I just got home from the Keller Williams’ annual conference called “Family Reunion.” This year, the conference was held in Anaheim, California and about 20,000 agents had a fantastic time. Our company, Keller Williams, is a very experiential company. It’s hard to put into words how great this conference is; you must experience it for yourself once and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Beyond the parties and the networking, the amount of information shared at this conference is just mind blowing. There were 184 different breakout sessions where you could learn anything you wanted to about the real estate industry. Every time I attend, it makes me so proud to know that I am associated with the number one real estate company in the world.
This year, like most, the founder of Keller Williams, Gary Keller, presented the state of real estate. He shared 94 different slides about the economy, real estate sales and where everything is headed. The one slide that stood out for me focused on home pricing. That’s the slide every consumer seems to focus on because nothing is more important than the pricing of their largest asset. Look at the graph below from Gary’s slides. What’s the one thing that jumps out at you? It should be the cyclical nature of real estate. Everything ebbs and flows, and everything that goes up comes down. There’s 33 years of data on the slide. Take note of the real estate peak in 2006. It was six years before real estate started rebounding and coming back up in 2012. Then we go on an amazing 10-year run of growth all the way to 2022 where it peaks again. Real estate has always moved in seven and 10-year cycles. Some people believe we follow peaks in seven-year increments and other people believe we follow peaks in 10-year increments. In this case, we had both.
The Hawai`i Team talks with Sellers all the time who say, well now is not a good time to sell. Really? Look at the data! It looks like it’s a perfect time to sell. Prices haven’t dropped all that much and if we look at history over the last 33 years, it would seem to indicate there is a better chance prices will decrease over the next several years than increase. If you’re hoping to wait out the market and sell at the peak again, are you prepared to wait seven years? Seven years from 2022 is 2029. Were you really thinking about waiting seven years until 2029? If not, then maybe we should talk.
This year I went to “Family Reunion” in Anaheim with an idea of conducting a social experiment. My one goal this year at the conference was to go out of my way to compliment any service provider I met or ran into. And I’m not talking just, “hi, hope you’re having a nice day.” I went out of my way to compliment them in a way that would for sure make them smile. I started day one at the restaurant in the lobby of the Anaheim Hilton. A nice lady, Cherise, was the hostess and she had her hair pulled back with some big, gold, hoop earrings with diamonds on them. Now I don’t know if the diamonds were real or not, and it doesn’t matter, but my eyes gravitated to those earrings. And, as she was showing me to the table, I said, “Cherise I absolutely love your earrings.” Well, she flashed me this huge smile and she looked at me right in the eyes and said, “YOU DO?” And I said, “yes, you make those look great.” Cherise then said, “my husband just bought these for me for Valentine’s Day last week!” And I said, “well he’s one lucky man,” and in that instance Cherise’s whole persona lit up. She thanked me and walked away with a smile on her face, her head held high. I went on to do this over and over again with the waitress at the restaurant, the bus driver, the bellhop, the Uber driver, the security guard at the convention center, and so many more people. It was soooo great to watch people light up, have a smile on their face and feel good about themselves. What I wasn’t prepared for was how it was going to make me feel. Every time they smiled; it made me smile back. Every time they laughed, I laughed with them. After each compliment, I was happier, lit up, and I walked with a little bit more confidence. I set up the experiment to make other people feel good, but I feel like I was the one that got so much more.
I’ve been watching the news over the last several weeks, and I am so distressed at the state of our country. I’ve never seen more hatred for each other than at this moment. The very fabric of the country is torn apart, and I was scratching my head on how any of this gets better. And then it hit me. Maybe it’s this! Maybe it’s one person, every person, giving one compliment to another person, one at a time over and over and over again. Could that really work? Does that have a chance? How do we spread that message? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Blessings.
Dan
Dan Polimino is the owner of the Hawai`i Team in Kailua-Kona, Hawai`i. He and his team are the luxury residential experts for the Big Island. If you are thinking about buying or selling inHawai`i, then please reach out to us at team@thehawaiiteam.com or call 808-913-0899.