Every Thursday this month I’m making the drive from Hartford to New Milford in order to take a 30 hour appraisal class. This class is just about the last piece of the puzzle in order for me to get my broker’s license in January. The final piece is the broker’s exam. (More on that in a future post.)
While I’d prefer less of a commute, one of the benefits of taking a class so far away from my market area is that I get to speak with other agents from different parts of the state. There are 8 of us, plus an instructor, and everyone is already a broker or completing this class so they can get their broker’s license. All of the agents in the class view real estate as their full time business.
I always learn new ideas when I take classes, some come from the instructor, but many come from the class participants as we share ideas and stories about our work and the current market. Yesterday I learned a little about appraisal, but also some new ideas for marketing my clients’ homes, working with buyers, and how to increase my reach with potential customers.
The general consensus was that the market is slowing. This week and last week were particularly slow as people are taking a wait-and-see approach while Congress renegotiates the next bailout package and puts it out for vote. One broker who has been in the business for 39 years mentioned that while it is slow, it is nothing like the market in the late 1980s when everything practically grinded to a halt. Hopefully we won’t get to that point again.
Personally, I have been fairly busy lately. This is somewhat surprising given all that is going on. August was very slow, but since then I’ve had several buyers contact me about looking for a home and we’re actively working together. A few have been successful in finding something and are working towards closing, while others still haven’t found the right home so we continue their search. It’s always intersting to learn people’s motivations for buying a home and what makes now the right time versus some other time.
During the next month, I’ll be giving a Friday update with learnings from my Thursday appraisal classes, as well as what I see going on in the market. Some tidbits will be appraisal related, some will just be about the market and “war stories.”
Yesterday’s shocker: an agent recently had a closing where their seller had a pre-payment penalty that equaled 33% of the loan amount. It had to be paid at closing to end the loan early. Talk about egregious lending practices! As a word of advice, your closing attorney should always go over the mortgage with you and should pick up on these types of penalties when you’re on the buying side. Don’t let this happen to you, hire a competent attorney that reads the fine print of your mortgage package!