Aug. 22, 2007 - Seattle Area Real Estate Market
Every worker has "a toolbox". A handyman or contractor's toolbox has many and varied implements required to perform a skilled service. The tool without the man of skill to use it, is not much use to anyone. The man with no tool is equally impotent at his task without the tool.
Real Estate Agents are no different from other "workers" in the marketplace. Our "toolbox" is so large that we could never "carry" our tools off to work with us each day. We have sign posts and sign panels and riders and lockboxes and flyers and cameras. We have room measurers and surgical booties and mortgage calculators and most of all, we have our years of experience with more things packed into our brains than seems possible to store in there. Like little tips on how to turn the owners sink, he thought was beyond repair, into an almost new looking version of that thought ruined beyond repair. Just a bottle of bleach for $1.09 and letting the water sit overnight. Hardly worth mentioning, yet the owner blogged about how he had tried to clean that sink many times over before getting it ready for market, without success. The next morning...problem solved. Small things that make people happier.
August through year-end always brings a fair amount of uncertainty with it.
- We are not quite as positive that just the right house is going to come on market during that time, for our buyer clients who are looking for just the right home.
- We are not quite as positive that our seller clients are going to receive an offer worthy of their consideration.
- We are also not quite as confident that the months from August through December will allow us to hold on to our integrity. Every year we land in January with our integrity intact, we are proud of our actions on behalf of our clients. It isa difficult season as often we find ourselves telling people to wait. Not buy. Not sell. It seems contrary to our personal objective at times, to pay our bills and care for our loved ones. And yet we know that our needs are secondary and the clients' objective is the only thing that matters. Sounds easy, but trust me, it's not. It is often the hardest thing that we do, putting our self interest out of sight. Not secondary, but totally out of sight in fiduciary service to our clients.
2007 has been a stressful year for buyers and sellers and their agents. We had to stuff a huge portion of faith, hope and charity into our toolboxes this year.
- Faith that our advices were as sound as possible, amidst a sea of fear and media horror stories about market conditions, mortgage industry woes and appraisal uncertainties.
- Hope that our best advices would serve our clients well in the months and years ahead through the up and downs and uncertainties in the marketplace.
- Charity at times, for those who were backed up against a wall by thinking appreciation was a never ending upward trend and over extending themselves thinking worse case scenario was they could sell for more than they paid.
To tell you the truth, every year in August we pretty much feel this way. It is what makes us better agents. To look at everything a little more closely, to try to see ahead to what the next season will bring us, with no crystal ball to guide us. But this year we look at things differently. No one is certain how the mortgage industry and its troubles, and the myriad of "corrections" put into place to assist lenders, will affect the market overall. Every day we work through the difficulties. Houses that don't appraise. Buyers who can't get financing. Sellers with not enough buyers who are "ready, willing and able" to purchase.
It is a lot tougher on agents who have only worked in the hot market of 1998 to present. I know because they call me to pick my brain. To figure out the next step. They call on me to reach into my toolbox and find the right answer for their clients. It is at times my job to give them the faith and confidence in the client advices. It is my job to provide the hope that those advices will resolve their clients' difficulties. And it is my job to be charitable to all who come into my presence, to shoulder their burdens with them, to empathise and to be their tool...in their toolbox.
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