Talking to the Young

What to say vs how you say it vs who should say it

After my post about how organized real estate just has very little to say to younger generations, I got an email from the CEO of a major REALTOR Association. I won’t quote it or anything, but he raised a very salient point/objection.

He and his organization have been extremely aware of the problems that younger generations face. They have focused like a laser on trying to improve housing affordability. The narrative has been supply, supply, supply — in their particular market, there really is a horrendous shortage of housing. Demand far, far outstrips supply and the local government is not making it easy to build new housing.

They have also advocated for all sorts of demand-side relief, from down payment assistance to first time homebuyer credits to lower interest rates for younger buyers, etc. etc.

So his point/question was, “What are we missing here?”

My answer to him leads us to this post. No point in keeping such things secret. Consider this post to be free consulting advice, worth exactly what you paid for it. (Well, since you did pay a subscription to Substack, worth $20 or so I guess. 😊)

Trigger Warning: I imagine many of you won’t like this post one bit. I’m sure some will get super defensive. Sorry! That is never my intent, but I’ll accept the side effect of telling it like how I see it.

Let’s dive in.