Can't we all just get along?
Forgive the mournful lament but I've been seeing too
many sad examples of humans behaving badly in the
realm of real estate lately. Mean-spirited. Ungracious.
Reactionary. Uncaring. Selfish. One-sided. Coldlycalculating. Blaming. Fearful. Vacillating. Self-pitying.
I think it's time to call a time out and send everyone to
their respective rooms where they can sit quietly, reflect
on and fully consider the ramifications of all their actions
- conscious and unconscious - vis-à-vis their part in the
larger gestalt of real estate.
Starting Monday, Labor Day, let's declare a moratorium
on any real estate work for a week. Let's give it a muchneeded rest and try to expunge some of the bad juju that is
build up towards toxic levels in our systems. Put
everything on hold. No buying. No selling. Not even any
erstwhile lookey-looing or tire-kicking. No open houses.
No escrowing. Shut down the web. Turn off the cell
phones. Take a seven day sabbatical.
Buyers and sellers go to their neutral corners. Then we can
call in a special team of counselors trained in greed and
grief intervention techniques. They'll meet one-on-one
with everyone considering a move to or from a house, at
special emergency aid stations set up at the Fairgrounds
and the National Guard Armory. Hopefully they'll be able
to forge some kinder, gentler common ground in the
marketplace that will allow for a more comfortable
meeting of the minds.
Buyers, when you retreat to your corners, I want you to
mull over a few things. Yeah, you it tough for many years
while the market was screaming upwards. Sellers didn't
cut you much slack when they were basking in over-bid
heaven. Perhaps because of the slings and arrows of
outrageous misfortune you suffered then, many of you are
out for revenge now that the market is in the midst of its
transition down.
So many of you believe that as soon as the market begins
to wane that it automatically plummets all the way down
immediately, plunging off the edge of the cliff into the
darkness of the abyss, landing right smack dab in the
middle of your comfort zone overnight. Most of you are
way off. You think the pace of the market is moving
down much faster than it really is. Most of you are
forgetting that the market is cyclical and will be back.
Most of you are mistaken if you think you can time the
lows any better than you can time the highs.
You can keep dreaming, but even with the rising number
of homes on the market, Santa Cruz County still has an
incredibly low supply of homes relative to other areas
(Las Vegas, Phoenix…) It remains a highly desirable
place to live. Low ball offers thrown haphazardly like
spaghetti against the wall aren't going to yield many
fruitful results. Strategies based on telling Sellers what
they want to hear so that you can tie them up in escrow
and then purposely try to grind them back down using
over-dramatize inspection issues are most likely just going
to inflate the junk heap of DFT's (Deal Fell Through) and
aren't going to get you where you really want to go towards a better living situation and more quality of life.
Sellers, during your time out, I want you to really hear
once and for all what I've been telling you for a long time.
The market has changed. And it is changing more. And no
matter how great you think your house is…you are not
exempt. Your worst nightmare, whether you are prepared
to accept it or not, is what's called chasing the market
down. Days on market is your enemy if you honestly,
truly, do want to sell anytime in the next three or four
years. Unfortunately, Buyers don't care about what you
“need” to get for your house. Or how much money you
put in it. They only care about how it compares to every
other house out there in an expanding inventory of homes
for sale that they have the luxury of choosing from. Bite
the bullet. Get it done. Its not quality of life to torture
yourself with the burden of a house not selling. Thank
your lucky stars for the amazing run up in equity so many
of you benefited from and then let the rest go.
Buyers and Sellers: you aren't enemies. You are jointly
connected at the hip. The only way either of you can
move on is to accept the fact that you need each other.
Neither of you can exist or make that transition without
mutual help and cooperation. Learn to walk a little more
in each others' shoes. Try the opposite mindset on for
some glimmer of enlightenment. Give and take is the best
kind of balance in any marketplace. Reasonable
compromise is a very reasonable thing.
So let's start acting like we are reasonable people. Shall
we?