To all the agents in the house,
Let's start with a bland clarifying statement: The Russian invasion of Ukraine perhaps has a limited impact on the U.S. residential real estate economy.
Now, as my colleague Georgia Kromrei reported, the attack could, yet again, push down interest rates on 30-year, fixed rate mortgages. And it could possibly reshape the thinking on interest rates when the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee meets March 15-16.
Another real estate angle, though perhaps not dealing much with single-family homes, is that some rich people in Russia (gasp) own U.S. land. This has lead to articles that are informative, xenophobic, and sometimes both.
And that's, really, the extent of the connection between the Eastern European humanitarian crisis and the U.S. residential real estate economy. Nonetheless, I wanted to touch on the war, because it has dominated the news and, from what I've experienced and read, colored people's conversations, thoughts, and feelings in the last week.
Agents, my question out of this: How do you appropriately incorporate, well, horror into your daily work? Is it something you feel best not to discuss with clients? If you do bring it up, in what context? How, if at all, does it affect the job you do, from the tone you take with a lead to your aggressiveness in closing a deal?
I ask all these questions, of course, following two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, where agents have learned how to change how they work and the world in which they work — and thrived.
Anyway, maybe this newsletter is just a downer, wasting a chance to write about something more directly affecting your profession. Or, maybe it's a topic you've also been thinking about. Please let me know anonymously at mblake@housingwire.com.
Sincerely,
Matthew Blake
Senior Real Estate Reporter
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