If you’re a frequent visitor here, it will come as no surprise that those of us whose days are devoted to the real estate industry aren’t shy about championing the virtues of homeownership. We’re aided by more than a century’s worth of wit and wisdom directed to the merits of owning the place where you live.
America’s two most storied humorists contributed to the collection. There is Mark Twain’s “Buy land—they’re not making it anymore” and Will Rogers’ “Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” Then there is Anthony Trollop, the classic English novelist’s wry “Land is about the only thing that can’t fly away.”
You can credit other real estate witticisms to more modern celebrities—like “The best time to buy a home is always five years ago.” (The late jazz great Ray Brown gets credit for that one).
The real estate-promoting commonplaces don’t just come from writers and entertainers, either. Take President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Real estate can’t be lost or stolen…managed with reasonable care, it is about the safest investment in the world.” Abraham Lincoln could have been the nation’s first sub-divider with his “I am in favor of cutting up the wild lands into parcels, so that every poor man may have a home.”
Today’s real estate may be a far cry from Honest Abe’s “wild lands”—but the insight from America’s first billionaire, J. Paul Getty, is as apt today as it was when he described “current real estate” in the mid-20th century: “Real estate prices have risen because a constantly increasing population with money to invest…continues to be created.” When you combine that maxim with Mark Twain’s observation, you emerge with the humorous-because-it’s-true wisdom that continues to ring true—just as it has for centuries.
For help in evaluating the great opportunities among today’s real estate offerings—call us!