It’s not you. It’s me. (Or maybe it IS you!)

There are lots of reasons people decide to switch brokers. Maybe you are unhappy with what they provide or maybe it’s just that a different model fits your goals better. In most cases, as an independent contractor, switching brokerages can be easy and painless. First, let your broker know you are leaving. Believe it or not, TREC doesn’t always give us a heads-up when an agent moves their license to a different brokerage.

I know it can be an uncomfortable conversation. However, as a Broker who has received those breakup calls, I can tell you that I understand it’s business, not personal. When I receive one of those calls I wish the agent the best of luck and let them know they are welcome back anytime! After all, the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence once you get over there.

On the other hand, if your broker does take it personally or makes it hard for you…well, then that’s probably a sign that you are making a good move. Next, the trickier part. Dealing with your active business.

Continue reading “Breaking up with your Broker”

We were advised by a real estate broker when we started buying a rental property, that the market was about to tank and that we should not invest at that time. That was ten years ago. We all know what has happened instead. Since then we’ve been told by others countless times that it is not a good time to invest.

Residential real estate fluctuates along a continuum generally assessed as either a buyer’s market or a seller’s market. Equilibrium between these two is usually considered 6 months of inventory. Months of inventory means how long the current available listings would take to be snatched up if no more inventory came on the market. By these terms we’ve been in a seller’s market for as long as I can remember. This means demand is greater than supply and that sellers hold more negotiating power than buyers. We’ve been able to buy throughout the sellers market successfully by buying distressed property that is harder to sell and solving problems for our sellers. The upside to buying in this market has been that values continued to rise with the market so the equity in those properties rose too.

Continue reading “Why it’s Never a Good Time to Buy Real Estate – but why you should anyway!”