Amanda's Blog

We recently made a mistake by featuring a few posts that we believe violated our community guidelines, and by doing so we believe we harmed the reputation of this network of professionals. Our entire team apologizes for this and I take full responsibility as one of the posts was something I featured. 

As a result of this snafu we revamped our methodology for featuring posts and even added the 'suggest' button. In the future, we will make every effort to only feature posts that reflect our quest to "represent our industry in as true and professional of a light as possible".

This doesn't mean we will shy away from controversial posts or that we will stop defending our member's rights to express unpopular points of view. We don't always agree on things amongst our team, just like our members don't always agree on everything. Among our team we always strive to treat each other with respect and we expect our members to do the same. Varying opinions is part of what makes our community great. Respecting each other is what will allow us to continue to challenge the status quo and continue to refine our industry.

All that being said, our community guidelines have served us well to this point and a renewed focus on the tenets of our community are important as we choose which posts to feature. We know this, and we take it very seriously.

 

 

 

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I accept the fact that not everyone will like me.  That is okay and I use it to my advantage.  You should too.

I know...weird way to start a post....it's okay with me if you don't like me.  Makes me sound anti-social or something, but really I'm not.


Everyone has different values and different ways of looking at life...all you have to do is scroll through about 10 posts on ActiveRain to see just how different we all are..  The online world is your local coffee shop, but you have the good fortune to have coffee with people in Texas, New Orleans, Georgia, and California, all at the same time.  Within your local community you have good friends and people...well, people that you dread seeing because they just rub you the wrong way.  Your personalities just don't mesh.  It's not a big deal in your local world because you have other friends who think you are fabulous.  


I know, I know...you're thinking, Melina...you're rambling....hello, get to the point because if you are like me, you have the attention span of a flea and you need to be enterained or you're moving on...


Niche...that seems to be the real estate word to be successful.  "Find a niche," coaches scream at you...horse properties, condos, or a local neighborhood.  I agree that is a good idea.  Know something and know it well.  I think this applies to your person. Know yourself and know you well...because in the blogosphere, your personality is your niche.


If you read my posts they are filled with data because I like it.  I'm not a perky chick...not a lampshade wearing at a party kinda gal..  Me...I'm a great listening,  sarcastic, analytical data geek.  That is who I am, and I use that to my advantage by sharing my personality in my posts.  I don't pretend to me someone I am not which brings me good business, and GOOD business is what I am after.


I have limited time in my life for work which means I need to maximize my earning power. As a owns my own brokerage, working full time, married for 17 years with two young children woman, I don't have a lot of time.  Time is very valuable to me and is not something I can just go get more of at Target.  As such, I am cautious about how I give it away.  If I am going to give my time away, it has to be because I think it will get me what I need which is GOOD business.
 

What is GOOD business?  It's simple...working with clients that value me and what I have to offer them.  I can't be everything to all people.  I already know I can't, so I don't try.  Some people look at my massive amounts of data charts and want to run away.  My charts scare them.  Others think they have found their perfect real estate agent.  GOOD business is trying to find those clients that think I might be their perfect real estate agent.   If you are who you are on your posts, then people will like you or hate you...either is okay, because there will be enough people who like you.  You want to interact with those people who like you, your style, your way of doing things.  I personally believe that it is better to only get 50 leads in a year and close 30-40 transactions off that, then get 250 leads and only close 30-40 transactions.  The less time I spend on converting leads to clients the better off my personal life is.  I'd like to have a life outside real estate...


Most real estate agents can name those clients that they have dreaded....you know the ones that the name comes up on the caller ID and your hand jerks away from the phone like it is on fire.  Chances are there is nothing wrong with that client...what is wrong is the personality fit.  Their perfect agent has a different personality.  Why spend your time working with people who aren't going to glow about how great you are?  That's what you want.  You want client evangelists...clients who think you are so great that they will preach to their friends that you are the best thing since the iPhone (and as an iPhone loving geek, that is saying something)!  


Real estate is in a tumultuos time and it makes no sense to expend energy on people who rub you the wrong way.  They aren't going to have a good customer experience and  you will dread working with them.  Not a good combination for future referrals...and that is the goal because future referrals are free and are essential to the vitality of a successful long term business.  


You want to surround yourself, whether online or in your local community, with people who mesh with you.  You want to network with agents in the online world that have similar values to you.  If their clients like them, chances are they will like you and have a positive consumer experience.  You won't have to harass them for referrals because they already think you are awesome.  


So remember...the next time you write a post...go out and be yourself.  Whether you are an aggressive person, data loving geek, or everything is rosy kinda of person, don't make excuses or back down because someone doesn't like your style:  Be yourself.. You'll be better off in the business world and your personal life for it


Remember, your personality is your niche, the rest is irrelevant.

First of all I need to thank Marc Rasmussen for bringing this segment to my attention on his blog because I was not aware of it.

I am also glad that 60 minutes had the foresight and courage to run a piece like this, even though it does instill concern about the direction of the housing market and ultimately the economy; there is simply too much at stake for this country, our government, and the REALTOR community to pretend that this type of threat to our housing market does not exist.  Or to simply hope that the problem will go away or take care of itself.  It's not going away, and it's not going to take care of itself without an awful lot of pain for an extended period of time - and quite frankly I'm not sure if most Americans are prepared to weather this type of correction.  As we are seeing, a housing correction will indeed spillover into every corner of our economy, the financial markets, and the credit markets.

The point that the 60 minute segment brings up, the fact that there are still millions of loans acting as ticking time bombs, is the fundamental issue as to the reason I wrote the, "It's The Housing Market, Stupid!" book.

This housing and home-ownership bubble that is the result of easy and cheap money and aggressive leverage, has not yet run it's course.  In fact, I would argue that we are only one third of the way through a correction.  And there are two reasons for this.  First, we are going to continue to see millions of foreclosures over the next four years.  Credit Suisse recently increased their estimates to 8.1 million foreclosures.  Asa result of the first wave of foreclosures, the supply of homes has surged 48% over the past three years (source: NAR).  The second concern is that there is not a buyer for these homes that will ultimately end up in foreclosure.  With the mortgage market as tight as it is, the demand for real estate has plummeted nearly 30% over the past three years (source: NAR).  It is a perfect storm, demand has plunged, and supply has surged.  And there is no indication or data that either of these trends is changing course, especially considering the broader economic concerns.    

Ordinarily, if this was just simply an isolated case of home prices declining further, it may not be so worrisome.  But the truth is that declines in home values, the leading cause of foreclosures, are anything but isolated. They have a significant spillover effect to the financial markets (including the stock market), the credit markets, and the broader economy (jobs).

While an unpopular position, I will admit that it is my belief that the economy will not be able recover from this current recession until the housing market, the foundation and engine for our economy, can get some price stability.  And what this means is that the excess supply of homes (approximately 1.5 million) needs to be absorbed, preferably sooner rather than later as the longer it takes for this to be accomplished, the more homeowners will be at risk and the more damage will be done to the economy.

The government needs to get ahead of this crisis rather than reacting to it.  Loan modifications and lower mortgage rates are not the answer, this is going to require aggressive fiscal policy to get Americans to invest in the real estate market in order to prevent a cascading effect on the overall economic health of this country.

www.ItsTheHousingMarketStupid.com

 

  

 

 Every year my office, RE/MAX Realty Group in Gaithersburg, Maryland supports our community in some way.  In past years we have helped the Salvation Army Angel Tree Kids to help make the holidays better for others.  I was always amazed at the support and generosity that the agents in my office showed for those in need.

This year we did a Food Drive for the Maryland Food Bank.  Each agent was asked to send out postcards to folks in our SOI and other networks we were involved with in order to meet our goal of 500 lbs of food for the Maryland Food Bank.  I, of course, wrote a post about the food drive with all of the pertinent information if anyone wanted to drop food off to the office.

Food came it bit by bit.  People in the office, the office building and clients did indeed bring food to the office to help the cause.  However, I was amazed when I got a call on the phone and a young lady called me to say that their company also wanted to help the Maryland Food Bank and could they put their food with ours.  We were thrilled to have them put their collection with ours. 

Just today I had a phone call from a woman who had food to drop off to the office and wanted to make sure we were still collecting food.  I told her yes and that we would be thrilled for her to drop the food off at the office.  I was so excited that the blog helped our cause in a round about way.  My broker thought it was great.  It lets the public know us on many different levels, not just as agents, but as a part of the community.

I asked both of these women how did they know about our food drive and they both told me they read it on my blog here on Active Rain!!

How close did we get to our 500lbs goal?   Well, the last time we weighed we counted 1772 lbs and more food has come into the office.  Our office is happy that even in times like these, people know that there are people who need our help and we were able to be there for them.  Thank to everyone who helped the Maryland Food Bank this holiday Season.