Kristin Savage

It sounds really obvious, but i’ve vocabularised for myself why owning is better more secure than renting (a house) in the long term.

Look at the cost of both renting & repayments.

e.g.

The Homeowner: Grovels to save a deposit for who knows how long, finds a house, pays rates, insurance etc, makes weekly repayments of, let’s say $500 per week.

The Renter: Chooses a place, moves in, pays $400 per week, no rates or house insurance to worry about.

Here’s the thing… The Homeowner purchases not just a house, but the right to the security of having ever-lessening repayments each week year. The renter forgoes that security, and whilst paying less now, is at the mercy of rent increases and supply of good rentals forever!

I really don’t care either way…. it’s an old fashioned kiwi cliche the whole “get into a house mate”. Just had a moment of clarity about how it all works.

… So it’s a smaller slice, but it’s a bigger pie, and a real pie. It’s also most likely that there’ll be things you can do better than most of the current providers of the ‘old product idea’.

Rowan Simpson made some thought provoking comments a while ago in this post about the need to solve a problem, rather than just doing ’something’.

I’ve learnt that Innovation for the sake of innovation won’t take you anywhere without a market. I also learnt from this post that the importance of a market is paramount. Product and team are sideshows.

• Innovation applied well: Where something with a different angle solves a problem; supply then meets demand, and there you have your market.

• Innovation applied badly: Where something is flash but unwanted. Supply is there but not demand. What use are underpants with rockets when they burn your bum? Who cares if they’re innovative.

Ahh, the bigger pie.

A friend who is currently staying with us put me onto this 2008 election year gimmick.

Cameron Brewer, a guy from Auckland has set himself up as Charles Ashe MP, showing a day in the life of an MP in election year. Pretty funny. Check it out here. Looks pretty authentic. Apparently he used to be Jenny Shipley and John Banks’ media spin doctors/PR secretary.

;^)

I was reading the property section of the paper recently and couldn’t believe my eyes…. a catch-phrase describing a house for sale, it read: “one for the suite hearted” …. the couch pun was too much!

Is there no end to the Real Estate Industry’s Marketing Drivel?

It would seem the pre-requisite to marketing a house is a good dose of cheese wording.

Let me know some of the best and worst real estate catch-phrases you’ve read. We may however need to put a limit on the word ‘potential’.

I’ll start:

1. Potential Plus
2. Start your dream home here!
3. Wow, a dream come true!
4. Renovators delight
5. Not for the faint hearted
6. Character Villa
7. Stroll to the shops
8. Oozing Excellence
9. Zoned for Wellington College
10. This will not last
11. Little Gem
12. Watch the tide roll in
13. Buy yourself a Christmas present
14. Love me tender
15. Catch me if you can!
16. Lifestyle Awaits
17. Location, Location, Location!
18. Rare opportunity, going, going….

To be continued… (by you).

If the list gets to 100, i’ll send it off to the real estate institute head of marketing (if one exists).

Revolution!

Yoram Bauman PhD. This guy is a genius. Makes economics funny and easy to understand, (like someone else I’ve read).

Adam Smith, the famous economist who coined the term the invisible hand of the market said: “those goods and services perceived as most beneficial, efficient, or of highest quality will naturally be those that are most profitable”.

It seems the basic requirement for a product or service to succeed is simple: It has to be beneficial. If it is beneficial, then a potential customer will value it, and therefore quite likely purchase it.

After that, bringing the economics and business together is pretty basic:

“… a market — that’s a group of people who will directly or indirectly pay money for something …..a product — that’s an offering of a new kind of good or service that is brought to a market… a company — that’s an organized business entity that brings a product to a market.” Marc Andreessen.

In the end, it’s the forces of the [invisible hand of] the market that make life better for all of us.

“Time is money.” Time isn’t money, it’s the essence of life. The oft heard cliche “time is money” seems more and more meaningless as I age. We’ll never have today again. Kinda puts a personal perspective on the concept of distressed inventory.