There are many ways to get caught in the wrong house at the wrong time. Almost all of these are honest means, leaving no fault on the owner who was caught being with the wrong house at the wrong time. Back in late 2008, everyone owned the wrong house at the wrong time, because values of nearly every property, everywhere, were higher in 2007 than they were when 2008 turned into 2009. In 2009, in Lake Geneva, it was easy to pretend that you still owned the right house, even though it was proving to be the wrong time. We’re Lake Geneva, we’re different, was a common broker refrain over that time, and while some got lucky and snuck out in the dark of that bad-market-night, most owned properties that had their values crushed.
There is, however, one sure fire way to avoid the sorts of fates that can meet those who view housing as a large weight at the bottom of a heavy chain. Instead of viewing real estate as a forever proposition, you can remain nimble and fluid, able to sell when the selling is good and able to hold when the holding is best. There are ways to sneak out in front of coming tides, to ride them higher or to sit on the shore and wait for them to subside. The best single way to avoid being stripped of housing mobility and crushed under devastated values is to be forward looking and forward thinking, concerned about immediate trends, yes, but mostly concerned about what might be next.
This is easy from the inside of the business, and I count some of the best advice I’ve ever given in my 18 years at this helm to be that which I gave to a part-time spec home builder in 2007. We had spun several spec homes in Lakewood Trails, a modest full-time type neighborhood in Williams Bay whose valuation range was somewhat steady in the $280k to $360k range, and the builder had enjoyed some nice success over the prior few years. That summer, he returned from his winter home in Florida to ask me what he should build next. Sensing some uncertainty in that individual market, I told him not to build. I told him to sit this one out, to watch and wait. We would forgo the potential profit of late 2007 and by doing so avoid the losses that 2008 was sure to bring. We had chosen safety over risk, no gain over certain loss.
From the outside, the consumer end, it isn’t quite as easy to see what’s next, but it is more than possible. Did most who owned homes in the summer of 2007 think that the peak value of their home was going to continue to rise? If you had bought in 2000 and had enjoyed a 50% upside over the following seven years, did you think it was best to hold on for another bit of gain? Most of us did, but some did not. Some locked gains in 2007 and endured the biggest obstacle to successful real estate maneuvering: The blasted inconvenience of it all.
There is pain associated with moving. Mental pain, for sure. But physical pain, too. Real estate commercials show real estate transactions ending with smiles and neatly stacked, impeccably labeled cardboard boxes. Real life real estate transactions end with relief, with a UHaul out front for the buyer’s crap that he moved from his last house, and a seller in a rental, set to wait out whatever he thought was coming next. I have been this seller, selling when times were okay to avoid having to sell when they were bad. I have sold at the peak, and bought at the peak. I have sold into the decline, and bought again in the decline. I have sold when things were a bit better, and bought when they were better still. There is maneuvering that is tiring, but there is maneuvering that is necessary. Most people don’t do this because there is annoyance, cost, and stress involved. Lots of it.
So today, I find myself with a lakefront sale now dead, due to many circumstances but mostly due to the pain of the sale. As a culture, we seek immediate gratification in all things. We want what we want, and we want it now, or perhaps a few minutes ago. We want convenience and comfort, and even though we know what’s best for us, we find it exceedingly difficult to take our medicine. How can we conjure up our own spoonful of sugar to make that medicine go down? Well, we can sell when the selling is good and hold when the selling is bad. That’ll make it easier, but the move is no less stressful, the effort no less significant. It’s just that at the end of a stressful sales event we get to take a breath, consider our options, and move forward, again.