Tag: work

Let’s talk about Millennials and Real Estate

My sons are Millennials. My Walnut Creek Lifestyle freelance writer is a Millennial. More and more of my clients and colleagues are Millennials, as that generation continues to age into home-buyers.

So, realtors like myself are starting to notice more trends with the market geared toward that age group. It’s a different real estate market for Millennials than it was for their parents – nowadays, they are graduating with huge student loan debts, having trouble finding lucrative work out of college, and then struggling to pay sky-high rents and mortgages once they do get jobs.

That said, Millennials are driving the real estate market right now, which has made the following observations more obvious.

From San Francisco realtor John Solaegui:

  • There is a low inventory of single-family homes in San Francisco
  • Millennial buyers don’t care about parking spaces (though this might be more prevalent in San Francisco – it’s contradicted by the graphic above!) with the rise of ridesharing apps – they’d prefer having decks or gardens for outdoor entertaining
  • Areas like Noe Valley, Glen Park, Bernal Heights and The Sunset in San Francisco are extremely popular with Millennial buyers right now

From the California Association of Realtors’ REALTOR Magazine:

  • Millennials are cashing in on equity at a historic rate, thanks to rising home prices
  • One-third of Millennials say they are considering applying for a HELOC (home equity line of credit) in the next 18 months – much more than Gen-X or Baby Boomers
  • HELOC’s are popular with Millennials because they can consolidate debt and afford home remodels with them

I think this is an interesting trend in our market. Home prices are high, but so are the debts and loans owed by Millennials, so we’re seeing more and more interest in new ways around that issue. And even more interestingly, Millennials are changing the way we market homes – who cares about parking when you don’t have a car, right?

Ripples of Positivity

Recently, I watched a funny, but inspiring Ted Talk in which the speaker discussed how to train your brain to be more positive. I thought the video was well worth watching if you have 12 minutes to spare.

Basically, what the speaker gets at is that spending a few minutes a day doing things like journaling, meditating or sending a complimentary email to a friend or colleague will rewire your brain to be more optimistic.

positivity-2

He said if you do the following activities every day for 21 straight days, your brain will scan the world not for the negative, but for the positive:

  • Write three new things that you’re grateful for
  • Journaling about one positive experience you’ve had in the past 24 hours
  • Exercise
  • Meditate
  • Random acts of kindness, like writing that positive email.

Doing these things will create ripples of positivity and help reverse some of the doom and gloom we subject ourselves to on a daily basis when we read or watch the news. You can watch the full video embedded below if you’d like: