In 2009, I batted .600 in predictions for 2010. And I thought that was fun. It’s one thing to make predictions; it’s another to look back and see how those predictions fared.
How did I do last year in predicting events of 2011? I was hoping to be maybe 1 out of 7, since most of my predictions last year were of the doom-n-gloom variety. Sadly, I think I’m 4.5 out of 7 for a .642 batting average. Hall of Fame (Infamy?), here I come.
We’ll review my take on the predictions for 2011 after the jump.
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Over on Agent Genius, there’s a post about some study done as a marketing tool by Moby (the “let people know where you are” app) with REALTORS in mind. Apparently, September is “REALTOR Safety Month” at NAR, and the good folks there have put together a bunch of materials for y’all.
Now, the study apparently showed (I say apparently because I’m not putting my name/email in to download the said study, thereby ending up in their CRM software) that 1 in 4 men REALTORS carried a knife or a gun with them while “on the job”, while only 7% or so of women REALTORS did so. Lani Rosales, the Editor-in-Chief of AgentGenius, writes:
The above chart outlines Canadian and American answers and although we knew a small portion of real estate professionals would indicate carrying a gun, especially those practicing in the foreclosure or short sale markets, but despite a massive disparity between men and women regarding carrying a gun or knife on the job, it is extremely intriguing that one in four male Realtors indicate they carry a knife or gun while on the job. One in four women carry some form of pepper spray while only five percent of male Realtors do.
The major differences between the behaviors between male Realtors and female Realtors is highly intriguing, but it is most interesting that such a high number of men carry either a knife or gun while they are on the job.
I’m not sure what Lani finds interesting about the difference, but what I find interesting — nay, disturbing and of great concern — is the fact that only 5% of women REALTORS carry a gun while working. If anyone should go about with a concealed firearm while working, it is the female REALTOR.
How's that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?
One of my pet hobby topics is to fret about the Millenials (the twentysomethings of today). I’ve written about this “largest demographic group like evah” here, here, and here – as well as peppered throughout this blog for a while now. A lot of people — especially in real estate — like to point to the older reaches of the Millenials (the young 30somethings) and think that they are the future of the industry.
Well, to be sure, from pure demographics standpoint, the Millenials do point to the future of the industry. But you should worry about that. A lot. My opinion about the Millenials is that they are the most Screwed Generation in American history who have had their initiative beaten out of them by overprotective parents, teachers and “safety” bureaucrats; their future mortgaged by irresponsible politicians of both parties with full-throated support by the Boomer Generation; their expectations of what is a good life totally unmoored from reality by Hollywood; their options foreclosed by a college-industrial complex that burdened them with absolutely unsustainable student debt (that is not dischargeable in bankruptcy); and of course, they screwed themselves with their attitude of entitlement and superiority complex based on nothing more than the fact that they know how to text message real fast and post pictures to Facebook.
It appears that even the dinosaurs over at the LA Times have noticed that the Hopeychange Generation is actually the Totally-Screwed Generation:
Call it Generation Vexed — young Americans who are downsizing expectations in the face of an economic future that is anything but certain. Career plans are being altered, marriages put off and dreams shelved.
Welcome to the real world, LA Times. Jump right in, the water is freezing.
Don't look particularly magical, do they?
I just went to Easter services — the one worship service I make a point of not missing, even though I’m a terrible, terrible Christian in so many ways — at a local church here in Houston. Given that we haven’t yet found a home church, which likely will need to wait until we find a, y’know, a permanent home… it was really quite nice to be just a guest.
But at this service, the absolutely mundane yet absolutely amazing fact of the church choir just struck me. I thought I’d share that with you all.
In my first blog conversation post, I wrote about Millenial family formation. That was fun stuff, and Travis Robertson, my dialogue partner, has posted his response. Go check it out; it’s worth a read, and the discussion is fun. But I thought I’d move onto some of the real meat.
Travis claims in the video (embedded in the first post) that companies — and specifically real estate brokerages — have to change the way they operate in order to recruit the Millenials. I don’t think so; I rather think Millenials have to change the way they operate and view the world in order to be recruited by employers, including brokerages (at least the ones that demand something of their agents).
I’m going to be referring to Travis’s posts and his eBook; and I do encourage you to go check them out.
In this part, let’s address the issue of managing Millenials.
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Travis Robertson is one of my new friends from RETech South. He’s one of the brightest, most thoughtful young men I’ve met in recent years, and I think the world of him. And of course, when I can debate significant issues with intelligent people I genuinely like, that’s pretty close to nirvana for me. Well, adding a few mugs of beer and doing it in person would be best… But lacking that, Travis and I agreed to carry on a series of blogposts in which we debate the impact of the Millenials (sometimes called Gen-Y).
First, let me urge you to watch Travis’s speech at RETechSouth. It’s an hour long, but it’s fully worthwhile, if only for yours truly being mentioned in an amusing context:
This is going to be a topic we won’t settle in one post. But longtime readers know that I’ve been skeptical about the Gen-Y’s future for a variety of reasons. I’m already on record as suggesting that real estate won’t be saved by the Gen-Y; Travis agrees, but suggests Gen-Y will change real estate.
Well, every generation changes the world around it. But what I’d like to challenge is the phenomenon of Millenial Triumphalism, in which the Gen-Y and its enablers make the kind of statements about why Gen-Y is unlike any other generation that came before it, and talk as if the Millenials are the change that they’ve been waiting for. My admittedly more tempered view is that before the Millenials will change the world, the world will change Millenials.
In this post, let’s talk specifically about family formation — the topic that spawned my comment about polygamy — as one of the driving factors behind home sales is family formation: people meeting, falling in love, getting married, and starting a family.
I don’t often do book reviews on Notorious, although I do read quite a few of them, but when the author is a man I respect, a good friend in bad times, and an all around great guy, and his publisher sends me a review copy… well, the least I could do is give my impressions of the book.
The book, of course, is Surviving Your Serengeti: 7 Skills to Master Business and Life
by Stefan Swanepoel. I read the thing in one night, because… well, that’s just how I roll, baby. 
No, seriously, the book is written for the mass audience. It’s an easy read that blends storytelling with travel writing with solid business advice. Large chunks of it read like a novel, because… well, it’s sort of written like a novel, and you find yourself just turning one page, then another, then the next.
Longtime readers of Notorious know that I’m nothing if not honest — some might say “brutally honest”. There will be no exceptions just because I admire the heck out of Stefan. Read on for my impressions.
I posted about this change last year, but I think it bears repeating once again. I’ve made some editorial changes to convert Notorious into much more of my personal site, and do more of my industry-related writing on my company blog. So those of you who are subscribed to Notorious via email or RSS might want to change that over to 7DS.
Thanks!
-rsh
It's high time we brought back these classes...
Apparently, some legislators in South Dakota are pulling a political stunt by introducing a bill to require that all adults buy a gun upon turning 21. I say it’s a political stunt because the whole point of the exercise apparently is to say that Obamacare is unconstitutional, just like a an individual mandate to buy a gun would be:
Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, is sponsoring the bill and knows it will be killed. But he said he is introducing it to prove a point that the federal health care reform mandate passed last year is unconstitutional.
“Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance,” he said.
Well, what I find really disturbing about this is that a frikkin’ state legislator is so ignorant of the Constitution that he can make statements like this. We need to bring back civics education and do some sort of teaching on basic, fundamental constitutional law. Our nation is starting to suffer because of the low level of knowledge and education on the part of the citizenry on the most fundamental document that governs our political lives: the U.S. Constitution.
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Farewell, And Thanks for All the Fish!
So tomorrow is going to be my last day in New Jersey as a resident, unless something really dramatic happens and I get incarcerated here. I have a bunch of random, somewhat conflicted, thoughts going on and figured I’d share four of them here with you.
This got long, partly because I’ve gone through quite a bit, and partly because I’m going to be driving sixteen hours a day for the next three to four days. So blogging will be difficult, to say the least.
![](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470947802?ie=UTF8&tag=thnorob-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0470947802"><img border="0" src="51n7yqvo5DL._SL160_.jpg"></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thnorob-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0470947802" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important; "Surviving-Your-Serengeti-FINAL-Cover-903x1024")
