It’s 9am on a Saturday morning. My husband and I have plans – sleeping late, a bike ride, dinner with friends. But all that changes when my phone buzzes with a text.
“Have you seen this?” It’s Kristen*, a friend of a friend who’s hot to buy a condo near downtown… or the beach… or somewhere in between. She includes a link to a building near St. Pete Beach. “It’s perfect! Can we go see it today?”
I click on the link and read the instructions. Open house today and tomorrow. No individual showings. Offers due in Sunday night.
My husband rolls over. “No bike ride?”
“No bike ride,” I confirm. “And possibly no dinner.”
Welcome to life in a seller’s market. Real estate and housing prices are all anyone talks about. People who aren’t looking to buy or sell are wondering if they should become real estate agents. The market is so hot! Housing prices are exploding! How can you not be in this?
This is exhausting.
The National Association of Realtors defines a “balanced market” as one that offers a six-month supply of homes. I’ve been a realtor for seven years, and here in St. Petersburg in all that time, we have never reached “balanced market” status. It’s also never been quite this unbalanced. There’ve been weeks where the inventory was below a month.
Time was, you’d find a few houses for your buyer, and your buyer would find a few more on Zillow, and then you’d pick a day and go see a whole bunch. Sometimes one went under contract after you’d made the appointment, but that was unusual. You could plan ahead, take your time, negotiate with the seller to get the best price for your buyer, and best of all, have your own life.
Not anymore.
Instead, it’s scenarios like Kristen’s. With too many buyers and too few houses, everyone looking is going to jump on a half-decent property that priced somewhere between “you’ve got to be kidding me” and “that’s insane.” We can’t wait a couple of days, or, in some cases, even a few hours. As a real estate agent, your life isn’t your own anymore. It belongs to your buyer.
And even when you find that perfect property, you’re not the only one bidding on it. Not by a long shot.
I drop everything to take Kristen to see the condo, and not surprisingly, she loves it. And according to the number of people at the open house, “oohing” and “ahhhing” and measuring the windows, she’s not the only one. We aren’t even in the parking lot when she grabs my arm, tells me how much she loves it, and begs me to write an offer that will win her this place.
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. The $500K condo is right at the top of Kristen’s price range. It’s definitely going to go for more than that, and Kristen doesn’t have a lot of room to maneuver. Even worse, Kristen is financing this purchase… and so many other buyers have cash.
We put together the best offer Kristen can handle. A $500K sales price with an escalation clause up to $525K. $10K in escrow. An inspection period of just 5 days. We can’t afford any more, and Kristen doesn’t have the money for me to write a clause guaranteeing she will make up the difference in cash if the appraisal falls short of the sales price. Still, Kristen is hopeful.
But I’m not, and when the listing agent calls me to say the seller accepted another offer, I’m not surprised. She can’t tell me the sales price, but she does mention it was cash and the buyer waived the inspection period entirely. When it closes two weeks later, the MLS reveals the condo went for $50K over asking price.
Kristen is disappointed but not undeterred. Over the next six weeks, we make offers on eight more condos. But when our eighth offer is rejected, she finally gives us, signing onto her apartment rental for another year. Her surrender means for the hours I spent taking her to showings and open houses, working with her mortgage broker, and writing up offers, I get paid absolutely nothing.
And I’m not the only one in this boat. Buyers agents are working harder than ever, often putting in multiple offers before one is accepted. And even then, sellers are feeling stingy. Housing prices may have gone up by more than fifteen percent in a year, but they don’t see why they should pay an agent for help when the house sells itself. (Note: The house may sell itself, but it sure doesn’t close on its own.) Commission rates had been steadily going down from 3 percent to 2.5 percent; now 2 percent isn’t uncommon. Some sellers are only offering flat fees of a thousand dollars or so.
On the listing side, more agents are competing for fewer houses, and some sellers are taking advantage, becoming demanding, unrealistic or greedy. Others are staying out of the market entirely, tempted by what they could get if they sold but afraid they wouldn’t be able to buy a place as nice as their current home.
And there’s always the threat of Zillow or some other e-real estate service, offering to handle everything for the seller and buyer and leaving real estate agents out of the equation entirely. Luckily, most people like having a human being they can count on to guide them through the biggest, most stressful purchase they’ll make in their lifetime.
So why stick with real estate? Most realtors I know genuinely love their jobs. There’s nothing better than helping a buyer get their first home or their dream home, especially in a challenging market like this. It’s fun to help a seller stage their property, adding the little touches that could mean a lot more money. It’s emotionally rewarding to guide them both through the anxiety and uncertainty of the entire process. And the more people we help, the better agents we become.
What goes around comes around. A few weeks after Kristen signs her lease, she introduces me to Mike, a co-worker who is being transferred out of state. His house is a bit spartan – he’s a single guy, after all – but he takes my advice on staging and repairs. Our open house gets multiple offers, and we accept one for cash that is well over asking price. We close two weeks later.
My husband and I book a vacation.
*Names and some details have been changed to protect the innocent.
Wednesday, August 4, 2021
Thursday, June 17, 2021
My Year on Pandemic*
Thanks to Deb for suggesting this blog hop, and thanks to Caroline for linking me with your readers! (Here’s her post from yesterday)
With this crazy year when everyone stayed home, you’d think more writing would get done, but that’s not really what happened. At least not for me. Oh, what a year…
It was January 1, 2020 and I was on a plane to London with my fiancé, reading newspapers and magazines. A biology professor, he showed me an article about a new virus that had infected some people in China. “Oh, that’ll never make it over to the U.S.,” I assured him. “Things like that never do.”
Ha ha ha. Boy was I wrong. By the second weekend in March, the country was locked up tight. (At least parts of the country were.) As I’d spent the entire winter rehearsing and performing in a community theatre, I was particularly frustrated. Steve and I had things we wanted to do, people we wanted to hang out with, and now it was just us, the dog, and the TV set. (At least the TV set was big.) I was hopeful that the whole thing would blow over in a matter of weeks, and it would definitely be done by the time our wedding rolled around in October.
Not so fast…
The state of Florida was a weird place to spend a pandemic. Even in my city, St. Petersburg, which trends “blue,” the rules were relaxed. By May, restaurants had started opening up again for outdoor seating. The beaches were closed for awhile, but then the Powers that Be realized the virus doesn’t transmit too well outside. And with a governor like Ron “DeathSantis,” a Trump wannabe, the economy came before people’s health. There was talk that he lied about the number of cases and deaths; a scientist was fired and arrested in front of her small children.
So places that had closed down started back up again. Not all of them, of course. Small restaurants, gyms, yoga studios… none of those places were considered essential. But real estate was considered an essential industry, and so was construction. (My second job is sales for a roofing company.) So instead of holing up at home, working exclusively online, I was still going into people’s homes, trying to sell their houses or convince them to buy a roof from my company.
It was stressful.
Some homeowners were so terrified of the virus, they had me leave material on their porch and go over it on the phone. Others were dismissive, refused to wear a mask inside, and spent most of the appointment declaring COVID a hoax. While my real estate brokerage stopped having meetings in the office, the roofing company was business as usual after a few weeks. Some people wore masks, but others did not. Some worked at home, others came in. It made getting timely information out to customers… challenging. Add the labor shortage, the lumber shortage, a shingles shortage, and then a real estate sellers’ market like no one has ever seen before… work-wise, it was a very stressful year.
I have to admit, when I read stories about folks who hadn’t had to leave their houses in weeks, who had binged on every streaming service there was and watched everything on Netflix, I was a little jealous. I still had to shower every day. I still had to wear nice clean clothes. I still had to leave the house to do my job. And I still gained the 10 pounds everyone else did!
And the virus dragged on. When we finalized most of our plans in the summer of 2020, we were optimistic that a beach wedding followed by an outdoor reception would pass the COVID test. But when fall rolled around, our out-of-town guests—and most of the people on our guest list were from out of town—couldn’t fly to Florida and return to their home states without quarantining for weeks. Luckily, our hometown friends stepped up, and my parents live in driving distance, but our wedding was much smaller than we’d originally envisioned.
We still have some of the specially ordered masks, though!
So what a year. On the plus side, I moved in with my fiancé, married him, and spent lots and lots of wonderful quality time with him, including hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas. On the minus side, I barely saw my friends. On the plus side, I continued to sell houses and roofs. On the minus side, I finished two manuscripts that my agent deemed “unsellable.” On the plus side, my son spent several weeks with us during his breaks from law school, and earned his J.D. this May. On the minus side, now he’ll have to get a real job with only two weeks of vacation and our visits will be short.
What will this year bring? Lots of travel to make up for the trips we missed. (Unfortunately our July trip to Italy has been postponed to 2022.) Get togethers with friends. Perhaps hosting a party or two. And more writing!
Now let’s see what Deb’s year looked like!
*When I first started this blog, I called it “My Year on Vacation,” so this title seems apt.
With this crazy year when everyone stayed home, you’d think more writing would get done, but that’s not really what happened. At least not for me. Oh, what a year…
It was January 1, 2020 and I was on a plane to London with my fiancé, reading newspapers and magazines. A biology professor, he showed me an article about a new virus that had infected some people in China. “Oh, that’ll never make it over to the U.S.,” I assured him. “Things like that never do.”
Ha ha ha. Boy was I wrong. By the second weekend in March, the country was locked up tight. (At least parts of the country were.) As I’d spent the entire winter rehearsing and performing in a community theatre, I was particularly frustrated. Steve and I had things we wanted to do, people we wanted to hang out with, and now it was just us, the dog, and the TV set. (At least the TV set was big.) I was hopeful that the whole thing would blow over in a matter of weeks, and it would definitely be done by the time our wedding rolled around in October.
Not so fast…
The state of Florida was a weird place to spend a pandemic. Even in my city, St. Petersburg, which trends “blue,” the rules were relaxed. By May, restaurants had started opening up again for outdoor seating. The beaches were closed for awhile, but then the Powers that Be realized the virus doesn’t transmit too well outside. And with a governor like Ron “DeathSantis,” a Trump wannabe, the economy came before people’s health. There was talk that he lied about the number of cases and deaths; a scientist was fired and arrested in front of her small children.
So places that had closed down started back up again. Not all of them, of course. Small restaurants, gyms, yoga studios… none of those places were considered essential. But real estate was considered an essential industry, and so was construction. (My second job is sales for a roofing company.) So instead of holing up at home, working exclusively online, I was still going into people’s homes, trying to sell their houses or convince them to buy a roof from my company.
It was stressful.
Some homeowners were so terrified of the virus, they had me leave material on their porch and go over it on the phone. Others were dismissive, refused to wear a mask inside, and spent most of the appointment declaring COVID a hoax. While my real estate brokerage stopped having meetings in the office, the roofing company was business as usual after a few weeks. Some people wore masks, but others did not. Some worked at home, others came in. It made getting timely information out to customers… challenging. Add the labor shortage, the lumber shortage, a shingles shortage, and then a real estate sellers’ market like no one has ever seen before… work-wise, it was a very stressful year.
I have to admit, when I read stories about folks who hadn’t had to leave their houses in weeks, who had binged on every streaming service there was and watched everything on Netflix, I was a little jealous. I still had to shower every day. I still had to wear nice clean clothes. I still had to leave the house to do my job. And I still gained the 10 pounds everyone else did!
And the virus dragged on. When we finalized most of our plans in the summer of 2020, we were optimistic that a beach wedding followed by an outdoor reception would pass the COVID test. But when fall rolled around, our out-of-town guests—and most of the people on our guest list were from out of town—couldn’t fly to Florida and return to their home states without quarantining for weeks. Luckily, our hometown friends stepped up, and my parents live in driving distance, but our wedding was much smaller than we’d originally envisioned.
We still have some of the specially ordered masks, though!
So what a year. On the plus side, I moved in with my fiancé, married him, and spent lots and lots of wonderful quality time with him, including hosting Thanksgiving and Christmas. On the minus side, I barely saw my friends. On the plus side, I continued to sell houses and roofs. On the minus side, I finished two manuscripts that my agent deemed “unsellable.” On the plus side, my son spent several weeks with us during his breaks from law school, and earned his J.D. this May. On the minus side, now he’ll have to get a real job with only two weeks of vacation and our visits will be short.
What will this year bring? Lots of travel to make up for the trips we missed. (Unfortunately our July trip to Italy has been postponed to 2022.) Get togethers with friends. Perhaps hosting a party or two. And more writing!
Now let’s see what Deb’s year looked like!
*When I first started this blog, I called it “My Year on Vacation,” so this title seems apt.
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Mean People Suck
There are somewhere between seven and ten thousand real estate agents in Pinellas County, and like a good little Bell Curve, eighty percent of the business goes to twenty percent of the agents. With so many realtors available, most folks choose someone they already know when looking for help buying or selling a house. That makes it even more challenging when you’re trying to expand your business beyond your personal sphere. But in order to close transactions regularly enough so you can pay your bills, most of us need to move out of our comfort zone and work with complete strangers.
With so many other realtors in the county, I’ve discovered a hard truth: When a stranger who lives here comes to you looking for help, it’s often because she has alienated the real estate agents she already knows. Working with her is going to be a challenge, and you might not even see any money for your troubles.
While my biggest transaction to date came from someone I met on NextDoor (who told me her last agent was horrible—warning bells!—but turned out to be a sweetheart), here are some quick anecdotes about some of the lovely people I’ve been lucky enough to meet while trying to expand my business….
--A woman DM’d me on NextDoor after I posted about real estate, wanting a listing appointment. I got back to her immediately with some questions about the property and trying to nail down a time for the appointment. An hour later she said she already had 4 appointments set up and I had been too hard to get a hold of. But I responded immediately to your first text, I thought to myself. I sent an understanding reply, saying that I’d been in other appointments but of course everyone wanted to be the first priority of the person you’re hiring. She exploded at me, accusing me of calling her a spoiled brat and telling me she was blocking my number. Now I keep a careful eye on postings on NextDoor, worried that she’ll make up a reason to attack me in public!
-- A woman I’d met through a referral service had me take her out several times to see properties. On our third trip, she brought her dog, saying she felt guilty leaving him home alone. I told her that since every home we were seeing had a dog on the premises, the dog would need to stay in the car. She sulked and pouted and the next day texted me that “my services were no longer needed.”
-- A man I’d met through that same referral service had a strict limit of $125K. He wanted a single family home in St. Petersburg. There are very few homes available in that price range, and the ones that are available are not dream homes. But all this guy did was bitch and moan at every house I showed him. Why was there rotting wood around the door? Why was this window pane cracked? Why hadn’t the homeowner fixed every little problem before putting his home on the market? When I explained the concept of the “fixer-upper” and the price range he was looking in, he got angry. After two separate showing trips, I never heard from him again.
-- A woman who’d emailed me through the company website, asking for help buying a For Sale By Owner. After I took her to the house and went over the timeline for an offer and sale, the owner called me a few hours later. My client had called her directly, wanting to do the deal on their own and cut me out completely. (Because I’d had the owner sign an agreement before the showing, she couldn’t do it.) When I tried to call the client, she blocked me.
--A woman I’d connected with through another referral service who was dying to see a property north of Clearwater. She insisted she was a cash buyer and ready to make an offer. It was a good price, so I made the appointment and drove the 40 miles to meet her. She never showed and never returned my calls or texts.
--A buyer who called me from the sign on my listing wanted to buy a beach house on St. Pete Beach. I showed him my listing; it wasn’t right for him but he was committed to being on the island. I did all the research he asked for, showed him other listings, analyzed the pricing of homes he was interested in. After spending hours and hours on this gentleman, he emailed me to say that my research had convinced him that “St. Pete Beach isn’t where I want to be!” I never heard from him again.
-- In 2014, a man emailed me wanting to sell his property. He was in Europe and the property was near Madeira Beach. I spent several hours with my broker, coming up with the pricing analysis. Did not hear back. Two years later, he emailed me again. Now he had two properties on the street and wanted to buy a third. There was one on the market! What did he want to offer? Crickets. Last month he emailed me again, wanting to sell those two properties again. Or build on it. Or whatever. I sent him the info he wanted. Again, crickets…
The worst story isn’t even mine. A good friend found a client through the referral system. He started bitching to her about how he was frustrated because he was in a sexless marriage and he really needed a BJ. And she didn’t fire him because she needed the work!
I could go on and on, not only with real estate stories, but also the jerks I deal with at my other job doing roofing sales, even as far back as when I worked the counter at McDonald’s in the 1980s. The broader issue, I think, is that people sometimes see folks who work in retail or sales as their job, and not as a person doing a job. It’s okay to treat them without respect or concern because a job isn’t human, it’s a thing.
These experiences serve as a reminder to me why I prefer to work with friends and direct referrals over strangers. But it also reminds me that when I’m interacting with strangers on the job—the call center worker helping me after my order was messed up; the repair person who’s the third guy to try to fix the problem—that these are real people who (usually) are just trying to do their best.
Usually.
With so many other realtors in the county, I’ve discovered a hard truth: When a stranger who lives here comes to you looking for help, it’s often because she has alienated the real estate agents she already knows. Working with her is going to be a challenge, and you might not even see any money for your troubles.
While my biggest transaction to date came from someone I met on NextDoor (who told me her last agent was horrible—warning bells!—but turned out to be a sweetheart), here are some quick anecdotes about some of the lovely people I’ve been lucky enough to meet while trying to expand my business….
--A woman DM’d me on NextDoor after I posted about real estate, wanting a listing appointment. I got back to her immediately with some questions about the property and trying to nail down a time for the appointment. An hour later she said she already had 4 appointments set up and I had been too hard to get a hold of. But I responded immediately to your first text, I thought to myself. I sent an understanding reply, saying that I’d been in other appointments but of course everyone wanted to be the first priority of the person you’re hiring. She exploded at me, accusing me of calling her a spoiled brat and telling me she was blocking my number. Now I keep a careful eye on postings on NextDoor, worried that she’ll make up a reason to attack me in public!
-- A woman I’d met through a referral service had me take her out several times to see properties. On our third trip, she brought her dog, saying she felt guilty leaving him home alone. I told her that since every home we were seeing had a dog on the premises, the dog would need to stay in the car. She sulked and pouted and the next day texted me that “my services were no longer needed.”
-- A man I’d met through that same referral service had a strict limit of $125K. He wanted a single family home in St. Petersburg. There are very few homes available in that price range, and the ones that are available are not dream homes. But all this guy did was bitch and moan at every house I showed him. Why was there rotting wood around the door? Why was this window pane cracked? Why hadn’t the homeowner fixed every little problem before putting his home on the market? When I explained the concept of the “fixer-upper” and the price range he was looking in, he got angry. After two separate showing trips, I never heard from him again.
-- A woman who’d emailed me through the company website, asking for help buying a For Sale By Owner. After I took her to the house and went over the timeline for an offer and sale, the owner called me a few hours later. My client had called her directly, wanting to do the deal on their own and cut me out completely. (Because I’d had the owner sign an agreement before the showing, she couldn’t do it.) When I tried to call the client, she blocked me.
--A woman I’d connected with through another referral service who was dying to see a property north of Clearwater. She insisted she was a cash buyer and ready to make an offer. It was a good price, so I made the appointment and drove the 40 miles to meet her. She never showed and never returned my calls or texts.
--A buyer who called me from the sign on my listing wanted to buy a beach house on St. Pete Beach. I showed him my listing; it wasn’t right for him but he was committed to being on the island. I did all the research he asked for, showed him other listings, analyzed the pricing of homes he was interested in. After spending hours and hours on this gentleman, he emailed me to say that my research had convinced him that “St. Pete Beach isn’t where I want to be!” I never heard from him again.
-- In 2014, a man emailed me wanting to sell his property. He was in Europe and the property was near Madeira Beach. I spent several hours with my broker, coming up with the pricing analysis. Did not hear back. Two years later, he emailed me again. Now he had two properties on the street and wanted to buy a third. There was one on the market! What did he want to offer? Crickets. Last month he emailed me again, wanting to sell those two properties again. Or build on it. Or whatever. I sent him the info he wanted. Again, crickets…
The worst story isn’t even mine. A good friend found a client through the referral system. He started bitching to her about how he was frustrated because he was in a sexless marriage and he really needed a BJ. And she didn’t fire him because she needed the work!
I could go on and on, not only with real estate stories, but also the jerks I deal with at my other job doing roofing sales, even as far back as when I worked the counter at McDonald’s in the 1980s. The broader issue, I think, is that people sometimes see folks who work in retail or sales as their job, and not as a person doing a job. It’s okay to treat them without respect or concern because a job isn’t human, it’s a thing.
These experiences serve as a reminder to me why I prefer to work with friends and direct referrals over strangers. But it also reminds me that when I’m interacting with strangers on the job—the call center worker helping me after my order was messed up; the repair person who’s the third guy to try to fix the problem—that these are real people who (usually) are just trying to do their best.
Usually.
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