Real Estate Alaska Style

October 27, 2009
Volume 3 Issue #10

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Alaska and Real Estate. You might say that is a pretty strange combination. Well, I have to admit I’ve been thinking about real estate since 1973 when I first got started and I am still focusing on real estate and the best ways to deliver real estate results. Plus if you are getting this newsletter, you probably have something to do with real estate.

Alaska , on the other hand, is another story. My oldest son, the adventurous one, is in Alaska teaching “shop” in a native village off the road system, 400 miles due west of Anchorage and much closer to Russia than Sarah Palin ever was. I’m not telling you this because I am a proud dad (which I am) or to get into a political debate. Where I’m going with this is that I see some similarities in his working in Alaska and the Real Estate market today.

First, there really is nothing to prepare you for working in Alaska. Things are done differently in Alaska. Many of the conveniences that we take for granted are nowhere to be found. Ice cream is a strange concoction of blubber and tundra berries. The weather is brutal.  The people are not the same people you find in a typical suburban subdivision. There are both native cultures and a rough and tumble pioneer mentality with a smattering of people running or hiding from something. Everything is far away.

I’ve been associated with Real Estate for decades but in all that time there has been nothing quite like this market. Lenders are not playing by the same rules. Prices have been going down, often significantly. Tried and true marketing techniques are not working. There have been some tough times before but I have to admit but for this market nothing prepared us.

It is much harder to get anything done in Alaska. To get supplies to my son’s village, they can only come by small plane, barge if the river isn’t frozen or if the river is frozen, by snow mobile. First, whatever you need has to be located usually at an exorbitant price. There are not Walmarts on every corner; in fact there aren’t many corners and they are very far apart. Next, the supplies have to be shipped to the closest town, 36 miles away. To make it the final leg of the journey to the village, the weather has to be just right for the supplies to get in.

This sounds to me like some of the obstacles that stand in the way of getting a sale to close these days such as, low appraisals, short sales, balky lenders, even squatters. To close some sales it seems like the stars and the moon have to line up just right.

Getting around is different in Alaska. Just about anywhere else but rural Alaska, people get around by car or truck. However, there are no roads in my son’s area of Alaska, for personal transportation, your choices are snow mobile, small boat or off road vehicle. If you need to put gas in a vehicle, it costs close to $6 per gallon. Despite all the oil in Alaska, there is limited refining capability in the state and it is extremely expensive to ship the gas to remote areas.

Getting around in real estate these days depends on Internet and technology. There definitely is plenty of technology around. If you haven’t grown up with technology however, it can be difficult to use and expensive to acquire and learn. It can be as overwhelming as the vast state of Alaska.

Many people come to Alaska but not many stay for a long time . Living in Alaska sounds very romantic but it is much harder than what most people bargain for. It is not easy! People come to Alaska and miss the conveniences of the lower 48 and find the weather much more difficult to deal with then they thought.

How many people do you know who got into real estate because they like people and houses but later found out that it was much more than they bargained for? There was prospecting, negotiating, difficult people to deal with, lots of competition and sales didn’t always close for reasons often beyond your control…and then the market went south.

OK, the Real Estate market and Alaska are tough, so what? In both situations there is a huge need for good people. Alaska is crying for qualified people to fill the jobs there. In Real Estate there is a big need for qualified agents to get through all the obstacles and get deals closed. In both circumstances it is not easy but there are some rewards at the end of the line. Whether it is  in Alaska or in Real Estate, doing a good job helps people and people need you.

Working in Alaska or in this Real Estate market, there are some big financial rewards down the line. After working in Alaska for a couple of years, the pay is exceptionally good and the experience leaves you prepared to handle just about anything. In real estate, I have always seen that big money years follow a lousy market. Those that survive end up making a lot of money because there is less competition for a while, the survivors are prepared to handle just about any situation and the clients who were helped before are often more loyal and appreciative of work done in tough times.

Working in Real Estate today can seem like trying to survive in Alaska however if you hang in there, despite it not being easy, people really need you and when the market finally turns around, what you have gone through will be worth it.

Tech Tip- What is whois? Whois is a service that you can use to research whether a domain name is available. If a domain name is not available it will tell you where to find more information about the domain. If you have a domain name but don’t know where to get information about your domain including when it expires try a whois is search. To run a whois search, you can type in whois in Google and there will be many websites you can go to that have whois search capability. Just type your domain name in the whois box.