“Gentlemen, this is a football.”
Posted in Real Estate 101 | By Blair Newman and Dave Emerson | Tags: Back to the Basics, Real Estate 101, Real Estate Fundamentals, Southern California Real Estate, Vince Lombardi
Good morning! April 1st is over, so I guess we’d better get back to the business of sharing our thoughts and insights about the wonderful world of Southern California Real Estate.
Today we’re kicking off a series on real estate basics. with a post on “So Cal’s Two Real Estate Market Cycles.”
I was working on that post I googled the famous Vince Lombardi football quote above. I was so taken by the story I decided to devote this separate post to it.
The setting was the first day of the Green Bay Packers’ Training Camp, many years ago. Their coach, Vince Lombardi was already a living legend.
I’ll let Bob Kimbrell tell the rest, quoting from his Book on Management:
All the players knew that at the first team meeting, the legendary coach would waste no time getting straight to the point. Many of the men, half Lombardi’s age and twice his size, were openly fearful, dreading the encounter.
The coach did not disappoint them, and, in fact, delivered his message in one of the great one-liners of all time.
Football in hand, the great coach walked to the front of the room, took several seconds to look over the assemblage in silence, held out the pigskin in front of him, and said, “Gentlemen, this is a football.”
In only five words, Lombardi communicated his point: We’re going to start with the basics and make sure we’re executing all the fundamentals. . . .”
We believe a major problem with real estate today is that it’s gotten away from the basics. That certainly was the case for most agents, lenders, and buyers over the last five years. Not to mention the Fed, mortgage bankers, & federal regulators.
Back on St. Patrick’s Day, we posted “When Market Chaos Strikes, Get Back to Basics.”
Today we’ll follow up by “kick offing” our series of “Real Estate 101″ posts on some of the neglected or forgotten basics of So Cal real estate. We begin today with “So Cal’s Twp Real Estate Market Cycles.”
Please let us know what you think.
Tags: Back to the Basics, Real Estate 101, Real Estate Fundamentals, Southern California Real Estate, Vince Lombardi
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April 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I agree, we all must focus on the basic fundamentals. We have been tellin our Jr brokers and investors that for years. At the end of the day its all about good, well thought out assumptions based on a properties history, market area, and current macro events in the economy. Many of our investors who can afford to hold through this cycle are smart to stay put and look for deals with real motivated sellersdun. Others are goin out of state where the caps really are adjusting up, but beware, know the true underlying fundamentals before passing go to collect $200. Apartments are very fundamentally strong and with the student population and admissons growing with a boom all over the country, apartments are a very safe investment as long as you research the market before going in. We do this now in mulitple states and have had a phenominal experience. Its all about NOI on the way in! Value add is a plus on the way out!