Connected: Stories from the Community

One of my favourite aspects of having a career in real estate is the myriad of people that we get to meet, assist, and learn from.

Regardless of age, gender, culture, occupation, financial position, or martial status – everybody needs somewhere to live. Adding to this, almost every conversation – whether we’re helping tenants, investors, buyers, or sellers – eventually delves into financial situations, goals, and obstacles.

This means that we’re continuously exposed to the pulse of the community – hearing a constant stream of the fears and grievances and hopes and dreams that people are experiencing. During the past few months, my team and I have received countless questions and comments about the state of the market, the economy, and the future of them both.

As a result, I’m excited to announce that over the coming months I’ll be releasing a new series of feature stories – Connected.

The goal of this series is two-fold:

Firstly, we want to clarify the messaging that’s being perpetuated by the media and showcase what it means, and secondly, we want to illuminate the fears that people are going through in an effort to normalise these concerns and conversations.

We’ve been investing our time heavily in research around this topic, and we’ll be interviewing people from all walks of life.

From young adults uncertain about their future in the housing market and expecting parents staring down the barrel of becoming a single-income household, to older Aussies who are on the cusp of retirement or the burden of responsibility that business owners carry around in a changing market – it’s our hope that everyone will get some value out of these stories.

I’ll explain why I think this is all occurring below, but if hearing about real people in the community sounds like something you’re interested in, make sure you’re signed up to my mailing list at the bottom of this page, and you’ll get these stories delivered straight to your inbox.

And if you’ve got a story you’d like to tell or an experience you wish to share, I’d love to hear from you. Just send me an email, reach out on Facebook or Instagram, or fill out a contact form.

So, what’s causing this disconnect?

While this may be dismissed as a sign of the times that we’re living in, something I’ve noticed is the sheer disconnect between people’s fears and reality. People are generally more fearful than may be warranted, but they also feel isolated in those fears; as though they’re the only ones going through them.

Open your news site of choice right now and the chances that you’ll be met with concerning headlines are pretty high. Whether it’s covering the property market, interest rates, or the economy in general – the prevailing narrative across almost all main media sources is that things look pretty grim.

Now switch over to your social media newsfeed, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll see the opposite: overseas holidays, new home purchases, glamorous engagements and weddings and anniversaries, and the odd new car.

So, are the media exaggerating how bad things truly are and inflating the struggle that households currently (or will) face? Or are social media users exaggerating just how great they’re doing?

In the majority of cases, I think you’ll agree that the answer is both.

Traditional media outlets, which are now competing for our attention with myriad other mediums, platforms, notifications, and apps, are increasingly resorting to click-bait headlines and emotionally charged narratives in a bid to catch our attention and keep us engaged.

And social media users, in what’s essentially a vicious cycle of validation-seeking, are becoming more and more selective about what and when they post, showing the absolute highlight reel of their lives while leaving out the messiness and mundanity of reality.

At this point, I should clarify that I don’t believe that news outlets are deliberately out to make us miserable or fearful, and I’m certainly not going to demonise social media users for behaving in a very human way.

News outlets rely on an advertising model to keep operating and keep people employed – the revenue from which is directly tied to the volume of their audience – and so will employ a variety of strategies to grab our attention and hold it.

And in the case of social media users (myself included), we are simply falling back to the evolutionary coding that was hardwired into our neural pathways hundreds of millennia ago. What was then designed to keep us from being exiled from the group now translates to a very human need to be liked, respected, and appreciated.

 I should also point out that in both stimuli, the dose makes the poison.

A little bit of sensationalist news here and there is hardly going to derail society, and social media can often be a good way to stay updated with our friends and family in the moments when the busyness of life prevents a real catch-up.

The issue is that with how much time we spend online, most of us are far past that dosage threshold.

We’re exposed to anxiety-producing headlines and videos and commentary all day, and then when we switch over to socials of the evening, all we see is just how “good” other people have it.

This causes us to not only feel dissatisfied with our situation and fearful for our future, but to also feel isolated in that suffering: we wind up stressed about our mortgage repayments or rent, or how inflation is pushing up the cost of food, utilities, and petrol, but we also feel like we’re the only ones going through it.

What’s the solution, then?

I think that what’s truly needed to ease these issues will come from global policy change regarding reporting practices, greater economic stability across nations, and a shift in societal norms surrounding the content we post online.

I’m not going to pretend that I can influence the first two points, but I think all of us can take steps to change the last one.

And that’s where this new series comes in: a handful of stories designed to peel back the layers and show the reality of what’s going on, what we’re going through, and some of the things that we can do about it.

So as a reminder, if you sign up for the mailing list – which you can do at the bottom of this page – you’ll get these stories delivered to your inbox.

And if you’ve got a story you’d like to tell or an experience you wish to share, just send me an email, reach out on Facebook or Instagram, or fill out a contact form.