Daily Intent

I encourage you today to take a walk down main street.

It is very easy to hole up during the winter months, leaving others to walk the streets and get to know what is going on around town.  It is cold.  It is rainy.  It is dark.

Toughen up a little.

The only way you are going to find the deals, see the opportunities and broker the transactions that were discussed in last week’s Market Street Report (Art dealer occupying empty office space for FREE), is by walking the streets, observing the changes structurally and also psychologically, and talking to the people.  How are the human patterns changing?

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Taking a business meeting out to the streets Wednesday led me to meet a creative entrepreneur capitalizing on the economic downturn.  As my business associate and I discussed our ideas to make greatness out of a budding program, we couldn’t help but stop and speak to an artist that had newly occupied a large, vacant space on State Street.

In any other economy the building owner would have scoffed at the idea of allowing an artist free reign over the large space;  the artist may have never had the finances to score such a prime location; however, building owners are feeling the pains as their retailers struggle.  They need these spaces filled for fear a couple empty spaces leads to a few more, snowballing into the entire block losing its appeal.

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Gone are the days of retiring at 62.

For those over 40 year old, this may be all too painful of a statement to read.  The retirement accounts that were earning nice returns over the last twenty years have decided to change course.  2010 as a goal for retirement has morphed into 2015 or 2020.  Dreading of the office for 1500 more days of one’s life.  What about the sailing around the world or a  trek to far off lands or Italian adventures?  This will have to wait.

However, tis not why I surface such a topic.  …Yes, I said “tis”.  Just felt right.

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This week the Senate has been debating the details of the economic stimulus package passed by the House, while adding in their own little, or rather large, agendas.

The main topics of housing concern: whether fixing in low interest rates for refinances are necessary; will the $7500 tax credit buy incentive be extended to all; will tax cuts spur on home purchasing; postponing foreclosures; and how would backing the banks on loan modifications work out.

While this all gets hashed out, it is important to understand how our local real estate economies are faring.  Attached herein are the 2008 results for Seattle and Santa Barbara along with a December snap shot of Santa Barbaran sales.

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“Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms.  At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained fatihful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been.  So it must be with this generation of Americans.”

- Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, Inauguration Address.

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