Deep Breath

Why buy real estate? If, as Michael Lewis suggests in “Boomerang”, the Greek government is just a big piñata at which every citizen had the right to a whack, and if Iceland is a land of fishermen turned failed hedge funders who blow up their cars at night for the insurance money, if the Irish built thousands of luxury homes for people who never even existed, much less had the wherewithal to buy them, and if there are no social services left in Vallejo, California because the tax base won’t support them, then why should anyone feel good about plunking down millions of dollars for a place anywhere in the world? If the U.S. debt is crippling the nation, and no one wants to pay higher taxes (though at least most of us do PAY taxes, which seems to put us ahead of an awful lot of Europeans!) what sense does it make to invest in the infrastructure of a financial system which is surely melting down?

In some form or other, my agents at Warburg and our confreres throughout the country face these questions every day. Buyers are jittery. They have been anxious, with some pockets of unexpected exuberance, ever since the middle of 2008. They want to get on with their lives, but…

Here’s what I see, after over 30 years selling real estate and over 60 years on the planet: life goes on. It is not always easy to have faith in the future, but it is certainly the best way to live. And, as I have written before in this blog, buying a home is an act of faith. You are investing not only in your belief that the property will appreciate, at least modestly, over time, but also in your vision of your own future. Is this someplace where you, or you and those you love, will be able to create happy times? Will it be a refuge such that you breathe a sigh as you walk in at the end of a long day and feel embraced by the sense of home? In an uncertain world, and we are certainly living in one today, these are gifts that cannot be quantified.

I certainly have no idea who will win the Presidential election, or when the employment numbers will improve or the euro will stabilize. But I do know that the money I have invested in my homes (one at the top of the market in Connecticut in late 2005) has brought me enormous pleasure and a deep sense of place. In a profound way, owning my homes, filling them with things I love, feels like an affirmation.  It says, “In this complicated world, I know this is where I belong.”  And to create that feeling in others is really the definition of success for all the great agents I know. For the buyer, it just begins with a deep breath.