17 Degrees and Brown Slush

In a few weeks you are going to get mass emails from my fellow Realtors. While I work each week diligently on a real estate topic of interest for Jeff’s Journal, I do miss a vital void which my brethren provide. These fellow competitors will remind you to turn your clocks an hour up or down. See, I don’t even know if they go back and you save an hour or vice versa. I’ll let them fill that empty vacuum for you. In case they miss it, the people on Facebook will rant and rave about how we need to get rid of daylight savings time so the sky can turn dark at 3:15 pm. If the kids crash their bike or get bit by a bat in the dark, then so be it.

Other events that cause the same old arguments are Columbus Day (16 states and American Samoa still celebrate), and shark attacks. My Mom will send me a warning about the sharks any time there is a rumor of sharks migrating. I tell her there are 10 shark attacks resulting in death versus 30,000 + automobile accidents. Irving getting you on the roundabout is much more of a Halloween terror costume to me than any Jaws attire.

Which brings me to this week’s DuJour ritual which involves hurricanes. The press gets all frothy over Florida every time we have a storm.  So, last Saturday morning when I perused the clicker and saw Michael Smerconish was going off on people leaving Florida, I tweeted or X’d him the following which he graciously put up on the monitor.

He laughed at the comment and admitted that cognitive dissonance is real when it comes to Florida weather.  So will climate change really make a difference in people migrating from Florida? Here are six reasons why it won’t…

1. It will be 17 degrees, and you will step in brown slush in Philly, NYC, Chicago, DC, Boston, CT or whatever fine places the Northern folk reside in. I wasn’t being facetious. That will happen. Someone will shovel snow and pull their back. Ask any chiropractor what time of the year business is best. It’s right after a blizzard and poor Irving pulls a muscle in his lower back.  The same Irving than turns into the accidental killer mentioned above navigating our roundabouts but that is a different story.

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2. La Nina – which makes #1 about the 17 degrees and slush much worse. I was interviewed for this article on La Nina and am thrilled to see the weather reports. You northerners are in for a lot of snow. Get out your galoshes, ice scrapers, and be prepared to sit in traffic.  We Realtors love an early snow up north which drives up demand for South Florida.

3. Out of sight and out of mind. When hurricanes occur, the future seasonal renters who end up purchasing in season and snowbirds aren’t here to see it happen. In a few weeks most everything is cleaned up. In January when it’s 82 degrees and you are wearing flip flops and shorts, hurricanes just aren’t on your radar.

4. Insurance costs have gone up greatly but the principal reason for the jump in homeowners’ insurance was because of fraudulent insurance claims rather than storms.. These have been addressed and costs should come down as old lawsuits work their way through the system. Read about the 3 bright sides coming in Florida insurance.

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5. Each area that gets hit builds back in a stronger fashion. The electric grid is more underground today. Stronger building codes. Impact glass. Generators. Areas that get severely damaged get torn down. Homes are just constructed to withstand storms in a much different fashion nowadays than there were years back.

6. We Floridians like to gloat to the Northerners. And newbies to the area are relentless gloaters. You’ll love sending selfies of your tanned faces, tropical birds, palm trees, boats and the iPhone weekly weather screenshot.  All part of the ruthless campaign to rejoice in the Northerners anguish.  Another ritual we look forward to each year.

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Jeff Lichtenstein, originally from Chicago, got his start in the home furnishings textile business where he traveled over 35 weeks a year selling fabrics. After the family business was sold, Jeff moved to Florida and became a real estate agent. Today he is the owner and broker of Echo Fine Properties, a luxury residential brokerage voted best brokerage of the year. Jeff manages a non-traditional model of real estate that mimics a traditional business model. Echo has 80 agents, an average of one million dollars per transaction and over 500 million in annual sales. Between traveling for work and annual family trips to national parks with his wife and 2 now adult children, Jeff has visited 49 states. He is also one of the few Chicago White Sox fans you’ll ever meet.  Some publications he has been quoted in.

Author of business & leadership book How Making a Sandwich Can Change Your World –  The Amazing Success of the PB&J Strategy – Available to Buy Now!

Feel free to ask him a question directly at jeff@EchoFineProperties.com including a complementary  valuation of your home.