Home for Christmas

I remember when
My very first sale enabled a young couple to move into a new house in time for Christmas 1988. It happened only a few days after I'd received my real estate licence at the end of November that year. I showed them a house we'd just listed. They took one look and liked what they saw. They put an offer in on the spot. They needed a mortgage, but this was rushed through without dificulty. A local lawyer also made sure there was no delay in the closing.
It was a piece of cake. I'd no idea that selling real estate could be so easy!
Ha!
It was three more months before I saw even a hint of another sale.

But that's the way the business is. You need to simply do three things:

1.    See the people
2.    See the people
3.    See the people.

In other words, you're essentially involved in a numbers game. Some people buy and some don't, but if you can connect with enough of them you'll at least make enough money to keep on going on until the idea has become a habit you'd find very hard to give up.
The real tragedy, of course, is that far too many new agents quit before they've actually really started. A common misconception, especially among the public at large, is that real estate is an easy way to make money. But let me assure you it isn't.
A point that's seldom realized is that you're going into business for yourself when you get your licence. However, most financial advisers will tell you that it takes up to five years to get a business off the ground and to turn it into a profitable venture. In contrast, you need only about a couple of thousand dollars to study and take the real estate licencing exams. What's then foreseen as a string of healthy commission cheques will take care of the rest.
Ha again!
It rarely happens, and.about 85% of new agents will leave the business within their first two years.

But is there a Santa?
Fortunately, there's something called The Power of Positive Thinking. It either triggers an attitude of sheer cussedness (which I think applied in my case!) or enables newcomers to weather the financial storms involved between the bills coming in and the commission cheques arriving in time to pay them.
In any case, there's the saying that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And perhaps most of all, there are the ongoing sales that drop in our laps just like gifts from Santa.
But do we deserve them? Well, I like to think so. Perhaps we're not all perfect in the real estate business hereabouts, but I do believe that most of us do our best to take good care of the people we serve. Thus, it's possible, isn't it, that if we've been good all year, our Christmas stocking will be full of nice surprises?
In any case, I do consider that, just as the business has been kind to me over the past seventeen years (and especially during the last three since I struck out on my own as an Exclusive Buyer Broker and now work solely for buyers), our whole Niagara Region has invariably treated its agents well.
Sure, we lost a couple of hundred or so when the market did its nosedive in the 1990s. We also then lost some very good and experienced agents who were unable to survive the downturm. But enough
managed to hang on and we've slowly been building the numbers up again so that they're now back to where they were or even a little higher.
And why?
Well, all thanks due to Santa aside, I've long thought that we're blessed with a market stability that other communites -- especially those that are similar to Toronto -- cannot take for granted. We do have some economic ups and downs, but we've experienced very few disastrous business collapses. Even in the worst part of the 1990s doldrums, the number of Power of Sale bank foreclosures wasn't excessive -- and they're by now almost unheard of.
In turn, people hereabouts tend to stay put, be it in a job or in where they live. We're not much of a nomadic set in Niagara. Nor do we unduly outspend ourselves in trying to keep up with our neighbours and let alone outdoing them. It's rather like someone told my wife and me when we first moved here in 1975: You may not make the same amount of money, but you'll live longer and lead a quieter life.
For really good measure, too, we have a constant influx of people who see the charm of leaving the large urban centres behind in favour of a home in Niagara.

Getting what you deserve
Every year then, people do buy houses and every year some people will celebrate their first Christmas in a new home.
(By this I don't necessarily mean a new house, of course. Resale homes [or, if you wish, previously owned ones] outsell newly constructed houses in most parts of Niagara most of the time.)
But there is the annual joy of sitting in front of a fire -- if you have one -- and opening the presents -- if you get any -- and wishing everyone you meet a Very Merry Christmas -- if this is your custom.
And I don't think it matters a reindeer whether you believe in Santa or subscribe to a faith that doesn't include Christmas as a religious holiday. The mood surrounding us, the house and street decorations, the carol singing, the crowded stores, the excuses for buying gifts (and even the thought that they'll have to paid for come the New Year!) -- it all generates a sense that life can be good and that there are moments when we can unreservedly enjoy it.
Hey, even the politicans appear to be committed to taking a few days off from December 23rd (or is it the 24th?) on, aren't they?
And perhaps that's a gift we'll all appreciate!
But let me thank all my readers for letting me hold forth like this throughout the past year. As I think you realize, I get some enjoyment out of composing this newsletter each month. Sometimes I'm serious and sometimes I'm not, but I do find that a more lighthearted one does no harm.
Thus, let me extend my very best wishes to you and leave you with a couple of notes:

1. As the sign off line in this month's letter from Toronto's Fire Guy says: Don't forget to clean your chimney for Santa.
2. Click on http://www.funnies.com/couple.swf , make sure the sound is on, and, like as not, nod in full agreement with its closing screens.

With my warmest regards to everyone for this Festive Season.

Duncan Pollock, Real Estate Broker,
427 Gate Street, Niagara-on-the-Lake,
Ontario, Canada L0S 1J0
Tel: 905-468-3154 Fax: 905-468-3812
Cellular: 905-704-9037
email: duncanpollock@sympatico.ca
Note: e-mail address changed as above on November 3 2007
website: http://www.duncanpollock.com

PS. One of my web pages provides a list of the other newsletters I've sent out. If you choose to go to it, you can click on any title to bring up its full text.
PPS. I've recently been invited and encouraged to create a second website, one that deals with my approach to the industrial, commercial, and investment real estate market. You can reach it, if you're so inclined, at http://www.iciniagara.com.