Representing Equestrian Properties | Guest Larry Story, ALC         

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Intro: Welcome to The Realtors Land Institute podcast, The Voice of Land, the industry's leading land real estate organization.

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Justin Osborn: Hello, this is Justin Osborn, Accredited Land Consultant with the Wells Group in Durango, Colorado. On today's episode of the Voices of Land podcast, we're talking with RLI member, an accredited land consultant, Larry Story. Larry is an ALC and the broker owner for Total Care Realty in Greensboro, North Carolina. One of his specialties is equestrian properties. Being a horse owner himself and living on a horse farm helps him understand all the needs and unusual desires of the other horse owners and enthusiasts. Currently, Larry and his wife, Gail, have six horses, two Quarter Horses now retired, and four Gypsy Vanners of differing ages, covering all of North Carolina, helps his clients find just the right horse property to fit all of their needs. Welcome to the podcast today, Larry.

Larry Story: Thank you. Glad to be here. It's a great day.

JO: Yeah, I'm excited to do this, man. I sell a lot of horse properties out west, but it's typically for different reasons I think, than what you're seeing out in North Carolina. So I'll look forward to having some conversation today about the differences the two of us are seeing.

LS: Yeah, we're seeing... We actually do a lot of relocation because a lot of people are moving to the area.

JO: So they're moving to the North Carolina area specifically 'cause they want to be around more people with horses? Or are there better equestrian facilities out there? Or what do you think is the main reason behind that? 

LS: A lot of it is mainly job-driven, but then the other part is just depending on what direction they're coming from. They may be escaping weather. They may be escaping taxes, for all that we know. But we just get a lot of relocation, and then actually you will have the horse owners who are tired of paying board, so they want to have their own place. God bless them. [chuckle]

[overlapping conversation]

JO: Okay. Well yeah, I'm gonna make a note here. I wanna circle back to what you just said about paying board. But tell me and our listeners, tell us a little bit about yourself. How'd you get into equestrian properties? Is this something you grew up with or that you kind of fell into? 

LS: My family had horses when I was younger, much younger. But basically in early on in my real estate career, I kind of fell backwards into it. I was contacted and did one horse farm, and then it just snowballed from there as far as how everything went. They were very pleased. The mother of the client actually was a big time horse person in the area, and [chuckle] she couldn't stop referring me people. [chuckle]

JO: That's great. You gotta love those loyal clients, man, where your name is...

LS: I'm the man.

JO: That's awesome. And so do you have just yourself? Do you have a big team that's managing these horse properties when you get them listed? Tell me a little about kind of what your business model looks like.

LS: The business model as far as the getting, doing horse properties, it's just me. Now, of course, I have a team of vendors that I use, whether it'd be photographers, drone operators, and then of course I've got the handyman, the workers that if repairs need to be made, things need to be spruced up a little bit on the farm. It's not unbeknownst to me to hop on the tractor and go bush hog a field myself if I need to.

JO: Well, that's great that you've got that big Rolodex of contacts for your clients, man. I tell you, that's one of the things I learned early on in the business was unfortunately who not to use when it came to all those contractors, as opposed to who to use. But it's nice being able to refer good, solid, reputable people to our clients when I need them.

LS: Oh, all the time. I'm constantly looking for good vendors, but sometimes you have to switch them out when they don't show up. [chuckle]

JO: Yeah, I understand that one. Now, you talked about boarding a while ago, and that's something that we deal with out here quite a bit out in the Rockies. I'm curious, are you selling many, I'll call them income-producing properties where you've got a full-blown commercial business and it's a boarding business that somebody's selling? Or is this more for strictly kinda hobby, personal use? 

LS: Your majority of the transactions are gonna be the smaller farms that are hobby, personal. There are quite a few equestrian businesses as far as the setup that are for sale out there and that do get bought and sold. But I'll be honest, just like the property that my wife and I have, it used to be an equestrian business. We don't run an equestrian business. We both have full-time jobs, [chuckle] and we couldn't do that if we wanted to. But the property, while it is set up, there's a total of 24 stalls on the property. It's just us. [laughter]

JO: Wow. That's big. So you've got 24 stalls, and what'd you say, six horses? 

LS: Yep. Well, we have one boarder, which is one of our trainers. But the thing is, is we just like the privacy, but we like the facilities because of what was there. I mean, we have an indoor riding arena, an outdoor riding arena, multiple pastures and multiple buildings for storage, shed row buildings and everything. So for me and all my toys, there's plenty of space, but the flexibility for us and working our horses and riding and doing everything is great. And we don't have to worry about tripping over somebody for boarding, waiting to ride in the arena because somebody else is there. But boarding can be awfully expensive.

JO: Yeah, it definitely can. Depending on the level of service that's provided, if it's just standard board or if it's all right, now we're doing throwing feed every day, exercising every day. We're seeing rates out here anywhere from about 500 a month up to a $1000 a month, just depending on what level of services provided. How does that compare to what you have out there in the East? 

LS: What you're gonna find is, of course, the closer you are to any demographic center, a population, the higher the board's gonna be. Some farms you may get as cheap as 400 for pasture board. They're gonna feed them maybe once, twice a day, put out grain, but they're gonna mostly be hay, and they're gonna be out there in the weather and just have a run in. Now stall board, a whole another picture. You're talking anywhere from $800,000 or whatever a month. And of course that's gonna be full care. They're gonna be brought in, turned out, depending on summer or winter turnout. So summer turnout, they're gonna be out at night. Winter turnout, they're out during the day, they're gonna be blanketed, they're gonna be taken care of, they're gonna be fed. They don't really do a lot of the exercising like the higher-end barns, the higher-end barns when you get into the off-track thoroughbreds and such, they're gonna be turned out, you'll have a valet ride, but at that point you're talking probably $1200, $1500 a month for that kind of care.

JO: Yeah, I can certainly imagine that. And you talk about throwing hay. Out here we've got a lot of the ranches that are set up to where they'll irrigate in the summer, keep the livestock and the animals off certain parts of it, graze them on other parts, and then at the most we're gonna get good solid two cuttings. Some of the lower elevations down around southern Colorado and the banana belt, they might get three. But it's really rare for most of our clients to get more than two cuttings. And then that gets super expensive, talking about throwing hay. So what's your climate like out there? Can you get three, four cuttings a year? Or are you like two like we are? 

LS: They can generally get three cuttings as long as the weather holds up. We have a shorter winter than you guys. I'll be honest, knock on wood, it didn't even snow this year, really. [laughter] I think I saw a few flakes, but nothing ever stuck. We had a couple weeks where it was frigid, it was down well below freezing, but we just don't get that kind of weather usually. But it's more the growing season coming up March, April when things start to warm up, they'll cut probably, their first cutting will probably be around maybe April, May, late May, but it just really depends on how many they can fit in and then how much rain we get. Because we got a dry summer, they're only gonna get two cuttings. Grass just sitting aint gonna grow. I mean, I try... We actually just bought some more acreage next door to us just so we could get some more pasture because I've gotta get more rotation.

JO: So you're strictly dependent on mother nature out there, right? You're not having stored reservoirs and irrigation? 

LS: Oh, no. Well, that's the one thing about I like being over here on the East Coast on this side of the Mississippi. [chuckle] The water, it's mine. If it falls on the land, it's mine. I can make a pond, I can do whatever. [chuckle] But I don't have to worry about all the issues and the problems that you've got on the other side of Mississippi with the water rights and everything else, which, especially in Colorado, when you've got to rely upon the snow melt and everything but water, then you can't divert that.

JO: Yeah, it's a different world out here, man. I'm sure some people on the podcast have heard me say it before, but our saying out here is that, "The whiskey's for drinking and the water's for fighting over." [chuckle]

LS: Yeah, I can see that.

JO: It happens every year. Well, you talked about your facility being 20 stalls, and something that I've seen a lot out here... Er, sorry, I think you said 24 stalls. But something that I've seen is these big equestrian properties, the reason I just said 20 is because I was thinking of one in Dolores, Colorado that we had on the market that was real similar to what you just described. It had multiple homes on it, it was a 20-stall horse barn; had caretakers facilities inside it, just a small little apartment; had a indoor arena, had an outdoor arena with grandstands. We ended up pushing that property for about 35 to 40 cents on the dollar. It was just, it was crazy how over-improved that property was. And it was great 'cause my buyer was able to buy it for so much cheaper than it would've cost them to build that product.

LS: Oh yeah.

JO: Talk to me a little bit about your market. Are you seeing that it's 20 cents below or 20% below replacement cost, or 50% below? Or is your market strong enough where it's about even? 

LS: It really depends on where it is. If I've got a property that's close to a major demographic area, it's gonna go above simply from the standpoint of the demand. Now, most of the things, most of the properties that move are gonna be your smaller farms. We call them "hobby farms" or "mini farms." But they're gonna be 10, 20 acres or whatever. Too often I see a listing for a three-acre horse farm, and I'm scratching my head going, "What do you got, a pony?" [chuckle] But it's just, people will try to fit whatever they can on a postage stamp, and it just doesn't work. The horses, poor horses, either you're buying a truckload of hay every quarter, or you just can't subsist on that.

LS: But what we see is, there's a very hard and large demand on the small farms. I've got three buyers now that are constantly looking because we can't find anything. And when that property comes on the market, especially in the lower price ranges around 500, $600,000 they're gonna get snapped up because they're just not available. Your other choice is to go out there and build. And like you've already said, the cost to build is prohibitive. I can't replace my indoor arena. Lord knows what it would cost me to replace that thing.

JO: Sure. Yeah. So are you seeing... It sounds like probably most people are owner-occupants. You're not seeing a lot of vacation or second home buyers in that price range, I wouldn't think, are you? 

LS: No. Basically they're all owner-occupants. Once in a blue moon, I may have somebody, depending on the area in North Carolina, they'll buy something for certain times. Every blue moon, I'll get somebody from Florida that wants to come up and summer up here because it's so hot down there. But the thing is, is it's also big dependence on what they're working with. These guys that are running thoroughbreds and warm bloods and their show horses, they're down in Florida running 20, 30 horses on 20 acres. Those horses never see daylight hardly. They don't go outside. They're kept in a stall. And they're show ponies. You can't let them go out and damage their hide. They're gonna be kept groomed, spoiled and everything else, but they just don't get to go out and play in the field.

JO: Gotcha.

LS: So they'll come up. And I had one guy in Florida looking at my property one time, long time ago, back when it was for sale, but it was where I bought it. And he liked it. It had the right number of stalls. He didn't really care as much about the acreage, but there was just one other thing that turned it off. But he was just looking for a place to come bring a bunch of his horses up in summer up here because it was not as hot.

JO: Yeah, that makes sense. We have guys that kinda look to do that same thing with their livestock coming out of Southern Arizona. I mean, it...

LS: Oh yeah.

JO: 120 degrees down there, man. And yeah, it's...

LS: Brutal.

JO: It's unbearable.

LS: Well, you're not gonna be able to work them. And of course, yeah, the livestock's gonna get acclimated to it and they can work. But a lot of it comes down to, what are you working with as far as the breeds? There's such a difference sometimes in the actual breed of the horses, especially when people are looking for properties. And that's what a lot of people don't really think about is, asking the questions like, "Well, what kind of horses do you have?" [chuckle] I've run across a horse... I remember a couple years ago, I was out with someone looking at horse farms. And of course the listing agent did not say much about the barn. They just said it was like a eight-stall barn center aisle. We got there and walked in, stall walls weren't even three feet high 'cause she had minis.

JO: Oh, wow.

LS: And so [chuckle] they were like eight-foot stalls, eight by eight. I couldn't put a horse in there, [chuckle] and much less a full size one, much less even a Paso Fino or a small Quarter Horse. So it's just people don't think about the setup. Your warm bloods, your thoroughbreds, they're so much bigger and taller. They need a minimum of a 12 by 12 stall. Quarter Horses can sometimes get away a small one or a Paso Fino or something like, that can get away with a 10 by 10. But there's just so many things that in being immersed in the world like we are, you don't think to ask. And so it's trial by error. You're going out there looking at properties that truthfully, you could have saved your time by just asking a few questions and knowing that the property's not gonna work.

JO: Yeah. I'm laughing here, Larry, because you talked about the miniature horses. And we do a Durango cowboy gathering every year out here in Durango, and it's great. And there's chuck wagon cook-offs and rodeoing and trail rides. And one of the evening events is a poetry reading from these cowboy poets. And man, the best one ever was this guy gets up and he's saying, "All right, this next poem I wrote, and it's about miniature horses. Why?"

[laughter]

JO: That was the whole poem. "Why?" [laughter]

LS: People want a horse so bad but they can't afford it, don't have space for it, so they get it like a large dog.

JO: Oh, that's great, man. Now, talking about that though, I think I want to hit on that a little bit. Because we've obviously got a lot of our listeners are licensed realtors. They may not be selling a lot of horse properties like you and I are, and they wanna get educated on this, and they need to get educated on this. So talk to me a little bit about kinda what you're seeing in your market. Is there just a handful of you guys that are dominating the market? Is there more people coming in that are seeking to get educated and doing it the right way by saying, "Hey, come be my mentor?" Or do you kinda see people like the one you were just describing, flying by the seat of their pants that need some education? 

LS: Unfortunately, that's the latter is more the case. I mean, there is a handful of us, and we all know each other. And if I've got a horse property come up, I'm gonna reach out to like four or five agents because those are the ones that represent the equestrian community. And we all know each other very well, and we all refer stuff back and forth at times. But we all have horses, we all are in this world, so it's just trying to do the best for our clients. But yes, unfortunately there is the licensed brokers out there that will take on a listing that truthfully might have been better for the client if they referred it to somebody. Just the same thing with commercial or anything else and land and what we do every day, I just don't sometimes think it's a good idea for somebody to just take every bit of business that comes their way. And I don't. I refer stuff out.

JO: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that's a great opportunity for me to make sure all of our listeners understand on the RLI website, rliland.com, go there and check out the "Find a Land Consultant" tab. We have that there for a reason. It's so you can reach out to folks like Larry, like myself, like the 700+ ALCs that are across the country and say, "Hey, I need help. Would you be willing to take this on? Would you be willing to co-list? Or I've got a buyer looking in this area, would you be willing to sign a buyer agency agreement? And we can co-buyer this deal." But I agree. I think there's a lot of people, Larry, that unfortunately kinda get outside their wheelhouse and may not either understand how we can work together or two, understand how to find people to help work together to say, "Hey, let's represent our client's best interest, and make everybody look good here."

LS: Well, as you know, Justin, the first time you walk onto a horse property with a equestrian buyer, and I'll ask you a question. If that's a true horse person, where do they go first? 

JO: If it's a buyer and they're a true horse person, down the road to the neighbor, they're asking the neighbors what's the inside scoop? What's the inside's gossip? 

LS: My guys, they'll go straight to the barn. They don't even care about the house.

JO: Oh, I see. You're showing a property, absolutely. Go...

[overlapping conversation]

LS: Yeah, showing a property. They want to know, they're gonna go see where their horses are gonna be cared for.

JO: Yep, absolutely.

LS: I mean, when you're talking about an investment, I mean, you know, [chuckle] my father one time told me owning a boat was like having a hole in the water and just throwing money in it.

JO: Yep.

LS: It's about the same thing with a horse, except you're just throwing money down its throat, because [chuckle] they don't make money, really, and they're [chuckle] just big expensive pets. But the thing is, is we are very attached to them. We care about them a lot. And so first place a true horse person's gonna do when they walk on a property, to look at it, generally they're gonna walk into the barn. I mean, I've had...

JO: Absolutely.

LS: I don't know how many of them tell me face-to-face, "The house doesn't matter. I'll fix it up later," if at all. "But I must be... " They're gonna be spending all their time in the barn anyway.

JO: Absolutely. And that's one thing I talk about in the Recreational Real Estate class I teach, is how many of the listing agents actually spend time talking about the barn, getting photos of the barn, given the dimensions of the barn? Do the stalls have water? Is there electric out there? Is there an overhead? 

LS: Oh yeah.

JO: How tall is the overhead door so we can back in a trailer in there? And everybody shows pictures of light fixtures in these homes and granite counters on these horse farm.

LS: And nothing of the barn.

JO: No. It drives me nuts. [laughter]

LS: They'll list a horse farm, and they'll have one picture of about a hundred yards away. There's the barn. [laughter]

JO: Yep.

LS: I mean, when I do a horse farm, and the thing is, is, yeah, I go overboard with my marketing and media, but I... Can because for example, we own our own Matterport 3D camera. So I'll sit there, and I was actually showing the new assistant an example of what we do, but I'll scan everything on that farm. I'll scan the house, I'll scan the barn, I'll scan the indoor arena, which is not easy, I'll tell you that. But I'll scan it. And that way I have 3D scans of everything. And especially when we're dealing in our market, when we have so much relocation, people from out of state looking, wanting to move here and everything else, they need all that data and they need to be able to see it and walk through it and see for themselves. 'Cause, just telling them, "Oh yeah, well, it's a 12 by 12 stall. No they don't have automatic waters, but they got water in the barn. They got... " Answering all the questions. It's a big difference just to be able to actually see it more than just pictures.

JO: Yeah, I agree.

[overlapping conversation]

LS: But I've gotta be able to paint that picture for them and get them hooked to come into the property.

JO: I totally agree. And that's one thing I talk about in the classes is, these buyers for your properties, they're kinda like mine. Mine are coming up out of Arizona, out of Texas. They're researching online. Yours are coming out of Florida other places out East and out South, but they're comparing your listings to the other five or 10 horse properties on the market. And the one that they're gonna be the most excited about is the one that they understand the most. And by you having all that available, all that material online, they understand your property better than your competitors, and that helps them get excited and want to make an offer by the time they put boots on the ground on your listing because they already understand it so well.

LS: Yeah. As a listing agent, whether it be land, the horse farm, or whatever, I always tell my clients: My job is to get them to walk through the door. My job is to get them on the property. The property and myself will help sell it, but I've gotta get them there. They can't just learn everything online and try to make a decision from that. My job is to get them their boots on the ground. And at that point, I am there for every showing, because I know that property almost as well as the owners. And a buyer's agent who doesn't really understand horse or people with horses, [chuckle] they don't know how to talk to them and they don't know what they're looking for. So when they get on the property, they're kinda lost.

JO: Sure.

LS: So me walking around with somebody else's buyers, I'm not trying to steal a client; I just want to sell that property. So I'm answering all their questions, pointing out everything I think they wanna see, and they're following me around. Their agent is just kind of walking around behind them. [chuckle]

JO: I think that's great, and I think that's worth repeating. It's one thing if you're selling a quarter-acre lot and a subdivision with central water, central sewer, here's your footprint, what you see is what you get. You don't need to necessarily show up for that if you're the listing agent. But when you're selling properties like you and I are selling, you're doing your sellers a disservice if you don't show up and be there to show that property. Because like you said, half the time the buyers' agents, it's not their fault; they're just not educated. They don't have the experience that we have, and so you can help sell that property better than they can.

LS: The largest majority of the buyers' agents are very grateful that I'm there, because they've never been on the property. They've seen what the buyer's seen online, but they don't know anything about it. They can't talk to them about it. And especially if they're not horse people themselves, they surely can't explain the stuff. So the buyer's gonna have questions, where's the nearest feed store? Where's the nearest track supply? Where's your nearest vet? They're gonna have all these questions. Who are the farriers you use? It's just, they're very specific questions for that type of property.

JO: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. And it's, like you said, it's not their fault; they just hadn't been trained. But we need to teach them how to ask the right questions. And folks, for our listeners, if you do want formal training on this type of stuff so you can better advise your clients and understand the topics we're talking about, I highly recommend you go online, check out the LANDU Designation courses, and look at the topics that we offer all throughout the year with the different classes through RLI so we can help get you better educated.

LS: Oh yeah. I love the classes I took, and it's just been a world of help in some of the other areas. The horse part, you know, [chuckle] unfortunately, sometimes you just gotta live that, but get thrown a couple times anyway. [laughter] Then you'll understand the pain and suffering what you wanna find out. But it is an immersive world just like with any of the fields that we do as far as land. You gotta really get into it. And even when we're selling large tracks of land, whether it be recreational, timber, development or whatever, I'm out there boots on the ground before I even list it. I gotta walk the land. I've gotta see it, because I don't know how many times I've looked at satellite photos, topography maps and everything else, and I walk out and I actually put boots on the ground. I'm actually a lot of times pleasantly surprised that it's not as bad as it looks on the maps.

JO: Yeah, that's key, man, is I like doing the initial research, getting as educated as you can from aerial maps and topographical maps and all that kind of stuff. But man, there's nothing better than actually getting there on-person, walking the land, riding it in your truck, riding it side-by-side, riding it on a horse on this case, you know? I actually...

[overlapping conversation]

LS: I've done that. [chuckle]

JO: I'm sure you have.

[laughter]

LS: I had a 300-acre one. I was like, "It's a bit far for me to walk."

[laughter]

JO: Well, Larry, anything else for our listeners as we're kind of wrapping up here that you really wanna make sure they understand before we call it a wrap? 

LS: No, they just need to ask well-informed... And they just need to ask a lot of questions of their buyers and sellers, for that matter. They really need to listen more. Too many of our fellow brokers and agents, they talk a lot, and they talk a lot about their marketing and everything, but they don't listen to what their clients want or need. They need to listen a little bit more than they speak.

JO: I totally agree, man.

[overlapping conversation]

LS: They'll learn a lot from that.

JO: I totally agree. You know, I've always heard the saying, "There's a good particular reason that our Lord gave us two ears and one mouth: Listen more than we talk," right? [laughter]

LS: I know.

JO: Well Larry, thanks for joining us today, man, and sharing a little bit about your background and kind of the business you're doing. If our listeners wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that? 

LS: They can take their choice. My cell phone 336-327-1841. One of my many email addresses, [chuckle] easiest one would be larrystorytcr@gmail.com. I'm always available. My wife will tell you my phone's surgically connected to me, so I'm always gonna see it or hear it. But I may be on a tractor, on a horse or somewhere else, so I might not be able to answer right away. Or I might actually be working with a client. So be patient, and I'll get right with you. [chuckle]

JO: Well, those are valid reasons, man. I totally get that. Well, for more expertise on land real estate topics, be sure to check out the RLI blog, follow us on social media, and of course, tune in for the upcoming episodes of The Voices of Land Podcast.

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