Some Realtors get into the business because they see an opportunity to control their destiny. Others pursue real estate because they love the work. Bruce Lansford became a Realtor because he’d shoed his last horse.
“I made horseshoes and braces for horses with lameness problems. But old age got to me, and my back was about to give out,” he says. He’s sitting comfortably in a chair at the front desk at Lansford Realty & Property Management, located off of Lee Highway on Vance Road.
Lansford grew up around horses in East Brainerd, which he says was more rural than urban “back in the day.”
“Mountain Shadows wasn’t there. That land used to be 600 acres of trails. I rode horses there,” he says.
A self-professed perfectionist, Lansford had trouble finding someone who could shoe his horses the way he wanted them to, so he learned the trade himself. Then he kept shoeing horses until eight years ago, when a client who works at the Chattanooga Center for Pain Management told him he was going to have to find something else to do.
“I had a phenomenal business. I had a six-week waiting period when I retired,” he says.
Lansford knew what his next move would be. “I’d been buying and fixing up old houses, and I’d gotten pretty good at it, so I decided to get my real estate license,” he says.
Lansford had never worked for anyone else, so after three-and-a-half years at Prudential Realty in East Brainerd, he decided he wanted to hang his own shingle.
“I prefer to be on my own. If it’s my project, then I’ll put more into it,” he says.
A few years later, the real estate market “took a tumble,” as Lansford says, so he shifted his focus to property management.
“The requirements to get a loan had changed, so there were people who had a home they couldn’t sell, and there were people who couldn’t get a loan, even though they could make a house payment. Well, I’d owned a number of investment properties for about 20 years, and a lot of people were asking me to manage their property, so I started doing that,” Lansford says.
In time, property management because a full-time endeavor for Lansford. He doesn’t even list houses anymore until someone is a current client who has something to sell.
Although Lansford switched careers, he didn’t change his perfectionist ways. Just like when he was shoeing horses, Lansford strives to make everything perfect for his clients and tenants.
“When I had finished a horse, it was absolutely beautiful. I had sanded everything on the foot and filled the nail holes with putty. My clients might not have understood why their horses performed the way they did, but they knew I had done the prettiest job.
“Now, if I install something and it’s crooked, it drives me nuts. Anything I do, I try to make look good,” he says.
Another philosophy Lansford has carried over from his horseshoeing days is customer satisfaction.
“I would go into someone’s barn and say, ‘Let me shoe one horse, and if you’re not happy with my work, then fire me. I do the same thing with my contracts. I tell people, ‘My agreement with you is for one year. Any time you’re not happy, give me 30 days. If I can’t fix what’s wrong, you’re free to go,’” he says.
“Our goal is not to be the biggest kid on the block but to give the best customer service,” he says.
Lansford is currently excited about the convenience his new website will offer his tenants. Located at www.lansfordrealty.com, the revamped site will eventually allow them to apply to rent a house, pay rent, and send maintenance requests. “If your faucet is leaking, you’ll be able to send us a maintenance request online, and we’ll send someone out to fix it,” he says.
While open about his business practices, Lansford offers only a few details about his life outside the office. He’s never had children, and when it comes to marriage, he says only, “I have a sweetie.” For pleasure, he likes to take his ski boat out onto any accommodating body of water and spend time at a house he owns in Gatlinburg. Beyond that, he’s all business.
And he’s pleased with how well he’s done, even though he entered the market during a downturn.
“It’s been a challenge,” he says. “A lot of people told me 70 percent of new businesses fail. But I said ‘That’s not an option. This has to work. I can’t go back.’”