HOW TO PREPARE FOR A HOUSING MARKET CRASH - KEVIN WARD

Here we are in 2018, and if you have been in real estate for less than 10 years, you've never been punched in the face by a bad real estate market, by a bad economy. And yet we know this about history. It always repeats itself. Hi there. It's Kevin Ward, the founder of yes Masters Real Estate Success Training. Helping you get more yeses and more successes in your business and in your life. And even when things come crashing down, you want to win. When I started real estate back in the 1900s, we were just coming out of a downturn in the real estate economy, and things were still not really going great. But when I got in, things were getting better. And so I got into real estate in 1998 when things were getting better and getting better and getting better. And so for eight or nine years, I got to ride an appreciating market, a housing boom like we had never seen. And we thought it was because we were awesome. We thought it was because we were good. We thought we were smart, we were making lots of money. And then when 2007 happened, everything fell apart, and I was unprepared for it. I was in denial that it could ever happen. I had never seen a rainy day. So when they said, you know, save your money for a rainy day, I'm like, what's a rainy day? We didn't even know what that was. And here we are in 2018, and if you have been in real estate for less than 10 years, you've never been punched in the face by a bad real estate market, by a bad economy. And yet we know this about history. It always repeats itself. And just like the waves behind me, the reality is wave follows wave follows wave. And so just like you're going to get a wave of appreciation, at some point, it's going to crash. And so in this video, I want to talk about five steps to prepare yourself for the next real estate crash. Now, first question is, are you saying that a real estate crash is coming? Well, I'm saying a real estate crash is coming. When's it coming? I don't know. We're seeing signs, we're seeing red flags. You're seeing reports, it's starting to be talked about, that there's signs of a slowdown, that the market is slowing down, maybe turning in some areas. There are different things happening. Days on the markets doubling, number of expired listings is tripling. Just wherever you are, there's red flags that something could be happening. Now, to me, that is not the time to be getting ready, the time to be Getting ready is before the crash starts happening. So right now, wherever you are, what I'm about to tell you is urgent and it is critical that you get prepared. You go like, well, I don't think there's going to be a crash like there was back in 2007. Neither do I. Some of you are thinking, I don't think there's going to be a crash at all. I think maybe a slowdown, maybe a little correction, but is it really going to be that bad? And again, my answer to that is, I don't know. But I don't put on my seat belt every time I get in the car expecting a crash. I put on a seat belt in case there ever is one. I want to be prepared, all right, and you do too. So if you are prepared for a crash and nothing happens, you're going to win. If you're prepared for a crash and the market crashes, you're going to win. If you're unprepared for a crash, when it happens, you're going to be crashed. And that's what I want to help you avoid. So let's talk about the five things to do to prepare for the real estate market crash. Number one is stay lean in your business, stay lean, or if you're not right now, get lean. And what I mean by that is you want your business to be a streamlined, lean, mean, profit generating machine. You do not want to get your business fed fat with overhead. And what a lot of real estate agents do. And every time that there is a booming market, and we've been in a booming market, every time that happens, agents tend to get fat. They start building mega teams, they start hiring a lot of people, they take on big office rents, they get a bigger fancier car, they buy fancier equipment, they get fancy toys and all that's awesome. But just make sure that whatever you have, that if the market turns and if worse comes to worse, you're going to be okay. Because when that happens, when the market turns, you want to be prepared that you're not having to hurt a lot of people, that you're not having to slash a lot of things, lose a lot of stuff. You want to be prepared for that. And the best way to do it is to stay lean. So the way I look at it is instead of trying to build an army business, I want to build a special forces business that it's all about profitability, efficiency, and that what you have gets maximum productivity out of everything that you have. So number one, stay lean. Number two is get Trained, get coached. Get. Invest in your greatest asset. The number one most valuable asset in your business is you. You're the most valuable asset in your business. So doesn't it make sense to invest in your number one asset in yourself to get the skills, the strategies, the systems and the support and the mindset so that you can win in good markets and win in bad markets? Right now, when the market's great, it's easy to get listings, it's easy to get sales. And if you're looking around going like, yeah, but I'm still not getting a lot of business or as much business as I want, you got to get trained. You got to get at a higher level, because when it gets harder, you got to be better. So number two is get the best training. Get the best coaching that you can get, period. Number three, make money. Make money. You want to make hay while the sun is shining, right? That's what I'm from, Texas. That's what they used to make hay while the sun is shining. When things are good, you want to crush it so that when the market turns, you're already in a position of momentum and positioned in the market with market presence so that you can continue to get more business. There's going to always be great opportunities out there. You just want to be in a position that you capitalize on all of them. So number three, make money. Number four is stash cash. And that means as you make it, you want to keep a lot of it. You don't the tendency, the temptation is when you're making a lot of money and things are going great, the temptation is to spend a lot of money, but you want to be prepared because you're preparing for when the market turns. So you want to stash cash. One, you want to stash cash for survival, which means you want to have bills paid that if the market turns and you have a bad month or you have a bad quarter, that you're not in trouble. And so you want to have a minimum of three months of a cushion, financial cushion in the bank at all times. 6 months will let you sleep at night. 6 months of spendable cash to support you for 6 months in a market downturn. Now, that is just so that you come from a position of strength, not a position of survival. It's more than about surviving. You don't want to survive in a downturn. You want to thrive in a downturn. So you want to put yourself in a position where if something happens, you're going to be okay. Because when the market crashes, Are you going to go down or are you going to rise up? Number five is get ready to get rich. Get ready to get rich. And what that means is that the greatest opportunities to create wealth, the greatest opportunities to take a quantum leap forward financially is in market downturns, not market upturns. When markets crash and most people go broke, that is when the greatest opportunities to create wealth are made. And if you're not ready for it, if you're not prepared for it, then you're going to be in survival mode. And that's what happened to me the last time it happened back in 2007 is I thought I was just ready, man. I was making money, things were going good, I thought everything was going to be perfect. And when the market crashed, I was blindsided. I did not see it coming. Not only was I just fighting for survival, but even if I had seen it coming, seen the opportunities, I would have not been in a position, cash wise or strategy wise to be able to take advantage of it. So right now, get ready for what are you going to be looking for? What are the opportunities you're going to take advantage of when the market crashes? Are you going to be looking at picking up properties for pennies on the dollar when that kind of correction happens? And you're going to be in a position where you can do that if you've done the first four things, if you've gotten yourself ready, you're trained, you're making money, you're keeping money, you want to be cash heavy when a market goes down, because that's the time to buy, that's the time to invest. Because when it starts going up again, you're going to be cleaning house. Look, I don't know when it's going to happen. My crystal ball broke in 2007 and I ain't never got it back. And I can guarantee you neither have you and neither can all the other people out there that are prognosticating and say, this is going to happen, that's going to happen. Some people right now are doom and gloom and others are going like, no, they're full of crap. It's not going to happen. We got another two years. Some are saying, no, it's happening right now. Some are saying it's going to happen somewhere in the middle. None of that matters. All that matters is that whatever happens and whenever it happens, you are ready. And that's my message for you today, is get yourself ready by doing the five things we talked about so that when the crash comes, however big it is, or however small it is, you win. If you have any questions or comments on it, make sure you post them down below. If you disagree. If you got a rebuttal, post it down below. I'd love to hear what you got to say. If the video's helped you and like it, make sure you give it a like. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't done that already, and I look forward to seeing you on the next video where we'll talk about how to help you get more Yes.