This is a blog I probably should have written before Thanksgiving, but once the holiday hit, I decided to take it easy and enjoy the time spent with family. The news tells us every day that there aren’t many things to be thankful for. Whether it’s the hot topic of the flailing economy or the usual local crime, there isn’t much to generally be happy about. Thanksgiving however gives us focus and perspective on what there is to be happy about, and call it a cliché, but I’m going to use this blog to say what I’m thankful for as a realtor.
I’m thankful for low interest rates in this economy.
The economy and real estate almost go completely hand in hand, but with today’s economy, housing hasn’t been as affected as people are being led to believe. Real estate over the past few years has been undergoing price correction and over this past year we’ve only begun to see it reflect in home sales. You may be led to believe that interest rates around 6% are bad, but it was only back in the 1980’s where rates were as high as 13%. Rates in the long term are looking to decrease to below 6%. The economy may be making people wary about buying homes, but the real estate market is doing its job to keep you in the game.
I’m thankful for becoming a realtor at the start of a less than viable housing market.
Realtors in times like this decide to either retire or get out of the game for other economically viable career paths. I graduated college and jumped right into real estate in spite of hearing all of this. People tell me this is a bad market to start up in and I tell them it’s a great market to start up in. If you’re new, you already have to build from the bottom up. This kind of market only drives you to do the things you need to do to succeed. Someone who’s been in the business when times are good may adhere to “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and continue to do things the same as they always have and that may be where you as a new agent would snap up buyers. Personally, this market has taught me to always search for a better way to do business, even when times are good, cause when times are good, they still have the potential to be great.
I’m thankful for being a realtor in this technological time.
I can’t imagine what it was like being a realtor before the days of the internet and cell phones. The information super highway has made our profession so much easier when you really sit and think about it. The internet based MLS we use to find homes used to be a huge book we’d have to look up codes in and the only way we’d be able to be reached by clients would be by a phone hooked into a phone line. We wouldn’t be able to fax or e-mail anything to our office or to our clients. There was a time where Mapquest and GPS were only ideas on a piece of paper. Advertising was left to print and television. The internet is so important that it’s where people do most of their home searching now. I’m very thankful for the time I grew up in, where computers were being integrated into school curriculum and information was making a rapid transition from paper to digital.
And lastly, I’m thankful for the news…sort of.
The news is a catch-22 for realtors. Think about the ten second news commercials for the 6 o’clock and 10 o’clock news. You rarely see and hear the news anchors leadoff with a heartwarming story or good news for people. It’s generally about local violence or tragedy. Most recently the headlines were about Black Friday, which were either about the local worker in NY being trampled and subsequently killed or “Best Deals on Black Friday!” News items need to be captivating to sell papers and gain viewers, and lower mortgage rates or housing sales up over the last month aren’t going to make people tune in. Its good news that people feel they don’t need details about. If foreclosure rates increase without end in sight, people will tune in or read about that to get all the details. I know I generally read into news items like that so I know just how bad it is, but being a realtor, news items like that are very misleading. This market is great to buy into, but unless you talked to a realtor, you never would know that. That’s why I’m thankful for the news, because it inspires people to ask us, the experts, about what the market is really like. I just have to hope that it inspires more people to ask me questions than sit back and decide against buying or selling.
Well, now that I think about it, I have one more thing to be thankful for. I’m thankful for anyone who read this blog. It goes to show I spent my time well and at least it entertained and informed you for 3-5 minutes.
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Christmas is right around the corner!
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