20 – The Marshall Report podcast- Episode 20

Today is Thursday May 19th 2016. This is the 20th episode of The Marshall Report. Welcome to the podcast. In this week’s podcast:

1. Sales dogs and wild chickens

2. The move-up market

3. Things to do in Kitchener Waterloo

4. Turtles

5. Podcasts in my head

6. Mediocre opportunities

7. Free real estate information

8. Newspapers.

9. Priorities

10. Jewelry

 

Sales dogs and wild chickens

I’m like a dog, a sales dog.

If you have a dog or even a smart cat, you’ll understand this.

My mom used to have a cat. Whenever she would get her suitcases out, getting ready for a trip, the cat would go and sit on top of the car. The cat knew that the appearance of suitcases meant that my moms going away.

Dogs are smarter than cats.

My dog Chichi knows our routines. She knows when she comes in in the morning, there will be food in her dish. She knows that when I put on my jacket and cap in the evening when I’m finished with real estate work, that we are going for a walk. She knows the sound of a potato chip bag opening, but that is another story.

What this is about is patterns.

I’ve been a real estate agent for a decade and I have gotten used to certain patterns. In the middle of summer and in December, things slow down. In the late winter and through the spring, everything speeds up.

But this year is different. Things did speed up in the spring, but in a different way.

If you have been paying attention to real estate news, you’ll know that the volume of sales is high but the number of homes available to buy is low. There is a lot of competition among buyers. They have to see listings as soon as possible and put in offers early. There is no time to linger and ponder, consider and reconsider an offer. It is the quick and the dead this year.

So that changes my pattern too. At the beginning of most days, I have no idea what is going to happen. I will get texts and emails from clients through the morning and early afternoon asking me to set up viewings of new listings for later in the afternoon and evening. One day last week. I saw five different clients and five different listings. In a normal year, I would see five listings a day but with only two clients.

Another thing has changed too. I was late a few times last week to appointments. I’m almost never late. But three times in one week. That is unacceptable. Real estate agents and our clients are running around like wild chickens this year.

 

What is causing the housing shortage?

This week’s question of the week gets asked to me at least once a day.

Why are there no listing this year?

Why do we have 30% fewer homes on the market this year?

I talked last week about some of the reasons. There are many. It is not just one thing. It is low interest rates, and the global flow of investment, immigration, and economic imbalances. The government can’t do anything federally to stop the madness because Ontario and British Columbia are booming but rest of Canada is either behaving normally or in Alberta, the real estate market is in retreat.

But there is one more thing. The move-up market. In real estate, we talk a lot about first-time homebuyers They are important. But a more important group is the move-up market. We could call these the second-time home buyers (although they could be third or forth time homebuyers). They are the group moving from their current home to their next home. And here is the problem. It’s a catch-22. With no inventory to buy, they cannot put their house on the market to sell. So they are being stalled by the lack of inventory and they are helping to stall the market, through no fault of their own.

 

Things to do

Now that the warm weather is here, everyone will be out and about looking for things to do. KW is pretty great in the summertime. We’ve got lots of patios, parks and things to do.

I used to run a site called 365 Things to do in Kitchener Waterloo. It was an experiment and a hobby that got a little out of hand. Everyday for over three years I posted something to do. It was pretty great and a little exhausting. It is still there if you are interested – 365 things to do in Kitchener Waterloo.

After I quit doing it (I proved my point), a few other places picked up the baton. One of them is 52 things to do in Waterloo Region. They’ve got a pretty good new site covering restaurants, pubs, and attractions.

So if you are interested in the backyard axe throwing league or the St Jacobs and Aberfoyle model railway, check it out. 52 things to do in Waterloo Region.

 

It is always something.

There is always something standing in the way of progress. If it is not a buried road made of old logs then its a rumour of a rare turtle spotting. I’m not kidding.

You know our forefathers buried all those logs because they didn’t want them any more. We dug them up, but we don’t want them either. It was pretty clever for the LRT people to give them away. It was like a low budget garage sale knowing whatever didn’t get sold would end up on the curb, in the trash and hauled away on garbage day. They gave them to us. What are we going to do with them?

Ancient logs.

So now it is turtles. Officials from the Waterloo Region District School Board were out looking for a turtle last month. It was spotted on the site of Kitchener’s next school – the Chicopee Hills Public School. The Branding’s Turtle has a bright yellow neck and a domed shell. If spotted, well who knows what kind of delays lie ahead if that little guy is found.

If you see him please take him to a nice wet bog.

 

I’m in your head

I love podcasts and I love podcasting. I wrote about it early this week. Here is the link

 

Here’s a captured thought. 

Everyday we are bombarded with mediocre opportunities.

 

Free ‘sold’ data

The business of real estate took a bit of  a hit last week and I for one think it is a good thing. The federal Competition Tribunal sided with Canada’s Competition Bureau ruling against TREB’s plan to keep some information only in the hands of real estate agents.

The tribunal still hasn’t said how the ruling will change current TREB rules, under which real estate agents can only give out real estate information to personal clients. Specifically we are talking about sold data – what houses have sold for. Currently we are not allowed to publish that information online. It is expected that Toronto real estate agents will soon be allowed to post online what everyone buying or selling homes wants to know — the final selling price of homes. Currently, the only way most people can find this information out is by asking their agent.

 

Newspapers

You know if you are a regular listener to this podcast that I’m interested in the newspaper business. Mostly because I was in it and a little because I didn’t like it much but also because I’m enjoying witnessing its long slow decline. Enjoying is the wrong word. I am not taking any pleasure in the demise of newspapers. Instead, I find it fascinating that something that was so huge and important before the year 2000 became obsolete so fast. I also find it revealing that newspapers remain so out of touch with reality.

I know a lot of other things have become obsolete, like floppy discs and travel agents, but newspapers were huge. They were an important part of our society. They were influencers and institutions. The were powerful and power brokers.

Lots of things have become obsolete and will become obsolete. Real estate agents will become obsolete someday and so will universities, but this is about newspapers.

Part of the problem with newspapers today is how people connect with things, brands, information and businesses. People connect on a personal, peer-to-peer level and newspapers always had a certain amount of disdain for their readers. Newspapers missed the boat because they saw themselves as the kings of information.

“We are publishing this news.”

“This is what we think.” Newspapers always seemed to say. “This is important, and that is not”, was their attitude.

It always bothered me that newspapers gave themselves lots of awards. For example, the Ontario Newspaper Awards recently gave the Guelph Mercury four awards. The Mercury (my old paper) gave up publishing earlier this year. Isn’t this a blatant manifestation of how out of touch newspapers are? I mean really. The mercury gets an editorial award for stories that near nobody read.

And then there is this story. The Winnipeg Free Press has a program to charge by the article. It is a pay to read program that this year will generate about $100,000 in revenue this year. Well whoopiedoo. That’s likely less than the salary of one newspaper editor for the year.

I’m sorry, not only is it wrong headed, but it is too little too late to save you.

Before I go, there is one more. There is a start up that thinks it can sell a service to newspapers. Its idea is to charge readers to leave comments. Yes, I like it. No only that, readers can earn points that will allow them to have their comments appear near the top. That is fabulous. It won’t save the newspaper industry, but it is a fabulous and creative idea.

 

Make it a priority 

Personally, I never trust people that say that they are big picture players. The details are too important. If you don’t understand things at a granular level or if you are not prepared to put in the time and effort to get engaged with the process or the details, the minutiae of buying (or selling) a house, then you are not going to win. It is going to be more important to some other people. I guess this is the difference between dreaming and shopping and buying. If you are buying or selling real estate this real my call to action this week is to make it a priority. If you don’t, it’s not going to happen.

 

Parting thought

As a podcaster, what I am trying to do is to make little pieces of jewelry for the inside of your mind.

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