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Today I attended a California Association of Realtors S.W.A.T class. SWAT stands for:

Special Weapons and Tactics - to survive a down market.

The morning session was mostly a review of the stats that have been compiled by C.A.R presented by someone with a marketing/economics degree. It was the opinion of the speaker that the stats show that the market has hit a bottom in California. Based upon what I heard and saw I cant argue with the figures - whether or not this is A bottom or THE BOTTOM only time will tell. The reason I say this is that while the speaker was going over the numbers I was reading today’s news and this article Citigroup, Wells Fargo May Loan Less After Downgrades raises some concern that there could be further tightening of the credit market esp if there are more losses reported in the banking sector tied to home lending.

If the banks tighten up — we could see things get worse.  If the credit markets stabilize, I think the real estate market will improve and we could come out of the woods.  I am hoping for the latter.

Two things I gleaned from the morning session:

1. So many Foreclosures, Short Sales, and REOs have come onto the market that the lenders have had to create “loss mitigation teams” to handle them.  These loss mitigators have never really done this before because nothing like this has ever happened in our generation so these guys that the Sellers and  Realtors are dealing don’t necessarily have all the answers.  They have been slow to move but as the market has deteriorated they have begun to come around.
2. The cheese is moving.  Meaning the money to be made today isnt where it was yesterday.  We need to “follow the cheese”.

One of the speakers said that if we wanted to service the short sales and foreclosures we need to put “SHORT SALE EXPERT” on our cards and websites.   Well, what do you expect, this is one of the few industries where people study on line for 6 weeks, take a test, then call themselves PROFESSIONALS.  (ok — remember Lazarus - this is not the way to win friends and influence people in this industry)

After lunch we given a good review of the foreclosure and short sale process.  I found this part more interesting and I we really only scratched the surface.

If you are interested in purchasing a foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, short sale, or REO property in Fresno  Call me today:  559-301-1647

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