There’s an emotion present in real estate that is very difficult to describe. It’s a feeling that I’d like to think is unique to being a Realtor, but I know similar strains of the same emotion can be felt in other walks of life, and at many different moments. The feeling is one of opportunity, laced with a crushing degree of pressure, and it’s a feeling that I feel on a nearly continual basis. The real estate world is one of opportunity- personal opportunity yes- but the sort that I’m describing is the opportunity for a client, and the pressure I feel to get the job done on their behalf. Contrary to public and televised opinion, Realtors do not have the ability to sell real estate, instead we have only the ability to present real estate opportunities and wait for a client to accept those opportunities. I can lead a buyer to vacation home utopia, but I cannot write the check for them. It’s sort of like leading a horse to water and not being able to make it drink, only more frustrating and there’s not that horse-y smell.
Even in the worst of markets, there are opportunities. Over the last three years, as the market dipped and dove and buyers shrugged their shoulders without purpose or awareness of their limited lifespans, there were still opportunities. Opportunities to buy what the sort of property that wasn’t available in the bull market. These opportunities were present, but buyers didn’t feel much motivation to pull the trigger. The bear market created a more deliberate real estate process, one where buyers would review the same property for weeks and months before finally, possibly, writing a terrible offer. Many of these transactions culminated in sales, many did not. What was obvious though was that the buyer was in complete command of the situation, and the timing was his and his alone. Or hers. It might have also been hers.
With my keen awareness of the way real estate has been for the past couple years fully intact, I found a new listing recently in the MLS that caught my attention. This is not unique, as listings catch my attention every day for one reason or another. This listing caught my attention because it was a classic property in a rare location and it was priced perfectly. It was (is) priced so well that I feverishly emailed a handful of clients to tell them of my new discovery. My fingers slipped from one key to the other, repeatedly making mistakes like I used to make in childhood dreams when I’d be unable to dial 911 as a masked, gun toting intruder threatened to break down the back door of my parent’s home. When I finally strung together a few sentences and included the link to the property, I hit send. The email left my computer and traveled through the series of giant tubes that make up the Internets and presumably ended up on the computer screens and Blackberrys of my prized clients.
Then several hours passed. I’d check my phone for the tell-tale red flash of an awaiting email, and my phone just sat there, flash-less. I checked it every few minutes to see if there was possibly a tiny burned out light bulb inside the phone, which was, in turn, sabotaging my phone’s attempts at letting me know of an urgent email that had only moments before arrived. Still nothing. Crickets chirped. I knew in my heart and my freakishly large real estate mind that this listing would sell and sell fast, and my buyers just yawned. This listing was perfect for three or four of them, and someone else is going to buy it and then I’m going to have to stand on my computerized literary soapbox and tell them that I tried my best to let them know about this very exciting new vacation home and that their lives could have been changed forever if only they’d listened to me- and then it dawned on me. For all my complaining, I had grown to love the real estate bear market.
There’s something about succeeding in a challenging environment that makes it that much more fun. Sure I’d rather just have someone heap untold fortunes upon me, but I’ve learned to thrive in the adversity of the modern day real estate environment. An environment that made slow-to-react buyers feel welcome, and a lack of motivation was the rule, not the exception. When buyers took months to decide on a single property, it didn’t seem strange to me any longer, in fact, I came to expect it. I’m not saying we’re out of a bear market at Lake Geneva, because I don’t believe that we are, I’m just saying that even in bear markets buyers need to recognize value and act on it. With increased momentum here lately, momentum due to both the time of year and pent up demand that is finally being exercised, buyers might need to shake off the cobwebs that have filled their minds over the past couple years and realize that there is value present, and when that value matches their exact needs, it’s time to act.
Eighteen months ago, buyers had time to react. Weeks and months even, and in some rare cases, years. Today the story is the same, but it’s a new chapter. There’s no reason for buyers to panic, but there is reason to act when the right property crosses your path. Or computer screen. There are enough buyers active today to snap up well priced properties and leave those buyers who still have their motivation packed away in some obscure box in their basement out in the cold. Or in this case, left in the city or suburbs while someone else lives a vacationers dream in a property that could have easily been theirs.