We were lucky to catch up with Mara Macon recently and have shared our conversation below.
Mara , appreciate you joining us today. When you’ve been a professional in an industry for long enough, you’ll experience an industry-wide U-Turn, an instance where the consensus completely flips upside down or where the “best practices” completely change. If you’ve experienced such a U-Turn over the course of your professional career, we’d love to hear about it.
The real estate industry is experiencing a U-Turn right now due to rising interest rates and global inflation. For the past two years, we’ve experienced extreme rapid growth in Austin, TX with low interest rates and many new residents coming to live in Central Texas. This growth, coupled with the lack of housing inventory, created fierce competition for the few homes available for sale. Homes received 5-40 offers with people offering many thousands of dollars over the asking price in the hopes of securing a home. This caused much frustration for buyers, some of whom were simply priced out of this competitive market.
Now it’s the complete opposite. Interest rates have gone up around 4%, the average being now 7% vs 3% from last year. Sellers are having the harder time with this sudden change as they now need to price homes strategically and be open to concessions in order to attract interested buyers. Inventory has increased as homes sit on the market for longer periods of time.
While this is a huge change to our real estate market, I personally feel that now is a great time to buy. While most buyer are hesitant to secure a loan at 7%, they need to take into consideration that rates change and they can always refinance in the future when rates drop. Some sellers are even offering rate buy downs, or reducing the price of their home. Gone are the bidding wars of 12 months ago, now the negotiation tools are with the buyer, making it an attractive time to buy for those who understand the market.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
After over 20+ years in the high tech industry as a Finance Analyst/Manager, I became subject to layoffs due to oil and gas prices going down. Instead of looking for a new company, I sat down and thought about what I enjoyed about my past jobs and how I saw myself evolving into a more entrepreneurial role. I realized that I loved customer service and working with people on a personal level. I had a passion for real estate and design, so I became a real estate agent. Recently I sat down for my broker’s license exam. I recently joined Compass RE as a Broker Associate where I hope to build a team of agents
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
After transitioning from a 9-5 employee into a person that ran their own business, I began to explore the importance of growth mindset. I loved the idea that our “thoughts become things”, meaning that what we feed into our brain affects how success and how we feel about ourselves. I took a mentorship class at my first brokerage and learned about things such as affirmations, building resilience, and most of all, believing in myself. Some books that I recommend are The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
In the real estate world, I always advise new agents to go with what feels natural to them. There are all sorts of ways to grow your business/clientele. It can take years to become a more referral driven business, so what I did as a new agent was to host open houses. My first year, I held over 30 open houses, mostly on weekends. Doing this helped me get proficient about talking about real estate with visitors to my open house. I ended up with several buyer clients as a result of this.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://maramacon.com/
- Instagram: @maramaconrealtor
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/maramaconrealtor
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mara-macon-22662331/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaraMacon