Who took the money away?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the market recently. Like I have been saying all along, if you don’t like it, just wait 10 minute. Right now, it’s downright bizarre.

We’ve had several properties which I felt were properly priced get over 30 offers. And others that I also thought were properly priced waiting to be asked for a dance. We have one right now with excellent square footage, great neighborhood and spectacular schools with out one bid. Well, it will have one when I’m done with my appointment tomorrow, but it’s been on the market for 56 days. It needs carpet and paint. That’s it. Another one had 50 offers. It had cheap laminate flooring and appliances from 1972. And it was a split level. I confess, I hate split levels. Sometimes you want to walk in the house and set things down, not decide which set of stairs you want to use. Not a stitch of landscaping in a town notorious for crime problems, yet it flew out the door in three days.

When faced with a market like that, what’s the best way to proceed? I actually received an appraisal yesterday that said that investors weren’t in this market. Really? I’ve sold primarily to investors. Why? Because the numbers make sense. That’s what’s important in investing. The numbers. Nothing else. There are a lot of things that affect the numbers: schools, neighborhood, crime, neighborhood desirability, resale value and of course ROI. At the end of the day it’s just numbers.

I know there are all kinds of slick salesmen out there with this investment strategy and that investment strategy. I’ve heard most of them. It’s our nature as humans to complicate things. That’s all it is, complications. I was chatting with another Realtor in another area this morning. Her area is very hard hit and she’s not doing much listing right now. I reminded her about one of my favorite stories. It’s a sports analogy, so bear with me. Remember the 1990 NY Giants? They were in the Super Bowl. Their quarterback was Phil Simms but he got hurt late in the season and Jeff Hostetler took them the rest of the way and they won the Super Bowl. I thought not. Only hard core Giants fans remember that year. And me. Why do I remember it? Because that team was boring. Painfully boring to watch. They had no flashy players, no trick plays, no gimmicks, nothing. Boring. But they did the basics very well.

Whenever something in my life gets out of kilter, I think of the 1990 NY Giants. I remember the basics and I remind myself to get back to basics and do them well. I’m a competitive powerlifter. I just had a meet a few weeks ago. I did okay but I’m not improving like I use to be. The meet was in San Diego so I had 8 hours of driving to think about what I’d done right and what I’d done wrong. I went back and reviewed my workout routine. Over the years I had tweaked it a little here and tweaked it a little there. I went back to the original Russian program that I based it on and realized they looked nothing like each other. I had gotten away from the basics and I was paying for it.

Investing is basic. It’s dollars and sense. If the dollars make sense, then the investment makes sense. All these derivatives and investment vehicles and strategies are just complications. Get back to basics. If the numbers work, the investment works. It’s that simple.

Valerie Crowell, Real Estate Consultant
Alco Properties
To contact Valerie send an email to women_buildingwealth@yahoo.com with “Valerie” in the subject line