Home sales have, in reality, been falling for several months. But statisticians friendly to home builders and real estate agents, until recently, have been able to tinker with the figures and thus disguise the breadth of the problem. Time's up!
Most of you as well as the statisticians will now agree that the cat is out of the bag. Home sales have fallen dramatically. Lowering the interest rates will help to cushion the fall, but the fall will continue for a while, nevertheless.
As this is beginning, I am trying to count how many of these cycles I've endured during my many years as a Realtor. Suffice it to say, it's been more than five or six.
Agents who came into the business without sufficient tools and who did not continue their formal education in real estate, quickly found they could no longer make a living when a hot market cooled.
And their clients, those who had read and believed all of their self-promoting "I'm #1" ads in the local newspapers and magazines, learned that those agents were unable to pass muster in a buyer's market. Their ability had the quality of a cheap suit or the knock-off Gucci handbag they carried.
That's what is in store for many of them this time, too. But this blog, after all, is for the purpose of advising those of you who are planning to sell or buy a home within the next few months. Here's my take on this.
It would be a particularly good time to pick one of the old-timers with wrinkles on his face, and who has continued to earn a nice living in the real estate business through slow times as well as good.
I'm one of those old-timers. And quite frankly, it's the very reason most of my clients pick me time after time. I know how to rise to the occasion when it looks like the chips are down. Watch my agility. I'm noted for getting deals together and closed that many others would surely lose.
Well, I guess it is a good thing that you are an Old-Timer.... eh, Bill?
LOL
Bill, from one old-timer to another, there may be less business but there are less agents to share it with. I personally like "these times" as I'm sure you do too. Knowledge and skill is much more important now.
We need to let them know that we are here (still).
Bill Roberts
TOM, you're in trouble now. Bill Roberts and I are ready to meet you in a dark alley and show you some action from our muscles of steel.
Bill