As part of my weekly exercise routine I make it a point to get in the water and surf once a week. Business sometimes takes priority and I don't get out as often as I wish, but I do manage to get out there often enough to clear the mind and put my muscles to work. The one thing that happens without fail while every single time I'm sitting there waiting for the next set or paddling for position I can't help but think of my love for surfing and the analogy it brings to mind in my real estate business.

So, for a primer on surfing technique and strategies for success, learn to surf whilst thinking of it as selling a house...

Often the first step is literally making the time to get down to the beach in the first place. I mean, what am I thinking? I've got a new transaction coordinator soon to become a licensed agent counting on me for details of each deal. I can't answer my phone in the water, yet. There are so many other things more important than my entertainment and health right? So I've written a 3 hour board meeting into Tuesday's schedule with another agent / best friend in the biz and we're committed to catch as many waves as we can given time constraints, equipment advantages, range of experience, the swell size/direction and skill. Starting to see the beginning of the analogy yet?

Time. I've got three hours to open and close this session. This could represent an escrow period, the amount of time my buyer has to commit to a purchase vs. just becoming a renter to watch the market fall further into decline (or so he/she thinks). Or how about the amount of time or number of houses it takes to get a buyer under contract? I've got a 20 minute drive, wrestle with my wetsuit and booties, get the board on/off the car, paddle out, chat with the locals, find the right peak...

Equipment advantages. I've been riding longboards (over 8'6") my entire surfing career. Longboards in small to medium surf give me a fair advantage; I can sit outside further than most. Certain board shapes paddle easier than others so in 5-7 strokes I can be up before the next guy with a smaller board on the inside and still have the right of way. My boards are engineered for fast turns so they are light and narrow in the right places, thick and wide in others, depending on desired maneuvering. Think of your website, blog content, marketing material, branding, SEO, tags, adwords, metatags, business cards, social networking pages, mailers, flyers, etc. Are they the right tools for the right job? Are they helping you find more clients? Close more home sales?

Range of experience. I've surfed tiny windblown slop and I've surfed that Hawaii Five-O opening scene wave in Hawaii and Fiji. I'd like to think I'm good at what I do in small or 10 foot surf, enough to get the heart pumping and go home with a big goofy grin. I've put in my time in the lineup; amongst overly aggressive ectomorphs that believe every wave is theirs, amongst the quiet types that you wouldn't think they are good at all but rip like Laird Hamilton, amongst the old guys, little girls and everyone in between. I've surfed Guam, Hawaii, the Arabian Gulf (not so good but I did it) the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and Pacific all in 30 of my 44 years on earth. Aside from the dozens of single family homes I've sold single bedroom condos, $1.2M golf course homes (small for many of you), vacant land, multiple units (2,3 and 4). I've helped sellers and buyers close on short sales many times as well as purchase bank owned homes. I've been to the foreclosure auction with investors at the county courthouse. I've presented offers directly to some of the biggest fish in the listing agent pond and even had some ask to present their offers to me (flattering but I'm just another blowfish)...experience helps in catching waves of both the water and stick built variety.

Swell size and direction. Being a former Naval Aviator I paid close attention to the countless hours of meteorology training in ground school. This not only helped my flying career but actually made me a better surfer. I was able to watch weather patterns based on seasonal weather changes. I understood how surface winds translated into wave energy, how one drop of water pushed by big storm winds in New Zealand hitting another drop, and another...made for some of the best summer surf in Southern California. I watched the storms track west from New Zealand, south from the northern Pacific Ocean and hurricanes track north from southern Mexico. I've watched the inventory in my zip code grow, watched market time lengthen, the absorption rate, the decline of prices and interest rates rise and fall like tides. I've even counted the number of surfers in the water at the predicted peak of the swell just like I watched the number of agents in my area at the peak of the market - both numbers subsided.

Skill. I don't often "ride the nose" a maneuver only good for style points in competition. I don't need to look good, just need to stay at the most critical part of the wave while still moving laterally across it and forward as well. In case I need to maneuver or carve some turns I stay in the most stable part of the board - the middle to slightly aft  of halfway toward the tail. On occasion I'll "hit the lip" and throw a rooster tail-like spray, maybe a floater if positioned right. It's even more rare when I can "pull into the green room", "hide behind the green curtain" or "get tubed". All of these maneuvers require skill based on repeated practice, watching other surfers/surf videos, experimentation and sometimes, luck. I do make it a point to go to a contracts class yearly at the local Board, read other blogs to hear someone else's experiences, chat with my manager/broker and listen to audio recordings of scripts/dialogues/sales strategies. Often I'll have a long chat with agents calling on my listings asking what their short sale experience has been lately, which banks are quick to approve sales or which REO listing mills are easier to work with. I'll even ask my favorite loan officers what loan program and interest rate changes have been occurring lately. All of this input transmits directly to the verbiage I give to my clients and the contracts I put together for them. Like surfing, I stay open to learning more about my profession. The only difference is both my clients and I benefit from my skill.

So you see, like some waiting periods between commission checks, surfing can be productive between waves. Now if I can get someone to pay me to surf...on second thought, never mind. I love surfing as much as I love putting my mind to work for my clients. I get paid in a different way for surfing.

P.S. That's a picture of my daughter Gabrielle on her very first wave ever, without me on the board with her.