Among the many blogs I keep an eye on, there are a couple of doom criers. One is the Alberta Bubble Blog and another is the Vancouver Un-Real Estate Blog. Both are decently well written from a journalistic standpoint, although not brilliant. The Edmonton blog in particular is great at finding numbers, particuarly short term numbers, which support their opinion that the Edmonton housing market is about to implode.
I think they’re wrong (in general, and in the medium-long term financial outlook), and so do 99.75% of REIN members and Edmonton real estate investors.
But beyond that, I think there’s a fundamental problem with blogs like that, and by extension their authors and ‘society’. It’s part of our free speech society, and the prevalence of journalistic ‘credibility’, and we’ve given so much to those who get to stand on the soap box. Now that we’re into Web 2.0 that person can be anyone with a computer or camera. Youtube, blogs, twitter, facebook, myspace, Orkut, LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit….the list is endless. It’s a never ending soap box.
There’s just one big problem.
It’s easy to talk. It’s hard to do.
That’s why I love REIN (and myREINspace) in particular. The posts on the site are often irritating. People type ALL IN CAPS, with no apparent ability to spell, use the english language, or have any real grasp of how to surf the internet. I love all of them…well, most of them….because they’re out there doing every day. You can sit and talk about housing bubbles, inventory numbers, economic forecasts, and world financial markets all day long, but if you don’t do something, it’s just talk for the sake of talk. The rubber has to hit the road, and you’ve gotta do it.
You’re not an expert until you’ve got some skin in the game. That’s why I enjoy listening to, and talking to Don Cambell. I’ve been inside his buildings before. I’ve been a part of the property management team for a lot of people whose stories are in 51 Success Stories from Canadian Real Estate Investors
Markets go up. Markets go down. These people are in all of them, and they’re being successful in all of them. Why? Because they got up and took action.
Or you can just stay in your un-real bubble….
