I helped build the thing
that broke in 2008.

In 2004 I got my real estate license. I was living in Brooklyn and buying investment property outside Philadelphia, which tells you most of what you need to know about how confident I was.

I was not reckless. I was normal. I did what everyone around me was doing, and everyone around me was doing well.

Then 2008 came.

I sold multiple properties fast. Some of them at a total loss. I had partnered with friends and with family, and I had to make phone calls that ended friendships and strained relationships for years. Some of them never came back.

For a while it felt like a mystery. Nobody could tell you what had happened, only that it had happened to everyone at once.

It was not a mystery. It was a series of decisions. A few people made them first, many people copied them, and I was one of the many. Lenders wrote loans they knew were thin. Investors like me bought on a story instead of on a spreadsheet. Buyers stretched further than they should have. Sellers priced to the last sale instead of the next one. And a lot of professionals watched all of it and said very little, because saying something meant losing the deal.

Everyone in the chain had a reason. Nobody in the chain had the whole picture. That is what a crash actually is.

Then I watched it happen again in 2020.

Money was cheap, rates were near zero, and homes closed in days. Houses went 10, 20 and 30 percent over asking price all over the country. Not because the numbers supported it. Because people were afraid of missing out, and because the professionals in the room mostly let them stay afraid. Caution was rarely offered as an option. Caution does not close.

Here is the pattern, in both crashes and in every quiet year in between. Almost nobody decides based on what the data says. They decide on how they feel, and then they look for a number that agrees with them.

Feelings are not the enemy. You are buying a home, not a bond. But when feeling is the only input, you overpay in a hot market and you freeze in a soft one, and both are expensive.

For the last ten years I have run operations. Today I am COO and Managing Partner at Barthelemy Holdings, where we have grown the family’s holdings into brands across travel booking, restaurant cleaning franchises, marketing, consulting and real estate. Operations is a job where you are not allowed to guess. You look at the number, you say what it means, and you decide.

That is the only thing happening here. Take the number, say what it means, and hand it to you before you decide.

Roody Souverain · Licensed Florida Real Estate Consultant · SL3494680 · Realty Hub