Shakespeare said it best “Me thinks the lady doth protest to much” (or something like that).
Too much cheerleading means they are trying to convince me of something that just isn’t so. That type of activity comes from a growing feeling of desperation. I think those ten see that things are slowing down and they have to ramp up the hype in the coming months as their income beings to fall. They are trying to “sell” you on the notion that the market is still strong. My BS meter goes crazy the louder the cheerleading becomes.
When a market is roaring, no one needs convincing. Most people know it. So, the louder they cheer, the more suspicious I become. And brokers are great indicators of market activity because they can sense the slowdown, as they are right in the thick of it. The phone rings less, the listing don’t sell, negativity creeps in, so they all work hard to keep one another “up”.
I have held a brokers license for 30 years and sold one house about 29.9 years ago. I just couldn’t take it. The emotional roller coaster of selling that little dump in OB almost killed me. Yikes!
When there are parallels between cheerleaders and salespeople, well, the home team is losing and no amount of screaming and yelling is going to make it otherwise.
The beauty of dealing with public buiders is there is no convincing necessary – the numbers and the market are non-emotional. It is what it is (and is of course subject to interpretation) but a good broker is simply a facilitator (in the commercial realm anyway).
And now that I think of it, most good brokers in the residential realm (earning north of $ 1 million per year and I know a few of them) try to list quality properties at a fair price, then no cheerleading is necessary. They are what I call “quiet professionals.”
“Just the facts Mam”…that’s what really sells me anyway. Regarding those ten brokers, I guess the fact that you said “every single one of them was a cheerleader” was very telling of the state of mind of residential real estate brokers. I think the fear is definitely creeping in and the best indicator of a market is the feeling we get in our gut when someone is selling us something, no matter what it is…a hard sell is just that, a hard sell.
