Comfort zones, the true enemy in real estate.

It's so easy in our everyday lives to get caught up in developing our businesses that we can forget to develop ourselves.

I know that I have to spend time studying listing and sales statistics. Or methods of having a better presentation or a better website but sometimes I just have to turn my computer off and put on a harness and do something crazy. For the last two years I've had the opportunity to work on the ropes crew for Over the Edge, a fund raising group that, in conjunction with a tall building helps raise money for the National Kidney Foundation. This year we rappelled off the  Baltimore Marriott Waterfront. Not only is it a great chance to get out of my comfort zone but it's a great way to give back to the community.

I also do some work as a challenge course facilitator. I get the chance to teach others how to stretch themselves individually as wall as a team. It's a great parralel between having someone afraid to act when they're 25 to 40 feet in the air and having someone making that final decision to write an offer or following our lead in pricing their property correctly to get it sold. I guess that begs the question, if we're not willing to push ourselves past what we fear, how can we ask our clients to do so?

I remember my early days as a Realtor. At that time Floyd Wickman was offering a great training program called "Sweathogs". By the way, even though he no longer has sweathogs he still has some great training materials and products. At any rate, that was before the days of the do not call list and our first order of the day was cold calling. If you ever want a way to push yourself out of your comfort zone and, of course, can do so without violating the law you should give it a try.

Finally my prayer for my fellow real estate agents and all of you who are making the decision to buy or sell that you follow the admonition of Eleanor Roosevelt. "Do one thing every day that scares you."

Scare yourself: An engineered lifestyle

Besides my career as a real estate agent I am also a huge fan of experiential education. Specifically, I am a ropes course facilitator..

So why do I sometimes like to take my tie off and put on a harness? Because personal growth has been a passionate study of mine for many years. I love seeing people push through their fears and conquer them. Sometimes that comes from jumping off a pole and sometimes it comes from writing an offer on a house. Fear is fear and success is success.

What does this have to do with my title?

On the ropes course I try to create an environment where it's safe to challenge things that terrify you. Hmmm, kind of like selling houses isn't it? But more important, I work with groups to provide situations where the encouragement from the team can influence people to do things they would never dream of doing alone.

Likewise I see that kind of encouraging atmosphere in my fellow Realtors on Activerain. In fact I was inspired to write this post by a post from my Activerain friend Loreena Yeo. As much as we may try to control our destiny there are things that happen that are out of that realm of control. What defines us is how we interpret and react to those little surprises.

What determines our interpretation and reaction is our conditioning. So do we choose our conditioning or are we conditioned by circumstance? If we carefully guard and craft what we put in our minds, and if we carefully guard who we allow to influence us, then we will be in control of our destiny. Allowing life to happen to us just doesn't produce the desired results.

Think of it this way, if you dump random airplane parts into a huge pile they won't assemble themselves into a 747. If you dump random information into your head you won't come up with a successful life either. Like the 747, a successful life is carefully engineered.

Are you building your life according to a plan or just dumping random information in? I'm going to suggest you take inventory of what you are currently doing in your life. What do you read, watch, listen to? Who do you spend time with? Do you have a mentor or mentors? Most importantly, when was the last time you did something that really scared you?

Buyers beware - or not

I recently ran across a website that held the position that renters win, buyers lose.

Not long ago I registered with stumbleupon.com. It's a great website where you can enter your interests, hit the stumble button and have a rotation of websites randomly come up based on the interests you pick. Of course, one of mine was real estate. Most are either informative or searches. Occasionally I come across one that is pure garbage.

Case in point, an article by a real estate "expert" telling readers that it is foolish to buy a home in this market. I suppose that could be debated depending on the local market conditions. Unfortunately that was not the case being made. Instead the writer used distorted statistics and some very twisted logic to say, for instance that there is no real tax advantage to owning vs. renting.
What about investment potential? I recently got a listing under contract for a young couple that is moving up. The home was purchased before the bubble. Using a little fuzzy math one could say that the seller lost about 60K from it's highest point. However, over the time of ownership the seller actually realized nearly 100K increase. This is the true representation of the benefits of long term investment in real estate. Not only did they see a good increase over time but by buying up in this market they got a great deal on the single family home they're moving up to. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that if they wait for the market to "come back" it will cost them. If they see a 10% increase in their 200K townhome they single family they bought at 335K will have increased the same 10%. The net result will be that they lost over 10K by waiting for the recovery.

I've also heard the argument from buyers that they are reluctant to borrow from their 401k's to purchase. Let's look at the performance of the 401k's vs. long term performance of real estate investment. Again, not rocket science.

So buyers beware...beware of real estate experts who are actually blogging's version of shock jocks. Those alarmist souls who don't buy or sell real estate but know all the answers. I would never advocate uninformed decisions in buying a home. Just the opposite. Get all the real facts and make an informed decision. When you do, I think you'll see that real estate is and has always been a great LONG TERM investment.