Just do something...

“Never let what you cannot do stop you from doing what you can do.” (Stephen Pierce—Internet Marketer) from my favorite source for inspirational quotes – the Jack’s Winning Words Blog.

I’ll admit to being a worrier and what I would call an over-thinker. Sometimes I fret away the night thinking about all of the worst-case scenarios that cold occur the next day in some situation at hand (usually some confrontational situation). Usually everything works out OK, but I never seem to let an opportunity to worry pass un-worried about it. To some extent that is letting something that I cannot stop or change stop me from doing what I should be doing - perhaps getting better prepared for the situation at hand instead of just conjuring up dire consequences for scenarios that never happen.

In real estate there can be a tendency to focus on what we can’t do and let that stop us from doing what we can do. That happens a lot with short-sales where there are lots of things that are out of our control – things that we can’t do. But there are things that we can (and should) be doing, even in short-sale situations. Things like helping the seller (of that’s who we represent) get their documentation together or get in touch with a good short-sale lawyer. Or, we could be counseling the short-sale buyer on the need for patience and persistence in the process ahead.

Obviously, in real estate we cannot magically produce a buyer; however, there are tons of things that we can be doing to market the property and try to reach the buyer whom we know is out there somewhere. Perhaps we are not being allowed to properly price the house (in your opinion) for the market. That shouldn’t cause us to just shut down. It just adds to the marketing challenge. Try an ad headline like, “It wouldn’t be at this price if it wasn’t worth it.” That might intrigue some would-be buyers to take a look and that’s really what you are trying to accomplish.

Maybe you have owners or tenants in a listed property that make it difficult to show the place. That makes it all the more important to do a great job on the listing pictures and virtual tour. Maybe you could also create a YouTube video and post that, too. The point is to maximize what you can do when you run into some can’t do’s on a listing. Remember that doing something is always better than doing nothing.