June 28, 2024
“I read the news today oh boy, about a lucky man who made the grade, and though the news was rather sad, but I had just had to laugh, I saw the photograph………..” and then “nobody was really sure if he was from the house of Lords”….” And, “3,000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire, and though the holes were rather small, they had to count them all…..”
We read other news recently and one headline stood out from the others: “Bad News for Homebuyers: We are in a Big Hole”
It wasn’t so shocking, and rather, it flashed us back (that’s right!) to John Lennon’s melodious, plaintive voice in A Day in a Life, from the groundbreaking record by those four lads from Liverpool. Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was easily the most innovative, transformative music of its era. Some of us were lucky to be present at the time.
Years later, many actually, and here we are, in the real estate business, and that headline, about bad news for homebuyers, badly misses the point about home ownership.
We get the news value in the story – that the housing market is horrendously under-supplied (and probably always will be). This translates into an expensive housing market. But it always is. It’s time to consider an alternative perspective.
The point of home ownership is to be ….. HOME!
We will note the obvious here. There is a lot to life, and living, and all the news (noise?) about mortgage rates is partly why we skipped posting in these pages during the Spring “Selling Season,” because frankly we were holding our breaths to wait for mortgage rates to fall. Plummet, is more like it, though alas, neither mortgage rates or the sky fell from the sky.
In a strange way, it is all so centering (not sobering!), the housing industry, and situation. It is always expensive to buy your first home. It is always expensive to fix up the home you bought. It is always expensive to move, upgrade, buy an even more expensive house. And we won’t even address the cost of having, and raising, a family! The point is, it’s not about the money, “though it’s always about the money,” according to a line in one movie. It’s about being home, and living.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the housing rental industry, with living in a home in which the resident does not own title. It is still a home. Their home! We do what we can do. We do what we have to do. Home ownership is a little about control. Controlling a small piece of our lives. And it’s a lot more than that. While you won’t find the trite words in these pages about “curating one’s life,” or whatever, lives are not libraries. Home is where we live, rest, love, have peace, regenerate, make music and sing songs, rejuvenate, laugh, cry, tell stories, dream, and much, much more. Getting a home, buying a home, provides an experience in fulfillment that is very, very difficult to describe. It is such a personal experience, a private thing, the memories you create, all that.
Hence, a little perspective on the business of buying and selling real estate, and what it means for people that actually propel this industry. We know who the people are that sell their respective homes, and hopefully, move onto another one. We know the folks buying these homes. We are the same people. And everyone wants to be home. More about the numbers and data on the housing shortage, and home sales in Sonoma County, in our next post.
Serving Cloverdale, Graton, Healdsburg, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Tomales, Windsor and surrounding Sonoma County, CA areas.
The First step when selling your home is to set the right price for the current market conditions in your area.
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