Reprinted from The Commercial Mortgage/Real Estate Hotline at http://commercialmortgagehotline.blogspot.com .

Monday, August 25, 2008

What Does It Take To Succeed In The Mortgage Business (Or Any Business)?

 

As promised when I started this blog, not everything will be about mortgage training, but some will be about what I consider to be life training. Whether you are a mortgage broker, real estate broker, investor, teacher, builder or anything else, there are certain basic tools that are needed in order to succeed.

None of these tools represent rocket science, but through my experience it sometimes helps to sit back and review them so that they are fresh in our minds. After business school I was a bond trader, and there are few jobs that give you the daily, as well as minute by minute emotional gyrations as having money at risk. This job taught me some simple lessons in human nature, one primary one being that misery loves company. The second lesson I learned is that you cannot succumb to lesson number one.

How Does This Relate To The Mortgage and Real Estate Markets?

When the market was tough, and positions were going bad, the general practice was group commiseration. What does that mean? You know how it goes: groups standing around moaning and groaning to each other about how bad everything is and how there is nothing to do about it.

This situation is very similar to today's mortgage and real estate markets, where most people are not doing particularly well, and the easy path is to latch onto that and use it as an excuse. In reality, those that will survive and perhaps thrive take a different angle, which is to sit, think, maybe think outside the box, and take some proactive steps to try and get business going.

Proactivity is a key. Will every idea work? Will any idea work? Maybe. Maybe not. The truth is that NOT taking any steps isn't working, and maybe out of one idea another will present itself. Like a game of pool, you have to think a few moves ahead. While the market is bad today, it will not always be bad. Markets go in cycles. We had a great market and now we have a bad market. It may stay bad a while longer, but what goes down will eventually go up.

Banks aren't lending right now, but they will again because that is their business. Great borrowers that had money being thrown at them now need to be open to bridge money, but will again be able to go to the banks.

In a round about way what this all means is that whatever you are doing, it is okay to get down. The key and the trick is to not get buried. The way out of a bad feeling is to act in a positive way. One way that I have decided to act is creating this blog which allows me to both educate on the market I am involved in, as well as write pieces like this one that gets me thinking, much like I hope it gets you thinking.

I hope that you find your way too.