Conditions are Improving...Are You Ready?

As we close in on the end of May, I am extremely encouraged by the level of activity and closings that you have posted this month, and even more encouraged by the closings that are already scheduled for June! This past week, HUD improved the $8,000 tax credit for first time home buyers by allowing the credit to be used towards the down payment of home purchases for first time buyers, which will surely provide an uncontestable motivation for wannabe homeowners. This is an unprecedented “stimulus package,” and everyone you know should be prompted to help you contact anyone who wants to own a home for the first time. As a professional, this new opportunity presented by HUD should be presented in practically every e-mail, every note, every call and every conversation you have for quite some time!

Based on the amount of activity that is occurring in the market right now, all buyers who have been dragging their feet, hoping that economic conditions might even worsen and improve their ability to strike a “Guinness Book” deal on a home should be very concerned that they may have, indeed, missed their best opportunity. It is imperative that you study the statistics in the market and immediately feed them to your database and your farm. While there is a lot of biased, agenda-focused reporting on our industry, our data is unbiased, unfiltered and exactly what consumers need to be using when making critical decisions for buying and selling real estate. Additionally, make sure you come to team meetings on Tuesdays because these meetings are the best indicators of the market’s direction. When our people come together for Tuesday team meetings, everyone has a sense of the energy and the demands of the market, and that’s precisely the ingredient that could make or break your ability to properly guide your clients through the week ahead.

In February, Gary Keller said that the next 180 days may be the toughest days in our careers. If we keep leaning into this dip, we may find that it was only 90 days of extraordinary pain, rather than 180. May and June feel like a welcomed rain at the end of a long drought. Perhaps our greatest responsibility is going to be doing everything we possibly can to keep this momentum going and make every month a rainmaking month. Let’s dig in and make sure that this big, ugly thing we’ve been pushing continues to move. Bit by bit, we are gaining speed.

I am so proud of our collective efforts. As tough as this market has been on everyone everywhere, I have to say that I feel that our market centers feel more like a team than ever. What a testament to the culture of this company and the unshakable entrepreneurial spirit of our people.

For years we have said that “money doesn’t change people – it exposes them for who they are.” While I wholeheartedly agree with that, I have to say that a lack of money exposes people even more. Each of you has proven your mettle just by outlasting the shift in the market. I’m proud to say that our market centers have been “hurricane ready” in our construction and our commitment to protecting the jobs of our staff, the businesses of our associates and the value that we strive to provide in the market place.

I hope this message finds you – or makes you – more determined and more optimistic than you’ve been in a long, long time.

Your #1 Fan…

Shaun Rawls