Acknowledge the Past, Embrace the Future

By Jeffrey Jackson

2024 PRESIDENT, ORANGE COUNTY REALTORS®

Hi, my fellow members and friends! This is the first opportunity I have had to address you through the President’s column and let me start by saying it’s a privilege and honor to serve you as the Orange County REALTORS® President for 2024. I look forward to us all having a great year and, as Jim Rohn said, “Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.” So, let’s get started.

We face a series of dilemmas in the real estate industry that would stagger most businesses – lawsuits, filed and threatened; rules on independent contractors now challenged by the Department of Labor; a changing economy, with no consensus on the future; a lack of inventory which affects our ability to sell homes, but also prevents buyers from moving into the homes they want to buy. There remains a grave concern from many agents about what is going to happen next.

There is much to celebrate in what we’ve done in the past, and the lessons we have learned from those events, but this is a time to go forward and embrace what changes lie in store for our real estate community.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but I can tell you a few things about what’s going to happen. First, the real estate industry will undergo changes, but for the time being it is business as usual. Follow the late, great UCLA coach John Wooden; “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” Go out and sell homes and find buyers as you have done for years in the past, and keep informed about what’s going on through OCR, C.A.R. and NAR. There’s a variety of ways OCR keeps you informed about what you need to know, and it’s there every day online; go to www.ocrealtors.org for more information.

The past year brought seismic changes to professional real estate, so much so that REALTORS® are now put on the defensive by potential sellers and buyers to prove their worth to them – i.e., to state their “Value Proposition.” Developing your value proposition – deliverance of a statement indicating what your business does, how it benefits you, and why a client or customer should choose you over a competitor, delivered clearly, concisely, and finding a solution to a problem – is central to your business, and will be more important in crystallizing who you are and what you do in your clients’ minds. If you haven’t thought about it and written it down, do so now and live it.

Another major change this year at OCR is the inception of and implementation of our first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee to ensure that OCR fosters an inclusive environment. OCR is committed to valuing all perspectives, whether they are consistent with our longstanding policies or provide a new or contrary viewpoint. We ask that each of you support OCR’s diversity efforts by committing to treating each other with dignity and respect. We will have many DEI programs this year brought to you by implicit bias and treat everyone as you would wish to be treated.

My theme for this year is “Acknowledge the Past –Embrace the Future.” There is much to celebrate in what we’ve done in the past, and the lessons we have learned from those events, but this is a time to go forward and embrace what changes lie in store for our real estate community. I invite you to join me on this journey as we plunge forward into what real estate practice will become in the future. Remember what President Kennedy said –“Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” Let’s not miss our future as we charge ahead, ensuring that our future as real estate professionals is as vivid and vibrant as we hope it may be.

Until the next issue! Jeff