Coastal Real Estate and Lifestyles

Sustainability.  Sustain a mortgage, sustain a city, sustain a home, and of course, sustain our planet.  This will require a shift in our collective thinking.  Sustainability has yet to reach a tipping point, yet many of us are beginning to make lifestyle decisions based on their sustainability factors.

Home vs investment.  The debate continues as to whether your primary residence real estate purchase is a investment, in the true sense, in addition to your home.  The coming year will see a shift based on the basic question:  “Is this the home I want to be in for several years?” versus “Could this property give me a good return on my investment?”  Those of us looking at retirement strategies are asking this question again.

Conventional wisdom will be questioned.  Buyers and sellers will begin to realize that lives cannot or will not wait for the big guns to get their act together.  We’re in unprecedented times and we’re all adjusting.  Rather, they are beginning to take a hard look at their current financial situation, and will begin to strategize on how to get to the next step in their lives.  Call it thinking out of the box, or tossing old “tapes” that no longer apply.

News source selection.  Consumers have control over where they get their real estate news, but many don’t know it yet.  They still read the newspaper headlines, web news headlines, or mainstream media.  More and more people will select their media sources and news feeds for additional information, or trends, or analysis on issues that they feel is pertinent to the decisions they need to make.  Select your information sources into a custom Reader, download podcasts from respected sources, read the blogs of industry experts.  These sources are becoming more respected and used.

Know your Neighbor.  It just seems like the more deregulated we became, the more isolated we became.  (This is not a political statement, just an observation!)  Connections is a keyword of 2009.  Whether it’s within a local community, neighborhood, office, or industry.  There are more ways than ever to connect; however, connecting will go beyond just adding a name to your “friend” list, or attending the annual picnic.  It will be more about what can we learn from each other, or create together, or share with each other on a regular basis.

Ok, so why did I come up with such a list and why this list of 5 topics?

I started this post because I’m reading articles with the word “sustainable” in them practically every day.  My realization that this concept will continue to evolve beyond just environmental concerns got me thinking about what else I think will change in 2009.  The other four quickly came to mind.  They are just my opinion.

There may be others, they just didn’t come to me this morning.  Share a comment if you have another thought or want to expand on one of the issues.  Let’s make 2009 a good year.  Thanks for reading.

Happy New Year.