Lessons from 97 year-old Realtor

George W. Johnson is a 97-year-old real-estate agent who has been working the Seattle market since 1936.

He says, buy a house today if you can, but don't sell one if you don't have to.  "I've been through a lot of these ups and downs," he says, remembering the property boom that followed World War II, as well as the deep downturn in the 1970s when Seattle's biggest employer, Boeing, laid off thousands of workers.

Through it all, Johnson says he has learned many enduring lessons. Chief among them: After every housing recession, the market has "gone higher than the one before." You have to have the stomach to hang on through all of the twists and turns, he says.

In 1936, Johnson started dabbling in real estate. According to Johnson back in those days, unemployment hovered around 30%, soup lines stretched around blocks, homelessness was rampant. "You could have bought the best house in (the Seattle neighborhood of) Ballard for $3,500." Times were tough. The current real-estate market, Johnson says, is "a baby" by comparison. "In addition to the Depression, we had the drought at the same period, so it was just compounded. You wouldn't believe the things that happened during that period.”

Real Estate Tips from Johnson

George W. Johnson has managed to stay in the market for many years thanks to these useful lessons:

Beware one-company towns: Cities dependent on a single company or industry are more vulnerable to jarring downturns when the economy goes south. 

Greed. Johnson blames "plain old greed" for the latest real-estate downturn — people got caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment and banks egged them on with cheap loans.

"Everybody was out to buy a house, raise the price, double it and make a quick buck," he says, shaking his head. "People signed up for stuff that they knew they shouldn't have and they couldn't pay (for) and of course the banks helped them."

Timing is everything. "In this market, any young person that hasn't bought a house ought to buy one," Johnson says. "A buyers market doesn't come along that often … you just can hardly help but make money on whatever you buy today at the prices they are."I've lost a lot of money in a lot of things, but I've never lost in real estate," Johnson says. He remembers selling his first house in the 1930s for about $1,500. "It's probably worth $300,000 now."

Source: MSN.com