An interview with Real Estate Broker Wade Rowley
Real Estate Broker Wade Rowley has nearly a decade of experience serving the Puget Sound area.
(note: this interview is also available as a podcast)
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Thanks for joining us today. I’m Dr. Jennifer Ghahari, Administrative Director at Seattle Anxiety Specialists. I’d like to welcome with us Wade Rowley, who is a real estate broker at John L. Scott Real Estate. Before we get started, Wade, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself, the types of properties that you handle and the areas that you serve.
WADE ROWLEY: Sure, so I’m Wade Rowley, as Jennifer said. I work out of the John L Scott Real Estate Bellevue office and I’m going into my 8th year in real estate. So, really, the last few years I’ve really begun to enjoy the whole process and working with others. I work in the Greater Puget Sound area and I help, I’m licensed for both commercial and residential but I help, mainly my focus is residential right now. I have helped some commercial buyers, but mostly its condominiums, single-family residence, all of those. So, Greater Puget Sound area, with an emphasis on the east side, but I go into Seattle, I have gone as far south as Gig Harbor, as far north as, I’ve worked through Snohomish County, some transactions out there and activity and I see, anyways how far north maybe as far north as Arlington. Again, the crux is kind of east side, Greater Puget Sound area. And hopefully, that answered most of what you’d like to know.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Yeah, that’s great. So, it sounds like you definitely know the area and can speak to what is going on in terms of real estate. Sounds like we have the right person with us today.
WADE ROWLEY: Okay, great. I have lived in the area a long, long time so…how many years now, 43 years…I was adding that up the other day, is it 43 ½ years... and run business in Bellevue and so on, so really familiar with the area…
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Fantastic! Great. So today we’re going to talk about anxiety regarding home buying, especially first-time home buyers and I’m sure you’re gone through this yourself, I definitely have. Some worries or anxieties that homebuyers face, the things like can I financially afford this property, is it the right area, is the school system okay, the crime level, is there anything wrong with the property… and all these ideas just kind of ruminate in your head… am I getting the best deal, re-sale value… it can go on and on. In 2018, (I found an article) that Homes.com conducted a survey where they studied and questioned 2,000 people throughout the U.S. to get insights of folks’ first-time home buying experience. Some of the main findings that they had were that 40% felt anxious in the process, 38% thought it took longer than they expected it to, 10% had buyer’s remorse and 13% felt that they overpaid for their home. So, it sounds like a lot of these issues can just be mitigated by working with the right realtor. Can you explain the pros and cons of working with a licensed realtor or broker versus trying to navigate this process without one?
WADE ROWLEY: Sure, and maybe to give a little better context, it’s common even, and we’re talking mostly about purchasing, it’s common that real estate brokers that are seasoned brokers will hire another broker to help them list their home. So I highly recommend, if you’re a first-time home buyer, just find the right broker. Unless you have somebody that has gone through it many times before and can kind of give you counsel and insights through, find the right broker, find the right lender and work with them. I would never recommend to anybody going with somebody who is not licensed or going it on your own rather than a licensed broker. And to give you a little insight into the terminology so your listeners understand. In the State of Washington, it’s funny because we go by broker or we’re a broker… you can be a broker or a managing broker and so that term though is used synonymous with agents. So, if you hear me saying agent or broker, it’s the same thing, unless I say managing broker. But to get licensed, you go through all of the schooling process, all of the certification. You have to work with a firm that knows what they are doing. I just recommend doing that, you know. I wouldn’t even imagine going it alone. So, if you find an avenue that you think you can, just be very careful… make sure all your of your legal bases are covered. It is a big process; you’re spending a lot of money. I recommend finding the right broker and make sure they’re licensed. Sometimes the firm they work with matters; it matters more about the personality and does that personality coincide with what your needs are and do you feel comfortable with the person and trust them. Hopefully that answered your question. Sometimes I ramble and if you need any follow-ups, let me know because I might not answer everything you like…
JENNIFER GHAHARI: You bring up a really good point. Finding the right broker is kind of essential to this process and I think in many regards it can kind of feel like a “crapshoot.” You’re just you’re going out there and trying to find the right person. Like you said, the personalities should try to be a pretty good match, the realtor or broker should have a good knowledge of the area that you want to move to. So do you have any good tips on how someone can find the right broker to work with?
WADE ROWLEY: Right, that’s a really good point; are they familiar with your area? There are a lot of ways to go about it and I’ve read many because I like to get into the eye of the consumer or potential clients… what are they looking for? It all boils down, to me, and this is how I choose any professional of what I’m going to do if I’m entailed or looking at a big project that’s going to work, I want to feel comfortable with the person #1; I want to trust the person. And, with a broker, it’s really interesting because you’re going to get really close in your business relationship; I mean you’re going to share your finances, you’re going to share a lot of things that you don’t normally share with maybe anyone except for your spouse if you’re married or your significant other or family… you know, people that are very close to you. You might not even share stuff with family, probably won’t, that you share with your broker. Find someone you are comfortable with, #1, that you can work with, that you know when I call them, if they can’t respond immediately, I know they’re going to respond as soon as they can and, um, that they’re, you know, not going to give me a line or something I want to hear, but they’re going to do their best to be a straight shooter with me and I can trust that person. There are a lot of tools you can use or things you can do to find that. I recommend you look at their reviews. You can ask for references. I don’t have many people ask me for references just because we have so much information available now I think is a big part of it. Used to be when I ran my other, my building maintenance company that was a little different, business-to-business, but you’d furnish references with every job or prospective job you went out on and they’d have that list and they might or might not call. Now you have reviews and you could ask for references if you want but the reviews, you know, go through them – read some of them. Some people have a lot of reviews. If you were to spend time reading all my reviews, it would be a while to go through it but, you know, pick a few and read them and see if you can find ongoing themes – the person is not pushy, they’re very responsive or they’re some of the things you’re looking for that look like this person might coincide with your personality and help you reach you end goal, right? And talk with them. You can interview several if you want. I’ve seen some you look at, some at how you go about it, look at different sites, and so on and searches. It’s a good idea, interview 2 or 3, unless you feel like you’ve met the one, you know, and either you have experience, you know what you’re looking for, you’ve met the person on your first meeting, unless you feel like that, review several, interview several – and then pick the one. Again, try to boil it down to who do I feel the most comfortable with, who has enough knowledge of the area they can help me meet my goal and of the industry as a whole and who is going to be responsive and whatever you find that your specific needs are. Now some people they want to be hey I really want to drive hard, I want to get the best, I want a hardcore negotiator, I want this or that. Others feel like hey, you know, what’s important to me is the area and the person, the personality, how responsive they are. So those are some of the ways you could find the right broker and what’s going to be very important is it boils down to how do you feel about that person and can you trust them and are you comfortable with them.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: And I think you bring up a really good point that trusting your broker and being comfortable with them that in itself it going to help lessen a buyer’s anxiety. Because if you go into it and you think maybe this broker isn’t on my side or they’re worrying too much about their own financial interest as opposed to mine as a homebuyer, it’ll definitely add to and increase an anxiety and stress so, like you said, it’s definitely a really good idea to maybe speak to a few different brokers to find the right one that you actually, you just feel comfortable with, that you can trust throughout this process.
WADE ROWLEY: Find one you trust and if 2 or 3 aren’t enough, go to another, cause I can tell you, and this is Wade Doctrine from business and anything that I’ve done throughout my life, is it’s going to take and it could take a little bit of time and it could take a lot of time, right? But end up with somebody that can help you meet your end goal and that’s critical to you and it’s going to help you in this process quite a bit.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Great. So, how many homes, and I’m sure like you said just in terms of finding the right broker to work with, actually finding the right home that must be spread out so differently. For some people it’s the first home that they see; for other people I can’t even imagine how many that they might look at. What’s the average, if you had to give a number, that how many homes do people typically look at before making the offer and how can folks usually tell that this is the one that I should make an offer on?
WADE ROWLEY: Okay, I’m going to try to answer both of them but if I don’t answer that second question, remind me…
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Sure, okay.
WADE ROWLEY: First off, with an association, the American Homebuilders Association did a survey and they said, and this is a fairly recent survey, they said 2/3rds of buyers take more than 3 months to find the home and look at an average of 19 homes before they buy.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Oh wow! That’s more than I would have thought…
WADE ROWLEY: Right? Me, too! And as a broker with experience I thought, do my buyers really by average, and full confession I don’t go back and average them out. Now I see some files in front of me with a lot of homes in them and I keep the homes that we’ve looked at and so on if I need them for reference and some of those files get pretty large and there’s a lot of them. I’ve had a buyer, for example, in this year probably looked at 40+ homes and then I’ve had buyers that say I like this home and I want to offer on it and I go out and I meet them there and they offer on it, they’ve already looked at a lot of stuff online. So we have so much we can look at online. So I definitely, I never have been one to recommend, hey you have to look at more homes because we can over-complicate that really fast and we get so much good information now that if you did a little bit of homework on each one, and I say hey do a Google fly over if you like or Google Earth…. and if you don’t have the app, it’s free just download it... and you can drop the little guy with the pin, you can hover over it and you can spin around the neighborhood so you see the 360. See what’s all around the home. So, that gives you good insight, you know. Is there a chemical plant nearby, you may want to consider that or get questions answered or is there a community center I really like, you can see all of this stuff, a school by it – and this way you can help kind of isolate hey this one I think may work and quickly you can find some that oh, I like the home, but this really isn’t going to work. In that process, depending on how you like to work, you can maybe see five or six homes, seven, eight and really find out. Maybe you can see one, two or three. But I say, if you like the home, look at it, get all your questions answered on that home cause it might be the one. And many buyers I’ve worked with, I have, we’ve started out at one home, but they just started, so it’s understandable, too... I really like it, but it’s the first home I’ve seen. So as a broker, you know, I try to relay hey it might be the one but you want better context. So they’ll go and see some others and then come back around to that one, oftentimes it’s happened, that first one that they’ve seen or one of the first ones. There is some, and it goes along with my experience, that trying not to see more than, you know, five or six homes in a day is a lot.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: In one day…
WADE ROWLEY: Running together. I have done it, too with what’s my largest, nine or 11 in a day. At the end of the day, I’m trying to remember what we looked at, you know, let alone they are, you know I have notes on each page and so on but it can be overwhelming because you’re trying to consume mega-data. Remember it only takes one, okay, and what you’re looking for is a place where you can live safely, you can live your life, get your goals accomplished you want to, and build your life in that home and what home matches that criteria, right. It may not be permanent, and it probably won’t be in this day and age, although some of us try to the first time out – then you know you never know what happens and unfolds in life. You start making more money, you get a different opportunity or this or that. So it’s going to be a nice place for everything you need look at it that way and who knows what’s going to happen in the future. It may be your forever home, maybe it won’t – but I have seen a lot of buyers really put a lot of pressure on themselves. They want to find their forever home right now. I understand that, that wanting to do that but that does put lot of pressure on you. I recommend find what works well for where you’re at in your life now and if you want to stay there, great, and if, in five or six years or whatever your timeline is, you want to start renting that out, add it to your portfolio, buy another or sell it, put that equity into another place, that’s good. It’s a good way to relieve some pressure because you confine yourself into this, your home that you’re trying to get and it’s this ideal, perfect picture. The second question was… that answered the second question?
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Yeah…it slightly did – about how can you tell that this is the one. And like you said there’s some check boxes: would I feel safe here, can I afford it and is it sometimes or often just a “gut feeling”, too, that people have?
WADE ROWLEY: Absolutely.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: It just feels “good”, it feels “right.”
WADE ROWLEY: Yes, I feel it, too, when I go in and am starting to work with the client, get to know them a little and there’s a vibe in a home and sometimes it happens right away when we’re talking about that first, second or third home, oftentimes it does. Again, cause you have so much information, pictures, neighborhoods, by the time you get there you may have looked at hundreds online, but you know hey here’s the 3. And so that vibe I feel that and some people feel that and they want to offer and then they start looking at all the details and then they don’t want to. Now there might be some details that hey this is something to be concerned about – but we just, it’s kind of how our minds work we start to think okay, well is the kitchen big enough, well is the window big enough, well is the yard going to do everything I want. So I recommend when you feel that vibe, zoom in and zoom back out. So, you zoom in, you look at the details, you don’t want something to get by you that you should see, right? And then zoom back out; what attracted you to that home, that neighborhood, that whatever it is – and look at that again and then say hey, okay, this is worth offering on. I really feel for this home.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Okay. And I think something else that you brought up with the last question about a way to lessen anxiety and stress about this is really doing your homework and, in this day and age, there are so many online resources that it’s really amazing – that you can, like you said, you can use Google Earth and look at the property online, you can read about all of these properties. So, instead of trying to go in person and visit 10 homes in a day, which is going to be extremely stressful, there’s only so much that a people can really handle in a day.
WADE ROWLEY: It can overwhelm you…
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Yeah, like you said trying to remember how I felt at each home and all the little nuances. So really doing your homework and kind of narrowing it down to the ones that really feel like they could be potential winners might help the whole process along – so that’s great.
One question I was wondering about is – is there any type of difference in anxiety and stresses between a first-time homebuyer versus someone who has already gone through the process and had, you know, purchased a home once or twice before. Are there similar anxieties or are there differences at all?
WADE ROWLEY: I think that’s a really good question because I think it could be, and sometimes is, it can induce more anxiety for first time homebuyers. I don’t really see a great difference in the type of stressors but the fact is the unknown, right?
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Okay.
WADE ROWLEY: Some people have never gotten a loan, I’ve never thought of anything like this – it’s a big deal, right? So, am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? That could be, that’s one I think, a big anxiety inducer is so-and-do did it this way, I need to do it this way, right? And so, and it’s a first-time homebuyer… and I have to tell you it’s one of my greatest joys in this business I like working with first-time homebuyers because you can kind of help coach them through, you can kind of help answer questions in a way, help them look to the future as here’s what you’re going to see, here’s what’s going to happen, give them that kind of path to look at so you can relieve, right, some of that stress. The more you can see of what’s going to happen, the step-by-step process, the more it’s going to help, especially first-time homebuyers. Get a good lender and then find a good broker and ask them questions. And if you ever feel and, again, this is Doctrine by Wade of what how I’ve conducted business over the years, like you’re putting them out when you ask them a question and, now everybody has an off day so maybe you perceived something that they weren’t really thinking – but if you feel like that on a regular basis and then I would seriously think about a different mortgage broker or different real estate broker. Now if you get into the process with the mortgage broker, you’re into the transaction, well, we could go over some of the details… first five days you can change in most of your contracts… make sure yours is written that way… you can change lenders – if you’re just getting this uneasy vibe about them. So hopefully you’re comfortable with your broker by then before you offer and but, again, when you’re interviewing, when you’re looking at them feel like hey am I going to be comfortable with this person and do they, can in a sense, enjoy what they’re doing – you don’t ever want to feel like you’re a nuisance to that person. That prohibits you from answering, getting your questions answered that are going to help you a lot, they’re going to relieve stress, going to help you get your end goal and, you know, they may not get back to you/you might not reach them on the phone that second, but they should be prompt and no question is a bad question. Ask questions and ask until you get every one answered and you should work with somebody who understands that and is on your team, you should feel like they are on my team, I’m not bugging them, they’re on my team. And there’s different ways to work together. Sometimes, if you have a lot of questions, put an email together, get all of them down on the page and send them over and that person, that agent can help you one by one, and go through them. What I do when I get those is I just go through, I respond to the email and each question I put an answer under and then, oftentimes, I’ll follow up with a phone conversation cause there might be additional questions or you didn’t go into enough details so all of that stuff can help relieve anxiety for a first-time homebuyer. There’s also, you know, some articles you know you can read online. But I think the stressors to me are pretty much the same but the unknown and not having gone through it before. You’re relocating or the last time you did it was 20 years ago… and things are different now. The cool thing is on the positive end it’s also kind of more exciting – it’s like I’ve never done this before, my first home, right? Whatever that first home means to you. I’m starting to accrue some equity, I feel like hey I’m really starting to make it financially, whatever that means to you is the cool thing it’s your first home. I had the first home “magic” in my home I was way out in Gold Bar. But it was my home, that’s what was exciting to me. I’ve had another home since that some people might say hey it’s a bigger and nicer home but it wasn’t the same magic as when I bought my first home. So that’s the nice thing about it is you can have a higher emotional on both ends of the spectrum.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Like you were saying it’s such a financial investment that, and a big change, a big chapter, new chapter in people’s lives that it should be enjoyable. I think that’s something everybody should try and take away from this process whether it’s their first home or second or their third. It should be an enjoyable process and they should be working with the right person who’s going to alleviate that stress. If your broker or mortgage lender is adding to your stress, it’s probably not the right person to be working with.
WADE ROWLEY: Especially your broker. Your real estate broker can help you if you’re having struggles with your mortgage broker. A good real estate broker will get really dialed in with them and they can even help push the whole thing through for you or get any questions answered or if you don’t have one that’s very responsive; they can help them be responsive in a hurry because, you know. There’s some weight you carry as a broker because most lenders want, they don’t want a bad name with you either but also you know also you’ve handled it professionally with many of them before so you can get, they can get in and help you, again, they’re part of your team. You’re having a struggle in the area, they can help you out there.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: This has been great! Do you have any other last words of advice that you’d like to offer homebuyers whether they’re new homebuyers or seasoned?
WADE ROWLEY: Sure, sure. So, to help just make it an overall more positive experience, know what you want, ok, and be flexible, ok.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: That’s fair.
WADE ROWLEY: And then be flexible. Find a mortgage broker and get yourself pre-approved so you know what you are targeting. That in and of itself is going to relieve a lot of stress you’re going to know hey this is what I qualify for, this is what it costs me. And I’ll tell you some of them get busy and some of the best ones get busy. Ask for, say I want, estimated payments, if you don’t feel like you got enough detail in your pre-approval and you want more, ask for it so you know right where you’re headed – that’s going to alleviate, the more you know, the more stress that’s going to alleviate and make it a more positive experience. And, find a good broker that you’re comfortable working with, ask them whatever questions you need to ask them and get responses to those – and that’s going to help you a lot – you’re looking down the road and they haven’t, you know you still have some questions you want answered… what’s going to happen down the road when I get to this step and this step and the next step – ask them – get the questions answered that’s going to help a lot. One more time, Wade Doctrine with life in general and certainly big projects like buying a home, this is kind of how I worked that has helped me is whatever you’re doing that’s making you successful in life and feel like you’re in control – I myself I think everybody succumbs to stress at times or anxiety and so on at different levels right, and so, for example whatever we use, I hike a couple of times a week, I go out I come back I get more work done… keep doing those while you’re doing a big project as much as you can and even maybe add something to is – yours will be completely different, it’s whatever works for you and whatever, but those coping mechanisms, whatever you want to call them in life that you have been using, don’t stop. And one quick story about my last business. I grew my business quite large by some standards, small by other national chains. It’s a building maintenance company and we grew it a lot, I grew that from I bought three accounts and grew it to where we had many accounts, I couldn’t count them. We cleaned large spaces, maintenanced large buildings. Along the way, we had big projects that could be considered stressful and we developed policy along the way and one of those was hey there’s follow ups that worked really good our supervisors would come back fill out a sheet, here’s the sites we visited, here’s the follow up we need and then some of those, as the big projects would come, say we’re at a point where we’re not billing a lot, we have a big project, and then some of those things we were doing to be successful fell off no longer filling out your follow ups, and they can be whatever coping mechanisms, this system was this and so we now had this big project and we had this tailing off over here that we were no longer doing – so not only did we have a big project, we were no longer using our other coping mechanisms and it got worse and worse. And so, whatever those happen to be, I recommend hey stay with those, don’t drop those. If it’s nutrition you know you go out, you’re looking at houses now you were eating really healthy now every other day you’re eating fast food and eating? But you know you diet might change or your exercise program or whatever might change, I really recommend keeping as much of that in place as possible and maybe even adding another element or two. This is a big project, it’s a big investment, right? And it’s a cocktail of stress if you’re not careful, but if you’re careful, it can be a really positive experience.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Fantastic. Thank you, Wade and thank you for speaking with use today and being part of our interview series. I think this is definitely going to help a lot of people in the home buying process. So thank you again for joining us and be safe and well during this time.
WADE ROWLEY: Thank you and thank you again for having me – and good luck out there.
JENNIFER GHAHARI: Thank you.
WADE ROWLEY: Take care.
Please note: The views expressed by the interviewee are for educational and informational purposes only, are not meant to diagnose or treat any condition, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Seattle Anxiety Specialists, PLLC.
Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.