I had to stop for gas yesterday on my way home, having milked my gas tank down to 3 miles remaining. Since I was driving my Mercury Mountaineer SUV, I paused to think as I looked at the $4.47 price per gallon. I did a quick calculation in my head…$4.47 times 21 gallons, gee that’s over $90 bucks! And that didn’t include the quick drive-thru car wash I was going to get and desperately needed.

After the pump stopped filling up, at $97.43 (I guess my tank holds a little more than 21 gallons) and I added the $10 car wash, my stop cost me $107.43 cents! As I pulled out of the wash, looking down at my “miles remaining” guage, my vehicle told me I could go another 311 miles until the next day that I would be totally depressed. That works out to about a whole lotta cents per mile. At these costs, thoughts of getting a bigger better and newer SUV evaporated and were replaced with the thought of that itty bitty car, what’s it called, the “smart-car”.

Now somehow I just don’t see me or my fellow REALTORS carting around people in one of these. Does it even have a backseat? What’s funny is that just last week I saw one truckin down Hwy 15 that was “wrapped” in advertisement and the owner was a REALTOR!

I don’t remember what the name of the REALTOR was or his company name, but I guarantee you that I’m on the lookout for him. Is this the next big thing for us real estate pro’s? Are we showing our clients that we are no longer wastefully driving around previewing homes for our buyers burning large amounts of gas? And then I wondered…how would I feel about my REALTOR if he showed up to meet me at a property driving one of these things?

What with all the history behind rising gas prices, OPEC, the War in Iraq, don’t you ever feel like your just the victim of world politics? There’s a funny video on YouTube that was forwarded to me…click the arrow at the bottom of this page.

Most successful REALTORS drive nice cars. It’s been a part of our culture for many years. Part of the vision I had for myself when I decided to get into the real estate business was a mental picture of me in my big black Mercedes 500 series. Is that image now going to be replaced by a smart car?

The price of gas has definately been a water cooler topic around my offices. REALTORS are becoming more creative, planning more carefully, and even carpooling more because of the price of a barrel of crude oil. For those of us who were driving back in 1974 (I had just gotten my license a year or two earlier), I can remember the impact it had on American car makers. Big Chevy Impala’s were replaced by the Vega and Ford’s Pinto. This was a very depressing period of time for those of us who enjoyed the 60′s muscle cars.

So on behalf of all my fellow REALTORS, I hope and pray that our government does something to reduce the price we pay at the pump to something more reasonable. Gas prices seem to be at the top of people’s minds when they think they have to cut and save. This will definitely have an effect on our housing market recovery and lengthen the time it takes.

I’m not ready for the smart car yet, and I can’t sell my SUV because nobody wants to buy one now. So I guess I too will have to be more creative and plan more carefully my routes, but it’s not gonna stop me from being the best REALTOR I can be!