Hidden Gems: Meet Spencer Rivers of Kaspar RiverSmith Group

Today we’d like to introduce you to Spencer Rivers. 

Hi Spencer, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
As a true local, born at WakeMed in Raleigh – raised and graduated at Cary High School (go Imps!); I have such a rich, deeply embedded true love of my hometown since I can remember. The up-and-coming RTP area was always the buzz and center of discussion – how our oasis was going to be growing and changing so much. It lived up to the hype for sure. This place looks nothing like it once did for me as a young kid growing up in Cary. My mother and step-father rooted themselves in the community by excelling in their Real Estate careers – providing genuine service and loving what they did up until the housing market crashed in 2008. When that happened, my mother decided to leverage her business to the market’s new need of investment properties and long-term rentals. She began RiverSmith Real Estate Services LLC – a property management company whilst still helping people sell and buy real estate. I was always my mom’s helper – tagging along on showings or hanging out during her open houses. And let’s be honest, as a kid that stuff was pretty boring and mundane to me. I have an aunt, grandmother, sister, and my parents in Real Estate making it a true family career choice! You can imagine my mother’s excitement in urging me to someday obtain my Real Estate license and continue the legacy. And well, me being me I wanted absolutely nothing to do with that. I wound up in hospitality management, starting out as a front desk agent and slowly but surely moving my way up the ladder to management positions in both operations and sales. I was on the brink of my career, running my own front desk team and working towards a General Manager position – life was good. As many of us can agree on, life was good…until COVID-19 hit. That changed every single person’s life, in some way – and for the travel and tourism industry it was pretty hard hit. Myself with most of my colleagues got laid off and told we may not ever have our positions back again. We didn’t. The management positions we once had were now being offered as front-line positions at minimum wage – a huge hit to our egos and pockets. My dreams of running my own hotel as a General Manager, was that even possible now, what would the industry look like in 5 or even 10 years? While the world was on pause, I turned within to refocus on my wants and desires – long term. I think that is maybe one good thing that came out of this…we all had time to self-reflect. I finally took the plunge and signed up for Real Estate school…I guess you can say my mom finally “won” as far as that one goes! Real Estate school is NOT easy, I don’t care what anyone says and you can ask any agent and they will tell you the same. For us brokers, obtaining the license to practice is the first challenge of many. That is what makes a good broker I think, someone who loves a good challenge…and I LOVE a good challenge! Talk about a challenge…jumping into the Real Estate market in the middle of a pandemic was crazy! With a shortage of houses, prices went soaring and houses barely stayed on the market long enough to get a look at them. My personal outlook is that if I can manage to help my buyers and sellers navigate in this market – I can do ANYTHING! My family has recently joined forces with some other top producing agents to create the Kaspar RiverSmith Group powered by Keller Williams Elite. I can say I am one lucky gal to have the backing of my parents and whole team to launch me into my Real Estate career. Without their insight, advice, teaching, and coaching I wouldn’t be half the broker I am today. We are one of the only teams in the Triangle area that can say they can service they triangle all the way to the tide. Along with helping friends buy and sell real estate, we also manage Airbnbs along the NC coast and in RTP AND till run our family property management business. There is not much that we cannot do when it comes to Real Estate – we do it all and we truly love it. I am super excited to watch our family legacy continue as our team grows and we continue serving people and making their housing dreams come true! 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road. Being a new agent in a competitive market is tricky enough. One of the main reasons I never wanted to get my license was because I didn’t want to join the pool of hundreds of other agents in the area that are fighting for business. A shark tank with way too many sharks and not enough fish to go around. What I have learned is that none of that matters if you know how to be different than other people by putting them first and truly CARING. My biggest challenge has been this intense, fast-paced. crazy market, I had many home buyers get exhausted from searching and submitting multiple offers to not win again and again. I had to motivate them to keep looking, and to remind them that timing is everything and that everything happens for a reason. While they didn’t get that house they loved, there will always be another home to love – and 9/10 it works out better than if it had before! Having been a cheerleader my whole entire life (literally age 7 – Collegiate scholarship level) this was probably the easiest part for me – cheering them on to the finish line! Having my first closing was one I will never forget – having the client happy and wanting to refer you to their peeps…THAT is the best feeling ever! 

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We are the Kaspar RiverSmith Group, powered by Keller Williams Elite of Durham. Putting a focus on people first, building relationships with our community, and serving the needs of home buyers, sellers, investors, and renters in the triangle area and all the way to the coastal Carolinas. With the combining of long-time and top producing agents, Kelli Kaspar, Alan Smith, and Mary-Katherine Smith – the new team is able to serve almost half of the entire state of NC. We would want readers to know that who you choose to be your real estate expert is important, it is one of the largest transactions a person will make in their entire life after all…It can be stressful, long, tiring, and a journey with lots of unexpected twists and turns. But it doesn’t have to be. When you choose the KRS Group, we make it fun and guide you through the process in way that makes things feel easy as pie. We turn clients into friends and family and they keep coming back – and that is something that we are the most proud of. 

How do you think about luck?
In my life and business personally, my GOOD luck has been that my parents are so well established in this market as top producing agents. Working with family has been interesting so far, but honestly getting to know the people who raised you in a different light, a professional business first light – that has been good for me. It makes you respect them more; you realize the job they did while raising you is not an easy one and they still excelled at it while juggling a whole family. It makes you want to be more like them and continue that family legacy for sure. So yeah, good luck in that I have some of my most favorite humans in the world side by side guiding me. 

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: riversmithproperties.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kasparriversmith
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kasparriversmith
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tidetotriangle

Image Credits
Kathleen Nolis Photography