Okay, so it’s time we have a heart to heart discussion on Sacramento housing. Quite frankly, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing these doom and gloom reports, but it seems that the media is dead-set intent on taking all the worse news and repeating it, exaggerating it and cementing it into our consciousness. If you think all this negative news doesn’t affect your life and the cumulative consciousness of our county guess again.
First off, let’s do a little reality check, shall we? Is this the worst time in history for housing prices? Yep. Are we in a recession? Ah huh. Are a lot of people without jobs right now? You bet. Are half the nation’s homeowners underwater on their property? Affirmative. Is it harder than ever to get a loan. Oh yeah! So there’s your facts. How’s it make you feel? Does focusing on it make you feel warm and fuzzy all over? Didn’t think so.
Now for fiction. Some people are saying this is just a phase (isn’t all of life a phase?), that “there’s never been a better time to buy,” and that, banks are going to modify your loan so you can afford to stay in your home. Not to go back to the facts, but seriously, you gotta know that banks are not good property managers, and they are at as much a loss (in skill, staff and process) as the rest of us. Truth is, while you THINK you’ve got a loan modification going on, the foreclosure department of your lender is proceeding with an auction date to take your home away IF you haven’t been making payments. And even IF the loan mod goes through, the most recent stats tell us that between 80-90% of those end up in default. Besides the fairy tale fiction of loan mods, especially those predatory people out there charging horrendous up-front fees, we’ve got hard-money lenders crawling out of the wood work like a bunch of hungry termites.
So now for focus. I do not wear rose-colored glasses (I do have a very cool pair of hot pinks ones though). With a big background in psychology, however, I DO know that what we focus and expect ALWAYS comes to be. Hence, the more negative news we hear and spread around, the worse things get. Besides, focusing on bad stuff makes you feel crappy, and what’s the use in that? How good are you to your family, your friends, your clients….um, YOURSELF? Not worth a whole heck of a lot if your get up and go has got up and went.
The reality for me is to wish big globally, and be pro-active locally. It’s like making lemon-aide, Kids. What can I do right now, regardless of what’s happening around me? Well, I can educate as many Sacramento residents as possible about why a short sale is better than a foreclosure, and then I can do my best to help them see it through. I can find buyers great deals and hook them up with a stellar lender, and if need be, send them somewhere to learn how to clean up their credit. As the Amish say, “move your feet when you pray.” What you focus on expands, so please, for the sale of ALL of us, focus wisely.
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