Is the lion smiling at you?

“If you see the teeth of the lion, do not think that the lion is smiling at you.” (Al-Mutanabbi)

Somehow this saying from over 1,000 years ago seems apropos to today's real estate market, at least if you're a real estate sales person trying to make a living at it today. The lion that is the real estate market has been showing it's teeth for some time now. I, for one, determined that it was not smiling at me and went into dual-career mode, taking a job selling office equipment in addition to my real estate business. Some of my colleagues decided to take the lion tamer approach and stick there heads into the lion's mouth. I few have survived and a few did not and left the business altogether.

I suppose the message here is that one must first recognize the dangers and then come up with an appropriate plan of action. What is appropriate will be different for each person. For me it was

the opportunity to get back into business-to-business sales with a company that represents a major brand - Xerox - in a field that leverages the 30 years of IT sales experience that I had before getting into real estate. Business-to-business sales is a whole different ball game; although sometimes if feels like I've traded a smiling lion for a smiling tiger. Maybe it feels better because it is a tiger (business market) that I'm familiar with, after all that time selling computers and IT services.

I must admit that there are aspects o0f the real estate business that I miss - mainly the interaction with the people (buyers and sellers). There also aspects that I don't miss. There is no equivalent to the frustration of dealing with banks on a short sale in business-to-business sales. The whole foreclosure/short sale/financial mess has taken most of the pleasure out of real estate sales, at least for me. Every deal seems to be a struggle for all involved - buyers and sellers and certainly the agents for both.

The sense of any semblance of order and rules and structure in the real estate market is long gone. It's basically the Wild Wild West out there with lenders making their own rules as they go along. Every new Federal Program to help home owners or home buyers seems to bring hope, only to dash it when the reality of what the banks are going to do or not do sets in.

I'm not sure where the answer lies to all of the current issue. Likely only time will eventually bring the corrections that are needed. My belief is that we are in the midst of a major and permanent basic restructuring of our way of life in America. Some of us old timers aren't going to like it, but many of us won't be as affected by it as our grand children will be. They are the ones that will be hired in at the lower tier of the new 2-tier wage systems (the tiers could be appropriately labeled "before and after the meltdown" and equate to $10-15/hour lower wages).

In the new reality home ownership will again be an American dream and not a reality to many. Homes will be smaller, with less of the gee-whiz features and upgrades of the pre-meltdown era. Many other changes are occurring that will impact us all in many ways that we cannot now even imagine. More thoughts on that in a future post.