Real Estate and Millennials

I just read an article that says it’s hard to get ‘Millennials’ into the DIY stores these days, but hope springs eternal as the older ones in the cohort are reaching the median age for home buying. That’s a mouthful. It’s true that they are aging like the rest of us, and it gives me something else to watch swirl around the drain as the marketing folks miss the mark again.

Millennials are buying new homes much of the time, not old homes that need work, and their DIY days are way ahead of them. I’ve watched business after business change their paradigm to cater to Millennials and fail miserably at it. Why? They don’t have a clue. They read the articles that say Millennials are at shopping age OMG! Well heads up people. Millennials don’t shop. They save, they pay student loan debt and they are not baby boomers who live beyond their means.

The impending focus by the big box DIY stores toward Millennials is just another example of how people get on the cart path, so to speak, trying to change things to satisfy the media hype, rather than paying attention to their clientele. Look around you in the DIY stores. There are no DJs or Wifi boutique areas. It’s a big old tool and garden shop. It smells like plywood and there’s always an aisle full of guys on their knees searching through the bin for that perfect screw or bolt. Which still makes me go hmmmm. And I don’t see any Millennials! Not one! Could you envision one of them being interested in the LEAST about that perfect bolt? Not unless you hide a cell phone in the bin as a prize.

It would benefit these businesses to look at JC Penney, for example, who tried to change everything to cater to the young people. Look at their stock price real quickly. I’ll wait. See? Disaster. When JC Penney shut out their foundation clientele you could hear the toilet flushing their income stream. It’s the older generation who are the bread and butter, the ones who made these stores ‘big box’ to start with. They can change things around to be ready for Millennials to arrive, and they can listen to crickets chirping…you know like JC Penney did.

For DIY stores, it’s a bad idea to negate the needs of the foundational clientele, because they are older folks (and I mean over thirty) who have kids who need a nice yard in which to play, kids who make you need to paint, grandkids who break things and flush things that shouldn’t be flushed. And Millennials don’t have kids or are just getting started and they don’t need yards. But all of that aside, the Millennials are not shoppers. Not yet. Electronics? Yes. But that’s about it for now.

They are not ready for big box DIY. They couldn’t care less about planting a flower bed and if they do, chances are it will be neglected and die because…they have other things to do! Fun things! They go to their friends’ weddings, or their wedding. They go clubbing, they go biking and hiking, they date. Or they get ready to date, or they start a family. It’s that time of their lives. DIY and flower beds are way out there on the radar, if at all.

Some of my all time favorite clients are Millennials. They exhibit true partnership in choosing a home and defining a price range. They never want to max out their purchase power; rather, they stay conservative and realize that they also want to continue to play, or think about starting a family. They don’t need a palace to start with. Don’t get me wrong, they want a nice home, but they are smart about it. They plan to HIRE people to fix things because they are on their computers and iPads and iPhones…or Samsung Galaxies. Millennials budget in repair people! They do not plan to be one.

Oh I know they WILL be one, but they don’t know that yet.

Millennials are tech savvy, not circular saw savvy. They are VERY okay with electronic interaction, including documentation…which is my absolute preference…and they are fun. They also have a true partnership. They think about things together, each has input, and I swear, one person NEVER makes the decision without looking at the other and saying, “What do you think?” And…you might find a Millennial doing some DIY but it’s usually because his father is helping him and Dad is the one shopping for plywood. Young son has researched the issue online so he knows what’s going on, but it’s DAD who is doing the work. Trust me.

On the flip side: There are some Millennials who buy fixer-uppers, but its to save money. And when something breaks, they freak out. They don’t run to the DIY center; they call Dad or somebody they know “who does this stuff”…usually NOT a Millennial. True! Usually a parent or older friend with kids and a big truck and lots of bills who does this work to make extra money…not a Millennial paradigm at all.

And another thing: Better to start catering to women in these places because the Millennial women are strong and smart and engaged. They will be one half of all buying decisions about those nuts and bolts when the time comes. That’s the cohort behavior. A great idea would be to look at how many women are already shopping there and cater to them. Right now. The Millennials will be there in 15 years but if you look around, you will see a lot of women in these places right now…but you won’t see them at the bolt bin. To us a bolt is a bolt.

I know, men think all casserole dishes are the same too.

Fallen Leaves

There is an Asian philosophy which encourages reflection on serenity, the deeper meaning of life, even the beauty of its passing. This sort of reflection certainly appeals most strongly to left brain dominant introverts, the ones who live inside our own minds and who seek a deeper meaning in the people and events that swirl around us in chaos. We don’t have a choice in the matter; it’s how we’re wired. I’m not sure whether its a blessing or something else, but it’s never dull nor shallow.

I study things, people, events, because that’s unquestionably more interesting than gossip or television shows or parties. I would rather think about where lightening originates and what was the fuel for the “big bang” if there was no universe to provide fuel, or what makes a person behave in certain ways, than waste brain time on trivia. Obviously I’m not usually the life of the party and that’s okay. There is a world of unanswerable questions and beautiful conundrums to contemplate, and challenges which can never be bested…at least not in this lifetime, or dimension. You choose.

I buried my mother last week. You can’t prepare for that, even if you understand the course ahead of you, even if you know the suffering will end, even if your mother is tired and ready to go. You can’t prepare. But if you slow down and think, you realize there is beauty in the end of life which may be more spectacular than its beginning or even the rises and falls within it. There is no question that suffering is the worst image of humanity we ever see, particularly when it is a loved one who suffers, but when the bond between the physical world is released to that of the spiritual one, there is a peacefulness and beauty not seen at any other time in life in my observation. And I think it is beautiful because leaving the place where, upon entry you immediately begin to die, to a place where your sprit is released from physical degradation to unity with the universe, is unimaginably exciting. That’s part of it.

I have been at the bedside of several loved ones and good friends as they passed on to the next dimension. There is great honor to be able to stand beside someone you love as they leave, to witness their going, to stand guard for them, as it were. It is frightening to contemplate ending until you realize that the spirit does not end; it goes somewhere else but it does not end. It is the greatest contradiction of which I know, to feel such pain and confusion and beauty simultaneously. And yet, there it is, every time.

As my first grandchild was born, I held my daughter’s hand and for a split second I was in the past as my child was born, and in the present as her child was born. It was as though for some segment of a second, I was not in my body, but elsewhere, observing the passing of time from a distance and obviously not sequentially. It was past and present at once. As my mother passed, I was pulled all the way back to early childhood, feeling the panic I felt as a little girl when my mommy walked away from me, and yet I was an adult mourning my loss now. These events remind me that we live within our reality, but not necessarily THE reality. There is a perspective we simply cannot see clearly from our point of reference.

I am reading a book about people who experienced death, called “near death”, but I disagree. It’s death. It’s brief, not permanent death, but it is death. In any case, without fail these people describe time as being nothing like what we experience in life. I know. I get that. I’ve felt a hint of it three times now. And there’s another extended time ahead of me. Nobody gets out alive.

I try to feel better about never being able to see my mother’s face again, or touch her, or hear her voice in conversation. I know I will never stop missing her. I can say that falling leaves of Fall are never so beautiful as they cling to the tree throughout Spring and Summer. I can say that there is great beauty in the fallen leaf as it wafts to the ground, coming to rest atop other fallen leaves waiting to decompose and contribute to the circle of life. I can try to convince myself to feel okay about death being a part of life. It doesn’t work. Pain is what I feel. I grieve. And yet, great grief is a sign of great love. There is love in grief and beauty in the fallen leaf.

The Dumbing Down of Entertainment

Shock value has become the simple minded avenue through which writers attempt to nab viewers. Perhaps the “shock” paradigm is working because there are few other choices and so few engaged viewers; but I think it’s a flashing neon sign that creativity is dead and intelligent thought is a dead activity. I believe people are becoming less ABLE to think, because nobody really has to anymore. Everyone wins, everybody gets to retake tests until they “pass”, everybody’s entitled, the fun thing is to pull one over on the world and put an unqualified body in a position of power and importance, and if you can read it online somehow that qualifies you as an expert. Faking it and lying have become art, an aspiration. What happened to America? Even a college degree has become unimportant and therefore a useless waste of time because universities are giving them away for financial benefits. So now? BS degree? No big deal. My dog has one.

By the way, a REAL college experience develops creativity and by “real” I mean one where you actually work and lean something. We might be on to something here.

Some of my saddest moments are when I look around at the sheer laziness of people, and some of my most frightened ones are when I see creativity either dying or being killed, before my eyes. People are lazier and dumber by the year, and it seems to be okay, because dumb is a whole lot easier than smart and inquisitive and engaged. But it is also far less rewarding, and unfortunately these unengaged lazies are the ones making rules and running the show. I want a renaissance! I want an end to entitlements and I miss intelligent, engaged people! I miss original thinking, creativity, NEW ideas.

I know I am not the only one who has noticed “remakes” ad nauseam, to the point where we are thrust back in time to think about what led up to the great story someone ELSE once wrote. And I am tired of the practice of ‘sampling’ of others artists’ works because musicians have no talent to create their own good body of work. Forget great; I’ve given up on great. But “sampling” used to be called plagiarism and was not only frowned upon, but also was illegal. EVEN if you gave credit to the person from whom you ‘borrowed’ ideas. Commercials, also known as television, are reduced to using sex and violence as the draws. Why? Because it takes no ingenuity nor creativity to know that men respond to sex and violence. You’ve heard it: Sex sells. And it does, because that’s the norm now. It’s what we teach our children is most important. You know, base animal behavior. That’ll get you a great job. Be an animal.

There’s nothing wrong with sex, but you don’t put man on Mars by watching sexy commercials or porn. You do that by physics, chemistry, action, fitness, bravery, ingenuity and plain old hard work! OH, and lets not forget competition! That’s a dirty word unless you’re talking sports. By the way sports was one way dictators controlled the masses, did you know that? Think gladiators. And now think about how important the NFL has become. We are lemmings.

And don’t tell me there’s nothing new under the sun; there’s new, we are just too lazy and uncreative to search for it.

We used to exist in what we were told was the golden age of television, and perhaps it once was. We saw the birth and development of talk shows with substance, news shows that were truly balanced, and television shows that made you think at least a little bit, about life and circumstances. We saw shows that made you laugh, about real life, not some twisted idea to garner ratings. I recall watching talk shows with political themes where the commentator was almost invisible in the grand scheme, because he (yes usually he) intended the spotlight to be on the guests. Now, the commentator has to be the STAR, and their political views are thought to be somehow more important than anyone else because they have the microphone. But lets face it; reading a teleprompter or a stack of notes does not make you smarter than I, nor entitled to make up MY mind about what’s happening in the world. I need you to stand down and let me listen to the people who may or may not be qualified to make laws by which I will be required to live.

Do you remember Firing Line with William F. Buckley? He was the person who really started the whole idea of political talk shows. His show was truly a show for intellectuals, but what he did was provide a platform for ALL of the views. Everyone came prepared to state his position and to defend it, in a civilized manner, and everyone expected to be treated with dignity because anything else was unheard of. It was the audience who made up their minds, not some commentator doing it for them. Now, if you want to watch politics, you choose the one that repeats back to you what you want to hear, which adds NO intellectual value at all, and you nod and drool at the oracle commentator who thinks just like you! Nobody wants to entertain the other views or God forbid actually give them a platform, because it has become all about emotion. No brains needed. Dumbed down. Next they’ll just sing it to us as they serve alcohol or drugs.

Lately we see commercials with peoples’ heads exploding, or cannibal cereal bites. Are you kidding me? Do we have ten year old boys writing this stuff? It’s not cute; it’s not amusing; it’s subliminal violence and it’s a red flag, waving frantically, that the creators are unintelligent and uncreative and juvenile, and WE, the consumers are idiots for watching this mess. I don’t. I turn it off. And I wonder where the creative ones are.

And while we are on the subject of turning it off, let’s talk about TV again. I called the cable provider to fire them, and of course they asked me why. I told them I was tired of paying for advertisements. I don’t CARE about what this medication or that medication does, and no I won’t ask my doctor to prescribe it because I also hear the side effects in those ads…which the pharmaceutical companies are trying to make go away, by the way. So far their efforts haven’t worked because there are still some intelligent people out there. But watch. Pretty soon they will disappear from the ads. Why? Because the masses have become so lazy and dumb, so enamored by drugs, that they would rather memorize the ACTUAL names of the plethora of drugs in their cabinet, than get an education and see that these drugs CAUSE most of what ails us these days. Bottom line? Most people clearly don’t mind a continuous stream of advertisements AND don’t mind paying big bucks for them. I’m shaking my head. Where is the substantive content? No longer on TV.

All I’m saying is that I lived in the world where innovation was natural, where great ideas bloomed every day. I lived in the world where people used their imagination and intelligence and enjoyed it. I lived in the world where competition was fostered and where it fomented even greater ideas as a result. I didn’t live in the world where everyone ran around with a bloodsucker raised, frantic to insert it, at any cost, into a host.

Sanders keeps citing Scandinavia as the blueprint for a utopian America, but what he fails to report, or fess up as it were, is that these countries are stumbling under the weight of all of the bloodsuckers weakening the host, and under the weight of the demise of work ethic, which made these countries great to begin with. So their recoveries happened when they adopted more “right leaning” policies…in other words to scrap the entitlements and send the bloodsuckers elsewhere, stop paying people to NOT work. Reward innovation, creativity, a desire to become better!

There’s no such thing as utopia. Instead there’s steady decline as the host dies, unless people get busy and start using their god-given brains. I barely tolerate lazy, and I rage against extortion. But mostly I feel sad at how dumb and lazy we have become, and I know I might see the day that this behavior causes this country to fall. In the meantime, I watch documentaries on Amazon. At least there’s usually some good information there.

What it boils down to is this: The entertainment we are served is a recipe for the environment in which we live. What I’m seeing makes me very sad, because I have seen the “golden age” and this? Nothing like it.

Checking in

Hi folks. I haven’t written much lately. You know, you go through times when you think you don’t have anything to say anyway…at least I do. And then there are times when I do have something to say but I’m an introvert, so I don’t find it necessary to make noise come out of my head all of the time. Anyway, it’s hard to know where to start these days, with everything going on in the world to which we have access. And then there’s the media slant.

I’m loving the pictures of Donald Trump, for example. ALL photographs depict him with his face scrunched up or have him looking REAL mean…which I LOVE. Makes me laugh out loud. Point is, liberal media will not ever publish a good photo of him because, well, they despise him.

But you know, the smooth-brains won’t get the subliminal nuances and will just think he’s mean. CLEARLY there’s more to him than meanness, but back to the smooth-brains. I am smart enough to see the manipulations and actually get a kick out of them. But it frightens me to think that this stuff actually influences my future. I’m watching the candidates with an eye to who is pulling their strings, funding their OWN agendas, mastering the puppets. Now that’s scary.

I have to laugh at what I imagine to be the Politically Correct knee-jerk reactions to Trump’s outlandish rhetoric. Point is, it’s just enjoyable to hear somebody who isn’t answering to someone’s wallet, somebody with audacity and somebody who says exactly what we say when we are not on stage…well not always, but you get my drift. Translation: I despise political correctness.

I read a lot of news online and see accompanying photographs, and I can’t help but notice how much of the time my back-of-the-mind-cut is, “I wonder how much of this I can believe?” Now that’s a shame. I can’t look at a single photograph without wondering whether or not it’s been photoshopped.

Ah, I remember the good old days (violins please) when a newspaper was a NEWS paper. It had the news, just that. And it was a big paper, not a placemat sized junk publication with mostly ads and the rest so slanted you couldn’t rest a round object on it. We could trust that the media were sure their facts were accurate and what they published was true. Now, I fish out the crossword puzzle and chuck the rest. Wish they wouldn’t drop it on my lawn anyway; I don’t pay for it. But hey, free crossword puzzle.

But printed news isn’t news anymore like it used to be. Hmmm, I wonder how much of that was really true.

SEE WHAT I MEAN? Check you later.

The Latest Crazy Market Paradigm

Hi everyone! Hope this post finds you well and I hope you’re planning on either buying or selling your home AND calling me first. It’s a huge market out there and with an interest rate hike looming, it’s likely to get bigger, faster, busier. Crazier is probably a better word.

We’ve talked about how you can’t even get the offer on the table for consideration before the home goes under contract and now homes are selling BEFORE they hit the market. Multiple offers have become the norm and it is a STRONG seller market. Home prices are rising and builders are busy again. Good to see. But there’s something new and again, we need to be careful about this.

Sellers are demanding shorter due diligence periods in a market where getting immediate inspection services…for home, septic, well, HVAC, pests, roof…is impossible. In some cases there’s a two week lead time to get someone out to inspect, and some sellers are asking for a three week due diligence period. Impossible. What this does is put undue pressure on buyers who are already incredibly busy getting loan approval and meeting all of their obligations as buyers. Ultimately, it’s not good for the seller either; they end up with days to get repairs done, rather than weeks, so the stress boomerangs right back on them.

It’s hard to get through the due diligence period, followed by an even more difficult repair negotiation. Let’s not be stupid about this. Nobody’s losing anything if the home is under contract with a financially strong buyer and the home is well maintained. Relax and give the buyers a chance to do their due diligence! Agents, remember when you agree to this short due diligence period, you could very well be asking for an extension and your buyer might have to fork over more due diligence money. The seller has a right to ask for it.

Good Things When We Least Expect Them

Not much worse than a raging case of the flu, particularly when you can’t stand to be still. This is happening to me, but I have made it to the doctor. Tired of feeling sick. BUT I’m so excited about my latest discovery, made while I was flat on my back, stuck in bed.

I have discovered the most beautiful person on the planet! Well, he is new to me anyway. I watched the movie, Unbroken and was stunned by the performance of Miyavi. From the first moment his face shows up on the screen, he captivates. His performance was perfect and you can’t miss the fact that he is simply beautiful. I am convinced we will be seeing a LOT of this young man.

Sick as I was, I googled him, and discovered this to be his acting debut and that he is a trendsetting musician. I watched some of his music videos and my admiration grew. Listen. Don’t miss this young man. He is a force. I felt so bad to have lost Michael Jackson from among us, but Miyavi might just be a light beginning to burn brightly into that dark place.

Check him out. You won’t be sorry. As for his performance in the movie? It was the first time I actually looked beyond the brutality of this character type into the soul. I’m betting you will feel the same. He stole the show. Not the story, the show.

The Trouble with Multiple Offers

I am working with five buyers, and ALL have been in multiple offer situations. This is crazy. I know; there is a housing shortage, not unexpected and loudly discussed in the news as one after the other builder went bankrupt during the downturn. But this is beyond the ridiculous. It’s like a feeding frenzy. So here we are. For a time the only homes that stayed on the market were the dog houses…the ones that needed some “TLC”. Now, even they are getting multiple offers. It takes above list price to ‘win’, and that’s often with zero concessions requested.

I remember how sellers got the stew beaten out of them during the market downturn. They had to paint, install new carpet, dance, give up the firstborn child and give away the house to get it sold. Maybe this is the universe balancing, but I see major issues arising.

Listen, there’s no question that the sellers benefit from this crazy market. But here’s what’s happening. House prices are being artificially inflated due to the high demand/low supply paradigm, and I don’t think many of them will appraise for these ludicrous prices. I see a future of offers falling out during the appraisal process and buyers losing that chunk of money…because the lenders will SURELY make that a non-refundable, pay-up-front fee. They’d be nuts not to. Then, we’re going to have a boatload of people who buy high and get stuck when the market comes to its senses. First time buyers don’t have the money to make up the difference between their offer and a lower appraised value, so in many cases they will lose the appraisal fee. They can’t afford that. Agents should protect these buyers.

I know, realtors get a bigger commission from a higher sales price, but the problem is, the buyer clients most certainly will feel the pain later when they try to sell and the feeding frenzy is over. And let’s don’t forget the builder new home prices. One builder company who started their pricing at 170 two years ago are now starting at 240. That’s a huge jump in pricing in that amount of time and guess what? They can do it and get away with it. But it’s a bad idea.

I’m warning my clients up front about this situation, and most of them resist the urge to offer too much money…and of course some of the homes do justify the prices…but everybody needs to remember that we are going to be listing these artificially high priced homes down the road, and I remember how painful that was for sellers.

Of course it’s up to the buyer how they want to proceed, but good buyer agents should be spending time explaining what’s going on here. And yes, I like to make money too, but not at the expense of my buyer clients.

I will say this though: It’s a snooze-you-lose situation out there. Better have the OTP partially filled out and ready to fly when you go house hunting. Man, it’s a fast market out there. So I tell my clients this: If you HAVE TO HAVE this house, expect to pay full list price and don’t even think about asking for the moon with regard to concessions. And I remind them that there ARE other houses out there.

Moving Moving Moving

I’ve made a change, or ANOTHER change I should say. I said goodbye to my Fonville Morisey family a few weeks ago and joined Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston, Strickland Road office. It was a bittersweet transition, as I left behind a company I loved and people whom I love as well. These folks will remain family to me. But I am excited about my future.

I am now a new family member at Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston and am excited about this new part of my journey. I hope you will stay in touch and wish me well in my transition. So far it has been a very busy time.

Have a lovely day!

I Was Just Thinking….

I was looking at quotes online, things people say about life. I noticed how many all-or-nothing quotes there were. Like this: Either you grab it with both hands and swing or you miss it. Or: We were meant to live life in vivid, living color or not at all. Not exact quotes, but you get the drift. After reading a couple hundred of them I had to stop reading. Life is not like that. In fact I think this idea of complete gusto, full living color, fireworks and loud music stuff rarely happens… for sane people, at least.

Life is not black or white, all or nothing. Rather, it’s filled with infinite shades between, infinite amounts of life. Sometimes its painful, or boring or lonely or stalled. It just is. I can’t imagine living as though I have to swing from the rafters every day, day in and day out. How exhausting that would be, and how much great stuff on the ground would I miss? The few times when life actually is all out, are great, and should be savored when they’re good. But there’s max-out bad, too…and everything between…and THAT is life. Like it or not.

If you’re being chased through the jungle by a cannibal, it would be great to be just greenish gray. Imagine how “vivid color” would work for you. You get the idea.

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