Meet Ricky Lee, CCIM

I'm Ricky Lee, the commercial side of Ricky & Jessie Realty. I've been licensed in California real estate since 2013 and as a broker since 2016. I hold the CCIM designation and earned my MBA at Claremont Graduate University's Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management.

Most of my work is industrial: warehouse leases and sales, truck yards and outdoor storage, and the AIR CRE contracts behind them, across the San Gabriel Valley, the Inland Empire and North Orange County. I represent tenants, landlords, owner-users and investors, and I also handle office and retail space.

I'm also a licensed mortgage loan originator. That helps more often than people expect. When a client is buying a building or a home, I look at the financing at the same time as the property: the down payment a lender will want, what the monthly payment does to the numbers, and which contract terms have to line up with the loan. A financing problem caught before the offer costs far less than one found during escrow.

I work in English and Mandarin. Many of my clients are Chinese-speaking business owners and investors, and I make sure every term is clear before anyone signs.

Jessie, my wife and partner, leads our residential work. When a client needs a home and a business location at the same time, we plan both together.

• Owner-users: compare buying with leasing, using a realistic down payment and monthly payment.
• Offers: set the financing contingency and timeline to what lenders actually need.
• Investors: review income and expenses the way a lender will look at them.
• Home buyers working with Jessie: help understanding your lender's pre-approval and how its terms fit the purchase contract.