Every Realtor out there knows that, right now, in this economy, it is really difficult to sell a house for market value. That is the top end, the maximum price for a house. That is our definition of “Retail”.

Why aren’t people buying? Besides the shaky economy and the high unemployment?

Because buyers know there are better deals out there. They know the unlisted market is flooded with foreclosures and short sales. These would be known to us as “wholesale”.

So the thing for us to do would be to position ourselves between the banks who own this “shadow inventory” and the bargain hunters who can be just home buyers looking for deals, or they can be speculators or flippers looking to turn a quick profit. If they have trouble selling after their renovations, that’s their problem.

How do we get these wholesale listings? We schmooze. We wine and dine. We call banks, S&Ls, credit unions, the US Government agencies;

any entity that may be holding non-performing assets in the form of Real Estate Owned (REOs).

Trouble is, they are very reluctant to let go of these assets, even though they don’t really want them. Sounds strange, eh?

The reason is that they are greedy too, just like everyone else. They don’t want to take a loss if they can hold on for more money. Also, they don’t want to flood the market and bring down home values even more.

So, we’ve got take the few crumbs that we can get from good, old- fashioned persistence and wait for the foreclosure mess to subside, at which time more of these assets will be released. We’ve got to position ourselves to be the Realtors of choice when that does happen.

So, make those connections and network those asset managers. Better times will come. They have to!