Shift Happens (Even in Real Estate)
Posted by nithi.vivatrat on February 5, 2009
With all the ground shifting so rapidly in the real estate industry and the American economy, I was reminded of a video that was originally conceived as a PowerPoint presentation for a 150-person staff meeting at a Colorado high school in 2006 (see the Shift Happens wiki for the presentation’s history, source material, and various versions). It went viral and has been seen by at least five million viewers. Updated in 2007, the version embedded above is just as revealing now as when I first saw it. For instance –
- A tally of 2006 college graduates shows that there were 1.3 million in the U.S., 3.1 million in the India, and 3.3 million in China. And out of the 2006 college graduates in India, 100% of them speak English.
- In less than 10 years, it is predicted that the number one English speaking country in the world will be… China.
- It took 38 years for radio to reach an audience of 50 million, while television found the same audience in 13 years. How long did it take the internet to do the same thing? Four years.
- My personal favorite: “There are more than 540,000 words in the English language… about five times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.”
How times have changed. Applying this “numbers that amaze” idea to the real estate sector and you unearth some startling stats –
According to the January 2008 Real Estate and the Economy report by the National Association of Realtors®, the housing sector accounted for about $2.1 trillion of the national economy in 2007 (most recent figures available) or 15 percent of overall economic activity.
American homes lost over $1.9 trillion in value in 2008. And 11.7 million homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, “The number of homes in foreclosure proceedings nearly doubled to almost one million by the end of 2007, while the number entering foreclosure topped 400,000 in the fourth quarter alone.” It could not have helped that “In 2006, the number of ’severely-burdened’ households — paying more than half their income for housing — surged by almost four million to 17.7 million households.”
On a lighter note, Zillow estimates that the White House is worth $308,058,000 (though that is down $23 million from a year ago).