real estate advice

Don’t be afraid. Just do it.

by John Rice

There is a lot of fear involved in real estate.

Fear of missing out. Fear of making the wrong decision. Fear of financial ruin. Fear of even making such a huge decision.

I see it every day.

One of the most common questions I get asked by those who are afraid of missing out or making the wrong decision is if it is a good time to buy.

I usually tell people that it is always a good time to buy if you are ready. The prices and interest rates of the past are gone. Nostalgia. The present is all you have to work with. Yesterday will always have been the best time to buy a house. Today is the second best. If you are not going to stretch yourself too far financially and you are 99% sure you will be in the house for 5 or more years, then today is when you need to buy a house. The sooner you get one, the sooner you can start building equity. The sooner it will be paid off too. The market can’t be timed. Other than the great recession, prices have historically always gone up. Trust me, one day in the distant future you will be telling young people how it was a struggle to make the $3500 payment on that $500k house you bought. They will be like “Wow, that’s what my cell phone bill is!”

Another thing I see all the time is fear of picking the wrong house. Often first time buyers or those who struggle with making a decision will want to keep looking at houses, almost as a way of not having to make a decision.

Here are some signs you might have found the perfect home for you:

  1. Your showing lasts longer than any other house you have seen. A house you are in and out of in 5 minutes is not the one. The house where the realtor is standing beside the front door after turning off all the lights and you still don’t want to leave…..well, that might be the one.
  2. You are comparing every other house you see to one, which is usually the house you didn’t want to leave in item #1.
  3. You are afraid of somebody else buying it out from under you.

When any/all of the above items happen, you’ve found your house.

I hope this helps somebody out there. I know fear is a hard thing to get past, but it is so worth it. I try to keep things simple. Really it’s all about finding a house you like, that will be a good investment and that you can afford. That’s it!

Guess how long I’ve been a Realtor

by John Rice

N I N E T E E N

Y E A R S

That’s how long I’ve been a realtor. March 2005. It’s kind of hard for me to believe. One day I’m the new kid in town fresh with enthusiasm. Then all the sudden all this time passes. Now I’m the old dude with all the wisdom and experience that one only gains with time.

I was going to write about all the changes in real estate over the course of my career. I was going to say that while there have been changes in execution, pretty much everything is still the same. I even had some analogy about how whether you had a YETI or a Stanley Cup, what you put inside is the same and they both serve the same purpose.

But I will skip all that. Maybe next year.

So what am I going to say in this post? I am going to talk about how it feels having been a realtor for this long.

It’s been a great ride overall. Remember, I was the kid who was reading the real estate section of the Sunday newspaper. I would skip school once I got my driver’s license and cruise around neighborhoods looking at houses. I had no idea that one day I would be able to check out the inside of some of the houses that caught my eye.

I also had no idea the success this would bring. Pretty much everybody I told I was going into real estate said “Oh, you’ll do great at that!” I had no idea what they meant but I appreciated the encouragement. I had no idea that I would become one of the top producing realtors when at my peak. It was a lot of fun to reach that level. LOL, I don’t know if I want to do that again though. It was so much stress. I am much happier now and think I am a better realtor only being up to my shoulders with work instead of drowning in it.

Another feeling I have is gratitude. I am smart enough to realize none of this would have happened without my family, friends and clients.

My wife would keep dinner warm on the stove all those nights I had to work. Often I would have paperwork to do and she would bring a plate up to my office. I would not have been able to have gotten into real estate if she didn’t have a good job that covered all our expenses those early years.

My parents always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do. They also would watch my two sons when I had to rush out to show a house…..although, haha, they benefited as much from that as I did. My dad used to be an attorney. He’s probably given me a million dollars of legal advice for free.

Then there are my friends. Many of them would watch my sons too when I had to work. Many of them trusted me for their real estate needs when I was a newbie. A lot of them sent their friends, co-workers or family to me.

And my clients. Many of you have become friends. Ultimately I have you to thank because without you, none of this would have come to fruition.

I don’t think I have done anything to deserve all the wonderful things that have happened to me over my career. That’s probably what is the most humbling part of it all……that I am blessed by the goodness of others and not as a result of anything I have done.

And I am not done yet. Here’s to another 19 years!

Are Investors ruining the market?

by John Rice

Are real estate investors who buy single family homes ruining the market for other buyers and driving up rent?

Unpopular opinion, but I say no.

Sure, many of these investors might make terrible landlords. None of us like the robocalls we get asking to sell our houses to them…..but they are not ruining the market and driving up rent. I am by no means defending them or their actions. I am just saying that they are not the root of the problem.

I spent a couple weeks in Florida recently where I read an article saying how large scale investors were ruining the market. They were outbidding other buyers. They were reducing the number of homes available for owner-occupant buyers. They were raising the rent and making housing unaffordable.

This type of logic drives me crazy. Let me pick apart a few things here:

For every house for sale, that means there is both a Buyer and a Seller. If one Buyer is outbidding another, that means there are not enough houses for sale. This is a Supply and Demand issue. Also, the never mentioned seller who is about to become a buyer is happy with the terms they got.

Are they reducing the number of homes for sale? Yes, but isn’t the same true for anybody who buys an available home? Again, the issue is the imbalance between Supply and Demand.

Are they raising rent and making housing unaffordable? This one always amazes me. We have all just survived a crazy period of inflation where the cost of everything went up. Somehow most people single out housing, as if that shouldn’t have also been affected by inflation. Like we are shocked and appalled that housing costs, whether renting or buying, went crazy at the same time when everything else did too?

What this article seems to forget is the tenants. Where would they be if all the sudden there were no properties to rent? It isn’t like investors are buying these houses and keeping them empty. There is just as much demand for single family rental homes as there are for people wanting to buy them and live in them. If rent exceeds market demand, houses will sit vacant and investors will have to lower the rent to get a tenant. Again, Supply and Demand.

Are you seeing a theme here? Supply and Demand. There is a short supply of houses for sale for investors and owner-occupants. There is a short supply of houses for rent for those who cannot afford to buy or choose not to. Having more demand than supply is the problem here.

Some say that the issue is sellers just aren’t selling these days. Okay, true. But let’s think this through. We have far more people wanting to buy AND to rent houses. If all the sudden everybody decided to move, we would still have more people than houses because everybody living in their current house would also need another house. What’s that? Supply and Demand.

Building more homes is the only real solution to this. It is what the writers of the article I read should be encouraging if they honestly feel like everyone should be able to afford to buy or rent a home. The demand is there. The supply is the issue. Until there is a better balance, prices for buyers and tenants will not change.

Need a neighborhood with some character?

by John Rice

Let’s face it, most neighborhoods feel like exactly what they are….a field stripped of all the trees, subdivided in a way that maximizes the number of lots, then sold to builders who build pretty similar looking houses.

Nothing wrong with that.

Often most neighborhoods are chosen by buyers based on location. What makes a location desirable might be a park, a school, shopping, proximity to their work, a road making for an easy commute.

If you are somebody who wants a neighborhood with a special vibe, here are a few that come to mind:

  1. Chilesburg-Sure, having Hamburg, Jacobson Park and the Interstate so close are nice. Buuuuut the layout of the streets, the neighborhood walking trail and several ponds are what makes this feel so special.
  2. Hartland-While nothing is super close to this part of the Tates Creek area, the beauty is that nothing is far away. Getting to Hamburg, The Summit, Fayette Mall, Downtown and UK are all pretty easy, which is one of my favorite things about the neighborhoods in this whole area. Hartland has such a special vibe that it could offer nothing more than the neighborhood feel and I would still want to live there. What makes it so special? The layout of the streets. It is one of the few neighborhoods in Lexington that doesn’t feel like it was designed to maximize the number of lots. Roads have gentle curves, all of the cul-de-sacs have landscaped medians. Even the entire main road has a landscaped median. All the tall trees that have grown over the past 40 or so years add to the ambiance as well.
  3. Willow Oak-This is one of my favorite neighborhoods in it’s price range. You sort of get it all here. Southend shopping, Shillito Park, great school district PLUS a little stone bridge surrounded by greenspace as the only way in and out. All the streets are lined with gigantic pin oaks.
  4. Chevy Chase & Ashland Park-You didn’t think I had forgotten about these two I hope. They are the most desirable and recognized neighborhoods in all of Lexington. They put the “Ohhhh” in their 40502 zip code. What creates the vibe? Well, you know its the trees, especially a street named Catalpa known for it’s leaves that turn a bright yellow in the fall.You know it’s for the variety of classic and beautifully maintained homes. But what really does it is the design of the neighborhood…..well, more so for Ashland Park. It was designed by some dudes who did a lot of well know landscape architecture projects across the country. They were the sons of the landscape architect credited for designing Central Park in New York City. I could google their names right now, insert it in this paragraph and impress you with the perception that I know everything. Just to be humble, I won’t.

There are others, but these are the ones that tend to come to mind the most.

Well Played Sir, Well Played….Sort of

by John Rice

After nearly 19 years in this business, you sure learn to read the signs. Watching what people do (or don’t do) can often tell you a different story than the one they are telling you with their lips.

I had a buyer interested in a property. We made a formal offer. It was verbally countered. Verbal counters happen. They can be a way of making the negotiations move along faster. They can also be used to “Not” formally counter. See, if a Seller formally counters an offer, they can’t accept another offer without withdrawing their counter. Sometimes a verbal counter is made to keep the other parties options open.

My Buyer decided not to budge from their original offer. I assumed the deal was dead.

A couple of hours later the Seller’s realtor texted saying the Seller maaaaay accept my Buyer’s offer amount if we could close in 3 days. I immediately told the other realtor exactly what my Buyer would do in response. We could not close in 3 days but could within 10 days.

Then I hear nothing.

This is when I start getting suspicious because normally, when a Seller and Buyer agree on a price, everybody usually get really motivated to make a deal work out.

Then I ask again for a reply.

I still get radio silence.

Then out of the blue, exactly what I suspected was happening came to light. There was another offer. The other realtor said another offer had been made which was better than the one my Buyer had made.

So here is what really happened:

  1. By verbally countering our offer, this agent kept our offer alive and could legitimately tell the other Buyer’s realtor that there was another offer on the table. This used our offer as leverage to get the best terms for the Seller from the other Buyer.
  2. By not replying to us in a timely fashion, it hedged the Seller’s bets because if the other offer didn’t work out, they had us as a backup plan.

Was there anything wrong in doing this? Yes and no.

I am not at all upset about the other agent trying to get the best results for his client. I do the same for mine. Kudos to him for this part of his actions.

The only thing I am salty about is that he made a counter and then ghosted me for almost two full days. I think he should have told me in a reasonable amount of time that there was another offer, or that his Seller was either accepting/rejecting/countering the revised terms I had proposed.