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Are we statesmen or politicians? Honest Assessments of the Housing Market

“A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.”

A politician looks forward only to the next election. A statesman looks forward to the next generation....

- Thomas Jefferson

On Friday I put out a post asking for suggestions on what messages I should bring our NAR elected officials. One line of response I got was that we should quit with the messaging that "Now is a good time to buy", and that the NAR has lost all credibility by calling false bottoms to the market, time and time again. It seems that there is general concensus that NAR should focus it's messaging on advising consumers that real estate markets are local in nature and that a local REALTOR should be consulted first before buying or selling a home.

Well that line of thinking is all fine and good so long as the consumer has confidence that the local REALTOR has their best interest at heart. That confidence is something that is earned, and frankly I do not believe that we have done a good enough job earning that trust in the past. Now is our chance to turn things around and take a cohesive step to fulfilling our fiduciary obligations and giving our nation an honest local assessment of the housing market; good or bad as it may be.

I am charging every ActiveRain member to author a blog post assessing the state of your local housing market. Please mark the post for the "Local Housing Market" topic in the "Home Buying" Channel. We will dedicate the next few Wednesday to only featuring posts about the local housing market.

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Posted by Jonathan Washburn on 01/26/2009 01:35 PM

Comments (36)

Local Housing Market in the Real Estate Market Channel

local housing market

36 Comments on Are we statesmen or politicians? Honest Assessments of the Housing Market

JAN

Jon,

Knock em out in WA DC. After seeing your presentation this weekend I have no doubt you will deliver a message to the NAR brass that hits hard.

Honest assessments of each local market in the country is something that even the NAR president-elect couldn't do on the Today Show when faced from questioning by Matt Lauer. I have no question that our members have the ability to bring this coverage to their local markets. It's time to step up people and tell consumers in your market what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

I am charging every ActiveRain member to author a blog post assessing the state of your local housing market.

Excellent idea. Should be very enlightening.

I was getting mine ready after taking a look at not so positive stats for the year end 2008. What a fabulous challenge for all of us!

Jonathan, I'll try to make one up for you as soon as possible.

Joe Manausa has been keeping careful track of Tallahassee market statistics for almost a year and continues to tell it like it is. His data is accurate and his analysis is honest. He is the one who has encouraged me to blog on AR. http://activerain.com/joemanausa

Hi Jonathan

I thing you have a great ideal, and I will join in.

Good luck and success

Lou Ludwig

The local housing market in Minneapolis and St Paul is stable (there are still isolated areas with large reo numbers as well as an over built condo market but overall the market is good). Now is a great time to buy or sale a home with these historic low rates and values that have dropped 10-15%. Sometimes we focus nationally on the larger markets such as California, Florida, Arizona and Las Vegas where the housing market seems to have a long struggle ahead.

It is not so bad to say- NOW is the time to buy. Realtors are not the problem nor are the solution to market forces and global economic challenges. We are just Realtors. We should stop putting ourselves down. We do a great job assisting others in buying and selling.

Jonathan - Stellar idea. I suppose it will be a tad different to author from the Mortgage side of things, but I will come up with something.

Jonathan - Agree... let's be honest about what each buyer should do! Every person's situation is different. My recent post said, "Again, just my $.02 worth - but if you are already on shaky ground... this might not be the time to go into a 100% mortgage!" We have agents referring people to us for mortgages who have the scores - but are behind on 2 credit cards!

Jonathan,

Just a big THANK YOU for being our VOICE !!!!

Kathy Opatka, Re/Max Premier Properties, OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND

Jonathan, awesome challenge. I agree that the local Realtor needs to show that we have the consumer's best interest at heart. I was floored when Chicago had just under 3,000 listings expire at the end of 2008. I commit to posting on the local market.

BTW, love the VW van. My Uncle had one only in grey and I just loved it! Drove it into the ground, he did.....

Jon - I will try to do this soon. Interesting idea! I think I am probably a politician sometimes, although I try to be a statesman as well.

Jon - I have had enough of dishonest unethical behavior from other agents myself to understand why some of the public doesn't trust realtors. I personally think it's just an opportunity for those of us who are ethical to show that we are different.

Jon--Just working on that exact thing. The numbers put out by the area associations are correct but not exactly fair as they don't take into account the cummulative time on the market and lump all price catagories together. When broken down, only certain things are selling and the time frame can be a lot different than average.

This is a great idea!!! Our market in the Oklahoma City and Edmond Oklahoma real estate markets are not that bad. In fact my partner and I have started of the year with a huge bang. I'm looking forward to posting my market blog. Thanks for the challenge!

Jon- I wrote Westport, CT - Looking Ahead to 2009, a few weeks ago. I just changed the Topic and Channel.

The ironic thing will be if consumers who realize it was hype, in the past, miss a buying opportunity because they now won't trust us in the future.

For the most part, I believe AR members are light years ahead of even best local competitors because we are learning so much from each other. I put out a monthly report, providing my input on statistics from our regional mls, and consumers really seem to like the analysis aspect of it. I'll go back in at the first opportunity, and update the channel in the manner you proposed... probably later this week.

'Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow night at Pat's!

I will be happy to post on the housing market in Ann Arbor. I live with it everyday, having to do CMA's for sellers who can't sell their home for what they paid. I tell them the truth, some go forward bringing money to close and others rent, others try a short sale. It is depressing being a listing agent today.

Topic and channel noted! I'm on it!

I think it is important to build trust with the consumer. Their lack of confidence is not just with the Realtor -- and that makes it very difficult. Some buyers are very worried about their jobs. They just don't have the condifence to take the leap! The president and others warn it WILL get worse before it gets better -- and we are seeing the first bailout didn't work the way expected. Soo, i is important to paint a realistic picture, but very difficult at the same time.

Jonathan,

I think this is a fine idea, but the truth is that 80% of major markets lost value last year according to NAR. I wouldn't expect that to change this year.

Local statistics are great, but statistics can be used to communicate any message the person wants.

I don't blame real estate agents for trying to sell real estate as that is how they put food on the table for their family, but it's kind of like doing a self audit. You are going to find what you want to find in most instances.

For this to work there would need to be a uniform process of reporting data from one market to another. Preferably, the supply v. demand, or sales versus listings, which would give you the month's supply of housing. That is something you can stick a fork into.

Jonathan, I have been gathering my year end stats for the Huntsville market, and they are "all over the place" according to price range. Some of the figures are surprising. I'll happily write a post about Huntsville's market :) Lucky for us, overall our market has just remained flat. Many homeowners are moaning and groaning about little to no appreciation. They should thank their lucky stars that we aren't experiencing a major decline in values, as so many are right now.

Jonathan ... Thanks for this post, and I agree that the consumer must have "confidence that the local REALTOR has their best interest at heart. That confidence is something that is earned".

Let's work on earning that consumer confidence. I have been trying to post at least once weekly on local housing market update here at South OC, Irvine, Newport Coast, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa.

Keep up the good writing and AR leadership. Harrison

The media is the politician.... WE are the Statesman.

Just a note of caution Jonathon- a lot of agents do not have fiduciary duties any longer, including here in Washington state. We now have Agency duties which are very specific and restricted.

We have been trying to do that on a regular basis maybe we aren't as upbeat as I feel about the market but time will tell. This is a moment in time that we happen to live in. We are living history that agents in the future will talk about hoping they don't have to live it themselves.

It should be interesting to see this. I know there can be a big difference here from one city to the next and even from one area of a city to another area.

I have been doing it every month. I try to be honest in my assessment and provide insight into what the numbers mean. We all need to do that on a regular basis.

Jon,

"I am charging every ActiveRain member to author a blog post assessing the state of your local housing market. "

Is there any specific criteria that you want this assessment based on? Are we lumping all neighborhoods in the market area as one entity? Do we assess condo's, single family homes and multiple family homes separately? What about different price categories?

I agree with Mark -- that "For this to work there would need to be a uniform process of reporting data from one market to another. Preferably, the supply v. demand, or sales versus listings, which would give you the month's supply of housing. That is something you can stick a fork into."

JAN

Jon,

We have heard the call and will deliver as requested!!! Thanks, Fran

Jonathan, I will honor your call to duty. I will participate in "Local Housing Market". I am committed to Localism.

Paul, 100 Days to Change

AWESOME post, Jon......

THAT is taking your position as a leader in the real estate field and putting some muscle behind it!!

I will be posting soon about our local market in central Florida.... I had a post in draft mode for just that issue...

=-D

Alrighty then, you're on!

Jonathan,

It will always bog me that at the peak of the market NAR completely failed to warn us that market is cyclical, and when everyone was ecstatic, we were to warn our clients and customers.

instead just hype and hype and hype.

As a beacon, they are simply a complete and shameless failure

FEB

I think A/R folks are way ahead of others; but still - we all like to think *positive* - even when the truth hurts.

JUN

I wish I had known about this when I started blogging. I would have posted all of my market reports here, and will do so from now on. (I would go ahead and change the channels on all of my past posts, but for that pesky point reduction for editing posts provision that's still lurking about).

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