Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: candy, cigarettes, distress, economy, fear, help, kids, moral, Obama, parents, Realtor, stranger, teachers
Do you remember when you were a kid and your parents and teachers would tell you to never take candy from a stranger? I do! I was so afraid that if a stranger ever offered me candy I would be a goner. Rape, death, abduction….all of these things and more would happen if I ever took candy from a stranger. Parents and teachers are very effective at scaring the shit out of kids. The funny thing is that as we grow older we forget the rule, we get bold, grow our own opinions, secure our own thoughts and completely forget the rule that we should never take candy from a stranger.
And I can prove it. Take a look at our current economic situation, our economy is dieing a slow and painful death and in my humble opinion it’s because we all forgot the rule: Never, I mean NEVER take candy from a stranger! We have all done it and now we’re going to pay the price.
I’m a Realtor. Currently I’m dealing with what I like to call “The Three D’s”: Divorce, Distress, and Death. These are my clients, and it’s very “D”epressing…..although I have this blog to help me cope. Divorce and death are typically unavoidable but it’s the issue of distress that may help prove my earlier point.
MANY of my clients are in financial distress and are defaulting on their home loans. In most circumstances it’s due to the fact that they never should have been allowed to purchase the home in the first place. In other words, purchasing a home just because they could do it didn’t mean that they should have done it and now they and the rest of the American people are paying for it. See, what happened was that a stranger came up and offered them candy and they forgot the rule and they took the candy and now they must suffer!
So then along comes the federal government, like a white knight on a steed and it ”has a plan”, and it’s a good one. It’s been called “the Obama Plan”, “Help for Homeowners”, “ Hope for Homeowners”, you name it, it’s your government to the rescue. But like a Snickers bar being held out to an unsuspecting child, just as we begin to move forward the “help” (or candy) gets yanked back and we now find ourselves struggling to break free, or worse, fighting for our livelihood.
That’s what happened this week. It’s been only one month since this “plan” has been rolled out and within 2 days mortgage interest rates rose over an entire percentage point to over 6%, leaving thousands of homeowners that were hoping for assistance now unable to get it and worse yet, significantly reducing buying power for perspective borrowers of homes that so desperately need to be sold.
But back to the moral of the story. Although I digressed into something morbid and disturbing (the economics of our country) I would like to point out that there are many lessons that our children are being taught today that will hopefully stay with them (but I have serious doubts). The “Stranger Danger” issue has taken a back seat to the new danger of smoking, almost to the point of absurdity but I’m not complaining. My kids are so in fear of cigarettes that they won’t even go into a restaurant where it’s ok to smoke, seriously they would rather starve!
So in looking back over what I’ve just written and in taking into account that we as adults grew up and are doing the opposite of what we were taught as children I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised if someday FS or FD becomes the CEO of Phillip Morris?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: attitude, career, economy, housing market, job, job loss, life, money, real estate, work
So BFF J and I had a bit of a heart to heart this afternoon. It seems that earlier today she received her “pink slip”. This was not altogether unexpected as she’s been working on contract for a large trucking company, and we all know how well trucking companies are doing in this less than stellar economy. She’s not too upset about it though and I envy her for that. Most people haven’t been as smart as she and her husband when it comes to finances and she doesn’t have to work so she’s among the lucky few. I spent some time crying the blues about the real estate market too. The funny thing is that I’m still working, I’m just not making money!
So when I started selling real estate in 2003 the housing market was actually pretty slow, by “normal” standards. It gradually improved and by 2005 I could hardly keep up with the work load. I was a complete idealist, I was in the business to help people make their dreams of home ownership come true. I know that sounds sappy and Saccharine but it really is the truth. In the height of the market, somewhere between 2004-2005, I was writing a crazy amount of contracts on homes for clients that would stand in line or draw lottery numbers or even over-pay for a house! Nowadays I’m fortunate to write one contract a month (for a buyer) and I’m lucky to see an offer on a home. Oddly enough I’m working less but netting about the same and here’s why: in a boom only about 25-50% of my offers were accepted and today they all get accepted because everyone knows how rare it is to actually see an offer.
The gradual downward progression from optimism to pessimism usually doesn’t happen overnight and mine has been no exception. I think that it really began with my first sale related to a divorce. Prior to that all of the sellers that I had worked with were either relocating and/or moving on up….happy reasons to move! Shortly after the first divorce clients, the second followed and then the “downsizers”; clients that were looking to downsize their existing home and get something smaller, for a variety of reasons but usually financial. Then came the “job loss” clients. We were still in a decent financial market, housing prices were stabilizing and I could still help these people get out with equity……..they were the lucky ones. The “job loss” clients were followed all too closely by the “short sellers”, which is where I find myself today.
The “short sellers” are the most depressing group of clients that I could ever hope to NOT work with yet this is where I find myself today. See, the “short sellers” have NOTHING (for the most part) and many of them are in divorce…..the ultimate double whammy! These are people that (more than likely) at some point had equity in their home but the problem is that the market has dropped so dramatically that their homes are no longer worth what they owe on them. AND to make matters worse, for a variety of reasons they cannot afford to stay in their home.
Do you see my decline? So I went from helping people live the co-called American Dream to helping people throw it away, get rid of it, destroy it, and pretty much trash it. Don’t get me wrong, many of these people have made very bad choices that got them into the bad situations they’re in, but many of them are still making those same bad choices and they just want a free ride.
So therein lies my dilemma, my sour attitude toward a career and business that was once my passion has affected my mental state to the point where I do not want to be a Realtor anymore. To make matters worse, I’m not the only one. There are a tremendous amount of Realtors getting out of the market and I can understand why! To a certain extent I’ve reached survival mode, which sucks. I do not work well in survival mode because it’s all about making money and making money is not my passion, that’s just a bonus 
So BFF J and I are trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. She sees her pink slip as the golden ticket to finding her passion and an open gate to several self-fulfilling opportunities (my words, not hers). I see the down market and my steadily worsening attitude as an invitation to begin anew, attempt a new adventure……….or I could crawl into a hole hoping that when things get better someone might come and take me back to the party. Well, one can dream and one can survive. Either way I know that wherever we land it’s where we’re suppose to be…………right?
