Keeping Your Head Up in Today's Market

No one ever said that the real estate business was an easy one. With regulations, licensure, and laws that differ from state to state and sometimes even county to county, it can pose somewhat of a challenge to stay on top of your game. Aside from that, the challenges to find and secure homeowners looking to sell, or potential buyers dipping their toe into the waters, can force you to prove your mettle every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

The booming years

It is no secret at the moment that we have lost, at least momentarily, the boom years from the first half of this decade for the real estate market. With foreclosures, loan modifications and adjustments, and the incredible depression of home values, many real estate agents and others in the business have been forced out. They say that only the strong survive and this has proven all-too-true for thousands of these workers.

The good years bring the competition out of the woodwork and anyone who thought they could capitalize on the great years certainly gave it a shot. Yet others failed to make their way or merely crawled along at a snail's pace, trying to make headway. When the market collapsed, it shook many of these newcomers from its shoulders and took along with it far too many seasoned veterans.

Managing to keep your head up takes a breath and some vision

Ask around of your fellow colleagues about when they thought the market would recover, when they felt that the worst of all of the housing market troubles were over, and you'll probably find a number of answers, most of them being 'some time ago.' It wasn't some time ago and looking ahead, it's challenging to even predict what will happen in the next few months, or years. Each week comes a new jobs report or housing industry analysis. Each week is coated with some good news -the silver lining we all look for- and bad news -the stuff of nightmares.

So how can we keep positive in this economic and housing climate? How is it possible to remain alive and continue to wake up every morning, look to the empty schedule, see no names of prospects -or prospects with no homes to show them- and feel anything but the most basic of all fears, that we're going to lose everything we've built.

The key is to believe

Does it really matter what is happening in the market today or how what is in the news will affect us three months down the road? People are still looking for homes, still selling, and still buying. And even though the values of the homes that are being sold and bought today have lost significant value -some areas have shed more than half of their property values- which cuts into commissions and earnings, transactions are continually carried out, closed, and completed.

You have to believe in yourself as an agent or a loan officer or broker or whatever it is that you do within this hostile market. Even if you're fairly new to the game, it is incumbent upon you to believe that what you're doing is important work -because it is. If you don't enjoy it, if you only got into the real estate market because of the opportunity to make a lot of money, then it is going to be exceedingly difficult for you to keep your head up day in and day out. If you're one of those people who never had a true passion for selling homes or finding the best mortgage deals for clients, then it's time to re-evaluate why you're doing this.

The fact is that it won't get better with time. And while this may pay the bills for a while, you'll find that in time you will have a more difficult time adding clients and prospects to your Rolodex, end up on the short end of deals, and struggling to justify why you're in this business in the first place.

If you want the best way to keep your head up during times like this, then it's best to look to the future. The harder you work now, the stronger you become and when the industry turns around, you'll be at the front of the line, ready to seize the advantage over your competition that folded under pressure.

David

David Reinholtz is a professional Mortgage expert in Real Estate Industry. David is also a sales and marketing expert and trains professionals in every career field. David has personally trained tens of thousands of loan officers, mortgage brokers, real estate agents and individuals through The Close More University Seminar Series, LoanOfficerSchool.com Classes, Correspondence and On Line Learning, and countless private engagements and training events throughout the country.

David is the Founder and CEO of LoanOfficerSchool.com, an approved education provider for The Conference of State Bank Supervisors and The National Mortgage Licensing Systems' (NMLS) required pre-licensing education and continuing education.