NO ROADMAPS GUARANTEE A LAS VEGAS REAL ESTATE AGENTS SUCCESS
There is an interesting theory about why some Las Vegas real estate agents complete so many more home purchases than do others. It isn’t that ‘success breeds success’ (although the thing we call “momentum” is certainly real enough). It has to do with being able to harness two somewhat opposing character traits. In any business, there seldom seem to be any irrefutable rules that guarantee prosperity…or if they do crop up from time to time, they don’t work for long. Since that’s the case, it’s odd that there are so many best-sellers proclaiming roadmaps to success. If all those books were simply rip-offs, you would think they’d quickly develop a backlash (which would kill the market for books about succeeding in business). I’d be willing to bet that the answer lies in the commitment it takes to buy and read the book in the first place. If you don’t finish it, you feel guilty enough that you won’t blame the author. If you do finish the book, you probably already possess the energy and stick-to-it-ness that means you’re more likely to succeed in the first place. That self-validating quality applies to Las Vegas real estate agents—and most of us would probably place it at the top of the list of what makes a good agent: Persistence. Dogged single-mindedness. Tenacity. They’re traits that true go-getters possess. Those are attributes that don’t reward only real estate agents: they apply in any walk of life. Leaders tend to have them. When others falter, lose faith, or simply run out of steam, success can result from nothing more than simply not giving up. So what’s the ‘contrary’ attribute that doesn’t automatically belong with that first one? It has to do with teamwork. It’s the ability to make the most of the unique role that a real estate agent plays in the ‘team’ that is created with the client—the one who wishes to sell or buy a Las Vegas home. Being a true team player is what is called for because an agent is called upon to play multiple roles. Sometimes it is to act as a crew member; whose greatest attribute will be the ability to listen well and follows the direction of the client (the captain). At other times, the agent has to become the functional team leader—the authoritative voice and consensus-maker. That’s often necessary for the many transactional real estate details. Performing both roles with good cheer and equal vigor calls for someone who relishes team collaboration—who enjoys the rewards that go with team membership. It also calls for the kind of flexibility that makes for a great substitute teacher or a great backup player in any sport. Not a character trait that automatically belongs to a never-say-die individual achievement-oriented performer! I greatly enjoy what I get to do as a Las Vegas real estate professional. It’s a team effort, all right—one that rewards perseverance with the bona fide thrill of a successful closing. If you are making a real estate transition in the coming months, I hope you will consider me for your team!
LAS VEGAS HOME OWNERSHIP AND THE AMERICAN DREAM DEBATE
This summer, Las Vegas home owners have been experiencing both the start of a blistering political season and, simultaneously, what the newspaper writers call the ‘summer silly season.’ The politicians have hit the campaign trail in earnest, but in many other realms, folks tend to be on vacation (or wishing they were). The result is that very unimportant stories make the evening news: the silly season. If you saw any of last week’s multiple replays of the baby deer playing with the rabbit on a lawn in Colorado, you know what the deepest part of the silly season gets you: Bambi and Thumper making headlines. But in the political realm, there’s also been a renewal of the quadrennial discussion about whether the whole American Dream is dead. That means it’s time to discuss the abstract idea and its relationship to the very concrete one: The American Dream, and your Las Vegas home. For sure, “The American Dream” means more than simply owning a home in Las Vegas (despite the fact that those of us in real estate would like to see it included in the definition). The three words in TAD make up one of the few phrases that, even though we all know it means different things to different people, still triggers a degree of reverence. When a politician brings up The American Dream, it’s probably because it’s a topic that most listeners will identify with—one that causes people to feel both nostalgic and protective. “The American Dream” evokes apple pie and Aunt Em; Tom Sawyer and a horse-drawn trolley on Main Street. It’s an American past we all experienced, sort of (we went to Disneyland, after all!). Pollsters tell us that safeguarding future generations’ access to The American Dream is an obligation most Americans accept: in fact, this year’s 60 Minutes-Vanity Fair poll says that to 44% of Americans, giving their kids a better life is its very definition. At least in the 20th century, to a very great number of people TAD also went hand-in-hand with owning a home of your own. But does it still include home ownership? Wikipedia offers a comprehensive roundup of ideas about TAD, which includes a subsection on Home Ownership (but it also has sections on the American Dream in Britain…and Russia…and even the People’s Republic of China!) It makes you wonder—can the American Dream be in bad shape if it’s so contagious? And if owning a home is no longer a part of it, how come the Las Vegas’s residential real estate market is bouncing back so vigorously? The season may be silly in some newsrooms, but when it comes to listings and showings in this summer’s Las Vegas home market, these weeks are a most daffy time of year— and an excellent time to give me a call!
TRAMPOLINE GRAPH ALERTS LAS VEGAS REAL ESTATE WATCHERS
When Las Vegas, real estate trackers, keep tabs on the progress of the national rebound, they note the findings of the major pollsters and data miners, read what the pundits have to offer, and look at charts and graphs—lots of charts and graphs. The graphs that chart residential real estate price history for the last decade or so tend to look very similar. It doesn’t matter whether they’re showing regional or state or national price movements. If they’re line graphs, they look like a cross-section of a trampoline just as it’s about to propel a 7-year-old into the wild blue—or what your overweight neighbor’s hammock looks like when he’s taking a snooze. The lines start high, tumble south, stay down there for a stretch, and then wend their way back up. Way up! Last week’s CoreLogic roundup of June home prices included a typical example. It showed four colored lines, each of which traced a different residential home price tier: low, low-to-middle, median, and high. Almost in parallel, they showed a dip from the ‘bubble’ highs, a slog along the bottom of the real estate bust, and the ascent that has been pleasing Las Vegas real estate watchers in recent years. There was a noteworthy detail in that chart. This was Figure 2, “HPI by Price Segment.”“HPI®” is CoreLogic’s proprietary “home price index” that corrects residential real estate prices to account for the distortion inflation creates. The values are all corrected to 2006 dollars. Inflation may not have grabbed headlines of late, but even relatively tame rates add up: if you’ve bought a half gallon of milk or a dozen eggs lately, you know that. Anyway, the single detail that would have had sharp-eyed Las Vegas, real estate observers, doing a double-take was the dark blue line, which tracked the low-end residences (defined as 0% to 75% of median prices). It ended at what looked like—actually, did more than ‘look like’…It was—higher than the starting point…and headed up! The sale numbers—corrected for inflation, even—confirmed the story: that segment of the national residential real estate market has now eclipsed pre-crash price levels. CoreLogic’s commentary elaborated further. The low-price tier is up 53+% from its deepest point, registered in March 2009. It has now surpassed the pre-crisis peak. With prices up 12.7% thus far in 2015, the segment has taken off the fastest—although the slope of the other three segments looks similar (just not as steep). The highest segment of the market was an orange line, and it came the closest to that dark blue one. Still a little more than 5% below the heights of the previous high, it (and all the other price tiers) look to be headed skyward. For any Las Vegas real estate watchers who believe that ‘buy low, sell high’ is a guiding principal, the time to take a thoughtful look at the real estate market would be at a point in the charts where the lines are headed up. That would be a good time to give me a call…and it seems to be now!
Categories
Recent Posts
