There’s no ‘secret sauce’ here that I’d recommend you mortgage the house and back.

Disclaimer: I’m merely musing over coffee to take holistic view of some characteristic’s that may continue and or come to fruition in 2011 for those involved in Queenstown’s real estate sector.

• Buyers continue to make initial offers of 80¢ in the dollar
• Most sellers hold firm for 110¢ in the dollar
• ‘Shadow Inventory’ (property managed by the Bank) is added to the vocab
• Realtors get better explaining to sellers the cost to be on as opposed to in the market
• ‘Quiet property listing’ held by realtors largely remain undiscovered
• Service and operationally attuned realtors dominate the QT market.
• Performance gaps between the various real estate brands appear
• Little change to the top order of leading individual sales consultants
• The smart consultants will study the market and not simply peddle dry data
• Less ‘vanity branding’ by real estate brands
• More realtors discover their digital identities through blogs, tweets and posts
• Cold calling techniques and telephone training skills come back in vogue
• Voice sales marketing claws back on digital sales marketing pleasing the ‘old guard’
• Banks get creative and explore ways to vertically integrate within the real estate sector
• A new real estate brand identifies a market gap and enters the Queenstown market
• No single ‘catchall’ answer to the question, when is the best time to buy or sell
• ‘Buy nothing days’ remains the mantra of procrastinators
• Those that didn’t like 2010 won’t bother turning up in 2011

“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.” – Bill Vaughn.

Which are you? Best wishes in 2011- Steve L