I spent many years in people management before becoming a Realtor. I've seen more drama in those years spent in retail and logistics than I care to think about. One of the great mantras that I heard throughout that time was that, "Perception is Reality". Basically, this just means that what a group of people perceives to be true becomes reality in their minds.  To a large extent, I agree with that statement. I've seen it happen over and over where a group of people will get an idea in their heads. They spread it around so that it's repeated many times and, in the retelling of it, it becomes their reality.

Howard Stern is a great example of this fact. He promoted himself as the "King of all Media" when he was a nothing and enough people started repeating the mantra until he became a huge radio and tv personality. Today, he still makes this claim and for many people, this is reality, but it's not true. He's not the "King of all Media".

We hear the phrase, "Attitude determines Altitude" all the time in an effort to change personal perceptions and boost our self-images enough to raise ourselves to the next level. While this is a great concept and has it's benefits to our psyches, it's not necessarily true either. There are plenty of people out there with great attitudes who aren't prepared to do what they want to accomplish and are failing. There are also plenty of people out there who have accomplished, despite their terrible attitudes. No, I don't think attitude is the all-determining factor behind altitude. It's a great help and can open a great many doors in life, but you need to be prepared to do the job once you get there.

We also see this same thing in Real Estate. The media has done an excellent job of creating a reality of struggling markets through it's constant barrage of fatalistic reporting. Many people have bought into this propaganda and have taken their fingers off of the trigger, afraid to buy or sell because of the fear the media has instilled in them. In effect, this perception has indeed become a reality for most of our nation. But it's not the truth.

We do have markets where this is truly reality. Those markets have a long way to go to get back to an even keel. What most everyone in the Real Estate industry knows is that Real Estate is truly local. While there are those unfortunate markets that are seeing the proverbial "blood in the streets", there are plenty of other markets that are acually growing, like the Wilkes-Barre, PA market. We don't see that reported in the media because it's not going to sell. The media is not a public agency, here for the common good, reporting the unbiased facts. It's a multi-billion dollar industry going about it's business of turning perceptions into reality.

Well, as the title of this post states, Perception is Reality, but it Ain't the Truth. Don't allow the media to determine your reality for you. Speak to a Real Estate professional today about the conditions in your market. You might be surprised to find that things aren't as bad as they're made out to be.