MY CRYSTAL BALL IS FOGGY

WELCOME

Hello, everyone! I imagine we’re all going to wake up on Wednesday morning, not knowing much more than we know today (Monday) when I’m writing this. Since I imagine y’all will be having trouble focusing this week until we have an answer, I’ll offer up an origin story about one of my favorite expressions. I know we’re all scattered, so let’s jump right in!

THE REALITY OF REAL ESTATE

I Didn’t See This Coming!

Now, one of my favorite expressions is that I’m not the Holy Grail of real estate and my crystal ball is foggy every day except for today. However, I would like to point out that my prediction for the year has been correct. I said we’d be busy through August, and then it would be like the brakes were slammed on until the election. That has so proved true. 

What I didn’t predict is as soon as people were done early voting, I’d have ended up in a listing cyclone. It’s like someone suddenly turned the tap back on. Now, I have to tell y’all that even I, Glennda Baker, have those days when I wonder, Am I ever going to sell another house again?

I’ll be honest, in August, I was having those thoughts, hard and fast. But as of very recently, I went from a dead stop to a full sprint! I have been stacked and packed with listing appointments. I imagine this has as much to do with me never not focusing on my fundamentals as it is the September rise in pending home sales. I guess at this point, people are tired of waiting. When I talked to my photographer, she said, “Every one of my upcoming appointments is for you, Glennda.”

I wonder if it’s not by accident that I recently read something that gave me a solid mindset reset. What I read was someone saying that instead of worrying about everything that can go wrong, you should only focus on what is going right, and that everyone is going to be happy with you.

Try doing that today and tell me if it doesn’t make you feel better.

So my advice right now is instead of wringing your hands over what you fear may happen, just move forward with the confidence that it’s going to work out. (If nothing else, it’s better than worrying.)

@glenndabaker

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STORY TIME WITH GLENNDA

The First, the Second, and the Third

One of my favorite expressions is that you should always be the first love, the second wife, and the third real estate agent.

To give full credit, I didn’t come up with this expression on my own. Instead, it was said by the late, great Alera “Jill” Elliott. She was a real estate agent, attorney, and comedian and she said this at a Women’s Council keynote I attended in the 1990s. I loved what she said so much, I immediately took it to heart.

But what does it mean, really?

I guess I interpret it as each one is a milestone that never happens again. When you have your first love, there’s a real innocence about it. There’s giddiness, anticipation, excitement that is just so pure and un-jaded that people would inject that feeling into their veins if they could. It’s sweet and the opposite of cynical—pure hope.

Now, by the time you get to your second marriage, when you’re the second wife, you already made all the mistakes in your first marriage, so you come to the second one with a degree of wisdom. You have a better understanding of how to use your assets. You don’t have the anxiety and it puts you into the position of just being treasured, because you already know what it feels like to suffer a loss.

Now, why do you want to be the third real estate agent? Let’s take a step back. We all remember what it was like in 2020 when we couldn’t sell shit because of the pandemic. Nobody bought anything—we were all too busy sanitizing our Amazon boxes. But then 2021 rolled around and suddenly, we couldn’t sell houses fast enough. In 2022, we were still riding that euphoric high and everyone was still buying everything, even the worst of what was on the market.

And then we hit 2023 and reality sank in. None of us were prepared to grasp that particular reality. Nobody wanted to be the one to take the first L in the neighborhood. We were coming out of a champion real estate season when every piece of trash on the market sold in a bidding war. We had that aspirational pricing. The thing is, that pricing never catches up with the seller until they’ve gone through two real estate agents who were still expecting to ride that high. The first one didn’t know the market was declining because they’d showed up for the gold rush and didn’t understand that it wasn’t a forever thing.

Then the second real estate agent shows up and that person doesn’t have the balls to tell the seller that their pricing wasn’t realistic, as aspirational pricing was so 2022. At that point, the seller is so dejected and frustrated that they’re finally willing to listen to the third agent and accept reality, which is when we finally get the job done.

What I believe Jill was really saying in that quote was you want to have that mixture of the purity and hope of the first love, the expectation of being treated well as the second wife, and then the confidence of the third agent to go in and just grab that business by the neck.

Ultimately, we are living in highly distracting times right now. We’re all running around, not sure of what to do, what to expect, what to focus on. Do we drill down on listings or do we focus on those 7.9M buyers who have the ability to buy a home right now but have chosen to sit on the sidelines? Do we home in on investors? On foreclosures? Or our farms? And everyone has a different opinion, like they say you should do social media, concentrate on your sphere, do your farm, send your postcards. I swear, every one of us feels like a spinning top right now. When we stop spinning, we’re likely to be so dizzy, we can’t walk a straight line.

You’re probably feeling like me when I couldn’t stop worrying that I’d never sell another house again. That’s when my friend Sam said to me, “Glennda, as long as you work at your business, you will always make money.” It’s just that simple. I think about what Darren Hardy said in The Compound Effect. You do a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow, and every little step you take brings you one step closer to having climbed the whole flight of stairs. Don’t get halfway up and say, “But I’m not at my goal yet so I want to give up.” Y’all have to fight that temptation and recognize that you’re already halfway there. Keep stepping.

Over the weekend, I was shopping for patio furniture with Bill. We went to a place and Bill asked the salesman for his card. When we looked at the card, we saw the man was a real estate agent. I couldn’t help but think how much better his real estate business would be doing if he were to put in eight hours at his real estate job on a Saturday instead. What I’m saying is, don’t give up and give in, trying something with more immediate rewards. Don’t get distracted by what you should be devoted to.

Put in the effort every day and you will reap the rewards. I promise that if you keep at it, keep concentrating on the fundamentals, you, too, will be that third real estate agent.

GLENNDAISM

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Watch This Space

I have so many listings going live this week, my head is spinning. So I want y’all to watch this space if you’re feeling frustrated because it’s a testament to what happens if you just stay positive and keep plugging. Remember, I believe in you, so you should believe in you, too.

Remember, with Homes.com, it’s your listing, your lead.