyed this picture.

In an age where exposure is NEVER the problem, the trick is to make what you do stand out and be remembered.

Paint color makes this buyer pick a loser house

by John Rice

I met with a client yesterday who is about to use me for the 4th time. She is selling the last house I sold her. She told me something that I got a good chuckle over.

When we were house hunting for her, we saw one that was nice, but had rotting Masonite siding and worn out windows. I was soooo unexcited about that house for my client. She ended up buying another house that was very similar about 2 streets over. The one she got had new windows and vinyl siding. It was in much better shape.

Now is where it gets funny. She told me that she met the new owner of the rotting siding house during Trick or Treat last fall. The owner of the rotting siding house said she had looked at my clients house but did not like all the orange paint. I about fell on the floor laughing. See, that lady didn’t buy a better house over a paint color that would have cost maybe $1500 to change. She did buy a house that had an immediate need of $10,000 to replace worn out windows and rotting siding…..I mean rotting!

So, buyers take note. Changing a paint color is cheaper and easier than buying a house you don’t have to paint that needs a lot of work. Sellers, this should show you how important it is to make it easy for a buyer to like your house. And I guess if your house is really awful, you still might just sell it if you have a fresh coat of neutral paint.