By Tabitha Evans Moore | EDITOR & PUBLISHER
A day in the life of Moore County real estate agent Leah Dickert isn’t for the faint of heart.
She’s up each morning before the sun rises and by the time she pulls into the school pick-up line at 3 p.m., she’s already negotiated an appraisal hiccup, fielded calls from two nervous first-time buyers, and penciled in a showing on her ever-crowded calendar.
For Leah, selling real estate in Lynchburg isn’t just about closing deals; it’s about balancing the chaos of contracts with quality time with the hubs, bedtime snuggles with the kiddos, and proving that a hometown real estate agent can be both a powerhouse broker and a present wife and mom. It’s a constant battle between being on call for clients and wanting to give undivided attention to her family.
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From solo agent to real estate broker
A native of Moore County, Leah (Hatfield) Dickert grew up on a farm in the Lois Community and graduated from Moore County High School. She studied Agribussiness Management at Tennessee Tech and Secondary Education at MTSU before pivoting into real estate in 2015 – an idea she credits to her now husband, local electrical contractor Ryan Dickert. The couple live in the Charity Community with their two sons, third grader Conor and first grader Rowen, who both attend Lynchburg Elementary School.
“I met Ryan in 2007 at the Bedford-Moore Farmers Co-Op – four years before we got married. He told me he thought I’d be a great real-estate agent and that not a lot of people were specializing in Moore County, so I could capitalize on that,” she says. “Of course, I completely ignored him.”
The couple married in 2011 and closed on their first home together just four years later. Soon after, Leah decided to indulge Ryan in his vision for her and pursued a real estate license in July of that year. She sold four properties in the first five months and another 24 her first full year.
That’s when she began to suspect that Ryan’s hunch just might have been right.
“I thought, you know what? An average real estate agent sells between 10 and 12 properties a year. If I can double that, if I can do that consistently, I’m above average,” she says.
Today, she sells between 35-45 properties each year and owns her own real estate brokerage, the EXIT Noble Realty Group, where she manages and trains 14 other real estate agents. Together, they average $25 million in annual sales in Moore, Bedford, Coffee, Franklin, and Lincoln counties in addition to a few places outside southern, middle Tennessee.
She and Ryan also manage multiple other ventures including rental properties, an electrical contracting business, a marina on Tims Fork Lake, self-storage units, and their newest venture, Noble Property Management – a company they launched just last week. They are the definition of a rural power couple but one devoted to cooking dinner together each night.
Moore County is where her heart is
It’s been said that a woman’s brain acts like a computer with a half dozen tabs always open. If that’s true, Leah’s tabs sit filled with useful tidbits about Moore County and the connections necessary to make things happen.
Leah doesn’t know one inch about 100 things. Instead, she knows 100 inches about one thing: Moore County real estate. From the local topography to the nuance of rural zoning restrictions, she proactively navigates Lynchburg’s unique real estate market on behalf of her clients.
“Moore County was always the place I wanted to focus on, because that’s where my heart is,” she says. “It’s my home.”
Unlike the surrounding counties, the Lynchburg landscape isn’t filled with cookie-cutter houses stacked in neat rows. This means each house requires extra research when it comes to listing at the right price.
“Lynchburg is really unique because we don’t have the same number of properties,” she says. “That means I spend double the time looking for like-kind elements in order to give you a rough estimate of what your property should bring because no two are the same.”
Also, scarcity of land and tighter zoning restrictions mean that properties often come at a premium price here in Lynchburg.
“God only gave us so much land,” she says. “Plus, we have restrictions about how small our lots can be, and what we can put on those lots. With those two things in mind, whether that be a county restriction or a deed restriction, there’s limited things that we can do with what we have.”
“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
When we ask Leah why it’s important to work with a qualified, knowledgeable local real estate agent, she’s quick to answer.
“You can do it yourself and save the commission. But sometimes you don’t know what you don’t’ know,” she says. “Clients can google a lot of things, but that isn’t necessarily the best way to handle one of the largest financial decisions that you’re going to make.”
That could mean a hidden title issue, a loan program a client didn’t realize they qualified for, or even something as simple as knowing an appraiser will flag missing handrails. To her, the value of a real estate agent isn’t just about listing a house – it’s about being a buffer between her clients and the million-and-one unforeseeable landmines that can pop up while both buying or selling a local property.
In addition to knowing the potential pitfalls, Leah’s also amassed a Rolodex full of land surveyors, appraisers, builders, contractors, soil scientists, title professionals, probate lawyers, etc. that can help her mitigate most unforeseen issues.
“I usually know a guy that knows a guy that knows how to get things done,” she jokes.
Making dreams possible
Leah says she not only hustles for her clients and intimately knows the market, she’s also laser-focused on doing the right thing and making dreams come true.
Her definition of “the right thing” isn’t abstract – it’s practical and personal. She’s the kind of real estate agent who will tell a seller to fix their gutters or add a handrail before the appraiser shows up, saving both money and time. She’s pulled families out of the brink of foreclosure, preserving their credit and their equity, because she knew the process well enough to navigate it. And she treats every client with the same ethic she lives by: to treat people the way she wants to be treated.
“I’m never going to take food off their plate just to feed myself,” she says.
That commitment is matched by her drive to make dreams possible. Whether it’s the first-time buyer who’s been told “no” more than once, the family looking for a forever home, or the investor building a portfolio, Leah says every transaction “fills her cup.” It’s why she still calls each closing a gift – because behind the contracts and commissions, she sees the human story of someone stepping into a new chapter of their life.
It’s about creating homes
When the last call is answered and the final email sent, Leah does something almost radical in her industry: she turns her phone off. After 9 p.m., contracts and closings give way to bedtime stories and snuggles with her two boys and quality time with her husband. It’s the same discipline that gets her out the door at dawn and back into the car line by mid-afternoon – proof that her definition of success isn’t just measured in millions sold, but in the moments at home that keep her grounded.
In that way, Leah’s work-life balance looks less like a scale and more like a cycle. Her hustle fuels her family, her family fuels her purpose, and together they remind her why she chose to build a career here in the first place. For Leah, real estate in Lynchburg isn’t about houses at all. It’s about creating homes – for her clients, and for herself.
To contact Dickert about buying or listing a property in Moore or the surrounding counties, check out the EXIT Noble Realty Group website or reach out to her via their Facebook page. •
About The Lynchburg Times
The Lynchburg Times is an independent, woman-owned newspaper rooted in the heart of southern middle Tennessee. Led by a Tulane-educated journalist with over two decades of experience covering this region, we shine a light on the people, politics, and cultural pulse of a changing South. From breaking news to slow storytelling, we believe local journalism should inform, empower, and preserve what makes this place unique. Supported by readers and community partners, we’re proud to be part of the new Southern narrative – one story at a time. [Support us here.]