I ran across this white paper on Inman "Real Estate and the Media" http://blog.inman.com/RealEstateandtheMedia.pdf by Ronald E. Roel, former Newsday reporter and co-founder of Real Estate Next, and thought it was an excellent read for those of us in the business.
As a former news producer and long-time PR/marketer prior to embarking on a full-time career in RE, I can appreciate many of the points he has made and thought it worthwhile to post here and expound upon a bit. In light of the plethora of media coverage (beginning in the late 90s) regarding the housing decline -- a "bubble" -- and the recent story on "60 Minutes," I decided that it was time to look inwardly.
We need to think more broadly. Frankly, we need to think -- instead of just reacting. We need to be EDUCATORS. Yes, many of the markets that were experiencing double digit appreciation rates have leveled and are declining. Is this necessarily a bad thing? As Mr. Roel points out, buyers in those markets did not/do not have the income to support those purchases. Is it a positive thing when the consumer cannot afford the purchase with out *very* creative financing (that's now also being re-aligned)? I don't think so.
Is the sky falling? No. Let's not make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe that it's up to us -- the real estate professionals -- to hedge against overly inflated negative -- and perceived "POSITIVE" stories with facts, statistics and anecdotes that demonstrate what's happening microcausmically in our markets. As Mr. Roel pointed out -- while 46% of people thought home prices in broad markets were overvalued -- 50% of these people didn't think theirs were locally.
I can tell you that here in Central Texas -- the real estate market is chugging along just fine. There are mini-peaks and valleys -- and you can often track them to broad media coverage of boom and bust. However, I'm doing my part to report what I know "from the ground" here with my clients and the data I pull from our MLS. I send this information out to my sphere of influence to let them know my perspective as a real estate professional -- and I hope you'll do the same.
More later...
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