WAYNESWORD for LATE FEB. 2010—
CHINESE NEW YEAR & NEW BUSINESS CORROLARY
We’re past Chinese New Year now, I saw the fireworks to prove it up behind Skidmore one Thursday evening as I drove north on Broadway back towards my new stone-faced office-- I’d first come out of Four Seasons on Phila Street when I’d heard the first explosions, and was looking south at a dark Congress Park—there was no celebration there, and no reason for one as far as I could see. I first thought the mid-week festivities might be erupting for some reason from the Racino—the former & still functioning/now thriving Saratoga Harness Track has often been a site for fireworks, mostly on the traditional holidays. But the effect of the echoes through town made it sound as if the sky-ruckus was coming from that direction.
It wasn’t. But I figured it might have something to do with Chinese New Year when I saw the phosphorescent green streaks in bloom up north above the horizon of the streetscape, and it could only be connected with Skidmore College in that direction. I was always a little vague on the date, and when I got home later I checked the beautiful Chinese calendar someone had sent us for Christmas, and saw that the actual date noted there was Sunday, February 14th, coinciding with Valentine’s Day, but maybe that was close enough to merit a Thursday night fest. In any case it felt… propitious… foretelling, compelling. I liked having the feeling of New Year in mid-February. I could feel more hopeful that winter’s worst was finally over,
and we were halfway home to spring, up here.
I never felt very enthused about New Year’s Day coming on January 1st, to tell you the truth. Facing the upstate winter weather of January as the initial task of the New Year was not often a pleasant prospect for those of us who are on the road or outside prowling properties at least half the day. People talk about New Year’s Resolutions, and I liked to keep mine simple: survive January. This year loomed even more ominous—starting a new business venture with no guaranteed paychecks for a couple of months in an economy that people love to describe as shaky, at best. I was motivated, I was downright ascetic, I connected with everyone in my network I could on a daily basis, put my head down and just worked, and worked some more, and praised my new location, my new re-connection to RE/MAX, my new lease on business life. I was going to survive January in 2010, but there were not a lot of moments when I was able to relax and enjoy it.
There were some reasons why January in general was a good place-in-time to be, I reminded myself when I had time to think about it. I loved the fact that my eldest son was born late in that month 18 years ago (during a blessed warm spell, thank you, powers-that-be), and that January always forms the thick of the middle of the local basketball season—these were positive aspects. A year from now our son will likely be at college growing a goatee, and if I still have the urge to watch games will be watching young bucks other than my own kid play high school hoop. So this time around has a bit of nostalgia attached to the month—named for a Roman god who could look forward and backward simultaneously. I’ve found sometimes by doing that it’s hard to move forward in January. I tried to only look forward to the NOW, as Eckhart Tolle now, and Ram Dass and Alan Watts 40 years ago, would have us do—I focused on each moment at hand. I was diligent in all undertakings. I tried not to worry, tried not to anger, was admittedly not always successful. I gave thanks for my many blessings, multiple times per day, life was still good. I tried to treat others with kindness and respect, Namaste. These tenets teach you to celebrate each day, each moment, each hour, instead of worrying about what Day or Month you were in.
Transition towards Spring Market
But as I do my Delayed, Slow-Motion Blog again here on my website, it is late in February and the days are finally tending to be above freeezzing, which is fine with me. We have NOT had the crushing snowstorms that have afflicted more southern points on the compass this winter, and have viewed that with thanks, and a modicum of relief. My sister in Atlanta saw more snow at one point than I did while I was talking to her by cell from the State Park, where dry-ground needles had re-emerged as under the stately pines near the Spring Water fill-up. I also spoke to a Central Showing Service (CSS) rep in Houston that morning about how things were in his neighborhood, and he admitted they had gotten only some wet snowflakes and cold rain, but that it was 34 degrees there, while in Vancouver, B.C.—1500 miles northwest of him—it was 48 degrees that morning, and misty.
In the Saratoga County area, we are still at a point of feeling that 38 degrees is the balm, so to speak. I look forward to that first 48 or even 50 degree day as a harbinger of warmer weather, but right now the wind still has a bite to it. Is this why some people are reluctant to rush into the spring market, or even consistently look at homes— while others more resilient to the cold still plunge forth. It takes a hardy breed to be out looking in January and February, and we Realtors appreciate those who do so.
I fondly recall the days when I used to say that “the spring market begins the day after New Year’s—“ when credit was plentiful and lenders were tripping over people to get them the best loan. Consumer confidence is affected by that, certainly, so even though rates have been at historic lows for some time now,
many potential home-buyers have still pulled back in caution—whether due to their own monetary policy or procrastination or psychology, I can’t tell. So spring comes haltingly this year, though I believe it will get very busy in these next two months till the $8K tax credit opportunity expires. Even after that there will be a surge of move-up buyers who weren’t eligible for the first-time buyer credits on their own but benefited from selling their home to those who were.
While I always love working with buyers, I am definitely re-embracing the listing side of the business—in the next month I expect a nice surge of diverse offerings under my name and our RE/MAX Premier imprint, so to speak, and available on www.RE/MAX.net as well as a myriad of other real estate sites. I love working with owners of unique homes who have put in the effort to make them most palatable to the buying clientele, and are willing to price their home correctly for the times. The only good thing about tough economic times is that it brings a dose of realism back to the pricing picture—almost everyone out there is a bargain hunter. There are also some connoisseurs with money to spend, of course, in and around the Saratoga area, if they find something architecturally interesting enough, and I hope to have real estate product that will appeal to them as well.
The First- Time Buyer Family De-light Story
One quick anecdote to finish up—the most primal delight of the real estate business is getting the young first-time buyer a home they didn’t think they could get…at a price that they can still afford. Without getting into too many details at this point, it was one of the best deals I’ve seen in my 22.5 years of real estate experience—and involved a far lower price for a far bigger (albeit unfinished) house than the first one I sold in 1988, which was a $95,000. cape on Gick Road in Saratoga Springs. This year’s deal of the winter was a bank-owned 3300 sq ft blend of old and unfinished-new out near Perth, on the way to Amsterdam, west of the Saratoga County line, where one of my old sales manager’s used to claim that “the real estate world stops and drops off the edge over there…” Price-wise that may be true, but there is some beautiful countryside out that way, and some scenic views.
In any case, after learning they—and their “angel investor”-- had acquired the place, the young couple and their two children wanted to meet me there once more to hand over the check and the signed paperwork that would clinch the deal. I was happy to oblige, and could tell right away from the tone of the kid’s voices that they were as excited as if it were still Christmas. “Are we gonna BUY this house, sir?!!” the 4 year old “Tori” both exhorted and queried me as soon as I got out of the car. The almost-2-yr old boy was running in circles, totally jazzed up by the experience once we got inside. The two kids had fallen in love with the swing-set out back—still very sturdy after a couple of years of dis-use—in the well-fenced yard on the first trip over there, and the house was just a throw-in on the deal to them. I had a moment of silent acknowledgement towards the family that had lost the home a year or so prior to this, and figured it must be hard for them to watch the aftermath of the foreclosure process, when other people benefited from their loss. I heard they still lived in the area, as well, which made it worse in a way. They had invested a lot of energy and construction money into a place that never quite got finished, and those kinds of stories always involve a certain amount of pain and remorse. But I had to focus on the young family that had engaged me to help them find a place, and their kids were exhibiting the opposite emotions of loss, to say the least.
Their roars of approval and hoots and screams in the echoing bare spaces of the back of the house immediately gave the place a hint that it was about to come back to life. Their parents were grinning and glowing even as they saw how much work they had to do to make it right again. Sweat equity would be the name of this game, and with the family expecting a third child by late summer/early fall there was a deadline at hand, especially for the nesting mom.
I’m not sure I ever saw a more appreciative foursome than that family, at the time of confirmation of purchase. They actually helped reaffirm my belief in what I am doing as a Realtor—really helping people with their housing acquisition in a way they could not accomplish on their own. The end result of the money earned with first time buyers—especially in Fulton County-- is not as great as with higher priced sales, but the karmic rewards perhaps are greater.
I’ll have more anecdotes to share in late March or April, and am looking into some blogging software which will help me update this site daily or weekly if I choose—meanwhile keep feeding the birds till spring arrives and travel safely till the roads get dry and clear once more.
Copyright Wayne Perras 2010