Check out this article from Time Magazine about how the economic slowdown is forcing baby boomers to work longer.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1860323,00.html?xid=rss-topstories
So what does that mean for us in real estate? Probably a few things...
1) It means that those people who thought they were going to end their careers, sell their homes and move to Florida will be enjoying our local lifestyle a bit longer. That may actually be good right now, because we need inventory to decrease, not increase, if prices and DOM are going to return to "normal" levels.
2) It also means that our client base is going to be comprised even more of people outside the baby boom demographic. So if you have been avoiding those classes on communicating and selling to Gen X and Gen Y, you had better get there if you expect to survive.
3) For managers, it may mean your office is filled with baby boomer agents longer than you thought. If Sally Agent was planning to leave the business when Harry Hubby (or vice-versa of course) got the big pension, now they may be hanging on a bit longer. That means you have to plan for them in your office space plan and also make sure they are living up to their obligations in #2 as well.
4) Finally, it means as a company we are going to be even less wedded to our newspaper advertising. We all know it is ineffective (or if you don't please comment here and I'll cite all the statistics) but we have been doing it during the transition from the baby boom to Gen X in order to cover all our bases - now it doesn't make sense to keep covering.
We already knew it was going to be an interesting year...this may just be the icing on the cake.
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