If you sugar coat the truth, it won't be as gloomy
I got an email today regarding my Charleston South Carolina real estate market report saying, "Well, I must say this is one of your gloomier forecasts". I responded personally but I thought I would anonymize my reply and post it here.
By the way, for whatever reason, if you subscribe via RSS, the original post was not syndicated so if you missed it, click here to read it.
My reply: Did you really think my real estate update was gloomy, actually, the numbers improved over the course of the year with the addition of over 1000 sales not previously counted. Yes, unit sales are down and they will be again this year for 2 reasons, first of all, fewer buyers will be able to qualify for a loan. Second, the media is making the purchase of real estate the equivalent of catching a falling knife and as you can see, in Charleston that isn't the case as prices have held very steady.
There were better times than this past year and it will be better again, just in my opinion, not this coming year. I could sugar coat, pretend everything is great, and revise my forecast lower every month just like the National Association of Realtors but I prefer to tell it like it is, the numbers are public record after all so what's the point of hiding the facts.
Personally, I had a better year in 07 than I did in 06 so that was good, just not as good as in 05 and I'm personally hopeful that my business will continue to be good this year, after all, people are still buying and selling real estate. I think buyers and sellers alike would prefer to work with an experienced, knowledgeable and helpful real estate agent rather than a part time/spare time agent hoping to do one big deal (think about this, would you want to buy a million dollar home from someone who hasn't sold anything in the past year) or from their favorite Aunt's best friend's daughter who just got into the real estate business.