As I was contemplating the universe today, I started thinking about how much negativity there is in the world, especially in the news. It seems like the media feels compelled to cover the bad news and predict negative outcomes to the current economic situation. The History Channel even had "Armageddon Week" to make certain that we all knew all the catastrophic events which"will" happen when the earth lines up with the center of the galaxy in 2012 and to reinforce it, tell us all that the Mayan calendar and Nostradamus"predict" the end of the world in December 2012, when this astrological event takes place.

And then I had to ask, "Are all these predictions of a dark future going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Then that made me wonder if my own fears and frustrations over the current real estate market could be creating my own self-fulfilling prophecy. The answer I came up with was, "possibly yes." How can any of us not be affected?

It was then I thought of the movie, Castaway, with Tom Hanks. There was a scene towards the end of the film when Chuck Noland is speaking to his friend. In this scene, is one of my favorite movie quotes of all time:

" I had power over *nothing*. And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow. I had to keep breathing. Even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I'm back. In Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass... And I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad that I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"

None of us are stranded on an island, with no real hope of rescue, even though at times it may feel that way. And in a crazy economy, it can feel like we have "power over nothing," but in fact, we do. We have power over the way we choose to face the challenges. Even after losing the woman he loved, Chuck Noland still chose to have faith in the future.

Another one of my favorite quotes is from Elton Trueblood. In "The Life We Prize," he says:

No man knows what the future holds in any particular set of events, but every thoughtful person recognizes the probability that we shall live the remainder of our lives in turmoil...Instead of pining for easier days, the way of wisdom lies in learning to live realistically in times of strain. 

"All experience the storm, but not all experience it in the same way. Though the storm may be beyond our powers, the response is not." 

So, this year, with all the catastrophic predictions in the news and all the "talking heads" opining that the economy and the real estate market are doomed to be just as anemic as they've been(at least for a while), I'm going to work at keeping them from being self-fulfilling prophesies. I'm going to remember that "turmoil" is a "probability" for my entire life. Then I'm going to seek the opinions of those who believe in a bright future and a way to weather "the storm."  I'm going to say to myself, "...tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"

The next time anyone asks me, "Why do I need an agent?" I'm going to tell them this story:

I had these two buyers ask me to help them find a home in the Worthington School District for 120K. Any agent that knows this area, when they hear a buyer say that, would just like to say, "Good luck with that." But, being ever optimistic, I started searching the MLS.

More than a dozen houses later and gradually increasing the search limit to 155 K, we found nothing my buyers liked.  As we looked at these 12+ homes,we dealt with: dragging 3 kids (one of them potty training), people still home (one with two teenage girls fighting over the bathroom, and one with the people in BED SICK), dogs, bugs, basement walls coming in (2 of the houses), the outer belt practically in the backyard, a railroad track also practically in a backyard, and bad attempts at renovations. (One perfectly good pair of panty hose bit the dust on that one, when my foot got caught on someone's pathetic attempt to put a metal transition piece between the laminate floor and the carpet.) We looked at 6 bi-levels that to this day, I have to look at the pictures and my notes to remember which one it was, because they all look alike, 4 split levels, and a 2-story with no basement. (Who builds a two-story in Columbus, Ohio with no basement?). Yes, we were running out of options.

It was April 16^th.  I had looked on the MLS earlier that day, but decided to see if there was anything new or anything I missed.  Lo and behold something showed up on the Hot Sheet that had just come on the market in the last few hours. It fit the search criteria and price range ($149,900 listing price), but there were no pictures yet. I clicked on the link to the Franklin County Auditor's site, to look at the picture on there. One look and I knew, this was THE ONE.

I quickly shot an e-mail to my clients with a copy of the picture from the auditor's site. Then I got up from my computer, put on my shoes and drove over to take a drive-by look at it. It was so fresh on the market it didn't even have the sign up yet.

I called first thing the next day, set up a showing, sent an offer into the sellers' agent by 9:00 pm that day for $142,000. We got a counter offer for 147,900 a day later. My buyers said they wouldn't go any higher than $145,000. That's when the fun began.

The seller's agent and I spent the next two full days negotiating the price and other terms of this sale by numerous calls back and forth with our clients and each other. We finally got to within $500 of an agreed upon price. I called my buyers and told them the sellers' would come down to $146,000, if they would just agree. No way, they said. I then replied, "Are you going to let the only house out of more than a dozen, you liked, go to someone else for $3.60 per month more on your house payment?"  They said they would. I had pushed them to the very top of their comfort zone. They would not budge. Period. I'm sure you know where this is going. The sellers' agent and I agreed to take less commission to make it work. We finally had a deal.

So why have an agent?

• If the sellers' agent hadn't told them exactly what to do, what to replace (carpet, paint, flooring), what to take out (too much furniture), the best colors to paint the walls, how to stage it, and more importantly, how to price it, they never would have gotten an offer that quickly, especially in this market.
• If the buyers' agent hadn't been dedicated to looking at as many houses as it took for them to grasp the reality of what was a more realistic price AND find a home they could fall in love with, if she hadn't been searching diligently several times a day for anything new, NOT skipping over a listing because there was no picture, the buyers wouldn't have ever seen it, and known it was THE ONE the moment they stepped across the threshold.
• If the buyers' agent hadn't known the market well, to be able to know a great house when she saw one, and been willing to move FAST, the house would have been shown to someone else, and it could have quite possibly been gone.
• If the sellers' agent didn't have the experience to know that taking a slightly lower offer 3 days after the house was listed, was better than waiting and possibly not being able to sell before they found another house, the sellers would have waited and whole deal would have fallen apart.
• If both sellers' agent and buyers' agent weren't willing to spend more than two full days working out all the little details over the phone, and THEN be willing to take less commission to make it all work out, the whole thing would have gone down in flames over $500, the closing date and subsequent possession date. (I didn't go into that part of the whole thing.)
• To sum it up, if there weren't two educated, third parties, dedicated to being advocates for their clients and working to negotiate to the bitter end to keep the transaction together, even if it meant less commission, the sellers' would have to start looking for a new house with the possibility of  an offer contingent upon sale of their existing home, and the buyers would be facing more time living in a cramped 2 bedroom townhouse with three kids, with the very real possibility of not finding a house for several more months.

This isn't an unusual story. In fact, it plays out every day all over the world. Do the sellers know how hard their agent worked for them? Will these buyers and sellers ever realize how close they came to not having a sale? Do they appreciate the fact that the two agents were willing to take less, rather than more  for their hard work?  I don't know. One thing I do know. Without two agents being willing to work together to make it happen, it never would have. And after all the intensity of the last few days, I'm sitting here at 4:00am thinking, "Wow, that was great! How soon can I do this again?"