THE REAL ESTATE PLANETS ARE ALIGNED

Didn't know there were Real Estate Planets? Neither did I, but they must be aligned because everything sure looks like it should fall into place.

Interest rates are still at a 50 year low

Residential Real Estate Values are back into the Affordable Zone

Tons of inventory to choose from

Buyers are waking up and taking notice

Our Federal Government is helping us to find our way

OK, maybe the last point may be stretching the limits a slight bit but I want to hold a positive attitude for this current edition of "Whit's Perceptions". I was emailing a quick note to a suspect, er I mean a prospect, and realized I had the makings of a Blog. This was the the second follow up email along with two previous telephone messages left on her voice mail. When someone gives me a referral, I take it seriously and out of respect to the referral partner, I make immediate attempts to reach the party referred by telephone and/or email. Having not even getting an acknowledgment from my first attempts, I sent out an uncharacteristic style email for me; it was borderline aggressive.

I did not really know but I surmised this prospect might be a referral that really wasn't in a sense, at least right now. Since she had not responded to my sugar coated versions made me decide to get a little more direct on what I wanted; a response. My email went like this:

"We are in what is known as a "Buyer's Market". This is the classic representation of the basic rule of supply and demand. There are more properties available than there are potential buyer's to buy them. So competition sets in between those available properties. Add into the mix the fact there are so many Government and Bank owned properties recently foreclosed upon, also for sale, competing for the same pool of buyers. This is nothing but outstanding news for anyone wishing to own their very own home today. The icing on this Birthday Cake is that interest rates are still at a historical low..... right now.

For the first time in a very, very, very long time, it is actually cheaper to own a home rather than rent! You may see or hear this on the news tonight or within the next few days. If you are truly the least bit interested to learn how you too can own your own home, I urge you to step up to the plate now! Once the general public comes to the realization that the conditions are perfect, a "Feeding Frenzy" will soon occur and the law of supply and demand will begin to shift to the other shoe. That fuels the fire of the feeding frenzy even more. When that begins to happen, housing prices again start on the rise, interest rates go up because suddenly everyone wants a mortgage loan and there is only a given amount of money available at the time. The inventory of homes to choose from begins to drop drastically. I have been in the residential Real Estate housing market since March, 1976 and I have seen this cycle occur several times. In 1976 I was 29 years old, a young man. I just turned 62 last Friday and believe me this old man writing you this email to you knows what he is talking about!

The ball is in your court".

Ron L. Whitworth, "Your Guide on YOUR Oregon Loan Trail"

I didn't know I could be that bold yet within eight minutes I received my response. The first thing she did was apologize for her tardiness on getting back to me. She went on to say that she was just starting to entertain the idea of owning her own home, she and her Fiancee. I apologized to her that my email may have been too forceful but I really wanted to make my point and get some sort of a reply which I thanked for doingthis time so promptly. I explained to her even if she needed to wait a year or more we could use that time to help her and her fiancee learn how to put into place everything they needed to do so they would be ready, well informed, and very confident in the wisdom of their decision when they were ready to make their first purchase. I just set up a long term, meaningful Business Relationship and a future loan for my pipeline!

Maybe, we all need to be a little more aggressive, perhaps forceful, keeping in mind that we are to always create for our customer/client an outcome of "Tangible Benefit" for them, not necessarily us.

Perhaps too, we sometimes must align our own planets

R. Whitworth, The Mortgage Connection