New Year Predictions

New Year Predictions

There I was driving home on Highway 1 the other night ruminating about the future of real estate, when I came to a grinding halt in traffic. Sitting there unmoving, I glanced up at the Caltrans Board near 41st and noticed a random string of words running across it. Suddenly my cell rang and I heard an eerie voice on the other end say: “Pay attention and write.”

I was so shocked that I grabbed my laptop and for the next three hours, my meager typing skills tried to keep up with the string of crazy pronouncements channeling across the board. What follows is a small part of what I saw. Predictions for the future? Real estate news courtesy of some Century 23 Agent traveling back in time? Who knows? You be the judge.

• Realtors will expand efforts to lure GenX homebuyers with cutting edge branding techniques like company tattoos and logo piercings.

• A large pharmaceutical firm will begin clinical trials of a mourning-after pill designed to relieve symptoms of Buyers Remorse.

• As more Americans continue to seek smaller homes and simpler lifestyles, a dramatic increase in the number of Near-Life Experiences will be reported.

• In a variation on the “ice bucket” challenge, Silicon Valley CEOs will take turns living in camper vans outside their headquarters to raise money for affordable housing efforts.

• Busy Techie Buyers will start sending Personal Drones to look at properties rather than driving to see them on their own.

• A new reality tv show will debut next fall called “Extreme Commute: Silicon Valley”. The first episode will feature two computer geeks sitting bumper-to-bumper in a sea of Tesla’s on Hwy 85.

• The first-ever Virtual Realty firm will open its doors in China where upscale clients will sit in luxury recliners, don VR goggles and shop for expensive Bay Area Estates they never plan to visit in the flesh.

• A new Facebook scandal will surface when Russian Hackers are caught targeting Bay Area homebuyers with a series of Fake Ads depicting $3 million dollar luxury homes that later prove to be average tract homes.

• The Conversation Pit will make a comeback in American homes. More of them will be located in lead-lined safe rooms, where no electromagnetic tv or phone frequencies can penetrate.

• By spring of 2020, there’ll be a noticeable backlash against technology in real estate. More buyers will refuse to let their agents communicate with them by text. New “high-touch” real estate firms will open touting “organic and algorithm-free agents”