No Bad News For Realtors

In November 2006 at a weekly real estate marketing meeting a broker named Craig stood up and said he thought it may be a good idea to disclose to buyers that values may not continue to increase at the exponential rates we had been experiencing.   He almost needed security to escort him out.

Oftentimes professional sales people make the mistake of avoiding any news that could be considered “negative”.  I believe it is important to point out that there is never really any bad news,  only clues for new opportunity.

Imagine if an agent had listened to Broker Craig and made some changes in his marketing plan based on the fact that values may not continue to increase.   He may have attended a BPO certification class and started making money doing BPO’s.   He may have gone to the asset management sites when they were soliciting for new agents and found a link on their site “click here to sign up to be an approved REO agent”.  He may have even taken a hard look at his own real estate portfolio like Sean O’Toole the Founder of ForeclosureRadar who was busy liquidating his real estate investments in 2006.   

The news today is filled with stories on modification failures, strategic defaulters, negative equity, unprecedented delays in the foreclosure process and litigation. Some of the folks I have interviewed for our ForeclosureRadar Short Sale report have indicated that they believe short sales will become easier this year.  What if 2011 does become the year of the short sale?

You cannot afford to look at market news as good or bad. People still desire to live in a home regardless of whether the interest rates are high or low, delinquencies are up or down, or the median home price is lower today than last month.  One thing is for sure, the news will always provide you with clues that may affect how your business looks in the future.

I am sure we would all agree that there will be a lot of homes bought and sold in 2011.   The rest is just marketing strategy.