As the stream of coffee poured out into the eager hands of business students and alumni, the University of Missouri-St. Louis Breakfast and Business Seminar kicked off.
Meeting at the West County campus last Thursday, the morning was a cacophony of networking, bagels and that all important black beverage—coffee.
The topic for the morning was the housing market. Throughout the past year, this sector has seen a massive downturn.
From productivity to revenue, the housing market has not been the place for much growth. However, on Thursday, two seasoned veterans of the real estate industry presented a relatively optimistic picture for both potential home buyers and the housing market itself.
The presenters were Jim Brennan, president of McKelvey Homes, and Ken Kruse, president of Payne Family Homes, both UM-St. Louis alumni. For about an hour, both of these men presented their perspectives on the housing market and fielded questions from the audience. Their presentation was titled “The Housing Roller Coaster.”
While Kruse offered a more conservative and cautious outlook for the national housing market, he also said, “Housing is here to stay … Housing is a stage of life decision … I feel very good about our industry in the long run.”
During his presentation, Kruse also admitted that now is a very scary time to be working in real estate. However, Brennan found this downturn to be another unique challenge.
“If you’ve been around as long as I have … you see ups and downs. You can’t judge anything by just a day or a month or even a year,” Brennan said. “You have to look at longer periods of time and say, ‘How do you measure success?’ I’ve owned McKelvey homes for 10 years. I’ve had nine great years and one year that maybe is a little more challenging, but on average its been pretty great.”
The second portion of the presentation, which was given by Brennan, focused on the regional market and gave a much more optimistic outlook. He claimed that the St. Louis market, while hit less hard than other areas, should have bottomed out by now and that according to his record sales in December, it should be starting to slowly rise.
Mr. Brennan agreed with Kruse that the market today is very unique and titled to benefit the buyer. With federal stimulus tax credits and low mortgage rates, both find this a perfect time to buy a house. When asked whether a college student graduating in May should rent or buy, Kruse said, “Based on where we are today … with the first-time home buyer tax credit, where we are with housing pricing being at or near bottom, I would absolutely recommend buying.”
Along with the more statistical approach, Brennan offered up some anecdotal advice about dealing with apprehensive buyers. He told a story of returning a down payment to buyers with cold feet even though a legally binding contract existed.
“I’m happy to say [because of] the education I got from UM-St. Louis, I’m able to take the business ethics, the experience of theoretical, and evaluate [a tough situation] because [the answer] is not always clear,” Brennan said.