Welcome to the Mike Ferry TV podcast. Hear from the global leader in real estate, sales, training and coaching; the legendary Mike Ferry. Every Monday, you’ll listen to Mike Ferry discuss a variety of topics to help real estate agents and brokers grow their real estate business by focusing on improving their mindset, developing their skills and creating a plan of action to increase their production. Let’s begin.

And welcome to Mike Ferry TV the week of March 15th. Wow … Two and a half months done. Hope you’re on track for the goals you’ve set. That’s a kind of a standard thought that I will always be expressing to you. OK, let’s do a little “be honest with ourselves.” How many Listing Presentations have you been on so far this year? A valid Listing Presentation, not a drop by and say hello type of thing. How many have you been on this year? And then second question I wrote down is How Many Listings Have you taken? And then, of course, the obvious third question is how many of those have gone under contract quickly and the answer in most cases is most of them, which we know. But then we have to look at that never ending question we have faced really since the beginning of last year and in most of 2019 is; Why is the inventory so low? And why is it not getting better? Why is that not changing? So I you know, I’ve done a lot of work on this, trying to figure out the answer to this question. And I said, the truth is there are sellers out there. But we are playing today the ultimate game of hide and seek. I mean, if you’re not searching, believe me, you’re not going to find who’s hiding from you. And those hidden gems are, of course, the sellers.

So I want to say to you, probably most importantly, that I think and I should have brought this up a couple of weeks ago, so I’m repeating myself, which is what I do all the time… It’s a mindset shift more than anything else. I mean, there’s no ifs, ands or buts. We know inventory is low, but instead of walking in on a listing or starting your lead follow-up etc. with the attitude, a listing is so hard to get and everything sells so, so quick is to be saying to yourself, for goodness sakes, we are in the best market we’ve experienced in probably 30, 40 years. Almost anything we would list for sale is going to sell and either at the price you listed it at or above, as long as, of course, you’re realistic. I used this example last week on one of the webinars I did. If a property is worth 600 and you’re listing a for $1.2m, then don’t expect a lot of response. OK, so why is the inventory so low? OK, I wrote down a couple of things. First is we need to make the mindset shift. We have to think to ourselves, this is the best market we’ve probably ever experienced for taking a listing. It’s the best market. Yes, it’s a hard market. But think about it this way. Were you involved in Real Estate in two thousand, eight, nine, ten and eleven when everything was for sale?

Everything.

I mean, entire subdivisions had for sale signs the front yard and making a sale was almost impossible. We we went from six point four, six point five million sales in 2006 to virtually three point eight or nine million within eighteen to twenty four months. You couldn’t give properties away. OK, so then of course, somebody was saying, oh my gosh, that’s such an incredibly hard market because, you know, there’s not enough buyers in the market and everything’s for sale. Well, now we have the complete shift or change, and that is only a handful are for sale and we have a huge backlog of buyers. So I wrote down some possible answers to the question, ‘Why is the inventory so low?’ I don’t think there’s any question. This first one is valid.

I wrote Covid created a fear.

And it’s understandable in a lot of the potential sellers, the fear of letting a stranger into their home, there’s simply going to wait till this Covid problem has started to decrease or is more controlled. And we all understand that. But a lot of the agents, maybe even yourself, had the fear of going outside, especially March, April, May and June, when the Covid problem was probably, in most cases at its worst for us because we didn’t understand how to deal with it. And we weren’t probably paying attention. We weren’t following protocols. Well, whenever there is a fear based response to anything, people withdraw. So a lot of sellers, according to the agents that I’m listening to, a lot of sellers who in April, May, June, July, August, September would like to have listed their property and sold it because they knew how strong the market was. They withheld because the fear of letting people in the house. Which is why the Covid protocols on listings were so important; wearing gloves, wearing a mask, carrying hand sanitizer, sitting six feet apart, opening all the doors to let fresh air come through. I mean, there was so many things we should be doing today to maintain safety. And then I wrote on the other side, People’s need for more space has drawn enormous numbers of buyers in the market, probably the greatest influx of buyers since 2012, 2013.

And I know that our industry has this enormous turnover. And many of you haven’t experienced the 2008 nine, 10, 11 or the 12 and 13 markets. But you have to trust in the fact that we were all… A lot of us, were there experiencing the highs and lows of that time. And what happened is when two thousand, 12, 13 and the market started to recover, man, we we just had such an influx of buyers, it was hard to believe we’re experiencing that again today. OK, and what’s today? It’s the need for more space to get themselves in a little bit more properties so they can enjoy some fresh air, whatever the story is – Covid has created both in a positive and negative manner, an inventory shortage. I wrote down third, the real estate market is always starting or finishing as a buyer’s or seller’s market. We’re never in a flat market, and if we are, it’s for about “that” long, it’s like the waves that come in the ocean. It’s like the waves that come ashore on a lake, on a river front, on the ocean itself. The waves are either gaining or losing momentum. The real estate market is always gaining or losing momentum, period.

So except the fact well, here I wrote down this example. 2018, we had five million plus sales in the United States. I don’t, I can’t speak for Canada. It’s a very active market. Of course, 2019, we had five million plus sales, 2020 five million plus sales, projecting 2021 five million plus sales. And as I said last week, in the week before, 50 percent of those are listings. So somebody is taking listings. Your broker, myself, your coach, your trainer wants it to be you. OK, are you participating heavily in getting listings every day? Is that really your focus? OK, then I wrote on this thought: Too many agents simply won’t prospect, they will not prospect at all or talk to people about Real Estate. Therefore, they’re not competing in a market where we need more good competitors. We need good people like you in the real estate market today. But you’ve got to be in conversations with people to make that happen. Another reason why the inventory is so low… A lot, and I’m talking about a lot of listings are never hitting MLS. They’re being sold that quickly. And whether it be an agent asking a seller, and I brought this up to you in the past to give them a 72 hour amendment signed that gives them the right as the listing agent to show and sell before it hits the market.

Or some people are taking this “Coming Soon” and taking advantage of that, and they’re coming soon as being promoted, there’s a listing coming. In the meantime, they’re running around and selling the properties themselves. And whether this practice is ethical or not, I don’t know the answer in your area. However, I will say to you, as a result, less homes come through MLS, which, of course, creates a bigger shortage. OK, and then we also have the factor, which has been in play for probably a good part of the last 12, 14 months. Prices are going through the roof. The law of supply and demand, the demand is high, prices go up, demand is low prices decrease. It’s basic economics, there is nothing complicated about it. However, the prices have risen faster than a lot of owners, homeowners who want to sell and buy and their personal income is not going up as quickly as the prices have. So therefore they’re not listing their home for sale. So therefore we have less inventory. And then, of course, I wrote down the next thought: The majority of agents just feel they cannot compete because they can’t beat the strong listing agents in their area.

And one thing we know for a fact, if you believe you can’t compete, you cannot compete.

However, if you just start practicing and learning the scripts and dialogs and paying attention to your broker, the coaches in your company, the coaches and my company, whoever you coach with, you just pay attention and learn what to say. You can do this job at a high level. So, you know, I’m sure there’s more reasons than the ones I’ve just mentioned. And if you walk away, if you want to send it to me, I’ll talk about over the next couple of weeks. But the point is, listings are always going to be needed and necessary. And the question is, are you willing to play the game to try to get them?

Because if you are, they’re out there for you. Are they harder to get? Yes. Are they easy to get? No. Are you capable of getting them 100 percent? Yes.

Talk to you next week. Thanks for today. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Join us next Monday for another episode of Mike Ferry TV. If you like our show, find out more by visiting www.Mikeferry.com And don’t forget to check out the Mike Ferry Strategies podcast every Friday for a new message from MFO.