I have to admit...

I've been reading some bad news about the real estate markets from incredibly negative resources, such as bubble blogs. The folks who are discussing matters on those such sites really have it out for the real estate biz (including mortgage lenders, appraisers, and builders... not to mention realtors). Lot's of doom and gloom. Couple this with the lousy numbers from charts I've been posting has led me to a less than stellar attitude on occasion.

Lately I've made it a point to seek out other avenues of information to bring some balance in my outlook. Here is an article from the Realty Times that I found while visiting another great and informative blog (BloodhoundBlog).

Part of my poor attitude probably comes from the fact that I've only been in the business since 2001 and I've never been through any other kind of market than what appeard to be a strong one that led us into a rip roaring one over the 2004 to 2005 time frame. Also, my local Association's MLS service only has reliable information on sales going back to 2004. I remember 2001 through 2003 just fine but I can't put my memories into charts and present the information. This is one real slight I have against our Association is the poor managment of records. Even still to this day we do not report on sale information for historica perspective. I've only become interested in it recently myself (which led me to produce this blog to share the information I am mining). Oh I'm sure there are other ways to obtain this information but honestly I don't have the time with all of my other duties to clients and family.

I guess my point is that the current market feels like it did before 2004. I remember clearly going to listing clients and asking for extensions on their listing agreements because their property hadn't sold to that point. Still, as a newbie, I was still making sales and obtaining clients... just like today.

I'm not thinking this market is crashing at all (not that I thought it ever really would), but instead it's turning into a more normal market. Kingman still has plenty of maturing to do while on it's growth spurt, and I still believe that this city will be the third largest city in the state of Arizona down the road (I consider all of the Phoenix area together including budding cities like Glendale and Chandler, no we may not have a larger population than those suburbian cities).

I'm chalking up the first half of this year as a valuable learning experience in my young career. It's going to help me be a better professional. The same is going to be said for other quality realtors who've come into this market since I have.