There is nothing wrong with asking your REALTOR for his or her views of what’s happening in the Victoria real estate market. After all, the nature of your REALTOR’s job provides both motivation and opportunity to feel the pulse of real estate activity in Victoria.
But remember – training to be a licenced real estate agent in no any way, shape or form qualifies the agent as an economist, or even a skilled or thoughtful interpreter of fact. So, if you hear me or any other REALTOR making general statements such as – ‘I think the market has bottomed’, or – ‘now is a great time to buy’, or any similar statement, your early warning system should immediately buzz.
Am I suggesting you should ignore your REALTOR’s thoughts? No, not at all. What I am suggesting is that you do some ‘due diligence’. In other words, you need to have a two way conversation with your agent to discover the basis for his or her statement. You need to cover two things.
First, you need to know the facts on which the statement was based. That’s usually fairly straight forward, although sometimes at this stage a careful examination of your individual goals and circumstances needs to be included before moving on. Second, but equally (if not more) important, you need to explore why those particular facts led your agent to that particular conclusion.
You will quickly discover that almost any set of facts can support at least two divergent conclusions. Sometimes one of the conclusions may simply be – ‘I need more facts before I can reach any conclusion’. But here’s the point.
Once you know and understand the basis for your agent’s statement, you can decide for yourself how much weight to give it. You might decide you need to do some further research, or reading, or number crunching, or ’what-iffing’. You might decide to seek another opinion from a different agent, much in the same way you may seek a second legal or medical opinion before deciding on a course of action.
When you’ve done your own due diligence, and weighed the potential risks and rewards – both financial and personal – you’re going to know what to do. More importantly, you’re going to know why you should do it. And understanding the ‘why’ makes you friends with your decision. It’s a friendship will serve you well when you come across the unexpected – but inevitable – bumps on the road ahead.
Bye for now,
...Victoria's blogging real estate professional.
Tags: Buying Victoria Real Estate, Selling Victoria Real Estate, Victoria Real Estate
