Guru Tracy Ridings with FC Tucker

Rick Ripma: 0:00

Welcome to Indy's Real Estate Gurus. We're recording today from the advisors Mortgage Group studios right here in Carmel, Indiana. And I'm Rick Ripma, your hardworking mortgage guy. I've been in mortgages and new home sales for over 34 years. I've helped over 5200 homebuyers, finance their homes, we believe believe I can say that believe there is the right mortgage for you. And we are the team to deliver it.

Ian Arnold: 0:25

And I mean, are no part of Rick's hard work in mortgage team. I've been in the financial industry for 15 years helping customers either rebuild their credit, or even just get their credit score up so they get better interest rates, I have a passion in helping you secure your overall wealth and get your family taken care of for generations.

Rick Ripma: 0:42

And as we get started, I just wanted to remind you, if you have any questions or indies real estate market or mortgages go to HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com. Or you can go to 31767 to 1938. That's 31767 to 1938. And today, we are really excited to have Tracy ridings with FC Tucker, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it. Like what what did you do before real estate?

Tracy Ridings: 1:10

So before real estate, I was an education major. So a teacher, so I worked in Maryland, but my husband is navy. So we've moved, I don't know, 12 different times across country and started having children at that point in time. So I stepped down from teaching, raised family did volunteer work, and I taught gymnastics, I worked at the middle school with special needs some other things like that.

Rick Ripma: 1:37

Yeah. So you taught and and you move 12 times.

Tracy Ridings: 1:42

I believe it's 12 times. Yeah. Wow. Cross Country. Yep.

Rick Ripma: 1:45

Wow. How did that now? Are your kids old enough that

Tracy Ridings: 1:48

some of them they? Well, we started out without children. So free children. And then at one point in time we had moving across country had four kids, a cat, a dog, a rabbit, a lizard, and

Rick Ripma: 2:04

wow, that now that's incredible. My My wife is a real cat lover. And I know you are too because you're on the

Tracy Ridings: 2:11

is it Humane Society for Boone? County County?

Rick Ripma: 2:14

That's what I was thinking. Yeah. And you and you're suffering with cats. I remember reading that right.

Tracy Ridings: 2:18

We foster kittens and cats. Okay. Yeah. So I don't know. Gosh, if I had to estimate we probably have had 50 Cats or kittens through our house. Wow. Not all at the same time. I'm not that person.

Rick Ripma: 2:33

Wow. Yeah. My wife has four cats. And she's had as many as five cats at one time. Yeah. It's so easy to. And I see how somebody ends up with a lot of cats. Because it's like, you know, you feel bad for him. And there's just one more cat. But man, it's it's a lot of work when you have when you have that multiple? Yeah, when you have that many cats. Yeah,

Tracy Ridings: 2:55

but I did learn. So in our past, we've always had just one cat at a time. But I have learned since fostering that. If I or I like to have at least two cats every time they really appreciate that company for each other.

Ian Arnold: 3:11

So if you ever have an issue trying to get you need one adopted, here's what you need to do know

Tracy Ridings: 3:19

that bring a cute little basket to Rick's might.

Ian Arnold: 3:23

It'll be gone within a couple minutes. My wife has

Rick Ripma: 3:28

learned to say no. The last the last two she adopted. She was that she? She was at the dental office. And the high dentist had that baby. Yeah, well, they weren't. They weren't even babies. They were that her her aunt or aunt or her husband's aunt died and they and one of them. One of them is has a broken leg. It was it was hit by a car. So it has a broken leg and has no tail. And I mean, my my wife is like okay, that's the one on taken. And she was they've never been apart. So we ended up with both of them. Yeah, because they're bonded. Yeah. They're they don't act like they're bonded.

Tracy Ridings: 4:08

No, no, like that was I think that was

Rick Ripma: 4:11

a scam. Yeah.

Ian Arnold: 4:14

Young kids don't like like they're bonded either. Sometimes.

Rick Ripma: 4:17

That's true. So when you're taking care of the cats, you take care of them until they get adopted? Yeah,

Tracy Ridings: 4:22

so we get them. Typically our kittens are weaned from their mother. There are others. There are other foster carers who take care of the mom and their babies, right. But then we usually get them once they've been weaned. And they're just trying to add weight. Once they're a certain size, and they can go in to get spayed and neutered. And then we return they returned to our house to get well after the surgery and then they get adopted.

Rick Ripma: 4:50

Awesome. Yeah, yeah, that's that that might be the thing for my wife to do. Then she doesn't

Ian Arnold: 4:55

Oh, yeah, we don't love it that's too attached. She'll be coming to attack. That's my

Rick Ripma: 5:01

worry. That would be my worry. Yep. So you've got all this going on, and you sell real estate and you sell a lot of real estate. You're a guru.

Tracy Ridings: 5:10

Thank you. Yeah, that's,

Rick Ripma: 5:11

that's, that is phenomenal. So how did you get into real estate with your background? How did you decide real estate?

Tracy Ridings: 5:19

Yeah, so we well, I bought a lot of houses. I've sold a lot of houses, just on our own. So that in and of itself probably qualifies me right there. We, you know, I just was exploring different avenues. What kind of business might I want to start, I wanted to do something, right. And real estate just kept coming in and coming in. And finally, my husband's like, Tracy, you really, this is probably your niche, you really need to do this. And so with his direct his encouragement, I went into it, but I went in going, you know, I don't want to work weekends, and I don't want to work nights.

Rick Ripma: 6:00

That's real estate, right?

Tracy Ridings: 6:03

Like, I don't want to do real estate. But then I was thinking about it. Any business I open, right? Any business I run, I'm gonna be working weekends and nights. There's just if you're going to open your own business, there's no way around it. So then, then real estate really made sense to me. Yes.

Rick Ripma: 6:19

If you're opening your own business, you're basically when you get started working, not completely 24/7. But but pretty much you are right, yeah. Because you got to get your business up and going. Now once you're up and going, then you can probably

Tracy Ridings: 6:34

right, then hopefully, have some help and do some things. But you're still you're still engaged. Right? You can't disengage,

Rick Ripma: 6:42

right. Yeah. I've never, I have had one business that I own. But for the most part, you know, my wife's work for small businesses. I've always worked for small businesses. And when you when they do that, my wife, my wife worked for Wild Birds Unlimited this. Oh, yeah. Okay, so the store, and they worked all the time. And finally, they retired because they were working all the time. They did very well. But it can any business consumes your life. Yes. Yeah. And so you have to really enjoy it right? And have a passion for it. Yeah. And you have a passion for real, especially if you had a passion even before you got into it. Right? Correct. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah.

Ian Arnold: 7:20

So who you work for Tucker? So what made you decide, alright, that's who I want to go with.

Tracy Ridings: 7:29

So I was influenced by my realtor. So I checked him out, you know, talk to him about thinking, this is what I'm going to do in my direction. And he was dead set on FC Tucker. So he, he helped sort of guide me into that direction. I stuck with them, because they stand behind their agents they have. I'm telling the top of the line training. I know, when I walked out of there as a new agent, I was better trained than a lot of the books that I got licensed with. my support system is incredible. They are right there for us from coaching, to you know, how to handle situations. There's so much experience in my office and throughout the Tucker company that I can't see going anywhere else.

Ian Arnold: 8:25

So what was one of the biggest, let's say, issues or things you had to learn when you first started?

Tracy Ridings: 8:34

Oh, gosh. Um, you know, I think so the paperwork is really scary. Initially, right? It would take me, I don't know, two hours to write a purchase agreement, because I just labored over every single blank that was on that document. So having, again, having a nice office that was occupied, where I could go in and get guidance, you know, what do I put in this blank? How many days do we get for an HOA document? What's normal? What's typical? Just having that sort of help, and then getting the repetition in so that the paperwork wasn't so scary anymore.

Rick Ripma: 9:16

It's funny with paperwork I years ago, I managed car stores. And one of the things that I read and I believe it was true is the first three sales a car salesperson misses, is because they're scared of the paperwork. They're afraid to do the paperwork. They don't know the paperwork, so they never get to the point of the paperwork. Yeah, you know, so it's, it's, it's one of those things, it's a real fear it is and having somebody there who can walk you through it means everything right? Tours are huge. But how did you get going? Because that's always that's always interesting to me how somebody, you walk into this you are a teacher, which I've seen I mean, one of the biggest career moves seems to be from a teacher to a real estate agent. I think that is a great transfer of skill set theory to that. I'd love to hear because I, yeah,

Tracy Ridings: 10:12

so. So teachers put in a ton of hours, right, like we worked. I mean, I worked all the time, I was in that my office or in my classroom at five in the morning, and I wasn't leaving till eight o'clock at night. I just was putting in all those hours. And I got paid pretty much like nothing. Right. Right. Right. And it's such a delayed gratification. You just, there's just, it's, it's so delayed. So real estate is. I mean, there's a long term game, there's, you know, years that you spend with clients, but overall, it's a much quicker satisfaction, you know, like, Okay, I did this work. And here's this outcome. So that is such a nice reward. And then we're paid well, right. So that also, you know, I've got the work ethic. It's nice to have a paycheck to come with it. Yeah. If

Rick Ripma: 11:10

you're a teacher working at in your, in your classroom at five, and you'd sometimes didn't leave till eight, you have a great workout. Isn't that a critical piece? For being in any business? Especially I think real estate or even mortgages? Is that work? ethic matters? It does matter. Yeah. And having that work ethic. And you had to you move so much. So when you came to Indianapolis? Were you? Did you become a real estate agent? Right away? Or did you What did you do?

Tracy Ridings: 11:44

No. So we probably lived here. Let's see, we've been here now 13 years. So my kids were in starting middle school. And then elementary ages also. And so I ended up doing, I worked at the middle school for a little while I helped with sort of the special needs program there as edit support. I also worked at interactive Academy, as they're one of their preschool gymnastics teachers and an early like the low level gymnastics. I worked at my church a couple of times, you know, do in the children's programming, things like that.

Rick Ripma: 12:23

Now, all of that, did that help you get your sphere of influence here to get going into real estate?

Tracy Ridings: 12:28

Yeah, actually, because my church is really a good resource of my peers and different folks that you know, that trust me, so like, I started multiple women's programs and Bible studies and things like that. So when they saw that, those were successful, you know, well organized and in that I think I have a good loyal here group.

Rick Ripma: 12:55

Well, yeah, that's, that's awesome. So if somebody needs to get a hold of you, they will have any real estate questions. What is the best way to get a hold of you?

Tracy Ridings: 13:02

So my cell phone is area code 317-455-5999. And my email is Tracy dot writings at talk to tucker.com. And writings is spelled like riding a horse. Yeah, you know, it's

Rick Ripma: 13:18

funny, too. You may have said that to me, because every time I look at it, that is exactly what I think of is riding a horse because otherwise

Tracy Ridings: 13:25

you'll say readings, right? That's how it's pronounced, but I mean, that's how people pronounce it. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 13:30

Yes. How you pronounce it. Yeah. And if you need to get a hold of Ian or I, it's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com or 317-672-1938. That's 317-672-1938.

Ian Arnold: 13:45

And after the short little break, we'll go over what is Tracy superpower?

Rick Ripma: 13:50

I don't know what you're talking about break because I have to read this. Well, let's

Ian Arnold: 13:53

go then. Okay, thanks

Rick Ripma: 13:54

for listening to Indy's real estate gurus. The gurus we interview share valuable insights they reveal their strengths, personalities, and how they'll work for you. While we hardworking mortgage guys, secure your best mortgage real estate gurus work hard to. If, if you're, I'm sorry, the, the avoid problems. The amateurs don't see. They read it better than this. And they listen, which is really important. They listen, they find unrealized opportunities. If you're buying or selling a home or real estate guru is a valuable asset. If you're even thinking of buying or selling a home, keep listening and definitely call one of India's real estate gurus.

Ian Arnold: 14:34

All right, so before we get to find out what is your superpower, which I really hope it's flying, want to see somebody fly. Let's get into question that week. And the question of the week is sponsored by Hey, Rick and I the hardworking mortgage guys, where we believe in communication between you and your realtor doing given constant updates is a necessity when it comes to getting your mortgage done. So we pride ourselves in that so if you need one, just contact us at HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com All right, Tracy, what is your? What was is what was your is your first car?

Tracy Ridings: 15:13

Alright, so my first car is what we call a character builder. Oh, awesome. Yeah, yeah. So I drove a 78 Ford Fairmont, we called her peaches and cream, because she was see that kind of orange color on the power lube sign back there that she was. I don't know. Like she was the oddest color of orange I've ever seen in my life and with a white top. And she would sometimes not get over 25 miles per hour or we'd have to like she would just die. So she, like her window would fall down into the door and in the middle of a blizzard. So she was fun. Yeah, it's fun.

Rick Ripma: 15:59

The quarks make the car they kind of Yeah, because you look like you your face as you really liked that car.

Tracy Ridings: 16:06

I think is that yeah, I did like her. She she was a mess. She was a hot mess. If if it was raining, and there were puddles on the ground, I had to go really slow. Because if we if I went too quickly, the water would splash up in there and she would die. So I'd have to wait in a puddle until she dried out enough for me to go on. I have a lot of character. I have a lot of character. Her Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 16:29

Do you drive differently? Because of her? Yes. Oh,

Ian Arnold: 16:32

yeah. She was puddles

Rick Ripma: 16:36

have traveled today in that car. So I love cars. Is there any cards that you've had that like you're just really like your favorite car that you've ever had?

Tracy Ridings: 16:48

Well, no, no. I don't have a favorite car that I've ever had. But I did. One of my best drives. My neighbor down the street had a 64 Mustang convertible. Oh, yeah. So I they loaned it to me to go take my driving test when I was 16. Really? Yeah, it was. It was like the highlight. It was I just enjoyed it so much.

Rick Ripma: 17:09

Yep. Yep. Did the the instructor or the person riding with you enjoy that? I'm sure he took that instead of the Fairmont. Or did you? Oh,

Tracy Ridings: 17:22

that was my neighbor. So yeah, yeah. I didn't have the Fairmont.

Rick Ripma: 17:27

Had to be suffering driver. 66. Or

Tracy Ridings: 17:30

just just for the driver's test. But yeah, my neighbors are still there. And are they Yeah, Bob and Jerry. Jerry. They know I love them. So Wow. They here in Indy, are they that's in Oklahoma?

Rick Ripma: 17:41

Okay. Yeah, you've lived so many places. You've been basically all over the country. Yeah. All over. Yeah. So as far as real estate doesn't have to be real estate, but what would you say your superpower superpowers are?

Tracy Ridings: 17:54

Okay, so one superpower I have is, I am like a human? Compass. Okay, so I know, like, I can just find north really easily. So when my clients are like, what direction is this door facing? Or what way is this window facing I can pretty much always guess it. I might, sometimes I'm off. But typically, I'm on there. And then my other superpower is for real estate in particular, is I am like a transformer. So you know, there's a lot of energy that comes with buying and selling a home, right? There's a lot of stress, anxiety, excitement, just all kinds of high energy words that you would use to describe the process. And so I feel like my, my job is to just take all that energy, and then to bring it down, right and to bring a calmness to it. So my clients be like, Oh, my gosh, thank you for like, like listening to my crazy. I'm like, It's fine. It's fine. We will get through this all, you know. Yeah,

Rick Ripma: 19:05

that happens a lot.

Tracy Ridings: 19:06

It does. Well, yeah. I mean, because you've got a lot of personalities, you've got a buyer and a seller involved in both and they're emotional. And then sometimes the other agent on the other side, may or may not be a calm personality, you know, and, and can get things agitated. So I just feel like my job is to always keep it, you know, this is all something we can deal with. We can work through this. This is something we can handle. Tell me what you're feeling and then we'll figure it out.

Rick Ripma: 19:37

I think that's one of the most important things i i probably because in my background, I spent 11 years in New Home Sales with a builder. So you have six months of people, you know, building a house right and, and it's it's very up and down, right? There's all those emotions. And then if you're like what you did, you're you're taking that six months and you're condensing it And so it's, it's even more critical at that point that that you have somebody who can, because everybody wants the same thing everybody wants, the buyer wants to buy the house, the seller wants to sell the house or you wouldn't be in that position, right? The listing agent wants the house to sell. The buyer's agent wants the house to close. Everybody wants this to happen. So it's like, you're just everybody has to remember because that's, that's the goal. And that's why it takes the buyer and seller are going like you said they're emotional.

Tracy Ridings: 20:33

They're emotional. It's there's a lot, right. Yeah. And it's not always a surprise for them to like, Oh, I didn't know I was going to be emotional about this.

Rick Ripma: 20:42

Right? Yeah. And I don't know, like, I've been in my house for 30 something years. And I don't see that I would be all emotional. But I'm guessing After that minute, much time you have a connection to your do your house?

Tracy Ridings: 20:54

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I just sold a house for some clients that had been there for 20 years. And, and I know it was emotional for her particularly, even though they were going to better like something that they were dreaming of. They were upgrading into a really beautiful place that they were just very excited about. But that emotion of leaving the memories, right, I raised my kids here, this is where this happened. And that happened. And this first and that last and it was I think she was a little surprised by how attached she was. Yeah,

Ian Arnold: 21:34

yeah. I mean, there's even more to that. I mean, so even think about once you list the house, all right, you're hoping it's or the seller hope it sells within a couple hours, right? Well, what if it takes a week? What if it takes two weeks? And then people start getting a little antsy? Or do we have it too high? Should we lower the price? Should we do this? Should we should we do a renovation? So yeah, there's so much not just to mention what memories you can get with the house. Right? But then once you go into the financial side, is what do we do? So

Tracy Ridings: 22:05

yeah, totally. There's Yes. Are we making the right decision? Is this the right buyer for the house? Is this? Is this the right house for me to buy? There's all those thoughts and panics, you know, they're normal. So I want you to know, you're going to, you're going to experience that and it's okay. Right? We're gonna work through this.

Rick Ripma: 22:24

And you pretty much everybody does, whether they tell you or not, they probably still go go through it. And I know, when with new home sales, you'd even get they they go through hours of picking everything out and all this, and then they would still have buyer's remorse. Right. Yeah, you know, and it's really a lot of times buyer's remorse is not every time but a lot of times, it's not really. I don't know, it's real, but it's not accurate.

Tracy Ridings: 22:51

Correct? Well, there's a decision process. So right, so we, so we make an a just a decision on our sort of our emotional brain. Oh, this is it. I'm so excited. This is the right one, and then we get home and that logical brain kicks in and it's like, oh, well, can you really afford that? Is that really a good location is that school system going to be the right one for you? Is this going to do and, and then you start to second guess all of that, and that's where that buyer's remorse comes in. And that sort of panic. Again, if you understand that, this is just a part of the process, it's okay to have, you're gonna have that emotional decision. And then you're gonna have your logical side kicking in telling you you made a mistake, but then your motion, you know, then then you're gonna come back and probably decide that you really love the house.

Rick Ripma: 23:41

Well, I want to talk a little bit about your other superpower. Because I can see how that's a real value and I relate it to my wife, we built a nice screen porch on the back of our house. And she is really thankful that that faces basically South East so in the in the in the evening, there's no sun pointing in so you get the

Tracy Ridings: 24:04

nice shade you get to sit out there and it's cool. That's why

Rick Ripma: 24:06

it's so important. You can point those type of things out when you know what direction things are

Tracy Ridings: 24:12

for sure. For sure. And I have people who are into you know Fung Shui, and that's important to them. Or lighting like I want, you know, I want a north facing window or I want a south facing window for these reasons I want one facing east or west. I want my backyard facing the east so it's shaded in the you know, in the evenings and

Rick Ripma: 24:36

just rest with those people because I don't think that deeply

Tracy Ridings: 24:40

my wife, my job a little harder. So not only do I have to find the perfect house, it actually has to be the right direction. So that can be a little added chore and I can

Rick Ripma: 24:51

see why because if if you're certain areas you want the sun in at certain times of the day, right? I just never it's It just never occurred to me it doesn't occur to most people

Tracy Ridings: 25:03

honestly, until you deal with it. Yeah, I can tell you I've lived and so like our, our house in Virginia was on a lake, and it was east facing. So we could go sit out in the backyard in the evenings look at the lake, the sun. You know, the, the sunset would be reflected on the water. But we could be out there the whole time. We weren't being cooked by the sun. It was great. So I've decided that that's definitely the best direction for your back house. For the back of your house. Yeah,

Rick Ripma: 25:34

unfortunately, only about a fourth of the houses face that.

Tracy Ridings: 25:38

I know that see, that's the problem

Ian Arnold: 25:41

is the problem. And Tracy, how would somebody get ahold of you if they want to use your superpowers to help them?

Tracy Ridings: 25:47

They can call area code 317-455-5999. Or they can email me at Tracy dot writings at talk to tucker.com.

Rick Ripma: 26:00

And to get a hold of Ian or I, it's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com. That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com or 317-672-1938. That's 317-672-1938.

Ian Arnold: 26:12

Hey, I'm giving you props. You get better at this phone number. I am getting better. I think you wrote it from a distance away. But I'm not saying that out loud.

Rick Ripma: 26:20

Tell everybody my secrets. My memory secrets as I write everything down. That's the best best memory I have is notes. Right.

Ian Arnold: 26:29

All right. And to tune into the rest of our conversation with Tracy go to hard working more. Are ya got our work mortgage guys? And well, we'll send you the right link or you go to indies real estate curious.

Rick Ripma: 26:39

Yeah, that would be better. And these real estate? Yeah. Podcast sites.

Ian Arnold: 26:44

What they just want to talk to us, though.

Rick Ripma: 26:46

Then go to hard work mortgage guy then. All

Ian Arnold: 26:48

right. And we'll see you guys on the podcast side. All right. Hey, welcome. Tracy did not run out on us. So thank you for staying. I do appreciate it. So what would you consider one of your most memorable deals?

Tracy Ridings: 27:02

So one super memorable deal is I've been working with this lady for about four years. So she was not financially ready to purchase a house. But she had a goal and a direction. So I was her cheerleader really for about four years sending her cards, and she would call me and she'd just be like, Oh, Tracy, I don't think I can do this. And I'm like, Yes, you can. Like why are we doing this? What do you want, you want to, you want to have your own house with a dining room table that you can have your grandkids come and sit with you and eat. This is your goal, we can do this. And so that sweet lady, Miss Vicki? So she knows I love her. She worked and worked and worked. And we closed on her house last year. Awesome. It's pretty exciting. That is

Ian Arnold: 27:55

incredible. Because we do have a lot of first time homebuyers too. And it sometimes going through the steps, some people think, Oh, let me go through it. And it's a month or two, no, sometimes it takes longer. And to keep them up. Because what happens is, if you don't stay in touch with them and keep checking in, they'll forget and then they'll be renting for the next 10 years. But by that constant, like you said you kept talking to her kept being her cheerleader, because they need you need that emotional support to get you through those times. And I think that's, that's brilliant.

Tracy Ridings: 28:29

Yeah, that was really it was pretty special.

Rick Ripma: 28:31

But also, it also says a lot about you that you care enough about somebody to stick with them. And I'm sure you became very good friends, because you talked to him for four years. Right. And you were invested in her goal. Right. Right. What she wanted and that says a lot. I know just from everything that you do you have you care greatly about people. You're your

Ian Arnold: 28:55

animals. Yeah. Any animals. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 28:58

So and I know also, I think you're something with the Boone County. My boar.

Tracy Ridings: 29:06

Yeah. So I'm the vice chair for Boone County, my board last year I was their secretary.

Rick Ripma: 29:13

Okay, and what does that entail being the vice chair?

Tracy Ridings: 29:15

So we are we're just a subsection of my bore, which is, you know, the whole 13 counties around around the Marion County. Yep. Yep. So then each county has their own division, where we focus in on things that are happening specifically around us. So this is Boone County. So what's going on in Zionsville, and Lebanon and Western Boone developments that are coming businesses, whatever we we kind of just to keep real estate agents and their affiliates, which you know, we have lenders and we have mortgage or title companies and other ones to like What is happening that is pertinent to our business in our world?

Rick Ripma: 30:04

And there is a lot happening that's pertinent isn't there?

Tracy Ridings: 30:07

For sure, for sure. And Boone County is one of the largest growing counties in the country. Oh, is it red is? Wow, it is. Yeah. And with all the development that's going up in Lebanon with the state investing money, and Lily, also, it's pretty big. And then kinky is doing a lot of development there. We've got, you know, promontory which is a new equestrian neighborhood, and then they've got some golf clubs coming in. And it's just, there's a ton going on, and Lebanon is going to boom, what it's such

Rick Ripma: 30:43

a really such a great location. It's right off of 65. I know. So you can get downtown in no time at all. I

Tracy Ridings: 30:52

know. I like I'm just floored that we haven't grown more and faster, sooner, but I guess they were just doing the east side. And now you know, development is going to have to come to the west side.

Rick Ripma: 31:03

Right. And that's the key is the west side is the one that's closest to 65. But really, I mean, if I'm going to Chicago, I have a son who lives in Chicago, if I'm going to Chicago, we go through Zionsville we pick up 65 out of whites. Yeah. And we go north. That's what we do. Absolutely. And it's it's quick, it's easy. It's it's a it's a it's just a great, it's really a great location, I think it's kind of like Fisher's on the on the east side where they have 69 right there right there. And or Carmel with Meridian right there. It's just it's very, very convenient to get where you want to go so much. And Lebanon's been. I mean, I remember Lebanon, from what I grew up. I mean, it was it just was a little farm town, and it's grown and it's so nice

Tracy Ridings: 31:47

to me. Yeah. Have you been to their little town square is so cute. I love it. Yep.

Rick Ripma: 31:52

That's a great, it's a great place, are you? What are you seeing in the market, as far as you know, houses on the market? Because I hear we're just a few days away from really a lot of homes coming on the market is that?

Tracy Ridings: 32:05

Yeah, so Well, last week. I felt like we just had a boom, I just saw a whole bunch of new properties hit the market and go under contract really quickly. So we're still very much in that seller's market, days on market is extending just a smidgen. But, you know, we're talking, you're gonna be probably under contract within a month. Right? So there's still a lot of activity like that. And that's fast. That's fast, right? Super fast.

Rick Ripma: 32:37

I know from mortgages, day if you have if you have rates way here, and then they check that, okay, let's take where they were they were at, let's say 3%. All right. And they even if they just went to 4%, everybody's like, Oh, no, I 4%. That's too high. All right. And then after a while they get used to that, right? So 30 days is? Well, under the average, what's the average is over? 60. Right?

Tracy Ridings: 33:05

So for a seller's market. Yeah, it's, I mean, a neutral market is probably six months, right, that three to three to six months is kind of, I see it both ways that people will say that that's neutral. But anything three and under I think is we could all say is definitely a seller's market. And we're still there, for sure. And how much

Rick Ripma: 33:24

easier is that on the seller to be able to sell their house in 30 days,

Tracy Ridings: 33:28

you know? Well, I think one of the nicest things, it was hard last year with poor buyers, right. But one of the great things that I can do for my sellers is just go, go take a break, go take a little mini vacation for the weekend or for you know, so many people put their houses on the market on Friday, and then they wanted offers by Sunday. And I would say let's do the opposite of that. Let's put our house on the market on Tuesday. And take, you know, take through Friday, Thursday or Friday. Let's see how the traffic goes. And and then we were the only ones on the market. Right? Everybody was putting all their eggs into one basket. They there were three houses that came on the market, they had to choose between one of those three, which ones are going to be which 1am I going to go for? Well, if mine would came out on Tuesday, they didn't get those houses. So then they got mine. It was just yours. Yeah, that's awesome. So we would do, you know, kind of games like that. But But what was nice for sellers is that they could just go away, right? Make your beds, vacuum the floors, dishes away, take a break, and then come back in a couple of days and the house is yours again.

Rick Ripma: 34:36

Yeah, and it's sold, and you no longer have to deal with all the Yeah, people come in and all of that right. You know, I mean, I know that's the people don't you know, it's just one of those things that you have to deal with normally when you're selling but you didn't you didn't have to in that market and I don't know we may be back in that market soon.

Tracy Ridings: 34:53

Yeah, yeah. Well right now, so you know, again, 30 days or I mean 20 days really is out average days on market, depending on what price point you're in and where you are. But still to not have to clean your house for six months. Yes. You know, yeah, like, be show ready every.

Ian Arnold: 35:13

You don't clean your house for six months. Oh my goodness, I don't want to go to your house, you

Tracy Ridings: 35:17

have to keep it. Ready. Okay, that's every six months, right to not have to live like that, where you just never know, when is a phone call gonna come you know, you're cooking dinner. Oh, everybody stopped. And we got to run out of the house because this person came into town and needs to see it today. So to have that window narrow, I just think it's so nice for the sellers to especially

Ian Arnold: 35:42

if you have young kids, but trust me, I got two of them. Toys I haven't picked up and five minutes later, it's different toys are all over the house again. I was like, Are you kidding me? Yep.

Rick Ripma: 35:52

So if you had a friend, or let's say a family member who was moving? I don't have any friends out of state.

Ian Arnold: 36:00

Okay. No realtor knows.

Rick Ripma: 36:03

Like, if you had a friend? Well, yeah, because if they moved out of state, they're moving out of state. So the point is that you can't help them. So you're gonna, and they wanted advice on how to find the, you know, what should they look for in that in a real estate agent? What should they look for? What kind of traits or characteristics should they look for? What would you tell them?

Tracy Ridings: 36:23

So I would tell them, definitely consider the communication that they need and desire. So I have clients who are very, they want to be in touch pretty much daily. And I have others that don't talk to me unless there is, you know, something important to say, like, I don't need to hear from you. So I want to know, how they want to communicate. So I can be that person for them. So I would want them to have that. On the other end. I think they definitely want to have somebody who's going to care and put their needs first, as opposed to, you know, just trying to make a sale. Right? This is way more than a transaction. So those are probably my two top.

Rick Ripma: 37:07

Yeah, it's way more than just because it's such a personal transaction. It's so big. Yeah. And your whole life.

Tracy Ridings: 37:14

This isn't about making a sale. No, right? It's about helping you find someplace that's going to work for you. Right? Because

Rick Ripma: 37:19

to me, it always, it's kind of mind boggling to think of when they buy that house, how much it affects their entire life and their kids lives and everybody else. It's when you buy they're who your friends are. You know, where are you going to everything everything. Right? Is is based on where you live. It's not that you can't have friends that live a long way away. But for the most part, our friends, right? They live close right here.

Tracy Ridings: 37:45

They're in your in your zone. Yes. Yeah. Your neighborhood. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 37:49

So somebody was getting started in real estate. So they're getting started? What what should they do? What, what kind of process? Or what things? What should they do to help get going? Because I know that can be tough for some people. Yeah,

Tracy Ridings: 38:02

so one of the things I would first say is just make sure that you are financially stable, you need to have a really good savings. Real Estate does not happen overnight. It is rare, I mean, it does happen, like a sale could fall in your lap, and you get a closing right away. But most often, it is a long game, and you have to be prepared to put in a lot of hours and time and effort to build those relationships and to build a clientele. And, you know, we had a transaction takes time to Write Right? Not only do you have to find the client, you then have to go find houses which could take them months to do and then you get under contract. So that's another month. It's it's a long game. So financially be prepared or be ready for some extra stress. Yeah,

Ian Arnold: 38:58

so the I know the statistics that we've heard is 87% of agents, new agents fail in the first three years. So what do you think is the overall drive of that?

Tracy Ridings: 39:09

Um, gosh, the overall drive so I would say, I mean, for me, some of the things that I think I didn't really realize what's going to happen. I guess I just thought people, so we're military, right? We go to new towns all the time, we will call some agency, get a real tour. Find a house. I guess I thought that's how it happened for everyone, right? Like their phones are just gonna ring off the hook and I'm gonna answer a phone and be like, Okay, let me go help you right now. That's not really how it works. I had to, I had to build a build a brand. I had to find my sphere. I had to let people know I was in real estate and then I had to have people who are willing to take a chance on me You know, like, you've never sold a house before in your life? Why would I use you? Thank goodness, I have people who trusted me and still allowed me to have that experience with them. It's a hard job. It you know, I mean, I love it. But it's a challenge. You know, there are a lot of emotions. There's a lot to track. I just had somebody say the other day going, Oh, my gosh, you have to track so many things. There's, I mean, because we just, there's 100 pieces, you know, that are involved in a sale. And, you know, if you're not sort of really paying attention, there's a lot of opportunity for failure. So I think it's, I think it is it is a really stressful job, that maybe people don't realize, I mean, it looks fun, right? We're gonna go show houses,

Ian Arnold: 40:54

I see it on TV all the time issue TV, it's easy. It's easy, you

Tracy Ridings: 40:59

know, and I'm tromping around and mud. And, you know, as we go through farms, and I mean, I don't mind any of that, or I climb through crawl spaces. And, you know, because I want to see like, what, what does it look like in here? Those things don't bother me, but I can understand that. A lot of people don't enjoy it. Yeah.

Rick Ripma: 41:18

Yeah, I don't think I'd be crawling it. I've got a crawlspace. I've been down there once or twice. And that's enough for me. Yeah. I mean, some of them are all right. Probably

Tracy Ridings: 41:28

others. Yeah. But most of them, there's some free posters out there.

Rick Ripma: 41:32

minds all encapsulated. So nice. It was not creepy, but it's still isn't the place I want to hang out. So how important do you think being Tucker was when you got started to your success? Because you talked about, you know, people trusted you was Tucker part of that, that the fact that you had such a great set of mentors? Yeah,

Tracy Ridings: 41:55

I'm sure that was. So Tucker has a program, when you first join. They have like a 30 hour course that you take. And so I mean, it went over what a purchase agreement looks like. And it went over, you know, how to do an open house and and how do you find clients? And, and all those things? What's the we had the legal course, but that doesn't really teach you how to do real estate, you know? And then I did have so many people that I could just call with experience. Hey, how do you handle this? Tell me what to do about the septic system. What do we do about this? Well, how do we handle those things? If you've not done that before? So I did always have that. And I think just having that Tucker name behind mine was very helpful.

Rick Ripma: 42:45

So what does your team look like now?

Tracy Ridings: 42:47

So now? So now I have my husband, who's with me. So Charles writings, and then a son that came on board, his name is Forrest writings. And then one of my early on clients that I just love and adore. She is also a part of our team, Katie vigil, or V Hill is how she pronounces her name.

Rick Ripma: 43:09

And are they all real estate agents? Are they

Tracy Ridings: 43:12

so Forrest Charles are licensed and Katie actually is licensed, but she has her in in referral. And she also works for another company too. So

Rick Ripma: 43:23

that helps, though, to have somebody have them as licensed agents, so they can,

Tracy Ridings: 43:28

yeah, they can tell her right here. Sure. So you know, when a showing needs to happen, we can, Hey, I can't take it. Can you guys take it or, you know, if I need help? Like, I'm driving home from a showing and we know we're gonna write an offer, I can say, Hey, start this paperwork for me if without a license, they can't do that. Yeah, so we just help each other out, in a lot of ways that way.

Ian Arnold: 43:51

So since your husband's from inside a military background, so who runs the ship? You are him? I'm the boss, but he Yeah, there you go.

Tracy Ridings: 44:01

He knows it. Fast.

Ian Arnold: 44:04

Sometimes, people just need to know she's the boss,

Tracy Ridings: 44:07

just in case. Somebody was not remembering correctly.

Rick Ripma: 44:12

I have never been the boss in my house. And I bet you haven't either. Yep. No, no. Okay. I didn't think so. No. And your your husband was a Navy pilot.

Tracy Ridings: 44:22

Correct. He was helicopter pilot.

Rick Ripma: 44:24

Oh, hell yeah. That's That's awesome. I where I used to work they had a helicopter and the pilot there. Let them flew. They flew both the jets and helicopters but they all said helicopters a lot harder to fly than a than a plane.

Tracy Ridings: 44:39

And I think so much fun like the things that he would say that they got to do you know, like when they're over the ocean coming down and and they were able to watch a whale give birth. Oh, wow, that cool. Yeah. Then he also called himself dark navy. So he didn't always fly off the ships that was early on in his career. And then the next part was he He says dark navy, he flew special ops for the different different communities. So army, navy Air Force, whoever their special ops was the seals or whomever he would dry, fly them around in Iraq. So he

Rick Ripma: 45:16

probably has some stories. Yes, yeah. But he does. So if somebody needed to get a hold of you, what is the best way? If they have any real estate questions, or?

Tracy Ridings: 45:27

Absolutely, yeah, they can call me at area code 317-455-5999. And they can email me at Tracy dot writings at talk to tucker.com.

Rick Ripma: 45:40

Now, before we end, I did want to ask one other question. So do you do work a lot with military? We do? I figured, yeah, for sure. So you have a, I would think that that would be something that resonates. So you do.

Tracy Ridings: 45:51

So that's a you know, a soft spot in our hearts. Right. So we have the veterans around us. There's, there's not a lot of, it's not like we're at a base, you know, where we have all of that. But so my husband did retire out of the military from here. And so we work a lot with them that yeah, military on the move is a program that we are a part of, and so they get a rebate at the end. So at closing, our military folks will get a rebate, and it just goes straight to them. Awesome.

Rick Ripma: 46:27

Yeah, that's awesome. If you need to get a hold of the Ian and I it's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com That's HardWorkingMortgageGuys.com or 31767 to 1938. That's 31767 to 1938.

Ian Arnold: 46:39

A reminder if you have any friends, family or coworkers looking to buy sell refinance, contact Rick Ray, and we'll be more than happy to help them

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