Kevin Lucero

Most rural buyers underestimate how different the process is up here. You're not just inspecting a house, you're inspecting the well, the septic, the road frontage, and the actual parcel boundaries. My advice: don't fall in love with a listing until you've walked the land, pulled the tax map, and asked about the road maintenance situation. MLS photos are the start, not the answer. Then write the cleanest offer you can, because in this market a clean offer beats a slightly higher one almost every time.

Price it like a buyer is going to see it, not like the neighbor who told you what their place is worth. Buyers in our market are smart. They look at hundreds of listings online before they call anyone, and they know when a property is priced ten percent too high. Get the photos and video right the first time, fix the small stuff that costs you nothing (clean barn, mowed lines, working light fixtures), and trust the comps. The first two weeks on market matter more than the next two months combined.

A mix of three groups. First, locals selling family farms, inherited land, or downsizing after raising kids here. Second, relocating buyers coming up from NYC, Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut, usually shopping for their first piece of acreage or a country home. Third, second-home buyers and investors looking for hunting parcels, hobby farms, or weekend properties within a few hours of the city. Some are first-time buyers, some are on their tenth transaction. The land piece is the through-line.

158 Easy Street had sat on the market for almost two years and gone through three other agents before the seller called me. Same property, no buyers. We changed two things: the marketing and the presentation. New photography, full video tour, drone footage, and paid distribution across our channels. Within days of relaunching, showings were stacked back-to-back and multiple offers came in. The property was never the problem. The marketing was.

I got my license in Southern California in 2012, almost by accident. A friend was working at a brokerage, mentioned they were hiring, and within six months I was running my own pipeline. I worked the LA and Inland Empire markets through some of the busiest years California real estate has ever seen. In 2017 my husband and I bought our farm in Upstate New York, and by 2021 I was licensed here. The shift from selling tract homes in 100-degree heat to walking 200-acre parcels in Otsego County is the best career move I've ever made.

Beyond New York licensing and ongoing continuing education, the bigger training comes from running a media platform alongside the brokerage. I've personally shot, hosted, and produced more than 450 property tours, which means I've physically walked, measured, and asked questions about more rural parcels in this region than most agents will see in a career. I've also built out a full marketing operation around our listings: drone, photography, video, paid distribution, and direct mail. Most listing agents up here are still doing flyers in the box. We're not