Real Estate, Investing, and "Bad Markets"

With all that has happened in the last month or so around the world with the credit crunch, banks failing, real estate prices still declining, and of course the great world of politics, I can’t help but think of lyrics from a song artist that escapes me at this time. “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”
It is hard to keep a positive attitude on our countries financial future when we hear nothing but doom and gloom around us. One point of this whole mess that really struck home to me was CNN’s top ten most wanted for the cause of the financial crisis. One of the people named on the list was “you,” meaning each of us in the US. It really struck me with the fact that I do have some control with what is going on. I may not be able to bail out a bank, but I can start at home with bailing out my own finances. As with 99% of America I got caught up the notion that the ride we had from 2001 to 2006 was never going to end. Even though I saved what I thought was a good portion of my income, it was no were near the 10% that used to be our nation’s average. I also thought I played by the rules investing in real estate and putting money in mutual funds to help my money grow faster than it would in a savings account. Unfortunately, neither of the investments have shown the return that was expected, and unfortunately opening my IRA and 401K statements have been disappointing to say the least. So what next?
I haven’t written in a while because what’s next is to keep investing. I just finished up an investment home and sold it to a first time home buyer. I made more than I would have with just a regular commission, and still gave the client a great deal on a home. I am not saying that quick turning a home is the best way to make money in this market, but I found a great home that fit one of my clients needs and we took a foreclosed home and rebuilt it to his needs and helped out the neighborhood it was in. I wrote back in January that now is the time to keep moving forward with your real estate investing. People always look for the deal when they go retail shopping. Yet when it comes to purchasing a home or investments in the stock market, we shy away from the markets when they take a major drop. I do not know enough about stocks to know if buying now is a good idea, if that is the investment vehicle you want to use, consult a professional in that area. As far as real estate goes, even in Michigan, which is being written off by most of the country, there is still money to be made in this area.
Even if you are only looking to purchase a home to live in, buying when the market is near the bottom of the trough, (I say near the bottom because no one knows when we are going to see the bottom or when the turn around is going to happen), gives you the best chance of seeing the biggest gains when the market does rebound. This is one of the greatest opportunities that has been seen in twenty years to purchase. I have always been taught, when you don’t know what to do, look at the best people in the industry and follow what they do. Listening to Robert Kiyosaki in an interview on the “Real Estate Guys Radio,” he was talking about how exciting real estate investing is right now. Many of the big investors are currently out buying properties all over the US. These are the guys to follow and study if you want to be successful. I will be adding a few more books to the list I have read recently. These are an excellent source of education to understand how real estate, investing, and goal setting work.
Even with all of the bad news we are being bombarded with everyday, this is the opportunity that the big guys and sophisticated investors of the world have been waiting for. If it is the right time for them, why not have it be the right time for the rest of us?

Motivation Under Pressure

As I was listening to the Real Estate Guys Radio Podcast a few days ago, Robert Helms the show’s host, said something that has really stuck with me over the last few days. “When God gives you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem, the bigger the gift, the bigger the problem.” The quote is from the show put on I-tunes on 7/8/08. Remember, even if you don’t have an I-pod you can listen on your computer for free, or I think you can go to their website and download it directly at www.realestateguysradio.com.
I haven’t kept up with my posts recently, because I have had a severe back injury that had pretty much kept me bed ridden for a while. If you work a commissioned job, then you know what type of effect this can have on your income stream. Not to mention on the days when you try to talk or meet with a client trying to stay focused through extreme pain to make sure you are doing the best job to serve their needs.
From a personal standpoint spending days at a time not being able to work is not only frustrating, it brings out a great level of anxiety. How is it going to work in the future to keep providing the essential needs for my family should this become a permanent part of my life? Quality of life issues also come into play. I know many people out there are in extremely worse shape than I am, and to you I admire your ability to move forward everyday.
I have written in past posts about the ideas presented from The Secret, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracey, Napoleon Hill, and other self help Gurus that provide tools for helping people who want to achieve their dreams. Links to most of these guys are on the right side of this page. “When you have clarity of vision, strategy and tactics become self evident.” Russ Gray, Real Estate Guys Radio Co-Host. “Obstacles are those things that scare you when you take your eyes off your goal.” Henry Ford. If you have subscribed to the Quote of the day on the Nightingale-Conant Site you would have seen the last one about a week or two ago. The point being, there is a never ending supply of this positive material that we can be feeding into us combating all the negativity we hear. It is a never ending bombardment about the elections, the economy, gas prices, floods, and many other tragedies every minute. If you listen long enough you would swear that the world is pretty close to ending.
My first week bed ridden, I really just watched TV the first few days the few hours I was awake. The pain meds kept me asleep the rest of the time. All of a sudden it became a frightening experience realizing that what I had written out for goals was about to become next to impossible. Without being able to go out and show houses all of the other necessary activities involved with my job, all that goal setting and planning I have been doing seemed to have just become waste. I really put myself in that true victim mode of why is this happening to me, it’s not fair, and started to allow myself give in to the negativity that surrounds all of us on a daily basis. This is what keeps many people from ever even trying to achieve their goals and dreams. I wouldn’t even play the newly updated Zig Ziglar webcast on my computer because I didn’t even want to be cheered up. If you have ever heard him speak, I don’t care how negative your mood is, his positive energy is so great that you can’t help but have an attitude change after hearing him for even a couple of minutes. During those days that feeling of complete isolation, no one else knows how I feel, and probably doesn’t care began to set in a little. I am sure everyone has been in this situation at least once in their life.
I knew I was heading down the wrong road with where I was going, and also realized that as Zig and many others have stated, we are in complete control what we put into our heads. I realized that no one was going to be able to help me but me. This doesn’t mean that didn’t I need a support system of friends and family, I did to help with my basic needs. Still that only goes so far until you put your head back into the right frame of mind. Henry Ford was right I had taken those obstacles and turned them into walls.
I pulled out my list of positive affirmations that I had written about myself some months ago, and looked at it again. For those unfamiliar with the process, take a piece of paper, and start writing what you are and what you want to become. Put it in first person and write it or say it three times in a row when you first wake up and follow it with some positive reinforcement reading or listening before ever turning on the regular radio, picking up the paper, or watching TV. A few examples off my affirmation sheet are, “I am a great husband, I am a great father, I am comfortable in all situations, I am a great Realtor, I know exactly what I want and am doing everything I can to get it.” I keep this stored in the front cover of my goals three ring binder I have created for myself.
It took me a few days but I realized that I am in a situation that I am not in complete control of, so I need to adjust to work around it. I had stopped doing everything I could to achieve exactly what I want. This was an important realization, many of the things that we get upset about, like a rude comment from a stranger, or friend or spouse for that matter, or getting cut off by another car while driving down the road, only puts us in a negative spiral. This can lead to an entire day of having one bad thing after another happen. Most of the reason I am writing this blog post is to remind myself of this point. When we put something in writing our minds really begin to work on making that materialize into actuality for us. It doesn’t matter whether is positive or negative. How many times have you said “Great, now my day is ruined and had it become anything but that.” Once we set our biases for how we are going to view things, we gravitate towards it and make it a reality. Imagine waking up every morning and saying, “This is going to be a spectacular day no matter what.” Even if small irritations happen, you will be less likely to let them start your negative spiral. Is it going to stop every bad day? No, but it sure can’t hurt to start with a positive mindset instead of a negative one.
You might be reading this and think that this is total nonsense. If that is your mindset than you are right, this is nothing worth taking seriously. For those interested, I would challenge you to make your own list of traits you want. Whether you believe you have them or not right now, write it down and say it out loud every day for at least a month and see if it makes a difference in your life. Remember, keep it in first person and keep at it even if it feels like you are lying to yourself at first. If it makes a difference, I would love for you to post your results on this blog page. This site may be geared towards real estate, but my personal mission statement I wrote a year ago for myself is this. “In being my very best, I will leave a positive impact on every person I encounter.” So spending a little time on goals and self actualization is a good thing. If you are considering buying either a home to live in or an investment property, setting goals is especially important. It is a huge decision, and important to make sure that you are prepared.
Even though I may not be able to be out on the streets everyday, I have been able to rely more on my team in John DeMarco and Mary Jo from KW to help keep the marketing plans moving forward. We are having great success with our new floor plans and pricing. I will go more into that next time.
I have really had a lot of time to put thoughts together both positive and negative, and have run through the gamut of emotions. It is hard to stay focused when so many lines are pulling you as try to move forward, and some days feel like you just failed. It was easy buying into all of the positive speakers when things were going great. How could I disagree with anything they said? The market was great, sales were hot everyone around had a job, that positive stuff was magic. I felt positive and I had nothing but positive things happening all around. Then I thought I was still being positive, and something like this happens. It gets a lot harder to try and agree with all of the gurus and their positivity programs when it seems everything crashes. Most people give up here and go into the victim mode of operation.
When I heard that quote stated in the beginning of the blog, “When God gives you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem, the bigger the gift, the bigger the problem.” All the of reading positive books, listening to every positive speaker, going to positive seminars, writing my affirmation statements finally made sense. I got hit with a big problem, it’s not my fault, and I can’t change it over night. This is not the time to give up on all of this, this is truly my opportunity to prove that it works, and become an example. Unfortunately, I have seen many people get to this point and back out. I watched one of my fathers friends literally whither up and let himself go until he finally passed. Being here now, it is easy to see why. It may sound weird, but I am now excited to have my current situation. This allows myself the opportunity to truly grow into a better person, and find a creative solution to still achieve my goals. Nothing in life ever goes as we truly plan. It is our job to make sure we stay on our course that we have set for ourselves. If you haven’t set a course, do it now. Use the tools out there to learn how to set clear concise goals and go after them. You don’t have to, but at that point life is in control of you, not the other way around. I know I want to set my own future, not depend on someone else to plan it for me.
I hope you all have a great start to your week. Work to keep a positive attitude as you go through your day. Try to pass it on to others around you as you go through your day by holding a door, saying hi walking down the street. You would be surprised the impact one kind word can make to a stranger, it may change the course of their day. As Zig Ziglar’s webcast says. “I hope your week is better than good.” I look forward to your feedback.

Parade of Homes has less homes but won't dissapoint

If you have not had a chance to make it out yet, this year’s Parade of Homes™ will not disappoint. There are 55 homes in the Parade showcasing what Mid-Michigan homebuilders have to offer. I have been through 8 so far and been impressed with all of them. Seirra Homes has 3 in the Parade and the two that I have seen are both worth the time. The “Spartan Cottage” in College Fields is truly amazing. It is a custom home that is over seven hundred thousand including the lot, but once you are in it you see why. From the notty pine ceiling to the custom Alderwood cabinets the kitchen is perfect for entertaining. At the preview party the night before the Parade there were probably 50 people in the main living and Kitchen area, and there was still plenty of room to move around. The Spartan themed basement would be the envy of any MSU fan, complete with the projection TV to watch the game on. There home in the Oaks, though not as extravagant is a great value at $289,000. With almost 2600 square feet of living space it would make a great family home, and it still has many features that you wouldn’t expect in this price range.
Even though the housing market has slowed, the Parade of Homes really shows that there are great things going on in the Greater Lansing area. From the beautiful redevelopment projects downtown, to all of the single family homes and remodel jobs in all of the communities in the area. Have a great day, and if you have any questions on how to get tickets call me at (517) 202-7572 or visit www.glhba.org.

Foreclosure relief Home buying Counseling for Mid-Michigan

As I walked into Lance Queen’s office he is just hanging up the phone and states that for the last few weeks he has been swamped with phone calls like that one. It was a person whose home was going into foreclosure. Unfortunately for that couple the sheriff sale has already taken place so there was nothing that the Center for Financial Health could do to help the situation.
“Helping working families and individuals build assets through home ownership” is the Mission statement of this non-profit organization, and when it comes to helping people you rarely find a person as passionate as credit counselor Lance Queen. Lance is a certified counselor for HUD (Housing and Urban Development) and MSHDA(Michigan State Housing and Development Authority). The Center for Financial Health where Lance is employed provides five main services for people; pre-homeownership counseling, post homeownership counseling, money management skills, a home education workshop, and foreclosure prevention. The last one is where he has been the busiest with phone calls in the current market.
His goal in foreclosure prevention is to look the whole picture with the individual through a sit down meeting, try to negotiate with lenders, or in the right circumstances use government programs to help families stay in their home. “The key is people have to call me when they are starting to get in trouble, if they wait until a week or two before Sheriff sale there is really nothing I can do.” This is the message Lance really wants to get out.
Besides the foreclosure work, there are many more programs for people to take advantage of. If someone is considering buying a home the education courses can be invaluable. There are credit management programs to learn how to budget, a four class seminar on the entire home purchasing process, if you have bad credit you can learn how to become mortgage ready again in the future. The skills taught here are what everyone in the future will have to become very adept at. As gas and food increase our Mid-Michigan families purchasing power is eroding fast. These classes can help those who are already well into the crunch, and also help others who want to get a jump on the cycle and start planning now. The best part is, these services are free to Michigan Residents. This is a government sponsored program. You are already paying for it, you might as well use it.
I asked Lance what the advantage was of coming here, instead of going directly to a lender. “The center has no interest in it when you get a mortgage. That allows me to pull credit, assess the situation, and find the best deal for someone. It takes the pressure away from the individual wondering if the lender is really looking out for their best interest. Not all banks have all programs, so we can tell them the right questions to ask when they start interviewing banks for a loan. We may even find money through financial aid and grants in the right situation.”
Lance is very knowledgeable in the banking industry having spent 10 years doing mortgages. I met him when he worked for a bank and knew that he did things right when he worked with people, and him and I know all to well, that there are some companies out there who try to push people into the product that makes them the most money. This has caused part of the problem that the housing industry is currently in. This is really a good fit for him, in the fact that it really allows him to help people with no strings attached. If you need to get a hold of Lance his number is 517-319-1309 and his email is lanceq@centerforfinancialhealth.org.

Suburban's E-home perfect fit for Michigan Families

Suburban Homes of Mid-Michigan has just released their new housing line to help combat the new construction housing slowdown experienced in the area. "Many of the homes built can have up to 10% of the materials brought to the job sites thrown out instead of used in the construction of the home. This money comes directly out of the pocket of the consumer. This home has been engineered to be extremely efficient to build allowing us to bring our home owners a product with lots of square footage at a very competitive price. We feel that this is a perfect product for Mid-Michigan families and allows them to have a great home with an affordable payment." Stated Dave Netti of Suburban homes. Dave is able to build a 2100 Square foot two story starting at $179,900. His ranch home starts at$135,000. I will post a picture of the homes with actual square footages later this week.
I spent a couple of hours with Dave and a couple other select Realtors from around the Lansing area including John DeMarco of Keller Williams. The concept of these homes were very well accepted and the overall consensus is these will be a big hit in the greater Lansing area. The one disadvantage is the lack of choices that the consumer has in color choices, of paint and doors, but the cost of the home will more than make up for that shortcoming. Forsberg has a few home sites around the Greater Lansing area that these homes could be built on. The prices quoted above is a turn key house, meaning it is a livable house at that price. If you are interested in finding out more about these, please contact me at brentforsberg@gmail.com or leave a comment here, and I will get back with you more information. This home will be springing up all over mid Michigan this year, and I will bring more pictures of it and updates as they get completed. Have a great day.

Doom's Day for Education

This morning at the Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce Ryan Doom of the company WebAscender gave a great talk on the value of social marketing on the web. He gave a great example of how the sharing of knowledge verses keeping it a secret helped out a corporation in the mining industry that otherwise would have been in deep financial trouble.

I know that this isn't exactly real estate related, but it fits into the scope of this blog because Ryan and Webascender is the type of company that the Tri-County area needs. It is locally founded and is growing to become an asset in this region. Ryan mentioned that he is a member of the local Technology council that also has members from MC Squared Technology Group and Tech Smith to help educate local workers and bring more talented web designers into the area. This is a great way to help combat Michigan's Brain Drain from the state. Even with the soft state of our economy there are more and more signs of these businesses really starting to grow and be noticed. It was also exciting to see in the paper today the fact that another thirty million in grants are going out in June as part of the 21st century jobs fund. If real estate is to see another growth spurt in the area it is going to take more of these types of companies to grow and gives us large employment growth in the region.

Ryan's presentation covered the importance of social networking and showed the benefits of many of the websites and communities available online. He posted his presentation on his website www.webascender.com and his company could provide some guidance if you are interested in learning more about using Facebook.com, myspace.com, linkedin.com, wiki's, and blogs to as he put it "leverage the world." It is truly encouraging to see people like Ryan who believe in our community and working to help better the region. There has been a lot of exciting things going on in our region that will be covered in the next few weeks. I will be covering a new type of home being built that Mid-Michigan has not seen before, Lance Queen, a local bank expert just moved to a non-profit to help people with home purchasing, and John and Brad have moved to Keller Williams to bring a new level of service to their real estate careers. Again, if you have anything that you would like to learn more about or have a comment in general, please feel free to call me, email, or post a comment here. Have a great day, and thank you again Ryan for sharing your knowledge this morning.

Investor education key for success

An investor friend of mine from Dayton, Ohio informed me last week about a very interesting real estate site. www.reiclub.com is full of information for those of you who are looking to make real estate investing a long term goal. I will be adding it to my links on the the right side of this page. For those looking to make bids on HUD houses, it is going to be a week or two before the site is back up and running. Chapman announced on Saturday that they are turning Michigan back over to Michealson, Connor, & Buhl as of today. The short notice has left current accepted bids up in the air, but after talking with them today, it seems they will have it smoothed out soon. The new site, or old site if you bought or sold these a few years ago will be www.mcbreo.com. If you are interested in learning more about how to bid on these, please leave a question posted here, or email me at brentforsberg@gmail.com.

Home Builder Economic Forecast given at International Builder Show

I am sorry for all of you reading this in Michigan right now. I am currently At the International Builders Show™ in sunny Orlando, Florida. It is a little cool right now because it is in the 60’s. Don’t worry, I’ll do my best to cope. Yesterday we were given the 2008 housing outlook according to the NAHB (National Association of Home Builders) economists. Their news agreed with what I posted a few weeks ago regarding the fact we seem to be moving more homes and with the slow down in building, inventory is reducing. It was nice to hear the validation in the numbers that we are seeing locally. They also gave a report regarding the foreclosure rate and what the numbers realyy mean. I will go into more detail on this next week. They are very optimistic about the outcome the home building industry for the next two years. I am going to try and get permission to post part of the report up to show what they had put together. It is a pay service, so I cannot guarantee anything. If you want to try and find it you can go to www.nahb.com and look for it. I am moderating two Meet the Expert courses at the builders show so I have posted some of the forms that Forsberg Real Estate uses in its day to day operations that I am going to be talking about in Florida. These are mainly Goal Setting and Agent Training forms, but are located on the right side of the screen if you are interested in looking through them. Have a great day.

Lansing Housing Market Stabilizing

Good news for the Lansing Real Estate Market, we are finally seeing the amount of inventory on the market getting lower. In July 2007 our company found that there was approximately 15.35 months of inventory based on the amount of homes available divided by what had sold over the previous year. This information is based on data pulled from the Multiple List Service of the Greater Lansing Association of Realtors. A current snapshot using sales data from 2007 over current inventory shows that the amount of inventory has dropped to 13.2 months. This is still up from the beginning of last year, but hopefully it is a good sign of what this year will offer to us in the real estate market. New construction has also seen a significant drop. Currently there is approximately a 14.2 month supply of new homes in the Greater Lansing Area. This also shows a drop in the amount of supply currently available. Most of that is due most likely to the significant drop in permits pulled for new homes in 2007. We saw one of the lowest years for new permits pulled in the tri-county area since the early 1980’s.
In our communities we have around the Lansing area, we are also seeing an increase in the amount of traffic that is coming through the doors. We currently have three new homes being built in Lakeside, two getting ready to start in Williamston, and one that just completed in Mason. Even with an election year, it seems that barring an announcement of a major job catastrophe for the Lansing area, we have seen a turning point in our housing market.

Housing starts at 25 year low Good for Lansing

As housing starts continue to drop, some people might argue that this is further news of the real estate market falling off. Here is a link to the article at yahoo; http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080117/economy.html This is simple supply and demand. We built a few to many houses in the U.S. over the last few years, and simple economics states that as demand fell off, prices are going to fall, and production will slow. This should mean that we will finally see some of the market inventory start to reduce. We have seen a steady increase in inventory over the last few years in Lansing. This should be the year where we see that number stabilize and start to decrease.
What this area needs is job creation. We have seen some positive signs of growth with the revitalization of the downtown buildings and several of the companies in the area growing employees. The West side GM and Grand River Plant are producing award winning vehicles and our housing starts are at a 25 year low. This is a good formula for the Greater Lansing Real Estate Market. We already are the strongest economic region in Michigan based on unemployment. We should look forward to a stabilization of our real estate market over the next 12 to 14 months.
Also congratulations to Coldwell Banker Hubbell and Briarwood Realty for the Merger. Both Bob Hubbell and Bill Mcleod are great businessmen and I am sure that the combining of these companies will be great for our community. They both have exciting projects going on around town with the Stadium District, Point West, and many other new construction communities. I hope the merger goes smoothly and the combined company has continued success.

New Years Resolutions, Education, and real estate

I hope everyone’s New Year was good and you haven’t broken too many of your resolutions yet, it’s still early. One of my goals this year is to read 15 books in either the real estate field or self help type books. Last year my goal was one a month, and I achieved it. Not all of them were in print though, I have used my MP3 player to turn my car into what Zig Ziglar calls, Mobile University. What does this have to do with real estate? If you are thinking about buying a home, or investment properties there is a lot of material out there to help you get a jump start. I have a couple good sources on the side of this blog page. I was looking through I-Tunes, which is free even if you don’t have an I-Pod and the amount of knowledge there is incredible. No matter what your interests are, there is probably a cast that can give you information about it. You can even download podcasts that teach you different languages.

I will be posting the 2007 final market report for Lansing Real estate within a few weeks. If you would like to find out more information about the Lansing real estate market before then, please feel free to call me or leave questions here and I will get answers posted up. My number is (517) 349-9330 ext. 206. I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope you look as forward to a great year in 2008 as I do!