As I wiped down the sales whiteboard early Wednesday morning it occurred to me that the September quarter marked my 100th in real estate, and it was perhaps the toughest. What a privilege to work with such a quality team, completely committed to our clients and highly effective. 28 sales in the last 12 weeks is a superb effort, thank you and a special mention to Max and Bindi.
With the recent shift in the market much of the industry is now in crisis, the calculus has changed. Too many agents, too many buyers agents and too few transactions equals less gold.
*Enter the metaphor.
It’s often said that during gold rushes there are two types of people, the prospectors and the miners.
The prospectors arrive when they hear on the wind that ‘there is gold in dem hills’. They move quickly, they look for the easiest ground, but they aren’t interested in mining. When the gold becomes harder to find they move on.
The miners are different. They arrive early, they stay late, they work hard and they take the time to learn the ground. When times are tough, they remain and keep digging. Why?
It’s what they do.
*Enter the segue.
They understand that real estate isn’t just about listing a house when the market is rising.
They understand it’s about convincing someone to trust you when they are feeling nervous.
They understand it’s about having difficult conversations and having the conviction to tell people what they don’t want to hear (but often need to).
They understand it’s about continuing to negotiate, even when both sides seem to be dug in.
And they understand it’s about doing all of these actions repeatedly, month after month, regardless of the conditions. I often say to my team ‘some will, some won’t, so what’.
But here’s the rub, there is still gold ‘in dem hills,’ it’s simply harder to get.
For a very long time now, this market has been all about easy money and it’s been hard to distinguish between the prospectors and the miners. Rising prices, high volumes and easy commission cheques are now a thing of the past.
So, the prospectors get desperate and do desperate things but will eventually leave, the miners will stay, sharpen up their skills, persist and get better.
I see this as a good thing, a really good thing actually. Now we will all get to see who was here just for the gold and who was here because they know how to mine…and love it. I hope that this changing tide will tidy things up, in fact I’m optimistic that it will.
Wow, I really got lost in that metaphor – thank you for coming along for the ride. One quarter to go, enjoy the long weekend.
Until next week,
David Murphy