As usual I pretty much agree with all of your logic above. I also think that I have said in one of my postings that the propaganda machine that is NAR is REALLY hurting the market in the manner in which they operate. Let me tell you it is not just NAR, CAR and SDAR, many agents I compete against just do the same thing.
At one of my appts last week, I met up with a guy and I was comping his home at about 550k… and this was a VERY GENEROUS COMP. I told him I would be more comfortable at 525k. Anyways I encouraged him to interview with other agents like I do everyone else. So I followed up with him Friday and he said he is going with one of the others. He said that this other agent told him that extensive exposure including brokers tours and magazines will enable him to sell the home at 600k at least.
I asked the guy is he asked the agent the following questions:
1 – How many sales that this agent had this spring resulted from brokers tours and magazine ads.
2 – What raw data did this agent have to back up that price estimate.
3 – How many sales had that agent made and how did they compare against the original starting price.
This guy said he had not thought to ask those questions.
So Powayseller what am I to do? This is routine! It happens all the time. Sometimes people are smart enough to ask the right questions but most of the time they are not.
So I pay my dues and stay a member of NAR, CAR and SDAR and be a good soldier. No I absolutely don’t agree with the way things are. If the data was presented in a more rational manner then I think that would be the best thing in the world. I think taking our bad medicine now would reduce the duration and the extent of the impending tough times. Believe me I am as tired of soft landing and platueing prices as much as everyone and all of that rhetoric REALLY makes my job harder.
Do I think I can keep up my volume? No chance. My wife will atest to me being a TOTAL pessimist. To those ends let’s just say I am prepared for what I envision to be a long couple of years.
I do think that the results of the downturn will eventually affect enough people that everyone will deal with it correctly. What is that term? The 7 stages of grieving? Anger, denial, etc etc… I think eventually that is what we will encounter.
What is interesting is, what will the public do or how will they feel about NAR. Recall after most of us, not all of us, but dummies like me lost lots of bucks in the market there was alot of blame. Why weren’t we protected. I am an idiot but at least not dumb enough to blame anyone but myself. So will the same thing happen a few years from now? “Why weren’t we informed of the downturn earlier?”
