Eden Jordan

Amen Sister! These things came to mind as I read your article, since I have had to tell myself these things to keep me out of the looney bin. And by the way, I have a Psychology minor and I still feel like you!!! I think everyone has gotten the crazy bug this week!!!! * Desperate times bring out desperate people!!!! * The great thing about real estate is that when everyone appears to be crazy, usually they are. * What comes around goes around * It will get better. * As you know the rules are never set in stone and what you know today will not be what it is tommorrow. * It is what makes this business frustrating one day and fun the next. * As soon as you figure out the game, the game will change. * Keep your chin up, keep your integrity, breathe and take a time out. * Remember that real estate is your career, it is not life or death, even though it may feel like a lot of the time. Eden Jordan, Realtor "Your Orange Park Specialists" Vanguard GMAC 904-333-9244 904-278-7000 edenjordan@vanguardgmac.com edenjordan.com

Eden Jordan, RealtorI disagree with the pessimistic reporting that plagues the media. If things were as bad as the great depression, we would be sitting in homeless shelters and eating at soup kitchens. Not waiting in lines at the malls, packing the zoos, the malls and the movies. Did you see the people fighting over $50 WII games and the lines at Coach? It is crazy. Did anyone notice that everywhere you went this Christmas it was packed and you were waiting in line and could not find a parking place? Remember, I live in Jacksonville, Florida and we have been hit hard by the over inflated real estate market. But I saw firsthand people were not sitting at home eating big pots of rice for meals. They were eating $7 sushi and waiting in line to eat at very nice restaurants like Bonefish Grill that I would have thought as luxurious 10 years ago. A funny thing happened to me, my mother passed away in November and I was going through some of her things and there were some newspapers from September 1992 from the Detroit Free Press. If you recall this was when George Bush Senior was at the end of his lame duck term as president and we were getting ready to elect a new president. We were in the Gulf War and we had just experienced Hurricane Andrew, the economy was terrible. There was even an editorial about getting cars to have 40mpg gas mileage. Remember all of the job losses of the 1990's, I had just graduated from Florida State University and was working at Walt Disney for $5.35 an hour, where I had done my internship the previous summer. I went back to Disney because the job market was so horrible. There was hardly any companies hiring at this time, they did not even show up for the career show. Then my hours were cut and my 2nd job started bouncing checks to me. I could not afford my $225 apartment so my dad told me to come live at home and find a different job. I was so determined to get experience I begged to work for free and wait tables at night so I could just learn the business world. You know what happened next, I found a paid job that I was willing to work for free because I was so determined to get experience. They actually paid me $18,000 a year at the Prime Osborne Convention Center, in Jacksonville, that was a dream job for a kid right out of school. I guess they figured if I was willing to work for free, I would be willing to do the things the big bosses were not willing to do, like work nights and weekends. I got to plan parties, events and do what the other long time city employees did not want to do. My friends would ask how did you land that job? I did not make the best grades or have the best resume. What they did not understand is that determination, working hard, losing your ego and doing what nobody else is willing to do, is what makes you successful. Does anyone remember what happened after the recession of the early 90's, people forgot very quickly? They started spending all of the money they had saved during the recession very quickly once the confidence was restored. Maybe this recession is worse than the 90’s but I am not seeing it. I have still sold houses and I still grossed about 3.5 million in sales. Not nearly what we did in the boom years, but I cut back on spending, went bare bones, got back to basics and spent quality time with my mother who died of cancer in November. I practically took the year off and worked very little. I wish the media would ask the Realtors what they are seeing on the front lines of this mess. We are seeing showings way up. I have had 10 showings on my properties since New Year’s Eve, (more in one week since the beginning of October). Contracts are starting to come in and people are feeling like it is the time to buy because the prices and interest rates are so darn cheap. Yes maybe the American people have decided not to supplement the CEOs elaborate salaries, maybe they were tired of seeing their bosses jetting off in their private planes and yachts while they were busting their butts to make their huge mortgage payments. Maybe Americans were tired of trying to keep up with the Jones’s and wanted to get back to basics. Money does not buy happiness if you have a fulfilled life. My personal opinion is that this market would turn around if people made the hard choice of not being greedy and making the hard decision of selling their property for what they can get for it, not what they thought they could get for it 2 years ago. I am so tired of the moaning. Get off you butts America, get the prices where they are affordable, don’t overbuy, and let’s get this economy moving. Let’s get real estate back to what it was meant to do, provide your family with a safe and secure home to live and raise your family in. I wish you “the Media” would stop the bitching and moaning and start reporting from the real Middle America! You may have just bitched and moaned yourself out of a job. People are tired of the negativity; they don’t want to read it anymore! Happy New Year from one really determined agent to get her customers some great deals in real estate and make her customers RICH! "Your Orange Park Specialists" Vanguard GMAC 904-333-9244 904-278-7000 edenjordan@vanguardgmac.com edenjordan.com

What does a successful real estate company look like in a challenging market? Transparency! We keep hearing the word transparency in the media these days, what does that mean for a real estate industry that has been rattled at its core. Agents that were making over $100,000, $250,000 or even more a year are now having a hard time making their mortgage payments. These agents I am talking about are not the fly by night get rich quick agents; these are Consistent Top Producers that have given their lives to this industry. They lived, breathed ate and slept real estate. Every move was calculated. They were respected by the media, their community, their industry and their clients. These are highly effective people that would be successful in any career that they had chosen. They chose real estate for many reasons, the flexibility, the challenge, the love of their community, and a career where they could be in business for themselves, but not by themselves. These are not part timers I am talking about these are the agents you would see in the paper as top producers every weekend. They were die hards, leaders, talented agents that had passion. Many had years of experience in this business and were able to change with the times. Most of these agents that worked before the boom, will tell you that the boom had its challenges just like the bust. We were spent more money than some brokers, we had no social life & no balance. Flexible…. Meant we bent every which way when the client, team member, or vendor called or emailed weather it was at 6 in the morning, or 11 at night. We took on every aspect of this business ourselves. We embraced the internet even though we did not know what we were doing. We neglected our families, our health, our social lives and our inner beings. To be a top producer in the boom time was not easy, it was exhausting and agents who were successful were tired and worn out. We were taught that we always had to put on a happy positive face, but when you are exhausted, burned out and worn out that became harder to do. Then the market began to slow down, this was not a slow leak, this was like when you were a kid on a playground and you fell of the top of the monkey bars, it was like having the wind knocked out of you, you couldn’t breathe and you couldn’t get up. You just laid their until someone came to help you. The problem was when the real estate industry busted it seemed as if there was no one there to help, you were alone on the playground just laying there, you could hardly breathe, you hurt and you didn’t even recognize where you were . You were alone, with no support, no one to help you, emotional, and money was going out faster than it was coming in. We had staff, buyer’s agents, marketing people and huge broker bills bigger than your mortgage, vendors to pay and just enough business for one agent. We had to feed the machine, but there was no food left. We were told by the industry and our brokers, that this was just part of the cycle, the strong will survive. Wait it out. That was easy for them to say, they were on salary or had fat bank account to float them for the next 2 years, they did not have to right these checks out of their home equity or credit cards every month. Some of us saved for a rainy day, but the rain did not stop, it just kept raining and raining and raining, till agents were drowning in debt and could not come up for air. So where does that put the top producer now, what we thought we knew was true is not, for those of us that want to stay in this business we had to change. We cut staff, cut expenses, did what it took to stay in business. The problem with that was that many of us were at companies that did not provide any support, marketing, management or resources. These companies were founded on the principle that you paid for what you used and the broker was there just as a building and brand name. Our fees were Now we are coming into 2009 and this market is our new reality. How do we survive as top producers? I think the solution is to marry the traditional broker with the 100% broker. We all understand that it costs money to be in business. No top agent has a problem with the broker making money, as long as the agent is making money too. How does this look in 2009? I think I found a broker that got it. I had met with Pete Dalton at Vanguard GMAC after a dear friend and huge producing agent there sensed that I was stressed out. She told me about a meeting they had with their broker and the top 20 agents. He said, I made a lot of money during the good times and I am ready to reinvest it in the top talented agents in the business. Some of the discussions that came out of that meeting were. 1. Get rid of the non producers, they were taking up recourses. 2. Research and pay for the top websites as a company so the agents don’t have to worry about it. 3. Take on some of the marketing tedious work because we have let our staff go. 4. Get rid of the bills, stressed out agents are not successful agents. 5. Put successful agents together in pods or groups to mentor and support each other. 6. Research the market and provide us with REAL market and company statistics so we do not have to guess if we are doing ok. 7. They wanted the broker to be involved in the day to day operation, accessable to the agents for counseling. 8. They wanted a leader who was willing to invest in their businesses. 9. Some counseling on money management, where to spend money, and how to budget in these uncertain times. This would be a give and take business model, something that was not common in the real estate industry in the past 10 years. They did not want to be an island, they wanted to be a small community of top agents that exchanged ideas, resources and positive energy, the agents wanted a place to go to talk and tell them how they were feeling. They are tired of being competitive, they just want to sell real estate, have a successful business and have a balanced and healthy career. With turmoil two things can happen, you can die, or you can pick yourself up, restructure and change with the times. I feel that I have found a new home at Vanguard GMAC, Fleming Island. I am excited to go to work every day. The energy is positive, I am working with excited agents that are at the same level as me, and it is refreshing to exchange ideas, collaborate, share resources and feel part of a team.