The market’s changing. I think it is important that when you’re interviewing an agent you find an agent that really does know the market. When you are talking to an agent and you found them online and you found them like me online and you found their qualifications and you think, I’ll interview them. They must know the market they are advertising themselves so they must know the market. I thought about it and I thought, you know, how do you really know if an agent understands the current market? I’ve heard agents say, well, “I’ve been doing this for 30 years.” I can promise you that every market is completely different. They all have so many facets to them. I’ve been doing it 18 years. We’ve had some ups and downs all caused by a myriad of different things that wouldn’t prepare us for the market that came at us. And every market is different.
We all knew that the market couldn’t sustain itself in 2005 and 2006 and it did ultimately crash. Right. But what came out of that? 2010-2013 started a trajectory of a crazy number of listings, a crazy number of sales. 2013 was one of my biggest volume years ever. Then 2014 and 2015, still doing well, meandered along 2018 wasn’t one of the best years. I think it was actually a little bit slower, but then 2019 started to creep up and then COVID and it was so busy. I couldn’t even catch a breath. I worked from like 7 in the morning till almost 10 or 11 at night, each night, because there was just so much going on. I couldn’t keep up and I didn’t know that was coming.
And I couldn’t really describe it when I was in it. So that was a different market. We literally wake up to a new market each day. If a realtor says, “oh, well, I’ve been in the business 30 years.” I don’t think that’s a good indication that they are prepared for everything that comes at us in terms of the economy and natural disasters or, pandemics. I would ask them if they are a listing agent, do they work with buyers? “No, I’m a listing agent.” Okay. “Do you have a sense of what the buyers are thinking about and looking at?” Because right now June of 2022, I believe that we are going to start seeing more of a buyer’s market. “Are you prepared to answer some of the buyer requests and some of the things that the buyers are looking for?”
How will they know if the market’s changing? I would ask, we know the market’s changing, but how do you know it is, what are the indicators? For myself I watch a few different indicators. One of them is days on market. The other is pending sales, cancelled sales, price reductions. Listen to feedback from open houses, do open houses, being in the market. And then when you’re talking to the buyers out there, they’re going to start giving you their feedback, networking with other agents. Do you ever talk with other agents and what they’re seeing, especially in their local office? For instance, I would be talking to the agents in my company. I’m not going to be taking any advice from agents from San Jose because, or, you know, Los Angeles or San Francisco. I know agents all across the country and their markets are all crazy different from ours and I also subscribe to experts in the field that break down trends to understand the market as well.
Locally, we are seeing some changes, but we’re not really seeing the bust or the burst as the news is describing. Ask the agent what are they doing to actually educate themselves on the market? I have experts I listen to, but I also really try to tune in to the local agents. I go on broker tour so I can hear what the actual boots on the ground are talking about. And then I would ask the agent, how did they adjust to past shifts in the market? For myself, I would tell you I’ve worked in some very different markets. And when there were just short sales and, foreclosures and I mean downfall in the market and I didn’t have any business, I went and worked for another real estate agent and kept my skill set.
I became busy again and, and could no longer work for her, but we were doing up to 30 escrows a month. I would ask is what are they doing in the shift? Do they hide? Do they admit they were a little slow during those times? How did you learn the new market that was emerging out of that market? Because here’s the thing to understand about markets. It’s such a weird thing. I always kind of think of it as kind of like a, it gel glob that just kind of just kind of comes down and kind of globs all over us. And then we just kind of try to figure out how to get around it. Weird analogy can’t think of any way else to describe it.
You just can’t put your arms around the market, you can’t touch it, you can’t feel it, but it’s just kind of omnipresent all over. And one of the ways to really get a grasp on the current market is to make sure that you’re staying completely relevant to what’s going on. You might have a realtor that you just love and they’re going to do a good job, and they’re going to get you your highest and best price or you have a buyer’s agent that, you know you trust that realtor. And you think that that’s the one for you, then choose them. And that’s okay.
Some people understand that you need to hire an agent that understands the market today. If that is you just ask a few questions and see what they know. So please subscribe, share like, and comment I’d love to hear from you, or just reach out to me. And I, we can have a discussion about the current market.