Daily Archives: November 7, 2007

Bank of America Monthly Realator Survey, Long Beach

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There it is again, Bank of America’s survey of nation wide Realtor’s experience with the current state of the market.

Things are definitely moving again. I see more people looking, searching but sellers still dig their heels.

“Traffic up slightly, but agents cite lower expectations and weak traffic quality.” Still weaker than in August but better than rock bottom September.

“Agents noted essentially no traffic for entry level homes due to the lack of loan options for sub-prime buyers and increased down-payment requirements…” That shouldn’t bee too surprising.

And for the conundrum: “Agents noted price declines in every market we surveyed. However, agents said that lower prices failed to attract buyers because potential buyers focus on risk prices fall further rather than perceived bargains.” The perfect catch 22, sellers want prices buyers are not willing to reach for and buyers wait for prices to fall further.

“Home listings and time to sell rose in October, a negative for future pricing – our listing and time to sell index measured 24.7 and 12.4, respectively. We will closely watch inventory levels in Nov/Dec as higher or flat inventories would be worse than the typical seasonality.” We are now at over 10 months worth of supply on the market. 10 months straight of selling homes that sellers are waiting for prices to go down.

All in all, I don’t think it is all bad news because more and more I hear experts coming out saying lower the price if you want to sell or else wait a few years. Indeed, buyers are still waiting and playing the if game. They have a 50% chance of being right. The real problem is how do you price a home correctly in a market where buyers think prices will go down even lower? It can be done, call me.

Coaching And The Importance Of Successful Failure, Long Beach

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Another thing that hit me like a lightening rod over this intense week of traning in Denver was the importance of successfully failing.

Come again? Successfully failing? Failing is a normal step in any business or for any businessman’s successful evolution. I just didn’t know. The reason why was I had never experienced failure in business, until I moved out here. I am one of those lucky people, everything I touch turns to gold kind of guy. All of my business ventures were successful in one way or another, I always made a nice sum profit.

When we moved to California, I was burned from consulting in IT. The continuous vicious circle of Windows redundant failures forcing upgrades made me into the black bird messenger: “Sorry, that $5000 you spent last week on your brand news system, you need to dish out another $3000 to make it work.” made me wonder who was I truly helping. That, topped with the fact that I was the bearer of bad news and enriching an already very profitable Microsoft really made me question if I was helping my clients at all. Indeed, I wasn’t. So I decided to sell my business and turn to more people friendly ventures.

I went through a string of three business ventures the first four years that yielded nothing. Absolutely nothing. You can only imagine how frustrating it is for someone who had always faced obstacles and surmounted anything. It got to the point where I questioned my entire life, foundation. What was I doing wrong? What was wrong with me?

In the back of my mind, I knew all this would be helpful in the long run, but when? And just when I thought I had hit bottom, bang came another crushing defeat. And just when I thought I was raising my head from the mud line came another blow. And when I thought I could not sink any lower, I was hit even harder!

When I coached a fellow friend of mine that week in training, he brought light to my tunnel. He told me, had I not gone through these failures, he would never had taken me seriously and surely wouldn’t have related. And you know those “ah ha” moments? You know the ones you knew but didn’t make sense of them, all the sudden it clicked. I experienced failure in the most intimate ways, I could relate, I had experienced successful failure! I understand the pain, the shame, the questioning around one’ self. I can deeply relate to the failure my coachees might have experienced.

So there it was, four years reveled up into an absolute epiphany. I was seeing light at then end of the tunnel and it cemented the feeling that I would be a great coach one day.

It reminded me that “Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional.” What you experience, no matter how painful can be used as a great trampoline to spring you to higher success. It has been a great learning experience but the suffering is definitely optional.