Just a couple of weeks ago, the Realtors® who attended our weekly Multiple Listings Service meeting had the opportunity to hear a guest speaker who really brought us back to the basics. I’m not sure if that was her intention, but she may have been one of the best speakers we ever had. She was going to be talking about gardening and landscaping around a home, or so we thought. I wondered, “What is she going to talk about that would be so interesting to a room full of Realtors® who want information on the housing market?” As it turns out, she took us back to school on what the housing market is really all about.
 
She spent about 25 minutes showing us slides of every part of her home, both inside and outside. There was one area which would be the back corner of her home behind the detached garage that she landscaped into a grotto. Another slide showed the detail work that she put into the cabinets in the kitchen. Yet another was of the shelving in the garage. None of these improvements seemed to be about money and expense, but it was all about the love and pride of her home. When she was done, one of the Realtors® stood up and said “Wow, not one mention of a statistic. Not one mention of REOs or short sales. This was all about pride of homeownership.” If everybody had that same pride of ownership that this speaker had, what a wonderful community we would live in.
 
This summer has certainly seen a dramatic increase in the amount of buyers who have chosen to improve their housing situation. Many of these buyers are obviously following the same philosophy as our speaker does. They are foregoing talk of recessions, depressions, and our economy. Instead of worrying about whether they are buying at the bottom of the market, if interest rates are going up or down, or what prices are going to do, they have turned their focus back to the basic reason of why homeownership is the American Dream. It is about satisfying your family’s needs of a stable and comfortable environment for the long term. It is about having your own nest that you can put your personality, love and pride into. It is about establishing friendships with the neighbors that create a community that your family belongs to.
 
I tried hard not to put any statistics or numbers into this article, but one in particular is so exciting that I couldn’t help myself. I am proud to report that 32% more buyers have purchased a home compared to the same time last summer.
 
The American Dream of homeownership is about pride and love of one’s home. That is why the old cliché is “Home Sweet Home”.