You see the news. Banks are failing, the stock market has taken a dive and the savings of a lifetime have disappeared for some people. Many people are out of work and seeking jobs; many more are working at jobs that barely provided subsistence. Currency values have dropped and the deflationary spiral has started/ Is that today or 1933?
I admit that I talk to myself sometimes, and now seems like a good time to talk to myself. I need encouragement to keep going and stay level headed. These are scary times, and I need to hear my calm inner voice. I tell myself that nothing lasts forever and things will get better, but then I remind myself that Japan has never recovered from the boom years it saw in the 80s and its housing market is still down. A bright future for the U.S. economy is not necessarily a guarantee.
That anxiety about the world at large leads me to doubts on a personal level. I am filled with questions about my business. How should I adjust to the changing market? Should I keep advertising? How much should I spend? I know that this is not the time to cut back on marketing, but with sales down or even non-existent, it is hard to stay the course. I keep asking myself, “When I advertise, does it even work? What does work? Do I need the postcards with glossy stock that say what a successful agent I am just by the weight of the paper or can I go back to the basics with which I started my business. Maybe it is time for knocking on doors and handwritten notes? How much of the expensive fluff that we all bought into for the last few years actually generates any business? ”
I heard recently that the Depression began not the banks failing or the immediate fall in stock prices, but due to peoples’ reactions to those events. Everyone stopped spending, even if they had money to spend. Everyone became frightened in unison, and choked the economy into submission.
By 1933, 11,000 of 24,000 banks had failed. The stock market was down in the 60s, and millions of people had lost their jobs, while many others were working for subsistence wages. The Dust Bowl was displacing thousands from family farms and hope was lost. But there was some good news. The country was about to inaugurate a new President, and change was coming.
I reread Franklin Roosevelt’s 1933 inaugural address this week and was struck by how astonishingly relevant it is to us today. For history buffs, I am including a link to it at the end of this blog. Roosevelt opened the speech with a call to faith in the inherent strength of the United States: “This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.” Then he went on with those wonderful words, “[L]et me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. … [W]e face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. … [O]ur distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plaque of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep….”
I definitely will make changes this year in my business plan. After all, some of the things I tried didn’t work, and should be jettisoned. Some of my effort will be redoubled to focus on the new business that has developed this year – short sales, foreclosures, and more rentals. But I also will sort out what did work this year and keep doing it. I know that this is a bumpy time, but I believe that the market will right itself, and I intend to be there throughout the process.
As agents, there is always fear – fear of cold calling, fear of rejection, fear of pricing too high, fear of pricing too low. That is fear we are used to dealing with. The fear now is really a collective fear that we have to fight against – for ourselves and for our clients. The much predicted collapse of the U.S. real estate market and the wider economy beyond that will become a self fulfilling prophecy if we don’t take Franklin Roosevelt’s advice from the Great Depression.
We have a new opportunity coming as we await the inaguration of a new President next month. There is a spirit of expectation, even among the most pessimistic of us. Take advantage of that glimmer of hope in a very bleak landscape. Emphasize the strengths of the housing market, not in a Pollyanna way, but in a real way: rates are low, inventory is plentiful, and there are credits for first time buyers. We need to turn this retreat into an advance, and we start by recognizing that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Want to hear Roosevelt himself deliver the speech on YouTube?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NMgGbI-hZvU
Want to read it for yourself? http://www.hpol.org/fdr/inaug/
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