Amy Seaholt, REALTOR, Portland Oregon

I have been asked by all of my clients recently: When do you think this market will turn around?

I don't know, I have to admit.

So I do what I always do if I don't know the answer to something - I try and find it. I've looked into it. I've read up on what so many of the experts have to say. I actually think I'm being driven crazy by all the differing opinions.

A client pointed out that I'm doing much the same with my baby. The question my husband and I keep asking is: When do you think Sugar Bear will learn to sleep on his own? Some advocate letting him cry it out, others say that attachment parenting and co-sleeping are best. I actually think I'm being driven crazy by all the differing opinions.

The more I read up on both issues - housing market and the sleep training - the more I realize that it's impossible to predict the outcome until we look at it in hindsight. At this point, the experts know about as much as I do. Someone may be an expert in the sense that they have a lot of experience in a field, but really what they say is just an opinion. Nobody really knows what's going to happen with certainty and I'm kind of tired of the "my opinion is right" attitude of those experts. Am I the only one who sees this in a whole lotta shades of grey?

There are many who predict a turnaround in 2009. There are those who say my baby can sleep through the night at 5 months old. There are those who are more pessimistic and think we have several more years of falling housing prices, and that my baby won't be able to sleep through the night until he's closer to a year.

Even the inner circle at Forbes can't agree on when the market will recover, or at least stop bottoming out. They even seemed to have an opinion about babies sleep habits. Huh. Didn't see that coming.

Time is the ultimate expert. It will be time that tells which expert was right about the housing market and how the Bear will learn to sleep. I think instead of putting much stock in what any of these experts have to say, I need to just look at it as interesting information. Let's just all try not to worry so much. It gets us nowhere. (by "all" I mean "me, when I let it get to me.")

In the end, until we get through this time and can look back on it, everyone else is just guessing. It may be a very educated guess, but it's still a guess.

~Amy

I've been a working mom my daughter's entire 2 ½ years. It's part of our routine. She came with me to preview homes when she was only two months old. Every summer my husband will walk her by houses that I'm holding open.

Being able to work around and with my daughter is part of what makes real estate a great career. It provides my daughter with some special insight into what mommy does, too.

The other day I heard her playing in her room with her dolls.

"You like this house," she said to her baby.

My ears perked up and I tried to listen in without interrupting. In her little two year old voice and pronunciation, she was showing a house.

"There is a master bedroom and that's your bathroom. And you like the closet." Around Portland's East side there is a lack of master suites with good size closets. Apparently even she has noticed.

"It's a pretty house and that's the sidewalk. It's not my house but you should live here," she gave her dolly quite a sales pitch.

A few weeks back I previewed some houses with her for a client. I thought she'd be bored so I tried to hurry through. It was a vacant house with a very large living room, so I left her running circles around the room while I ran upstairs to glimpse the bedrooms. When I came down she was in the kitchen.

"Are those new, Mommy?" She asked, pointing to the appliances.

In the living room, she asked if the fireplace worked. And when I tried to leave without checking the basement, I quickly was re-directed downstairs. "You need to look down there," she insisted. "To see if there is water."

You hear all the time that kids are like sponges. I know it's true, but it still amazes me. How do they pick this up so quickly?

The same afternoon when I overheard her acting out Realtor games with her dolls, I asked her what she had been playing.

"Nothing," she dismissed it. "Just only looking at a house."

"Oh, was it fun?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's my work." She said before she changed the subject.

The best realtors I know are honest, hard working, balance work and family, and have other people's interest at heart. If my daughter wants to do that, then she has my blessing. I hope to live up to those standards myself. I get a little help daily from the smallest realtor I know.

~Amy

The Equity Group Foundation is the charitable branch of RE/MAX Equity Group. I'm the representative for my branch at the foundation meetings and it breaks my heart that we can't give to everyone who comes in and presents their case to us.

We all wish there was more money to spread around. There are so many causes out there. How do we choose what to support? Unfortunately we don't have unlimited resources and we do have to choose.

One of the causes the Foundation supports whole heartedly is the local branch of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and their Race for the Cure. By donating to the cause, we are supporting local women in need of cancer treatment, screenings, women's health checks, and other immediate needs of women in our community. And it fits the Equity Group Foundation's criteria for donations by providing direct help to local women in our community.

Personally, I am proud to support this cause. Oregon and Washington have the highest breast cancer rates in the country, and people don't know exactly why. Ask those around you to see how many of them have been affected in some way by breast cancer. You may be shocked. Our branch office has a goal to raise just $720 this year to go toward the company's total $25,000 target. We encourage anyone in the community to help out, even if they are not affiliated with our office.

The other thing I love is that while it can be a sad subject, the event itself is so happy and uplifiting. Anyone who has ever participated in a Race for the Cure event will tell you that it's such a celebration of life. This year it takes place in Portland on September 21st and I hope the RE/MAX team is stronger than ever.

Me? I'm hoping that participating in the event will be a labor-inducing action. - I'm due on the 23rd with my second child. A boy. Maybe I could name him Susan. - How great it would be to introduce a new life at a celebration of saved and remembered lives. Plus, they say that breastfeeding reduces your future risk for breast cancer. Appropriate, no?

~Amy Seaholt

To donate to the Sellwood/Moreland branch fundraising efforts for the Susan G. Komen Foundation please contact me by September 15th, 2008. amy.s@remax.net

To join the RE/MAX Equity Group team on the day of the event please sign up online HERE. Look for the big RE/MAX balloon prior to the start of the race to connect with other runners and walkers.