Happy February!
Can you feel the optimism in the air? After two years of living with masks, lockdowns, political unrest, threats of vaccine passports, bare shelves in the grocery store, construction and merchandise supply issues…. it's been one hellova-ride!
But In blows February with not only some beautiful spring-like weather here in Florida but also the possible end is in sight for the pandemic with the less severe Omicron variant sweeping thru affecting everybody at a rapid pace whether you're vaccinated and boosted or not.
And just like that the mood shifts and optimism sets in and spreads. Hopefully as rapidly as the virus. Sounds like a good time for us to all kick it in gear, and totally rock 2022. One of the best assets you can possess is resiliency. And now's the time to let it shine!
Our team has put together some great resources for you to do just that in the new year. From free gym and group fit offerings to tools and tips to avoid procrastination (pun intended) as well as springboard for your landscaping (yes, pun intend it again). We hope you find our compilation in this month's Newsletter useful.
Typically, this time of the year I'm talking about how it's the slower season and we are enjoying the break before we get back into the spring and summer faster pace. But that just didn't happen this year. We have stayed busy mainly with Sales throughout the holiday season. Literally Christmas day and Christmas Eve we were still working hard to make sure all of our closings went smoothly. Of course, I'm not complaining I'm very thankful. It's just surprising.
The strong seller's market continues to persist. We are still seeing double-digit appreciation and while it may not be quite as high as the last two years it's still holding very strong and predicted to stay that way for some time.
The feds have raised interest rates recently from 3.33% to 3.52% and economists predict there will be three more raises over the next year. I feel like all that's going to do spur even more people into buying out of fear that it'll keep going up. I remember buying when the interest rate was 8% and that was considered a good rate.
Lumber costs continue to stay high because, well, they can get away with it and a lot of suppliers bought at a higher rate and now must sell that stock at the higher rate. Hopefully, as a pandemic turns into an endemic people get back to work, production improves, and the cost to build is no longer about $30,000 more than it used to be. Hopefully……But being higher production cost has not stopped the construction industry from staying strong I don't see why they would go back to pre-pandemic pricing.
Has anybody noticed the multitudes of RV parks that are springing up all over the place? I mean big ones like 400 sites in a little dinky town like Keystone Heights where there's very little to see or do. I can't help but think it's because the pandemic has spurred the World to get on board with Remote working.
Why not work from your RV as you travel the world. Sounds like a good plan to me. Sounds even more like a good business to get into. I read in my favorite economy blog that before the pandemic 5% of people worked from home. It was estimated that 1 in 66 jobs offered that ability. Now it's more like 25% of people work from home and 1 in 6 jobs offer that option.
It's funny because my company is in its 10th year of business and I started as a remote office. We all work from home and always have. I do have an office in Gainesville but you'll rarely find us there as we're either out at properties or working from home. How can I pass up a beautiful office with a view like this?
I love that video conferencing is now normal and I get to have a face-to-face with clients anytime they want. I love not having to waste three hours to go to a meeting that lasts an hour, and the meetings seem to be more productive.
There are some things that the pandemic brought us for the good. I think a lot of us slowed down our rapid treadmill pace a little and spent more time with family and less time searching for those material things and distractions.
Now moving forward in post-pandemic 2022 we can take with us all the good things the pandemic brought us and say bye-bye 2021!
2022 is going to be awesome!
Tanya Chappell,
