Could You Hurry Up?

I was in a Wawa gas station not too long ago and the place was packed. I pulled into the only “one deep” gas pump and immediately noticed that the car in front of me was unattended.

After five minutes, my patience wore thin and I got out of my car waiting for someone to return.

When the person did return with his food, I gave him the evil stare of my displeasure.

He could have cared less and seemed to take even longer before slowly driving away.

Urgency has been lacking in just about everything these days it seems and no where more apparent than in residential real estate. For the last 18 months, only those going thru life changes (divorce, family expansion, health issues or death) were willing to buy or sell homes. Let’s face it. If things are rolling along and you don’t have to make a change, well… you don’t.

But change may be a foot and urgency may be back soon.

The Federal Reserve has had to raise the cost of borrowing a lot to restrict activity for their fight with persistent inflation. The “brakes” have been put on with regards to discretionary spending for sure. Next the job market will adjust to back to the office policies, less business activity and eventual job losses from their actions. There is nothing better to create urgency than your job being in jeopardy or worse, losing it.

In my opinion this is payback for all the bad policies from our government during Covid and after. You cannot have real estate inflate as much as it has without a large correction. Urgency will return and new dynamics from the Federal Reserve rate increases will usher in the desired effects they want to achieve.

Although late to the game, the “Fed” will right the ship and change the course of inflation that we all know needs to happen even if painful.

Hopefully they have done all they need to do and we will go get some gas, order a hoagie, and hang out at the Wawa for a bit.