The Old Game

Real estate is and likely will always be the primary resource from which individuals and nations generate wealth. Despite the technological delirium that we live in, every resource that we truly need comes not from a factory but from the land beneath our feet. If you own the land, you own the wealth.

In the middle ages, the nobility and the land were naturally tied together as the central pillars around which a people coalesced. No king? No country. No land? No people. Real estate is the background to our financial lives. Wealth would not be possible if no one owned the land.

In the post-modern world we live in, this has not changed. The wealth and stability we enjoy tends to be tied to the land that our nation or we ourselves hold. While nobility and land no longer go together, land ownership still remains one of the greatest markers of wealth.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919 AD), a Scottish immigrant to the US and a wildly wealthy man in his own right, had this to say about real estate:

Ninety percent of millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.

Source: David Green, Long-Distance Real Estate Investing, 12.

Now, regardless of whether real estate is the end-all-be-all investment is up for debate. What isn’t up for debate is that wealth and real estate have run together since the beginning of time. If someone wanted to build their wealth, real estate is not a terrible choice. However, things are different nowadays.

There is a popular way of thinking which accompanies most discussions surrounding wealth and real estate: Compared to other generations in the United States, some argue, our generation is characterized by certain hardships that were not experienced by the preceding generations.

When was the last time you heard something like, “Ugh, I’ll never be able to afford a house. Real estate is so expensive now, and the last time it was anywhere near affordable was for the Boomers”?

I hear stuff like this all the time. I even used to repeat similar things. You want to know the real problem? Generally speaking, I think that this line of thinking points to very real struggles that young and up-and-coming people face. According to FRED, Federal Reserve Economic Data, from Q1 in 2020 to Q1 2023 the average sales price for houses sold in the US went from $383,000 to $505,300 (source). Now, unless you received enough sizable raises between those two points in time, you are likely less able to buy a house now than you were before.

Now, I’m not a financial advisor, nor am I an expert in economics. I don’t think it is a stretch, however, to say that most young people feel that the real estate market is largely inaccessible to them.

This is the point that I want to address. For a while now, I’ve been talking with friends of mine about pooling our resources and getting into the real estate game. None of us have very much, and every one of us would rather this game be easier. The simple fact, though, is that repeating our complaints over and over to ourselves does nothing to solve the problem in front of us.

In the time that I take to fixate on why I can’t buy a house right now, I could have put my energy towards something positive which builds towards me eventually being a home-owner. I’m not denying that it’s hard. I’m not even telling you that you’re unjustified in your complaining. I’m proposing that we start to play a different game entirely than the one that the previous generations have handed us. Enter: The New Game.

The New Game

Up until this point, the old game has been simple: work hard so that you can buy more stuff so that you can work hard so that you can buy more stuff so that you can work hard… You get the point.

There’s a major flaw to the Old Game, though. The Old Game is fixated on asking ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions in relation to wealth. ‘How do I solve this problem and market it to people?’, and, ‘what metrics do I need to track to know whether or not this venture is profitable?’. These types of questions are great. They aren’t the whole picture, though.

Not many, at least not many that I have heard, have asked ‘why’. This single shift in focus is where the big gains are to be made in the New Game. Don’t believe me? You may soon.

It’s not unpopular today to think that in order to make it in the business world you have to be careful with how open you are about your beliefs and values. Only vague notions of value like ‘hard work’ or ‘dependability’ are seen as acceptable to disclose. Deeper values such as truth and meaning are left unstated because this is controversial. Controversy, in turn, is avoided in a tradeoff for profit.

What this leads to, however, is a business world and a culture that no longer knows why they are making money. In other words, this old style of business has led to a blind business. It knows only growth and the means by which it can stimulate growth. Money becomes a pursuit of habit, not a pursuit of purpose.

If the Old Game has become harder and harder to break into, then, and, if you’re a young person looking to build wealth for yourself that is meaningful, you should start asking ‘why?’.

As I’ve stated, I’m not a financial expert, and I’m not going to tell you what the best way to grow your money is. I am, however, going to ask that you start considering the true meaning of what makes something valuable and why you spend your money on what you do.

Marketing is a hell of a thing. It can make you think that cheap, Chinese-made baubles and trinkets are valuable and necessary for you to live a good life. It can program you to chase vain goals which are expensive and empty. Very often, these vain goals come at the cost of pursuits which would have enriched your life and your wallet.

Start asking what is necessary. Start playing the New Game. What’s more: stop buying into a game that clearly isn’t built with you in mind. I got into the real estate industry because I strongly believe that land is one of the most tangible assets that you can own. You can live in it, you can leverage it, and you can raise a family with it. A home is necessary. Full stop.

As I end this, I invite you to consider what you’re putting your money, time, and energy towards. Life becomes a lot more expensive when you’re not sure why you’re doing what you’re doing, and it certainly becomes a lot less rewarding when you’re playing a game that you don’t like. Let’s start playing the New Game.