This blog is not meant to be a political statement one way or another, but it will show the impacts of bias and gentrification in the United States today.
I will start with the impacts of "confirmation bias". Confirmation bias is a term used in psychology which essentially states that your mind has a tendency to filter out data that does not align with your belief(s) and reinforces data that aligns with your beliefs.
We start being biased based on what our parents tell us: right or wrong; what to eat; what to wear; how to behave; etc. If you were raised in a religious setting, your religious beliefs add another biased filter: who / what is God; how to practice your religion; which version of a "bible" is correct; etc. If you track politics, you end up with political biases too. Depending on where you live, you will also end up absorbing social or regional biases as well. Very few people admit they are biased, but we all are!
Think about how you personally filter out data. Do you choose one news source over the other? Do you unfriend or un-follow people with different views? Do you like/subscribe/follow people with the same beliefs as you? Do you understand how online "cookies" keep feeding you data that is determined by some computer programmer to be relevant to you? If you don't, just take a minute to log into Facebook and then go into another browser and search for a trip to Las Vegas or Belize and see how long it takes for Facebook to start pushing ads to those locations to you.
So how are these related and what does that mean for your business in 2021?
In real estate, we often talk about a neighborhood going through gentrification. Historically, that is defined by more affluent people moving into a neighborhood, thereby displacing the existing poorer inhabitants possibly improving the neighborhood and bringing in new businesses and opportunities.
Look at what has happened in downtown Portland Oregon and Seattle Washington in the latter half of 2020. While some people see that as the people "sticking it to the man"; others are fed up with it and the burning and destruction and looting of their businesses. There is currently a "red tide" moving out of those cities to more conservative places like Boise, Idaho where I live.
As a real estate broker, I am not allowed to "steer" buyers or sellers yet our current political climate is doing just that. The only people that I personally know that have moved to Oregon or Washington in the past few years moved there primarily because marijuana was being legalized (it still isn't in Idaho). It reminded me of the "gold rush" days, but this was a new "green rush" (both for the color of the money and the plants themselves).
I have business owners that have sold their companies to relocate them to Idaho since they have had a challenge finding employees that comprehend that just because pot is legal, you can't show up to work stoned. The employees have at times tried to argue "but it is legal!" So is alcohol, but if you show up drunk, you can get fired. You shouldn't step out to smoke a joint like you would a cigarette break!
I have a number of other people waiting to sell their businesses and either relocate them to Idaho or just retire. Will that cause a reverse gentrification of the neighborhoods they are in? The impact on Idaho real estate prices has been substantial causing lack of inventory and increasing prices with demand far outstripping supply.
I think of the "transplant equity" that is occurring here in the Boise area. As people sell multi-million dollar homes in places like southern California and come here and pay cash for a $500k home that is nicer than what they sold. They can put surplus money in the bank and retire much sooner than they may have thought. Our utility bills are lower than what they are used to, as is their insurance. As many of these new American refugees come to Boise, it is vastly different than the refugees I have seen coming from other countries. The American refugees are coming with huge bank accounts and the ability to buy products and services in their new home, thereby creating jobs. They are typically retired, so they aren't displacing workers. They are adding to our local economy since they are buying new furniture, appliances and toys. They are trading in their commuter cars for brand new pick up trucks and buying UTV's, boats and campers. Cabella's is packed with people buying guns, ammo and fishing equipment especially due to this pandemic.
This pandemic has also morphed how we work and the number of companies that were forced to teach their employees how to work remotely. Century Link, a telephone and internet company, moved into seven floors of their brand new 13 story building in downtown Boise in 2017 but then in September of 2020, they announced that 75% of their workforce was working remotely and they wouldn't be moving back into their 100,000 square feet of office space. Since other companies have also learned to use remote work environments instead of corporate offices, how will that change the downtown Boise demographics? How will we re-purpose office buildings when an office cubicle is now a spare bedroom in your home instead?
Many of my clients used to require being located in an area that had high speed reliable internet which typically mean living in city limits in order to have DSL or cable internet. However, with the advances of satalite internet and the billions of dollars being invested into it's infrastructure that is changing too. Companies like Safelink, Rise Broadband, Viasat, HughesNet, and now Starlink . . . that requirement is going away too.
I am blessed to have lived in many different countries and across the United States. I have an extremely diverse set of friends in various political, religious and socio-economic groups. I seldom unfriend or un-follow people since they are entitled (I don't like that word) to their opinion. I take time to read the full story or articles, not just the headlines. I take time to read many of the comments too. I think these steps are critical in trying to erase confirmation bias.
I am fairly open about my beliefs and that I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment. I have my conceal carry permit even though it isn't required here in Idaho. I guess that creates it's own set of confirmation bias in that people will read this blog or my Facebook posts and people that don't agree with me will call other Realtors instead and I am absolutely aware and OK with that. It is called Niche Marketing.
As you tweak your personal, business and marketing plans for 2021, think about the changes going on around you and what short / long term impacts they may have. Think about the people moving into or out of your communities and what it might look like in 5 years if the trend continues.
Think about the impact of your marketing if you abandoned your company website in favor of using a Facebook Business page in a time when many conservative consumers in the United States are abandoning Facebook and Twitter? If you are a Liberal, maybe you might want to double your Facebook advertising budget since they might be the main ones "left".
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