Happy New Year! I recently asked our sales team, “What question do you get asked the most?” They all knew the answer, as do you. The question most often asked, by the public and other sales reps, is “What’s the market going to do?”
The trouble started when I asked them, “What was your answer?” Got some traditional answers, some innovative ones, some long silences. The reality is – it doesn’t matter. The market is what it is. What matters is – what are you going to do?
To help you get to a conclusion, here are some folks’ thoughts on the topic. George Bernard Shaw in 1893: “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstance. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and go and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”
Bruce Lee: “Circumstances hell! I make circumstances.”
Amy Tan: “In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gave you.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.”
Yogi Berra: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up there.”
Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back: “Do or do not. There is no try.”
Some attitudes for the new year stolen, er, gathered from intensive research at the recent NAR Conference in New Orleans, mostly from Mike Aubrey, Realtor star of HGTV. (He’s worth a Google, really!): “No one gets in my car until I know they can get money.”
To market fence-sitters, ask this: “How do you feel about inflation? Do you think it might go up? Shouldn’t you buy now?”
And to the techno cave dweller client: “Give me your phone. I’m going to program it so I can text you daily.” They don’t have a cell phone? Then they’re aging baby boomers – make sure they have money and be patient.
To the buyers who calculate everything: “Should you buy now? Well, if rates go up two per cent in the next three years on your $300,000 mortgage, you’ll save about $4,000 per year over the term of your mortgage. Five-year term times $4,000, let’s see, that’s – holy crap, that’s a lot of money. And if you locked in for 10 years – well you do the math. And we haven’t talked about the great deal you made on the price because of the market.”
To the market timers who are renting: “So let me get this straight. You’re going to rent until the market hits bottom and then you’ll buy. How will you know? Do you think they ring a bell? And let me ask you this – when was the last time your rent went down? Buy now and you can lock in your rent for the next five to 10 years. But – it’s up to you.”
For some Canadian content, former CREA president Allan Tennant: “In any market, even a slow one, some numbers of houses are going to sell. Yours could be one of them.”
Of course, in any challenging market there are those who refuse to identify the suspect staring back at them from the mirror every morning and insist that a change of company or the application of anything other than elbow grease will polish the turd that is their career. For those so tempted, consider this – three of the biggest names in Victoria real estate escaped the chains of ownership of their own real estate brokerage and with their manager joined one of the larger independent firms about a year ago. They are there still.
As we grow longer in the tooth in this business and take more time for ourselves and families, the attraction of a well-managed brokerage is far greater than the lure of being your own boss. The ability to “stick to your knitting” and to rely on a framework of competency is an asset frequently undervalued and under appreciated.
There’s an appropriate Scottish proverb: “No matter where you go, there you are.”
See you in Banff at the end of January for the best little conference in North America. Have a look at www.banffwesternconnection.com.
You can follow Marty Douglas on Twitter 40yrsrealestate or on LinkedIn and on Facebook. He is a managing broker for Coast Realty Group (Comox Valley) Ltd., with offices on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast of B.C. Marty is a past chair of the Real Estate Errors and Omissions Corporation of B.C., the Real Estate Council of B.C. and the B.C. Real Estate Association. He’s a current director of the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. [email protected]; 1-800-715-3999.
