My mind keeps circling back to the comment by the real estate agent in yesterday's Bulletin article on downtown condo's.

Let's quote it in all it's brazen glory:

"The urbanization we are seeing here is so unique to the community this size, I think we're just going to have to see more inventory and see how that goes before we'll really know.

"No guts, no glory."

This is the very definition of speculation; let's build more and see if they sell.

But she's the real estate agent; of course she wants more inventory to sell. It's not her money at risk.

Dirty little secret of real estate is that the agents want to turnover inventory; they aren't going to hold out for just a little more money. If I have a house I want to sell for 330,000 and I'm getting offers for 300,000, the real estate agent will want to sell. Because the amount of money she can make right now on 300,000 is way more important than the amount she might make at some future date on the other 30,000.

She makes money when something sells, so the more inventory the better.

As I said yesterday, OUR guts, HER Glory.

I've found a little techniques in my store that illustrates the point. If a card buyer is waffling, sometimes all I have to do is reach over and grab a pack at random and open it and go,

"Oh, wow. Look what I got." (Pick the best card in the pack.) Almost always, they'll follow your example. Now I get that product for half as much, and I maybe can sell the contents. So its no big deal for me. I get to show off the product.

The problem is, sometimes later, I get the itch to open a second pack. Now I know from experience that unopened packs are more valuable to my business. They keep the potential, the dream, that something good is inside, whereas an opened pack is just there. It is what it is, and usually it isn't as good as the actual potential. But I get caught up in my own marketing technique.

"Should I open another pack?"

I never get the answer, "No, you should conserve them." It's always, "Yeah, go for it! Open the whole box!"

I call it cheap thrills; the thrill of seeing the other guy spend his money.

So the real estate agent is like that, "Yeah, go for it! Spend millions to build more condo's for me to sell! Why not?"


Meanwhile, buried in the headlines is the comment by Alan Greenspan that a recession is 'likely' this year. He may not be the head of the Fed anymore, but you got to pay attention to what he says.

Nevermind that! Build more condo's!