Failure is an Option

I receive a newsletter every Tuesady called "Tuesday Tactics" which is geared towards real estate agents. This week they had a great article I thought I'd share with everyone.

Scott's Thoughts: Be Yourself, Honestly

As you pursue goals in your life, you need to be capable of measuring your progress. By hitting reasonable, achievable milestones, you ensure that your time is well-spent. Feedback in the form of an honest self-appraisal of your efforts and the outcome of those efforts allows you to make the adjustments required to keep your dreams on track. We all know that we're happiest in pursuit of our goals.

But what happens when we fail to honestly assess our own efforts? What if we lack the courage to admit that our effort hasn't been our best? In this situation, we suffer doubly: First, we continue to fail short of our dream. Second, we secretly know that we're failing to truly own our progress, and thus suffer the resentment inherent in self-deception.

Failure is an option. That's the first thing you must understand. In fact, reframe failure in your mind as progress. Understanding where you have failed in the past means you'll "fail better" in the future. If you can't even admit you're missing the mark, how will you ever improve?

To cultivate a deep self-honesty in your life, try to practice these five concepts:

1. Stop with excuses: While they may be comforting in the short term and help milk sympathy from strangers, owning your problems will empower you to begin fixing them.

2. Silence your inner critic: Accept who you are and what you're up to. Don't beat yourself up as much, but give yourself the permission to improve.

3. Abandon self-consciousness: Realize that no one is without flaws, no matter how you perceive them. Sometimes we're dishonest with ourselves because we're afraid of what others will think. Release some of your anxiety about how others will perceive your actions and you will, in turn, give yourself greater room to grow.

4. Cool off over conflict: A lot of energy and self-deception goes into "winning" arguments. When you're tied to being right all of the time, you create barriers to self-honesty. Practice keeping a cool head and you'll also be able to see things for what they are with greater accuracy.

5. Be open to your needs: Many times we deceive ourselves because we're too proud to ask for help, or we're too self-conscious about speaking our mind. If you can't voice these needs, you feed the very mechanisms which distort your perception of the truth.

We all have enormous untapped potential. Now give yourself permission to pursue it honestly!

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October Market Slice

Here is my most recent newsletter (in Blog-form). To see what it really looks likes, check out the most recent edition here.
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It’s that time again! Welcome to the newest edition of Market Slice, a piece of real estate delivered to your inbox every other month.

National: The Bank of Canada rose its rate, however the five year conventional mortgage rate (or “posted rate”) is still very low at 5.39%. There are discounted rates available as low as 3.45% for a five year fixed rate mortgage. There is some confusion over the Federal Government lending rules so I just want to clarify some points. First, you can still get high-ratio financing with as little as 5% down. Second, if you are getting a five year fixed rate mortgage, you only have to qualify at the discounted rate (3.45) instead of the bank rate. When in doubt, ask your mortgage broker or I can refer you to one.

Provincial: The HST referendum has caused some uncertainty in the new housing market. To reiterate, HST only affects new housing and not re-sale homes.

Local: The market in Victoria since August has been very slow. Sellers are being forced to lower their prices while buyers have been taking their time with purchases, chasing the low prices down. The prices will not continue to go down forever. I believe we’re reaching a tipping point where sellers are going to take their homes off the market and wait to sell or rent instead. As listings become restricted the prices will level off. The market in Victoria is cyclical in that prices move up and down but over the long run, they will continue to go up (so long as we stay the most temperate city in Canada!). If you are planning to move, find a home you’ll be happy in for at least 5-10 years and don’t panic when prices drop slightly.

BYOB

When there’s this many houses on the market in Victoria, it drives me crazy how much crap you have to sift through to get to the gems. What’s worse is that every price range is the same. You think the jump from $450 to $650 would be an improvement, but it isn’t. I just wish when searching our MLS we had a little tick box for Junk [ ] or Gem [ ] and that the realtors who selected had to be honest.

I’m sick of reading things like “Quaint little charmer in desirable neighbourhood” when in reality it translates into a 1940s 2 bedroom 1 bathroom home with original oil tank, knob and tube wiring, 800 square feet, possibly structural issues on a tiny lot that backs on to the highway. Why don’t you just write “BYOB”... Bring Your Own Bulldozer

Moral of the story: use a buyer’s agent to buy property; you’ll save yourself a lot of time and frustration.

Riding the roller coaster

I love how the media has a way with words “some agents are having to take on second jobs to make ends meet amid declining sales”.

Well let’s do the math. There are 1330 agents in Victoria and only 395 sales in September (that’s 790 ends) therefore many realtors did not have a single sale last month.

A good portion of the public doesn't realize this: Realtors work in a commission based industry. We do not make any money if we do not make a sale. Also, we do not get a salary from our brokerage! In fact, we pay an arm and a leg to be a part of a brokerage. We pay to have an office, colour copies, parking, coffee, sale fees, listing fees, board fees… and then we pay a percentage of our commissions as well. It`s a very expensive industry to work in so it`s no surprise to me agents are taking on a second job or getting out of the market completely.

When the market slows down, it can be stressful. Listings we thought were going to sell 2 months ago are still on the market. When the homes eventually do sell, we do not get paid until completion. There is a lot of uncertainty about where your next pay cheque will come from and how much of it has already been accounted for by the long list of expenses. That`s why it`s important to have three months of income in the bank at any given time.

These slow times don`t last forever though because markets are cyclical. There is always going to be ups and downs. The lack of sales from August and September means there`s a lot of buyers out there waiting to buy. I feel like there is pent up demand in Victoria and in October and November we`ll see an increase in sales again. As an agent, it`s important to become an expert at riding the real estate roller coaster.

The things I do for Real Estate

First impressions are everything, especially when you’re trying to sell a house. I’ve experienced some rather humorous moments when I’ve run into obstacles that would prevent this excellent first impression.

1. Me against the moss

I was listing a home in the spring and it had moss on the front drive way. No big deal! Several people told me we could sprinkle Tide with bleach on it to kill it and it would simply sweep away… wrong. The moss turned a lovely brownish orange colour and would not budge. My client was leaving town and there was no time to have a professional come do the job. With the help of one of my dearest friends, we borrowed a power washer, got some gasoline to fuel it and headed out to blast the moss. It came up quite well with the high pressure water, but of course we were out there until it was dark, the day before the listing hit the market. I think it did the trick because the drive way looked amazing and it sold very quickly!

2. Little bird

Another time I was hosting an open house for a vacant home in Cordova Bay. I arrived at the home stocked with a trunk full of Febreeze, just in case. I wasn’t expecting to find a dead bird on the deck. Of course there was no paper towel to pick it up with and frankly I didn’t want to touch it at all.. so I left it. The first people through the house stopped at the back window.. “UGH! There’s a dead bird on the deck!” Right, the little thing had to go. I tried to kick it off to the side where you couldn’t see it from the window. The next set of people commented after they saw it from another window. So out I went, in the pouring rain, to pick up this bird thinking to myself “I didn’t sign up for this!”

3. Shopping Cart

More recently I went to host and open house. I got to the corner where I usually put down my directional sign only to find a shopping cart. What are people going to think of this neighbourhood if there’s a shopping cart on the corner?! It had to go. I went to push it away and of course, it was one of the ones with the locking wheels. I couldn’t stop laughing to myself as I struggled to get the cart across the road wearing a suit and high heels.


The things I do for real estate!

Timing is everything

Do you ever have those days when you give yourself just enough time to not be late?

I arrived at my open house on the weekend with exactly 30 seconds to spare. Don't get me wrong, I'm usually the girl who arrives 15 minutes early to every appointment and sit in my car or drive around the block to pass the time.

My girlfiends and I decided to do a Saturday morning hike and I gave myself 3 hours from the moment I left my home until my open house at 2. We finished our rapid paced hike in the pouring rain, jumped in the car (sopping wet), and sped home while we cursed the slow moving vehicles in front of us. My friend appreciated the urgency of the situation and risked running out of gas for me. No we did not have 5 minutes to spare!

When I arrive at my condo I had exactly 7 minutes to get in there, get changed, wipe the dirt off my legs and arms, blow dry my bangs and put makeup on. I literally run through my home to make sure I have everything. I drive to my office (conveniently located a block away on the same one way street), printed off some information and drove to the open that's 5 minutes away if you hit every green light on Pandora.

My heart is pounding, I've started to sweat a little and I'm driving way too fast. "Why do I do this to myself?" The sad thing is the stress was totally avoidable. More time or better planning could have solved everything!

Although sometimes I don't get the luxury of planning. There are days, where I can't create enough time to get everything done. Unexpected to-do items come out of nowhere. There have been days when every minute is planned but then clients I have not heard from in weeks need to see a house that afternoon. I’m in the car driving to appointments while there are 5 urgent emails that need attention. I’m trying to coordinate signatures, offers, inspections and finish a report for a presentation that evening. I often find myself running, I mean sprinting, through the office. Why waste time walking to and from the printer?

I write to do lists every time I have a spare second so I don't miss anything. Every item is in a list, prioritized, chronological, mapped out. I could write a whole blog on the lists I write. I’ll add that to my “Topics to blog about” list. I’m a Virgo, can you tell?

Lesson learned. Always over estimate the amount of time you need to hike. Especially when you’re going to Mt. Work because you know you’ll want to stop at the Big Barn Market for a sandwich or some sort of nougaty treat.

Property Transfer Cash Grab

I've been reading up on the British Columbia Real Estate Association (BCREA) Government Relations Briefs and I came across a little tid bit of information which really surprised me!

The Background:
The Property Transfer Tax is a tax implemented by our provincial government that applies to all home purchases (unless you're part of the First Time Buyer Program).

When you buy property and register it at the Land Titles Office, you are taxed 1% on the first $200,000 and 2% on the balance of your purchase.

The Reality:
It turns out the property transfer tax started in 1987 and was supposed to be a "Wealth Tax" with the 2% portion of the charge only applying to 5% of home sold. In 2009, the 2% portion applied to about 88% of homes sold. These are provincial numbers... imagine what the percentage is in Victoria.

Shocking.

In my opinion, this is a huge cash grab for the Provincial Government. The BCREA is working to have this property transfer tax abolished by 2012. Read more in their brief on sheleter taxes here