Governments are inching us toward Martial Law for our own good (or is it?)
Mainstream media is ensuring compliance, with a ‘scare the pants off you’ approach.
Social media is awash with advice, suggestions and messages of hope about how you might best deal with the ‘virus’ situation and the short-term economic fallout.
I’m sure each of you have a go-to source to try and make sense of what is and what will be as this event rolls along.
If you are finding it hard to make any sense of it all, feeling anxious and have extra time on your hands as a result of the isolation recommendations, I strongly encourage you to do your own research with two questions firmly in mind:
Why has this happened? And…
Who stands to benefit most from the ensuing economic climate and how can I come out of it ready for the inevitable upturn?
So, what drove me to pull back the curtain and look for the answers to “Why?” and “Who benefits?”?
“What are we going to do?”
In mid-2008, my wife and I started our own independent Real Estate Agency.
After about six years learning what makes for a successful real estate business, and what doesn’t, we took a leap of faith and went it alone.
Very quickly we established ourselves, and home sellers were drawn to our honest, trustworthy and straight-talking style of marketing, support and selling homes.
Then in September 2008, about three months after we opened, Lehman Bros, one of America’s oldest Investment Banks, went under.
The domino effect from that failure was as quick as it was devastating. Banks stopped lending world-wide, credit dried up. Stock markets faltered, established industries and companies began to fail, millions of people lost jobs, Governments poured billions of dollars into the economy to stave off a catastrophe, property prices came under pressure…sound familiar?
This was reflected in our fledgling business. Of the eight or so ‘live’ sale contracts we had at the time of the Lehman Bros failure, about six of them crashed as banks pulled funding from the buyers.
I can remember Karen and I looking at each other and saying, almost simultaneously, “What are we going to do?”
Instead of allowing fear to paralyse us, we got to work – helping clients on their best course of action whilst taking a pragmatic approach learned during my days as Police Detective: Adapt, adjust and don’t place any energy into what you can’t control.
Karen began building a Property Management business, I researched why this ‘sh*t storm’ happened, how to do business in a downturn and what would be the biggest influence on the business landscape.
And in a nutshell that influence was the growing reach and power of the internet.
More and more business would be done ‘online’, so I spent the best part of six months learning and researching how to operate successfully in the ‘new’ property market via the digital world – which consumers were flocking to. I called it the “Seek Value and Save Economy”
EVERY market is driven by two human emotions: FEAR and GREED (pessimism v confidence).
It provided me with the means to offer a successful mix of modern marketing techniques and good old-fashioned caring service. We were very well placed to provide the professional service needed to help our clients navigate the market and move on, showing them how to take full advantage of the change in conditions – evolving buyer behaviour and the adjustment to asset value levels.
This deep dive also allowed me to develop a much clearer understanding of how both sellers and buyers react and behave during tough times – and the good times.
The key learning was that EVERY market is driven by two human emotions: FEAR and GREED (pessimism v confidence).
The author and master motivator Anthony Robbins said it best in a very recent piece, responding to current events; “People are shaped not by how things go when things are going well; people’s lives are shaped by the most difficult times.”
That statement resonated with me like no other has in recent times.
Yep, I did well when the markets were pinging along (all agents did), but when the market faltered, I could have thrown my hands in the air and headed for the hills (like around 25,000 other agents did at the time) – thankfully that was not the path Karen and I chose.
Even as recently as late 2018 to mid-2019, when the property market was in a mini slow-down, because the media had many people thinking a crash was coming and it was time to run to the exits, I was standing, facing them saying, “Go back, it’s not happening, hold your nerve, this will pass quickly.” And it did!
“It will pass.”
What about now?
Today’s virus scare – it is designed to get us to do things we are not comfortable with, or not to do things that don’t suit the current agenda – has placed us into a similar feeling that consumed the general public back in 2008’s GFC, and not too dissimilar to the scare unleashed on 11/9/2001.
It might sound flippant to say, “It will pass.” But it will! And you can position yourself to take advantage of the opportunities that will present.
This event is part of the current eighteen-year cycle, economically speaking, and at the other end it will lead to a strengthening market, property and stocks, that will fly along well into 2020’s.
What?! Get that man a tin-foil hat!
Time, sooner rather than later, will prove me wrong or right, mad or sane; but one thing I am certain about is that I am always here to help you have a clear understanding of how markets ebb and flow – and when they will.
As the late, great Kenny Rogers sang, “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em…”
I hope this next excerpt from Tony Robbins gives you the confidence to push through this challenging time and be better for it; “…it’s what you practice in private that you will be rewarded for in public…this is your time for training, for practice, to prepare for what’s ahead…I guarantee you, winter [this event] will end, and when it does you will emerge that far ahead. You will have taken your life to a new level.”
Prepare for better times, stay well and be well informed.
