REAL ESTATE AGENT NEWS

Surviving and Thriving in 2009

By: Carmel Streater

It simply doesn't matter! Salespersons and brokers who survive this and any market are those who are willing to go out and make any deal that can be made in prevailing market conditions, and make no mistake, there are always deals being made.

One problem is that the deals are being made by go-getters who are out working, not by the hangers-on who stay in the office (home or otherwise) and wrap themselves in a warm blanket of defeatism. Therefore your role models for success are conspicuous by their absence from your lives.

The other problem is that you can't make deals in today's market using strategies that worked in a boom market. Scavenger buyers who choose to capitalize on the mistakes made by individuals who bought at the top of the market ARE NOT stealing.

They are, instead, astute students of market conditions who deserve to be treated as though they are saving your bacon, mainly because they might well be. Don't hate them because they're better at reading business situations than the comparatively "nice" folks you sold to during boom times.

Yes, they will work you harder than your boom buyers, and yes, they will actually negotiate far beyond the normal offer-counter offer-meet in the middle norm. Most of all, yes, they will take a lot of your time. If you are too busy to help them, get out of the way and let someone interested in learning from actual business-minded buyers while earning money help them out.

You say you just HATE dealing with banks on repos because they don't offer the safety nets of inspections, repairs, etc. to which you have become accustomed? Either learn to work without them or find more acceptable employment until boom times return.

Boom times always return, but would you really want to wait to make a sale until they do? This is a time when you can learn more in six months about what makes the real estate sales and finance businesses work than you can in six years in a boom market.

What you learn in hard times you can use to good advantage in the good times that are sure to follow. You just have to put yourself in the way of the learning.

Vince Lombardi taught his players that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, an excellent axiom. Our job is a little more difficult than that of Mr. Lombardi's scholar athletes. We can't wait for opportunity to meet us, we have to go out and hunt it down! Get prepared to work in today's market, get out and work and you will find opportunity.