"If One Does Not Know To Which Port One Is Sailing, Then No Wind Is Favorable"

Senaca 

Roman Philosopher and Politician

I found this quote while I was looking for another one.  The other one was something like, "Anybody Can Captain A Ship On A Clear Day, But The True Test Of A Captain Comes With The Storm" or something to that effect.  If anybody knows who originally penned this, please let me know.  If not, then I'll take credit for it because it's true!

Anyway, the point that I'm making here is that the last 10 years or so have been boom times in the real estate world.  It really wasn't that hard to make a living selling real estate or originating mortgages.  To me it was like being Captain of a boat on a nice sunny day.  Yeah, you might have to know enough to be able to dock the boat or to stay awake while you were underway, but these aren't skills that are hard to master.  Now times have changed.  The wind has picked up along with the seas.  Ships have already been lost and the longer the storm goes on, more are going to be lost.  

The big question is, "Are you going to be one of the ships that go down?"

I'll fess up, I was almost one of those ships that went down early in the storm.  Right before the storm hit I took over one of my largest competitors.  I knew that this company was having problems, but that was the reason that I was getting them.  I examined my options then made a decision that the risks outweighed the rewards. 

At the same time my two children hit college and even with my ex-wife's help, that brought along with it about $30,000 a year in additional personal overhead.

Then my mother got sick and I had to place her in a nursing home.

In the course of my business, I also had been "flipping" a couple of houses a year and ran into a couple at the same time that were just too good to pass on, so I took on two "flips" at the same time.  Toss in a couple of other personal and business crises and you've got the salad that was my life.

Then the market crashed and burned.  One of the flips that I had sold turned out not to truly be sold.  I couldn't get the people financed because the lady didn't get her security clearance and had lost her job.  I finished the second one right in time for the market crash.  Even though the comps said that it should be worth something like $165,000 - $170,000, I couldn't sell it for $149,900.

To get back to the "Ship's Captain" analogy, it had gone from a bright sunny day, to the winds picking up, to a full-fledged hurricane in the matter of a year.  That small leak that I had been meaning to get to, was now a torrent of water coming into the boat.  The sails that I had been meaning to mend, but that I was making due with, ripped in the wind.  Short and simple, I was going down!

I was fortunate though.  Because while I was further out to sea that I probably should have been, this wasn't my first rodeo (how's that for mixed metaphors?)  I relied upon my training, experience and gumption to get back to harbor.  Once in harbor it took me a fair amount of time to get my ship back in order, but the silver lining here is that my ship is now built back stronger than it ever was. 

I realized that some of the features of the original ship weren't really all that useful and were costly.  If it hadn't been for this storm, I probably would have just kept sailing with these features (read people and overhead) and never fully realized that they were just weighing me down.  Also, I found some new features that I could build into the new ship that would make us faster and better than we were before.

So now the storm is still raging.  For all I know it might get worse before it gets better and it's tempting to just stay here in the harbor.  The only problem there is that there isn't any money to be made here in the harbor, so even though the weather is bad outside, I'm preparing to set sail.  I did come across another quote that makes me feel better about the situation though:

"A ship in harbor is safe--- but that is not what ships are for."

John A. Shedd

 

 

Bob Mitchell

ValueList Real Estate Services, Inc.