Hiding from Your Clients????

I read an interview with a local broker in this week's newspaper Brunswick Beacon focusing on local women and their achievements.  The broker was telling about her experiences when she started her business and how things have changed over the past three years.  One comment really captured my attention.  She was sorry for the buyers who had purchased through her company (and I'm sure others as well), and who were desparate to sell now.  Of course, many properties will not sell for the prices paid a few years ago, and it made her feel really bad.  I started thinking about my own clients who purchased during that "high flying" time, and I thought...I would not feel embarrassed one bit to be in the same room discussing real estate with previous clients.  I never encouraged that crazed buying that many were doing neither did the lenders with whom I worked. The agents who made all of those promises of HUGE PROFITS and quick turnovers probably would be nervous but then most of those agents are not in the business anymore.  They dropped out like flies hit with DDT when they discovered you really have to work hard in the current economic times.  I remember years ago when my family was increasing our single family rental holdings, an agent I was working with kept showing me properties that needed extreme makeovers.  When I finally told her I didn't mind cosmetic repairs but nothing on the scale she was showing me.  Her response was, "Oh, you just write it off.  In your tax bracket, it will be the best write off you've ever seen."  She even mentioned several professional people I knew who were doing the same.  After I was home alone, I started thinking...when was the last time a business just wrote expenses off, didn't break even nor make a profit.  Thank heavens, I didn't listen to that agent because a year or so later, the tax codes changed and if you earned a certain level of income, you could not take the write offs...they became passive losses.  When I am working with clients, I try very hard to present current facts; I didn't in the past nor at present time say anything that I thought could put them in jeopardy.  I don't have a crystal ball but I have been in really hot markets before and I have seen the aftermath when a contrived market falls.  Our beaches are small, and I see my clients often; many of them email me from time to time, and sometimes I am invited to see their latest remodeling or decorating job.  It is fun to sell real estate when you don't have to hide from your clients because you mislead them or gave them poor advice.