The market crash of 2007 was a great school for young Orlando realtors
Shortly after the real estate market collapse of 2007, many Orlando realtors decided to give up being a realtor as a profession. They just weren’t making enough money to pay their bills and rather than trying to adapt to the new reality of Orlando real estate, they just gave up and looked for employment elsewhere. It’s not very difficult to be a successful real estate agent in a hot market. It basically comes down to listing the property on the MLS, planting a sign in the front yard and wait for a contract. In a hot market, properties sell themselves.
However, shortly after the market collapse 6 years ago, it was anything but a hot market. Orlando became flooded with foreclosure properties and short sales and suddenly one third of all Orlando homeowners were upside down on their mortgage. Lenders were also caught with their pants down not knowing how to handle this huge tidal wave of mortgage holders that all of a sudden stopped making their monthly mortgage payment. Realtors were at a crossroads, they had to decide to either adapt to this new jungle of short sales in the market or leave the jungle completely and find another way to pay the bills. Many Orlando real estate agents gave it a shot and did their best at doing short sales but found out very quickly that doing a short sale was 10 times the work of doing a regular listing.
There was another breed of agents out there however that weren’t intimidated at all by the drastic changes that were happening in the market. Instead of being discouraged, they saw an opportunity and went for it by jumping in with both feet when the market was at it’s absolute worst. There’s a certain type of person that will do whatever it takes to be successful and they won’t stop until they achieve their goals. This personality type fits well with being a short sale specialist. You have to be tenacious and extremely hard working to make it. Just imagine getting started in real estate at the worst possible time in history…and make it! Now that the market has been getting better, these same agents are really taking it to the next level because things are getting even easier because they’ve already experienced the worst.
Studies show that the majority of Orlando Realtors that started 2007 through 2009 are still active as opposed to agents who began working when the market was hot from 2004 through 2006. The market crash was a great battle ground for young realtors to earn their stripes. The experience of grappling with distressed real estate and being forced to get up to speed on the latest internet technologies like social media marketing has prepared this newest generation of real estate agents to better handle the process of buying and selling real estate.
