I’m Surrounded By Nuts!

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?