Home For The New Year

Once again we find ourselves in the midst of a brand new year. The holiday season is now behind us, and we are coldly in the middle of another winter. Seemingly this dawn of another year has come upon us in much the style of the last . . . more at home and not as socially out-and-about as we had hoped. Who can't remember where they were when they rang in the new year 2000? 22 years gives us all a finite measurement -- both in our business lives and of course personally. Many things look quite different now, hindsight being 20/20.

22 years ago we went about our lives free from so many of the fears that permeate our daily lives today. We shook hands, hugged and cheek-kissed hello with nearly everyone we ran into. We had meetings in person willy-nilly. The only people who wore masks were working in an operating room. Domestic terrorism was something that happened in countries like Ireland. The second amendment seemed fairly simple to understand. If a parent showed up at a soccer game with a gun in a holster on her hip, it wasn't questioned. Even the winter was just plain cold, and the summer was simply hot. Spring involved flowers blooming and pleasant sunny days, and Fall was crisp and cool. The seasons were orderly and predictable. In many ways, so was life. California's mountains caught fire every year, but the fire stayed where it was supposed to -- up in the hills and didn't bother anybody. I remember watching it burn in San Bernardino as a little girl and was told that it was natural, the rejuvenation of life and that all the woods would simply grow back again. Now the fires blaze and consume everything in their wake, and nothing can stop them.

22 years ago most residential Realtors still put clients in their car and drove them around, sometimes for days on end. The Realtor was the conduit to all of the information, the source, the means and often in-and-of themselves the destination. The Realtor was the key for the largest transition that a family could make.

2022 began just like every new year with a countdown. Familiar music, fireworks and confetti rained down . . . and for a few minutes which most people saw on TV, if they were still awake, things seemed like they might be different. It did not eclipse the cacophony of turmoil that surrounds us. At the millennium New Year, President Bill Clinton was in office. Now of course we had political turmoil and a sense of uncertainty as we looked ahead nationally. In hindsight things seemed easier to debate back then based on sensationalism, titillation, drama and where you found yourself in your own personal mindset. But everyone clearly understood the basic dynamics. They were quite domestic. Today we find ourselves inundated with worldwide and domestic virology reports, hospitalizations and awash debates about vaccinations and mask mandates. Impending foreign war is part of the news cycle, our government cannot agree on literally anything and none of us wants to hear of one more mass shooting. So now, instead of mainstream TV news which was our source of information back then, we check the weather on our phone and binge watch a series of dramas that takes us away from the real world for a little while.

The most obvious change for the Realtor in the 22 years since we celebrated the millennium new year is technology. No longer does a couple who wakes up one morning to find themselves expecting an addition to the family decide over breakfast to move up to the bigger home and say, "I need to call our Realtor Edith on Monday morning and have her start this process!" One or both of them is probably searching on Zillow before they even firmly decide to move. Then they take a few virtual tours, choose a home and then schedule to see it and get pre-approved on their phone. What they don't realize is that it is probably already under agreement, their pre-approval is at best conditional and they really do need Edith (and a good lender they can trust and a home inspector) to get this job done right.

The one timeless thing that has not changed in the last 22 years, or the 20 before that, or the 20 that will follow, is that the most important thing to us all, both professionally and personally, is the sense of home. No matter how much time passes or technology changes or the weather defies logic or what sicknesses befall us, home is the one place we count on the most. We want to, and now more than ever need to, love our homes. The concept of working from home was completely foreign to us 22 years ago when we thought of home as a place to return to at the end of a day. Today home is often where people work and live, and ever more our home is literally the center of our lives.

So as I wish you a happy 2022, remember that what we do -- whether we find homes for people to live in or homes for people's businesses -- our industry is at the heart of what is good and truly important in our world. As we adapt and change with our industry, home will always be a place of security and sanctuary no matter what else goes on in the rest of the world.

Facts, opinions and information expressed in the Blog represent the work of the author and are believed to be accurate, but are not guaranteed. The Lancaster County Association of Realtors is not liable for any potential errors, omissions or outdated information. If errors are noted within a post, please notify the Association. Posts represent the author's opinion and are not necessarily the opinion of the Association.