Grow Where You Are Planted

I was on a business trip to Wichita, KS about 15 years ago. While I was there, I saw this really neat sign at a craft store. It was a watering can with the phrase, "Grow Where You Are Planted" arched above. I still love that phrase, and it's come to mean so much more as I grow into my career as a Realtor.

Growing where I'm planted meant becoming a Short Sale specialist these past two years. Many of the homes in the Linton Hall corridor between Gainesville and Bristow, where I am located, were built during the real estate boom. It was also a time when 100% Interest Only ARMs and Option ARMs were really being pushed by the builders. Many people may have bought as much home as they could, but when the market turned, they had more of a mortgage payment than they could afford and a home worth far less than they paid. Negative equity and financial hardship quickly made the Linton Hall corridor ripe with Short Sales.

Still being new to the real estate business, I was determined to make a name for myself in the Linton Hall Corridor. I wasn't going to be able to survive on three or four sales a year. And I had no desire to flip hamburgers until the market came back. I had many worried conversations with my Broker that my new real estate career would crash and burn, but she continued to encourage me. So I took the path that, at that point in time, was less traveled and listed Short Sales when the opportunity presented itself. Rather than advising someone to just let their home go to foreclosure, I learned how to help my clients avoid foreclosure. And in the process I have learned a skill that is still in need today.

Some in our Realtor community may feel that listing Short Sales is capitalizing on the misfortunes of others. How is helping someone avoid foreclosure, and the years of complication it adds to one's financial life and credit report, capitalizing on misfortune? I provide a much needed skill in today's marketplace, and I'm compensated for it. We don't complain that Encologists are capitalizing on the misfortunes of cancer patients. Or that auto body mechanics capitalize on the misfortunes of people who've been in car accidents. Framing a Realtor who is willing and skilled enough to list short sales as capitalizing on other's misfortunes is very short sighted.

Rather than changing my plan to do business in the Linton Hall Corridor, or to find ONLY clients that were willing and/or able to buy or sell non-short sales, I tackled the issue head on and grew where I was planted. Now when my Broker asks me if I think I'll be flipping burgers anytime soon, I simply smile and say, "Only at my client appreciation parties."