Many different points of view right now, about the state of real estate, post "meltdown".
Deflationary scenarios are front and centre, with an emphasis on holding net worth in cash.
Inflationary scenarios, with an emphasis on the printing presses creating endless paper money, backed by more paper, backed only by a government, and the threat of hyperinflation (thus erasing the value of cash as an investment vehicle), sits on the opposite side of possibility. This side favours purchasing of good hard asset/real estate vehicles to protect one's discretionary income.
Two completely opposing points of view.
The only certainty is that there's no roadmap in our backpacks!
So, this is the 21st Century? No script? That's pretty unnerving!
In the 19th Century, a Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, spoke of "Either...Or". No middle ground; no "grey area".
If the 20th Century allowed the mirage of some vague middle ground as a possible position, then the 21st has delivered us back to an earlier age, but with a different emphasis.
Either this...or that.
It's an internet/digital age. A binary world. On...off...on...off...either...or....
Data has no value until interpreted. Then, we have information.
Somewhere in our brains we have an editing function. So important to give it some exercise, to make it limber and vibrant, to make it wake up and give us that "yes...no...on...off...true...false...yin...yang"...a response that promises a direction.
Either...or...right...wrong,,,up... down...
A reality check?
So, here it is: the 20th Century certainties vanished with 9/11, and have continued to evaporate with societal meltdowns: major companies collapsing, financial institutions faltering, stock markets in freefall (erasing net worth), housing bubbles crashing (whose idea was it, anyway, to commoditize a home?), jobs lost, savings vanished...where will it all end?
We seem to be in one of those schism moments, just the way it was described in Charles Dickens novels, as he tried to show the collapse of the centuries old Agrarian world and the birth of the "new world", the Industrial Age.
This is supposedly the Information Age. I think it's just beginning. On...off...on...off...right...left....
"In my ending is my beginning", said a pivotal poet of the 20th Century, T.S. Eliot.
He also wrote: "Not farewell, but fare forward, Voyagers". Now, that's a positive direction!
No one has the road map. No one knows what to do. There are no experts. We've all been assuming that there was a Wizard of Oz, with all the answers. All along, we've been the one with the knowledge.
That's pretty liberating!
Such opportunity is right in front of us. This is a time for creative and inventive thought. It is a time to look forward, and not to try to recreate the past.
Wherever we stand, we have the option to recreate our position. That is so exciting! We are in charge. There is no "them"; there is only "us".
So, with no grey area, just "either...or", there's also personal responsibility? We choose how to "be"? Mmmm..liberating!.
And yes, that has something to do with chosen lifestyles, and that's how we get back to real estate.
Read all of the guru newsletters, check out the data, and, in the end, you decide...it's about choice, about thoughtful decisions. There are no experts.
There's just "you", and what works for you, right now, in the moment we stand in. Open your mind....
Check it all out, know your terrain, search out the facts (google is a master at "the search" for raw data), and, in the end, trust yourself, and make your decision.
On...off...yes...no...now is not the time to buy...now is the time to act...
You decide!
When you're ready for a realtor to help in the interpretive function of making sense of the raw data, please give me a call.
How may I help you to buy your special Salt Spring Island or Southern Gulf Islands property?
liread33@gmail.com
How may I help you to discover special Salt Spring Island & the Southern Gulf Islands? Call me!
