Working with a delightful young lady these past weeks has re-affirmed my belief that there’re those of the younger crowd who are willing to work at building equity via home fix-ups, color changes, and decorating. She’s on a fast track in learning what to look for in a home that’ll create faster equity than others all trimmed out with all the visual stimuli. In her search, she’s discovered that good bones and location are the most important. Her keen eye notices not what something is, but rather would she could make of it. I believe whatever home she purchases will be a sound investment where any improvements will likely increase the value far more than the initial costs of those upgrades. Her father has mentioned how much he’s proud of her accomplishments and certainly wants the best for her as well. He’s not like many parents who insists on their children buying more than an entry-level home where sweat equity is a considered a naughty word. Working in a skilled environment, I’m sure she’ll be keeping her co-workers up on any of the changes she’ll likely be making on whatever house she chooses as her new home.
Seeing some of the sales statistics for this first quarter, it appears that the homes sales got off to a slower start this year. These last several weeks are showing some great promise with the arrival of warmer weather along with a somewhat stable outlook for our job market. Sometimes there appears to be too much of an information overload with bad news being sent out via the internet and printing presses. It seems to cloud people’s decision making processes and creates too many obscure “what if” situations being considered simply because they’re in a high anxiety mode. In a meeting today with some buyers, I could sense their fears and simply walked them back through the process without any sort of pressure by me. One thing I absolutely never want is for a buyer or seller to think I needled them into doing something that was not to their liking.
After a calm and extended discussion, they freely made the decision to purchase a home. Isn’t that what most people want? Clearing away all the clouds of dis-comfort so everyone can see and understand clearly, makes for a seamless transaction from beginning to end. The best surprise is always when there are no surprises.
Yet again, I must encourage all these people living in Mason City who are paying far too much in rent for the homes in which they are living. Many of them have no plans to move out of the area and are more than qualified to purchase their first homes. I’m not saying they should go out and purchase some grand estate, but to at least find something comparable or better than where they’re living and get their housing costs lowered along with a possibility of building a future nest egg for themselves. Too many people think for today and tomorrow and won’t get past some sort of mental hurdle and jump ahead a few years or more to see if that’s indeed where they want to be. Yes, there are that group who’ll likely never want to own real estate simply because of their unwillingness to be tied to anything long term. I get that, but I don’t get what is holding back the bulk of other rent paying tenants. A selfless process by which someone fully educates those buyers may likely be the trick to where they’ll start seeing their cloudless horizons.
