Recently, Jane and I spent the weekend at our farm in Estill.  I had been out working in the fields and when I came back to the house Jane was working on her garden in the front yard.  She had her clippers out trimming the weeds which had taken over one of her prized Camellia bushes.  She was exhausted because she had been cutting them for over an hour. 

After 30 seconds with my chainsaw I had cut them all back which allowed her camillia bush to grow.  Why – because I had the right equipment. 

I started thinking how the right equipment is necessary for multiple situations – including real estate. 

I think that the equipment I possess when it comes to real estate is local knowledge and experience.  With these tools, I can help clients and other agents with questions concerning the Hilton Head Island Real Estate market. 

So when selecting a real estate agent, make sure you choose someone with the proper equipment!

I was showing property recently to a retired oil executive and he was talking about the price of oil shooting up due to the uncertainty in the middle east.  Until there is some stability we might continue to see volatility in this market.   

I realized that this kind of thing is true in real estate – there is a saying in real estate that “a confused customer never buys”. 

I will never forget during the first gulf war how we couldn’t sell anything because people were uncertain of the future.  People thought that we were going into World War 3 and they chose to sit back and wait and see what would come next. 

Uncertainty is good if you are a buyer, and bad if you are a seller – just another reason why NOW is the time to buy. 

P.S. – if you missed my blog yesterday, check out the featured clip – NOW is the time to buy – don’t miss out!

With all the talk of snow the last few days (even Hilton Head schools were on a delay this morning) I thought this was a great topic for a blog this morning.

Some might be confused by the title of this blog, but I started thinking about some of the similarities between skiing and the real estate world. 

Over Christmas my family went skiing for 7 days.  The first two days we had great conditions; good visibility and the lines weren’t too long.  This scenario reminds me of the real estate market in 2004 and 2005.  The third day a storm came in and conditions deteriorated; I couldn’t see anything.  This reminded me of the market in 2008 when we started the year off ok and then the market slowly deteriorated.  I spoke to some locals and they said that they don’t ski when the conditions were like that – they wait until the conditions improve.  I think this is what some sellers were choosing to do that in the market; waiting to sell their property until the conditions improve. 

The fourth day was worse than the third day; my daughter, Brandi Jane, and I were skiing down a slope and we had to stop because we couldn’t see the runs.  We ended up following some people down what we found to be a double diamond.  It took me forever to get down the mountain and it made me lose a lot of my confidence.  It made me think how a lot of my sellers must feel – they have lot confidence in the market and it scares them to get back in the market if they are buying.

So if you have some snow outside this morning, enjoy!

That’s right; elections are right around the corner – just 6 days away. 

I think political uncertainty is causing consumer confidence to be low for various reasons – causing people to be slow in making a decision as it relates to real estate. 

One of my worst months for real estate was October of 1988 – right before a very big Presidential election.

My hope is after this election some long awaited questions will be answered and the market can get going again.