It is a tough market, tough on the people in the market. It may look like it is about land and buildings and money but it is really about the people. It is about where they live, work, play, and raise families.
In over thirty years of working with people and their real estate, I have never seen so much fear and pain. It is hard to watch. People are the reason I love the real estate business. The opportunity to meet and help so many interesting and different kinds of people makes all the rest of it worth it. All of the hard work and problems that must be solved.
I have sold vacant bank owned foreclosures, but I did not know the people that lived there, until recently. Today, I know too many people who are being told they must move out. Too many people who are being pushed into bankruptcy. Too many people being humiliated, whole families of people.
Of course it was people who created the current market conditions. People from Wall Street to Main Street and some of their less admirable motivating desires drove this market. History is full of greedy disasters.
The concept of negative equity has always been around, but rarely seen. Lending guidelines generally kept people from getting into payments they really could not afford. So generally speaking something bad had to happen to cause foreclosure and bankruptcy. A failed business, health, substance abuse, something went wrong.
Not today, no nasty reasons required today. It is simply people caught up in the fact that; too many people bought too much real estate, with too many bad loans. In the process paid too much for it.
It is a whole lot less fun to consult without good answers when the questions are about "how can they get out from under this thing." Questions like, "where are we supposed to get the money to sell this house?" or "What is going to happen if we can't make these payments?"
The forces in the market, supply and demand, will find a balance. The market will find its bottom. Opportunities are being created, but these opportunities are coming at a high price, a price paid in people as well as dollars.
Chris Miller
Mesquite GMAC Real Estate
Mesquite NV 89027
702 346-9050
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