Pieces of the puzzle that lead you to success – what are they?  In today’s market, one of the most important pieces is knowledge.  You need to know the numbers.  How many houses are available for sale?  How many months supply do we have today?  What are prices doing – going up, down or remaining stable?  What are the average days on market?  What are interest rates? With these numbers and others you need to know how they compare to where they were last week.  Last month?  Last year?  Additionally, you need to know what markets are “hot”.  What price ranges are selling and which are not and why.  You need to know what is happening in the industry – underwriting guidelines, appraisal rules and regulations, loan programs and guidelines, and what is going to change that will affect our industry.  You have to know the contract and all addendums and be able to communicate what they say and mean to your clients.

Prospecting is also a very large piece of the puzzle.  All of the knowledge in the world is useless without someone to share it with.  Your efforts need to be intentional, focused and proactive.  When speaking with people, tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them and then let them know what you told them.  If you are looking to help people in distress, let them know.  If you are looking for buyers, let them know.  If you want to work with clients not in distress, let them know.  Be specific, be direct and be positive in your approach and you will reap the rewards.

Another puzzle piece is time management.  Setting a schedule, following it and incorporating the following areas of into will help lead you to success.  Find time to work on your business, schedule working in your business – showings, listing appointments, writing contracts and closings, make time for your family commitments and friends.  Also make sure to include community involvement, to get involved in your association, and work time for charities into your schedule.  As you have heard, the more you help others, the more help you will receive.

You must also work on sharpening your skills regularly.  Rehearse your presentations, attend trainings, read sales books, take courses on selling.  Learn to network better by having your elevator speech prepared and be able to communicate it at any time.  In real estate, we are always “on” so practice to be prepared.

Your attitude also needs to fill in one of the holes in your puzzle.  A positive, upbeat and optimistic attitude will give you energy, focus and determination when times get challenging.  Remember, helping people and being solution oriented will produce huge rewards for you in life and in business.

Work on you delegation.  Only work what adds to your bottom line.  By only doing what creates revenue and delegating the rest makes you an asset to your team.  Give up control of paperwork, mailings, brochure creation, feedback calls, MLS input, etc – review it but don’t do it.  Get busy getting in front of people and your bank account will grow!

Tools are another piece of the puzzle.  You need to know what works and why and how it can help you and your business.  Know how to work on social media sites effectively and efficiently and don’t let them be a distraction.  Use them to enhance your marketing and to develop and grow your sphere.  Also, know which devices are most effective for your business and invest in your business.   In today’s market, you need at a minimum a lap top with wireless capabilities, portable printer & scanner, PDA/IPhone/Blackberry, video capabilities through a flip video or camera, and a digital camera.  Also, you need to know what software programs will help make you more productive, efficient and effective.

Put your puzzle together today and your success will follow.  Get it?  Got it?  Good!  Now, go sell something!

Recently the key word in real estate has been stress.  Stress because of the other agent’s lack of professionalism, stress of short sales and the process, stress because of appraisers, stress over underwriters, stress because of unrealistic buyers and stubborn sellers –it is mind boggling.  Experienced agents and managers who have been in the business over 15 years haven’t seen or been through anything like it in their careers.  It has brought some to the point of taking a hiatus, others are thinking about changing careers, and others are looking for ways to beat it.  The bigger question is when will it change and how.

No one has a crystal ball so we can’t answer when others will change but you can change yourself.  As we know, it is how you respond versus react to a situation that determines your outlook on the business.  If everything is construed as a problem, a hassle, or an inconvenience – it will be.  If you look at each situation as an opportunity to help others solve a problem, help them make the right decisions, or give them an opportunity to learn about the business, the contract or the process, your stress level will go down as you see yourself as a solution oriented –not as every situation is a problem.

Next, consider taking a vacation from the business.  In the movie What about Bob, Dr Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfus) told Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) to take a vacation from his problems.  So, if your business is your problem, enjoy a mental health day or two or even more if you can with no phones, emails or ties to the business.  You should come back refreshed and ready to tackle your daily real estate challenges.

Also, try listening to motivational tapes or watch inspirational videos.  We have all seen them before but revisiting them can only help – not hurt!  As Zig Ziglar says, “Motivation speeches don’t last and either does a bath so take one every day”.  Again, have an open mind and just try it!

Reach out to your peers and ask their advice about how they handle their stress levels when they reach their tipping point.  What are their sources for relieving stress?  Sometimes just talking about it helps relieve it.

Many others exercise, garden or read to release their stress levels and some even write about it.  Start a journal to let it out on paper.  Blog about it and how you relieve your stress to help others – it can help – I assure you.  The thing to recognize is what works best for you and do it!

Get it?  Got it?  Good!  Now, go sell something!

In the real estate market there is a learning curve virtually every day.  At RE/MAX Gateway, we do everything we can to keep our agents and our clients updated so they can give the best advice or help our valued clients make the right the decisions when leasing, buying, selling, or investing in real estate.   To that end, we were honored to have Fannie Mae’s Chief Economist, Doug Duncan as our special guest at our quarterly meeting.  We had an open dialogue which covered many topics from foreclosures and short sales to the recent stimulus packages approved through our government. 

Doug spoke about the economy as a whole and noted that the Washington Metropolitan area is rare where a lot of the media statistics and commentary does not apply to this region as it does on the national level. He mentioned that the Case-Shiller Index is not accurate where their data is over weighted with “fringe properties”, not the normal properties we see today in real estate transactions.

In the case of “timing the market”, he said that if you have time to wait for interest rates to go down, then you are a speculator and are only speculating rather than getting in the game of real estate. The question is how many speculators are successful? If your finances are in place, the payment works, the house works…buy the house. There is no reason to wait. Rates are not going to get down past 4%, so this is the time to buy.

The stimulus package provides us with a huge deficit where the government is borrowing from public funds in order to promote consumption with the economy. If people spend more, the economy will be stimulated, but as Doug mentioned, how will these funds be repaid? The answer is threefold: raise taxes, curb government spending, or inflation. Raising taxes never works, the government won’t curb spending, so the only answer that Doug could predict would be inflation in order to reduce the real value of the debts we are accruing.

Homeownership is at 67.5% nationally, that is down from 69.3% (an estimated 1.1 million households) in 2008… a definite sign that home ownership had greatly reduced due to the rise in foreclosures. The government’s plan to reduce or wipe out the mortgage interest deduction option on our taxes returns, according to Doug’s personal opinion, will cause more people to choose lower priced, smaller homes and cause the upper bracket homes to sit on the market longer. It will not affect homeownership rates, but will more than likely cause higher priced homes to sit on the market a little longer while waiting for buyers who do not necessarily need to rely on the mortgage interest deduction.

Lastly, people are saving more. There is no doubt that consumer confidence levels are down at this point in time. Doug noted that in the last quarter of 2008, the savings rate for consumers was 3.6%. That is the highest level of savings since WWII. People are nervous, paying down their debts and saving for what is to come. Therefore, since people are saving their money, instead of spending it, how do we get money back into the economy to stimulate it and make it grow? That was a challenge he posed to us and reminded us that we needed find balance with the spending and saving aspects of the economy as well as take back our buying power from foreign investors, so that we have a more manageable economy.

Again, now remains one of the best times to buy in most of our lifetimes – prices are low, rates are at historic lows, and although inventory levels are down, there are still great homes available for sale.  Contact us today to learn more!