The Chicken Little Syndrome Regarding Showings

Well said, Paula!  It's important for agents to communicate often with their clients. And agents need to educate themselves to help calm the fears of sellers and buyers. 

Hello Paula - real estate can be confusing.  Any time.  For those participating as well as others on the sidelines.  Even some practitioners are uncertain.  I have repeated it often over the years, real estate is not as easy as some think or say.  

Good morning, Paula. This is it in a nutshell and too many agents forget:

"The most important aspect of a slow market is to stay on top of the communication. When you go silent, your Seller's can dream up all sorts of scenarios, worry themselves, and cause friction. I have always found that upfront, candid conversations are always the best."

I wish that the news was actually the news and not something filled with lies to push different agendas, haha.

Hello Dr. Paula McDonald 

The sky is not falling ...we are in a cycle. Panic serves no one and does not change the environment/conditions.  

Like you, I have always found that upfront, candid conversations are always the best.

Dr. Paula McDonald - the six valid suggestions you made in your blog are valuable. Thank you for sharing it with us.  Have a awesome week.  Joe

I agree with you except.  I have seen an uptick here over the last few days.  We are in the spring break season here and more folks are considering their options regarding possibly purchasing here

Well put... Our job will always be to educate and disseminate factual understanding of our Market. Absolutely love this!!!

Good morning Paula,

What a great title and analogy Paula! It is our job to educate our buyers and sellers ..the sky is not falling...communicating often with our clients will help us stay on the positivity road...being negative and fueling fears serves no purpose!

I am in this situation right now Dr. Paula McDonald and it is weird as one school district over showings are crazy, but in this area, there is just nothing happening and it has been that way for a while.

The Real Deal reported contract cancellations have doubled! What is buried in that headline is that contract cancellations were .5% and have now doubled to 1%. Is that something I would keep my eye on - sure, of course, it would be foolish to ignore...but...panic, no. 

What I am seeing on the ground, at least in my market, is that buyers that have an agent- they are moving off the sidelines and taking action if possible (inventory levels are often too low for some clients to find a reasonable match). On the flip side, my firm provides leads to all agents in a open transparent process- first to respond gets it- and new buyer/seller leads have crawled to a near halt in the last 2 months vs December and January that were busier than typical winter months. I can obviously talk through client concerns with those I am in contact with but there is a wider concern beyond those that we can reach directly. 

Markets are influenced by confidence in our leaders- and the extreme ups and downs are a reflection of the players of both real and imagined concerns. While I have confidence in my local real estate market for many reasons, at least to a certain point as we are not immune to the broader economy- I don't have confidence in our broader economic environment- and it's justified.

While I believe Trump has valid concerns about trade imbalances- there is no strategy or intelligence on how to fix it other than a wrecking ball. I understand that is why so many of his supporters love that about him- but there is no fast or easy fix to the problem and there are many other approaches that would have far greater odds of success without putting fear, panic and overall chaos out in the forefront. The issue is two fold- one is manufacturing and second is that Trump wants to create a Value Added Tax- V.A.T. (but he will never call it that since he attacks Europe's way of doing business). Even on a fast forward timeline...if possible, I don't see company's like Apple being able to build a plant like what exists in China here in the U.S. anytime soon- likely years away. Even if you take compensation and taxes out of the equation (something I have been thinking about for many years- especially for company's like Apple) - we don't have the supply chain, the training, the workers, etc. In China they have the infrastructure created so that if plans change on manufacturing an iPhone- i.e. you need a different sized screw than planned for- no problem, because the plant that makes the specialized screw is down the road from the assembly plant- and the plant leaders are in constant contact with one another. In order for us to compete- we need to create this infrastructure all while we are destroying capital when there are ways to address without fear and panic. Another aspect to this- the bond market. If bond holders call in the bonds- asking to be repaid, because after all- a bond is little more than holding debt- and the government is unable to pay or unwilling to pay- that could end not only the relationship- but any holder of these bonds have legitimate reason to fear not getting repaid. This is a legitimate concern right now. If I owned a lot of Treasuries right now- as a lot of foreign governments do, I would be concerned about the US cancelling that debt. It's not that the sky is falling- it's that we are handling relationships as well as our promises poorly, breaking trust in the process and that is a legitimate reason for pause. 

It's so interesting Paula that I'm hearing this 'chicken little' thing from some agents around the country.  I've been through just about every market and there is always a way to creatively deal with whatever comes down the pike.  Here in PHX we are not experiencing this and haven't in a long time. Seems like homes continue to sell like hot cakes. I see a home pop up and am not surprised to see it pending within days.

I have been sending my sellers the SABOR MLS viewing report and Zillow views every week so we can track the trend.  But also caution them that MLS has a bad response from buyers on the interested vs not interested ratings for a couple of reasons but to notice that Zillow saves do not turn into showings.  Might that be because buyers are tracking for price reductions?   But it does give us statistical data.  The common problem in this area it less than 40% of agents give showing feedback.  Ours sends out the request 3 times and virtually no responses from agents.  Have to personally email and HOPE for a response if you don't get it after 3 tries. 

Paula, excellent blog that offers a plan and options creating rails for sellers to run on in challenging markets. When the agent takes charge in addressing the issues, the seller will feel grounded by the guidance and more likely choose the most beneficial course of action.

I guess we have to realize that we are in control of what we consume and take into our minds… Everybody be safeout there.

One of the statistics I bring to my listing and buyer clients is the absorption rate. Here in Golden Valley for many residential properties it is a seller's market as inventory is less than six months. Along with days on market this can help in the decision making process.

We cannot allow ourselves to be overcome by the "chicken little syndrome".

Nor can we let ourselves chicken out when the market becomes more difficult.

Good morning Paula. When the trend is down you can follow the crowd or buck the trend. The best results often are produced by those who take the road less travelled. You are in control of you and can get others, like your sellers, to travel the road with you if you are creative and convincing. Enjoy your day.

Dr. Paula McDonald - I have posted many times in The Rain about Chicken Little - and you have tapped into some great pros and cons here...with creative solutions. 
Chicken Little lacks experience, I tend to be more of a Brick House 🐷 Pig 😂in the land of Little Golden Books. I've seen the worst this market can deliver and I'm still here. So, I did it before, I can do it again is the attitude as I'm better prepared each new season.