Turning the page on 2009

Photo by Teresa Boardman, Copyright 2009.

The year isn't quite over, but I am ready to say goodbye to it. I find myself looking back and thinking about how different my business was this year, mostly because of the devastation in the form of foreclosures all around me.

I made more money than I thought I would and I spent less. My mindset at the beginning of the year was to prepare for the worst. I went through my monthly business expenses and cut them.

I canceled a few services, and in areas where I felt I was spending too much I figured out how to spend less without starving my business.

Then I went through monthly household bills and managed to save a few hundred dollars each month just by bundling some services, changing providers and in one case changing the frequency of service.

My strategy for this entire year has been to be flexible. The market changed and I recognized that I needed to change with it.

Everything I experienced happened before anyone wrote advice on how to handle it, because that is how it is for those of us who work in the field. In some cases the news stories about the housing market lagged a year behind what I had already lived through.

Last March I survived the great fire sale of bank-owned homes. The banks reduced the prices on the foreclosures to the point that some of the homes were getting 40 or more offers. It was a good strategy and moved a lot of inventory, but it was hard on buyers and their agents. Those 16-hour days I put in were mostly a waste of time.

In June I listened to a news story on television about how banks had discounted foreclosures and some were getting multiple offers. It was old news for me, and sadly I do have some scars from the experience.

It didn't take me too long to figure out that I couldn't make a living selling $50,000 foreclosures. When I did figure it out I dropped some buyers, including one who I had already shown 10 homes to.

By May or June I also began to notice that I had too many listings in one neighborhood and that sales were much slower there than in any other part of the city.

When contracts started expiring I did not renew them and did not take any more listings in the area. It was my close attention to the local housing statistics that made me aware that I was headed in the wrong direction. ...CONTINUED

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