Settleware ‘No Brainer’ blog

Housing Values Near Floor, Tech Firms Say
Murray, Michael
Property valuation technology firms say the housing market has nearly bottomed out–but not quite yet.

“There could be some rocky bounces, but by and large a number of markets have more or less stabilized,” said William Fall, CEO of The William Fall Group, Toledo, Ohio and owner of Valuation Partners, an appraisal management company in Sugar Land, Texas.

“There’s still some pockets, frankly, because of the foreclosure moratoriums that could still roll forward and bring some negative depression on pricing,” Fall added. “But more or less the worst is over…but that could be tempered on a market-by-market basis.”

Griff Straw, CMB, president of Solidifi, Chicago, Ill., said some regions will take longer to recover than others.

“When you start looking at the sand states–California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida–certainly they have a long way to go to recover. Unemployment is still a staggering statistic, and that’s going to require some work to get people back to investing and buying houses,” Straw said. “And certainly we have the over-regulation of Washington coming our way, and that remains to be seen as to what effect that’s going to have on all of us, including values.”

Jeremy McCarty, CEO and chief valuation strategist at Valligent, Roseville, Calif., agreed. “A lot of investors have come in and bought properties and continue to do that, that’s the majority of the activity that’s going on in a lot of market areas, so it’s not the kind of activity we want to see moving out,” he said. “And there’s a lot of inventory that I think we need to work through before we see some major improvements.”

“I think you could equate it to swimming in a lake,” Straw said. “We’ve hit, our feet have touched the bottom, but I’m not convinced that it is the full bottom of the lake.”

I attended the joint Harvard Business School/USC Marshall School Business Conference yesterday and had the pleasure of meeting 2 very successful entrepreneurs, Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappo’s and Bob McKnight CEO, Founder Quicksilver. A few take-away nuggets; the path to success is filled with many bumps in the road (coming from NY we refer to landmines as ‘potholes’), many unforeseen circumstances that can turn your business plan upside down and to identify and find your passion.
If I was to share just one common trait – they are both living and building their business around a simple Life’s Goal “Happiness’. Sounds simple but I have an advanced copy of Delivering Happiness that Tony just inked. An entire book around what he believes to be everyone’s ultimate goal in life. Most gals know Zappo’s as they shoes arrive at their door step frequently. But what is not generally known is that he poured all his profits from the sale of his first company to Microsoft $265 million and saved Zappo’s from the brink of disaster. (Sold to Amazon recently for $1.2 billion) He developed a plan around service and culture delivering Happiness to all employees, customers and partners.
Bob McKnight, surfer dude, started Quicksilver selling surfer bathing suits out of his car for 4 years before things started taking off-40 years ago! For the most part, surfing was his life and he wanted to be at the beach all the time-‘Happiness’. Over the last few years he was hit with unexpected challenges and his stock dropped to a low of $.88. Economy was tanking, bacteria run off was entering the ocean and people were advised not to get in the water, a bad acquisition, etc.and before you know it he was stuck in the office with CFO’s and ‘Wall St’ types-Not Happiness’. Last few quarters he stayed in the game, turned things around and with $2 billion in revenues Bob is back ‘in the water’.
As real; estate professionals we can relate as we were recently hit with an equivalent Tsunami. First question, are you living your passion and second, will you adapt to the unforeseen changes that all successful entrepreneurs face every day. Pretty simple and basic thought – have you really taken the time to discover your Life’s goal? Once you do and chart the ever-changing course you will discover your own ‘Happiness’.