October, 2009.Li Read
A year ago, we were all in a confused state, with the underpinnings of the winning strategies from the 20th Century, still being clutched at in the 21st, melting under our feet.
Yes, there were many clairvoyant people out there, in 2006, in 2007, and in early 2008, all chanting their mantra of "this is a bubble, this won't hold", and, just like those tulip bulb hoarders in 16th Century Holland, we totally ignored the obvioius. Was it part of the old adage, if it ain't broke, don't fix it? Or is it really true that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it? It seems that no one learned anything at all from the tech bubble at the close of 1999/2000, and that was a lot closer to our own time.
At some point, in the run up to the housing bubble collapse, someone decided to commoditize real estate. The concept of home evolved into housing.
Language shapes cultures. A simple change in vocabulary can change perception.
Home meant family, the dwelling that encased a personal lifestyle, a place that was often lived in for a substantial time...perhaps seven years or longer.
A house meant something different...with easy credit, creative mortgages, etc., it became possible to think of having several houses, to becoming landlords (even though at arms length, through property managers), and to leveraging increase in valuations to allow for more homes to be purchased...especially in sunbelt areas.
Builders were creating new developments, people were collecting spaces, and it was all on credit. Sound familiar to every other bubble that we read about, in history? What was that "south seas bubble" again?
It seems, though, that there are some differences in the timing of this one.
The internet, which came to the fore around 1995/96, in the public domain, erased time, geography, gender, race, age. It is a medium that is about intellect to intellect. It's really a one to one experience.
It became the platform that would allow the true emergence of the 21st Century.
When one studies history, it seems that the very early years of a new century carry over whatever was occurring in the closing years of the previous one. Then, some cataclysmic event occurs, which throws the world pell mell into the new century, in reality.
No doubt, 9/11 was a wake up call. It reminded people of their fragility. It also made them think about all the things they did that were "time wasters".
The binary world of computers leaves no room to pretend there's a grey area. It's on/off, on/off, act/react, act/react.
With technology evolving to match the huge promise of the internet, which is about individual empowerment, it means that there is an erasure of regionalism. In real estate, it used to be said that it was a regional matter. That was pre-internet and pre-web 2.0. The stats are the same everywhere, now, and the entire world was the recipient of the Fall, 2008 economic meltdowns.
So, the intenet and web 2.0 and the ever evolving technological innovations that allow us this global presence -- they all conspired to be present at the same time as Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" film warning, from the 1980s, about greed, that finally shredded our economic structures in late 2008.
It appears that there is now a movement towards the idea of social responsibility. A saving ethic. A sustainability lifestyle script. Those activists from the 1960s would be proud of us! (Remember Alicia Bay Laurel, and "Living on the Earth"? Discover it at a second hand bookstore).
Marshall McLuhan's theory was that the medium is the message. I see that as his way of explaining that we would become different people, reflecting our method of communication.
In this on/off, act/react time, we are all somehow equal. We can take photos/videos off our phones, text on Twitter and be heard around the world, with the same value as a seasoned reporter on an old style t.v. news show. CNN calls such contributors ireporters or citizen reporters. We can blog, we can put up video on youtube, we can connect with a larger circle via Facebook, we can link in a business component via Linkedin, we can have podcasts, we can Twitter...it's about being a part of the local community and the larger world community, and all at the same time.
This instant world is making us speedier people. We need to remember, though, the importance of filters, and our human filter is our brain's editing function. It's up to us to decide, in the great pool of raw data, what is actually information, and therefore useful to us. If we don't do this, we will suffer from information overload/data fatigue.
We are all so lucky to be around right now, while things are being invented beside us, so we can be a part of the new. When those who are around in 2080 look back, it will be like people in 1985 laughing at crystal radio sets, in the 30s!
Such opportunity, everywhere.
Yes, there was loss last Fall. Yes, the commoditization of housing caused a bubble, and pain and suffering happened to those who were overstretched, who did not see that they were inside a fragile bubble. Yes, the new can be a scary place to reside.
I like to remind people, though, that we need to stop looking down the narrow channel at a targeted partial byte of data/information. If we do that, we will just worry and dilute our creative juices. We will be locked into tunnel vision.
Periphery vision is what we need right now. Let's all step back, so we can get that 180 viewpoint, and see outside the edges of our vision...that's where the "real" new is forming.
We are humans, and that means we are creative. If someone can invent a heavy child's size steam shovel, and send it to Mars, to dig around in that planet's sandbox, to find out if there's water....well, what can't we do? No excuse, then, not to dig in and to look for solutions.
Yes. there was collapse and the pain of shift. That was last year. On/off, act/react remember, in this binary digital world. So, it's now "this year", and we're poised to remember our creative selves and to get on with the "real solutions".
And, your ideas are....???? Let's share!
Looking for wise real estate advice, in this transition moment, for Salt Spring Island and the Southern Gulf Islands?
I welcome your call.
