I live in two cities, Oklahoma City and Jupiter Florida. I flew back a week ago after speaking at a conference in San Francisco. My wife stayed in Florida and was flying to OKC to join me but no more. Today I fly to Florida to join my wife there on a one way ticket, unsure of when I will be back to OKC. I take this pandemic seriously and I trust the experts who say that 1/3 of the US will be infected. The inability for testing is worrying me also. South Korea has tested more people in one day than we have tested throughout this crisis. I live in a country supposedly better than others but when Nigeria has a more robust response then yes I worry.
If any of my California investors do not cancel their travel here then we do cancel them. Most of these folks are extremely intelligent tech engineers so I have had to only cancel two and are are grateful for our caution. Am I over reacting? That may be possible but that is also human nature. I am also looking at economic impact that adds to the personal toil. Many Americans who are less fortunate will suffer. This week we canceled a OKC Thunder game because two Utah players tested positive and the NBA was postponed as well as many other sporting events canceled. Some of the folks who take tickets, sell beer, drive Ubers, etc. need this extra income for themselves and families and I feel for them. For me I am one of the privileged ones and can weather this storm.
I also have empathy for our industry. Will people want to go to open houses? Will people be in the frame of mind to make a big decision on buying or selling a home? The answers are uncertain and uncertainty is the big picture. We can adapt and adjust not only to protect those we serve but also to continue our business activities because after all we have families and bills to take care of. I work with out of state investors and even without a crisis about 50% of them come visit, they are buying on metrics including significant data we share. We are doing more sophisticated mapping with Zee Maps, drone photography with local photographers, outsourcing economic and demographic information, and detailed return on investment analysis.
I know your business model is different and will require different adaptations. Even without the virus crisis we deal with change all the time. I can go back to the early 90s with the advent of buyers agency that changed the business and on from there. This in that respect is no different and appropriate action will happen. Let us all hope that the problem becomes minimized, that sheer panic will not drive actions, and the federal government will get its act together and play catch up to the world. I am planning for 90 days of this with the hope that by June we are safer and sanity will reign. But as they always said at the beginning of NYPD Blue, "be careful out there".
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