A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I watched our oldest son graduate from college. As we watched him walk across the stage with a huge smile, we were overwhelmed with an emotion that was part pride and part relief, and we looked at each other and quietly said, “We did it!” Now granted, we weren’t actually the ones attending classes, taking tests, and feeling all the pressure to complete projects, but we were the ones who managed to take care of that little baby we brought home all those years ago and get him past all the hard stuff, and there was a lot of heavy lifting that got us to this day. So we celebrated his huge accomplishment, but we triumphantly pumped a fist, and gave ourselves a pat on the back!
I get to experience this triumphant feeling vicariously every time one of you closes a sale -- we did that big thing that seemed really hard! “We did it!”
I’m very grateful each time I get to be part of that moment.
As America turns 250, I was looking up the origins of the idea of home ownership as “The American Dream”. It used to be that most regular people were renters, but in the 20th century. a number of policies were implemented which made homeownership possible for the common people. As the US recovered from the Great Depression in the 1930’s, the government created the FHA and access to home loans, with innovations like the 30-year fixed rate mortgage, which made home ownership attainable for many more Americans. Over the years, policy changes expanded access to capital for more people, and owning your home became ingrained as an American ideal. The benefits of ownership are wide ranging, from building wealth through home equity, to having stability in housing cost, to tax benefits, and to the peace of mind from knowing your house is your own, but buying does require a leap of faith, and a longer view, just like raising kids, growing a business, or other things we generally think are worth doing. So for America’s birthday, I’m taking a moment to celebrate an Idea I believe in.
A few data points:
Despite some instability around global events, Existing home sales increased 3.2% in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.17 million units. The gain marked the strongest sales pace since December and represented a 3.2% increase compared to a year earlier. Also Job gains have been much stronger than expected, adding 172,000 jobs in April and revising March gains upwards, so now 565,000 new jobs have been added year to date, and the unemployment rate has held steady at 4.3%. Great sign of a resilient economy, not so great for hopes of interest rates coming down much anytime soon. Remember that all data is backward looking, and yes, California still needs more housing, but a relatively strong economy and decent buyer demand continuing to support the market are good things!
I was honored to have been included again in this year’s Real Trends rankings among the top .05% of agents in the nation by sales volume! That means that I was able to help a lot of people last year, and that is very meaningful to me.
KeyCrew Journal interviewed me about the current market in LA, and in this article we take a deeper dive into the local market segmentation. click here to read it.
Wishing you all the best,
Tamar
