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Today's track: Northern Lights — Bowerbirds
A long time ago I wrote a song called "If the Leaves Can Change, Then Why the Hell Can't I?"
I was younger. Probably a little dramatic about it. But I've been chewing on that title all week, and I think it holds up. Maybe better now than when I wrote it.
Look out the window this time of year. Every tree in Louisville is in the middle of a full reinvention, and not one of them is asking permission. Green to gold to red to the ground. No identity crisis. No "but this is who I've always been." They just let go of what worked all summer, because summer's over.
And then there's us.
A lot of us think of ourselves as fixed. Fixed position, fixed role. I'm the accountant. I'm bad at tech. I'm a W-2 person, not a business person. I'm not creative. I'm too old to learn that now.
Meanwhile the whole world around us is evolving faster than it ever has.
There's a quote I've been hunting for. I knew it was Chinese or Japanese, something about things falling and turning into new life. I found it. It's from a Chinese poet named Gong Zizhen, written in 1839. He was a government official who got fed up with the corruption around him, quit his post in Beijing, and headed home. On the way out the door, he wrote this:
"Fallen petals are not heartless things. They turn into spring mud and protect the flowers that come next."
That's my plain-English version. The original is two lines and a lot prettier.
Sit with that for a second. The petal isn't quitting. It isn't failing. It's becoming the soil.
What falls off you this season is what feeds whatever grows next.
And the guy was literally walking away from his job when he wrote it. Almost 190 years later, we're still quoting him.
Life rewards action.
I say that a lot because I keep watching it be true. We have never been more empowered than we are right now. Not in all of human history. You can learn almost anything for free in a weekend. You can build a website, a business, an app, a song, with a paid AI (artificial intelligence) account and a clear idea. Most of the gatekeepers are gone.
So now's the time to create. Work on the side project. And then let the side project become the main project. I've written about why everybody needs a second thing. This is the season to let the second thing grow up.
A lot of parents ask me some version of the same question.
"Rob, what should I tell my kids to do? What's safe? What should they study, with everything changing so fast?"
Here's what I keep telling them.
Whatever your kid gravitates toward, whatever they get really, genuinely excited about, double down on it.
Even if it doesn't make money. Especially if you can't see how it would make money yet. Because who knows what the world looks like in fifteen years? Nobody. Not me, not the guidance counselor, not the guy on TV.
What I do know is that being a niche expert in something is worth a lot. Whatever it is. Do it.
If your kid likes photography, empower them. Introduce them to real photographers. Take them to exhibits. Get them excited. Hand them your phone and let them shoot the dog for an hour.
And even if it never turns into a career, you just handed them a hobby they can carry their whole life. That's not nothing. That might be everything.
My friend Alex Conway told me once, "You need to have a hobby you do with your hands."
I said, "I play guitar." Which counts. But it got me thinking about it as a bigger checklist.
I think you should have hobbies that stimulate you three ways:
Physically. Something that makes you move and gets you outside.
Mentally. Something that makes you think and challenges your positions.
Emotionally. Something that makes you sit still with yourself and feel something.
I'll be honest. I need to work on the emotional one. More reading. More contemplation. More meditation. I've been talking about it lately, and talking about it isn't doing it. So that's my Fall project.
So let me ask you.
Have you found your hobbies? The one that makes you move. The one that gets you outside. The one that makes you think and actually challenges what you believe. The one that makes you feel something.
If you're missing one, fall is a great time to pick it up. The trees are already setting the example.
Let's put some good will out there on this Wonderful Wednesday.
It would be a kindness to me if, after you finish reading this, you just shoot a few texts. Friends. Family. Somebody you haven't talked to in too long.
Nothing fancy. Something like:
"Hey, I was just thinking about you. We should get together."
Or: "Want to meet at a coffee shop and talk about this thing I've been reading about?"
Or, if you're my kind of person: "Want to grind all day Saturday? We watch a bunch of YouTube videos on a dense topic and come out of the weekend actually understanding how the thing works."
Learning together beats learning alone. It sticks better, and it's way more fun.
And invite your kids into what you're curious about. Your significant other too. Don't just do your thing in the other room. Pull them in.
I'll tell you why that one matters to me.
My Dad and I didn't really connect in a lot of ways growing up. That's just honest. But as I've aged, we found out we're into a lot of the same stuff. Geopolitics. Technology. How things evolve. We definitely disagree on things too. But now we've got something to talk about, and the disagreeing is part of the fun. I wrote about how my dad got way cooler after 60.
People change. Even dads. Even you.
Now real estate, because the same thing is happening out there.
This market's changing quite a bit. It's shedding its leaves and becoming something new. A couple weeks ago I told you the market flipped: Louisville's months of supply hit 3.5, the highest in the two years of MLS (Multiple Listing Service, the database agents use to list homes) data I track. Quick refresher: months of supply is how long it would take to sell every house for sale if nobody listed a new one. The higher that number, the more say buyers get.
Here's what's going to happen. A lot of agents, investors, and regular folks are going to keep operating the way the market used to work. Same playbook as 2021. Same offers, same math, same waiting around for a bidding war.
And nothing will pencil. Nothing will paper.
From the ground up, since that's investor slang: when a deal "pencils," it means you sat down, ran the numbers (price, repairs, rent, the loan payment) and the deal actually makes money. When a deal "papers," it means you can get it written up and financed so it really closes. When people say "nothing pencils," they mean the math stopped working the old way.
The old way stops working. That's the leaves coming down. It's not the end of anything.
Because when you learn new things and take shots, this market is wide open.
I mean that. Getting LOIs out (a letter of intent, or LOI, is a one-page note that says "here's what I'd pay and how I'd pay it"), presenting offers, and letting people say no. In this market you can have great success just by shooting your shot. I laid out my whole morning routine for it in Heavy Things, plus every creative tool in the shed: seller financing, loan assumptions, lease options, the works.
Most people won't do it, because no feels bad.
But a no costs you nothing. A no is a petal hitting the ground. It's mud for the next one.
So here's my Fall question, for you and for me.
If the leaves can change, why the hell can't you?
📊 Yesterday's poll: Which habit are you adding first? A daily walk won with 47%. A few weights or a stretch took 27%, and sunrise or sunset and still cutting the ends off the roast tied at 13% each. One of you wrote that you stretch before you walk the dogs now. That's the right order, and I'm stealing it. Walking is the easy one to start, too. Nothing to buy, nothing to learn, and the leaves are putting on a show.
Today's poll:
Which hobby are you missing?
Results in tomorrow's issue.
🏆 Want to shoot your shot this week? Every morning I pull the five best deals on the Louisville MLS and the five most ripe for a lowball, with the number I'd offer on each. I can't blast other agents' listings to a list, but I can send them to you personally. Reply "FIVE."
Warmly,
Rob Bergeron
Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
Winner Realty: (502) 305-8915
Winner Realty | OffMarket.deals | Property Partner Data Company
Schedule time to discuss your goals, bottlenecks, or whatever’s on your mind — book me here.
PS: Louisville Business First reported on a $2.5 billion plan in Crestwood, in Oldham County, right off Interstate 71 (I-71) at Exit 14. It's called Clore Station.
It's 500 acres that one family has owned since the early 1800s. The plan is up to 3,000 homes, a town center with a grocery store and restaurants, and a new Baptist Health hospital with medical offices around it. It gets built in phases over decades, not all at once, and builders are already selling lots and homes there.
Here's why I'd pay attention. When a hospital, a grocery store, and thousands of new front doors show up in the same spot, the area around it usually gets a lot more reasons for people to want to live nearby. Nobody can promise what prices will do, and big projects like this can slip or change along the way. But the time to look at it is before it's finished, because once it's finished, everybody knows about it. I'd rather be early to the party than show up after the line forms.
A few places to go look, all pulled straight from the Louisville MLS (Multiple Listing Service, the database agents use to list homes):
PSS: Met with Harry Borders and Jenny Fields about the Assumable Loan and Seller Financing Webinar. It’s going to be A TON of value! Get pumped!