TLDR Realtors Think About Stuff

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TLDR: Home is where the heart is and it’s pretty cool. Real estate agents have feelings. 

Happy new year! I know you expect real tactical, data-driven information in a real estate blog and I promise that throughout the year, I’m going to deliver just that. My goal is to make sure you are up-to-date on what’s happening with interest rates, inventory, economic development, transportation, and other hyper-local activity as it affects your real estate plans whether it be buying or selling in the Triangle. 

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last blog and while I’ve been keeping current, what I’ve really been reflecting on is not real estate as an asset or investment. I’ve been meditating, and have been for a long time, on real estate as a home. I spent time over the holidays thinking about how real estate agents can get very transactional when discussing their job. Don’t get me wrong, Homegrown Real Estate is a business and I have specific goals and objectives centered around how many buyers and sellers I want to work with this year (50 in case you were wondering) and I run my business off of a Profit and Loss Statement and make decisions based on metrics and data and financials and blah, blah, blah, however; at the core of what I and my team does, is help folks through what is oftentimes the largest purchase or sale of their life. I get to sit across the table with couples and talk about selling the family home their kids grew up in so they can downsize and focus on traveling. I get to share my life experience with young couples buying their first property in anticipation of having their first kid. I get to offer wisdom like, “yes, it might seem like having the primary bedroom on the first floor and the babies room on the second floors is a good idea, however; you’ll thank me later when you don’t have to walk up and down the stairs 3-5 times a night for the next 5 years.” Sometimes these conversations are happy, and sometimes their not. I’ve worked with folks in the midst of divorce, death, I’ve sat across folks coming to terms with the fact that their mobility issues are making their current living situation untenable. At the center of all of these conversations you don’t find a transaction. You find a home.  

After graduating from Appalachian State I flew to Edinburgh, Scotland with my cousin and my bike. He and I spent the next 2 months riding to Berlin. A year later I flew back to Berlin with a friend and my trusty steed (Danaerys was her name) and we rode from Berlin to Istanbul. During those times, home for us was camping under a bridge, next to train tracks, in random fields and parks, in strangers homes and backyards, in a forest that we later learned was a trash dump, on beaches, and pretty much anywhere that would have us. During these trips I became obsessed with the idea that the world is such a huge place and there’s so many people on it and each one of those people has a spot, an exact coordinate on this globe, that they call home. It could be a physical location, it might be with a specific person, it might be in a tent in a forest full of trash. For me, I would imagine myself leaving my parents house in Raleigh and traveling for months at a time and then returning to their house, to my old room, feeling like I just gone in a giant circle that led me back home.  

I’m not naive to the fact that to have a home is a privilege many can’t afford. Or to think that there are people who don’t have a home or who had a home that was taken from them. The idea of home might not bring some folks the warm and fuzzies. The dots I’m trying to connect are that everyone on this planet has an idea of home in some way or another. The idea or feeling of home is one of the most powerful forces in our lives and occasionally I have the honor and the privilege to help people define that idea and help make it come to fruition. I get to learn about the homes they came from and the ones they are trying to build. Or sometimes it's the home they are trying to run away from. Either way, I get to sit across from them and come up with a plan to get them where they want to go and it can truly be an honor.

I spoke in my last blog about my time in Egypt learning Arabic. I had the opportunity to bust out my Arabic chops on an Uber ride home from downtown Raleigh a couple years ago with my driver, Ali. We got to talking and he was from Iraq. He was a former physician that cooperated with the US military and in turn was granted a visa to move to the United States with his family. We exchanged numbers and I followed up with him and we met up for a game of backgammon and some hookah. I was fascinated by his journey and I asked him what led them to Raleigh. He said when he arrived in the US he was given a few options on where to move and he knew one other person in Raleigh from back home so he chose the Triangle. I asked him what he liked about living in Raleigh and his answer stuck with me to this day. This was early on in my real estate career and most of my conversations were around trendy neighborhoods that were close to bars and restaurants and walkable and bikable. He said he liked living in Raleigh because it was safe, because you drive without getting stopped, because there were no bombs, because his kids could play outside, because his wife could go on a walk, and there were lots of trees. Nothing about proximity to breweries or good bagels. But because he felt safe. It struck me that real estate and the idea of home is so multifaceted and so central to all of our lives. It can mean so many different things to so many different people. It’s not just a transaction. It’s where babies are born, memories are made, marriages start and end, it’s where life happens. I spent the holidays thinking about what a privilege it is to be a part of this very central theme that we all experience and how grateful I am to the people that allow me to be a part of it. Here's to writing new stories of home in 2024.  

In other news, interest rates are ticking down and I’m feeling the market heating up. I think the next 2-3 months are the optimal time to buy a house before things really start to get competitive. We’re already seeing more multiple offer situations and shorter days on market. More on that to come.

Be safe. Be Smart. Be Content. Have a wonderful find.