Who are you and What do you Want?

Volume 4 Number 29 December 3, 2006

Who are you and what do you want?

Friday night Gail and I threw our first Christmas party at the new home. About 90 guests enjoyed an unusually warm Friday evening riverfront poolside. The yard and pool area was spectacularly decorated by my daughter Nicole Long (Visual Manager at Saks Fifth Avenue) and catered by Jack and Micheal Elias, Inc.. Gail did a stupendous job making the house Christmas festive, warm and welcoming, and elegant but comfortable.. We both saw very little of each other as we mingled and made sure everyone got to meet each other.

I believe one of the reasons the party was a success (measured by the comments, emails and phone calls I have received since Friday – and perhaps the absence of left over food and alcohol) was the wide variety of folks that Gail and I count as friends. You may have heard me say before that, “it’s only work if you would rather be doing something else”, and indeed we do enjoy what we do and the people we associate with. We do business with our friends.

A great deal of the conversation was about real estate, as you can imagine; we have friends that are investors, builders, architects, real estate agents, doctors, lawyers, bankers, hair stylists, developers, furniture store owners, and retired tennis pros. We have friends that are handymen, teachers, salesmen, secretaries, photographers, marine biologists, and restaurant owners. There were as many opinions about what was going on in the market as there were people in attendance. Some negative, some positive, and some refreshing.

Those in attendance were all concerned about well, themselves. Their take on the market was tunneled by their own experience and shaded by their own palette. The furniture guy wanted to sell more furniture, the architect to design more buildings. The land investor was excited about the current market and buying more land. The builder was worried about the slow down in construction. The caterer is too booked to worry much about anything in the real estate business, and the stock broker talked about the effect of the housing market on the general economy and on Wall Street. We all look at things from our own box.

I just read Denny Grimes editorial today (December 3, 2006) in the News Press. I could not find a link for it so you will have to look for yourself. It was very well written and in it Denny urges sellers to lower prices to sell their homes. This is what Denny does, he makes his money by representing sellers and buyers of homes, but of course he only gets paid when the homes actually sell.. He agrees with me that this is a great time to buy. He tells us that buyers, however, are waiting for “the bottom”. I would add that we will not see the bottom except in our rear view mirror, and by then it may be too late.

Denny is in the middle of the market, in essence he is in the middle of the forest. He is about the best at what does and the consummate professional; but even so, his view of the market is affected by the fact that his business may be down a certain percentage from the previous year.

I, for example, will in many cases not suggest lowering the price. Indeed it will not be until prices start to go up that the buyers will realize they missed the bottom. My advice is patience and confidence in the market. But my box is a bit different from Denny’s. I deal more with investors than general residential real estate

I think it is time we think outside the box. I have heard the term for years. I am sure you have too. It’s one of those catch phrases that consultants use. To me the expression means to look at something from outside your current realm of influence. For the past hour, before I started writing this missive, I went Yahoo searching for articles on “Thinking outside the box” and I did not find any article that actually presented a view from outside the respective influence the article was written from. In order to think outside the box you must first recognize what your box is.

All of us live in various communities. Certainly Gail and I live in Florida. We also live in downtown Fort Myers, but we also live in “parent community”, the “real estate community”, the “grandparent community”, the “developer community”, etc. We, like you, wear many hats, or live in many “boxes”. Most likely our perspective is confined and guided by these influences, by these boxes.

For many years, I was in the plastics business. I sold plastic film to the diaper and sanitary napkin industry all over North, Central, and South America. I was immersed in that business. My “box”, if you can believe it, was diapers and sanitary napkins. For years business was wonderful because Latin America was my oyster. My pearl was that 15 years ago most of Latin America was not using diapers or sanitary napkins. The business grew like crazy. We built capacity, but after a few years we needed more business. In order to find it, I needed to look outside the box. I went to trade shows for totally unrelated fields to “think outside the box”. I actually went to wood working shows, metal conferences, health conferences, rubber conferences. I went searching for new markets, new uses. Eventually, I started supplying house wrap, roofing membranes, protective films for packaging and more. In order to grow and succeed, I went looking for needs to fill in new communities. I thought outside my box.

In an earlier newsletter I talked about investment advisors that tell you that they will review your entire investment portfolio, but never even mention real estate. Stocks and bonds are their “box”. You need to learn what box people you deal with are in so you can adjust your thinking. Don’t let them trap you into their box.

On Friday night I got perspectives from many walks of life at our party, but still pretty narrowly focused. I love to meet folks from out side our town, outside our state, and outside our business. I can learn from everyone. I absolutely love to meet new people with fresh perspectives.

Know your “box” and know how to get out of it. You will learn and grow. Know the “boxes” of your friends and the people you deal with. You will be better for it.

The simple facts in our market are that we are in an “over inventory” position, but when you talk to visitors from out of state; they are thrilled with their choices, our weather, our shopping, and our restaurants. Home price have dropped, for sure, but not below prices two years ago. If you stick with the four year hold rule AND you bought reasonably well – patience will be your friend. If you bought poorly at the peak, you may want to take your losses sooner rather that later and not pour more good money after bad.

I would love to hear from you and find out who you are and what your concerns and objectives are and learn more about you.

It is my belief that many of you are sitting on the sidelines waiting for prices to go back up before you buy.

Who are you and what do you want?