Our Guest Blogger Jon Salmon says You're a GENIUS

Jon Salmon, his father Egon and his brother Henry photographed by the SI Advance

Before we get into today's post, I want to say how pleased we are to have Jon Salmon of Salmon Real Estate be a guest blogger here on SIREN. Mr. Salmon has been an active member of the Staten Island community, and one of the Island's leading businessmen, so we like to think of it as a little bit of a coup to get him share his thoughts with use here on our little corner of the internet! We asked Mr. Salmon to share his thoughts on what advice he would give to people about real estate, right now. This is what he had to say.

Of the many lessons I have learned in the real estate business over the last 30 years, one of them at the top of the list is that recession or a down market in real estate, provides buying opportunities. Put another way, when everyone decides to sell, that’s the time to buy.

In the classic film Caddy Shack, there is a scene where Rodney Dangerfield, on the golf course, calls his stock broker on a cell phone yelling "Buy, buy, buy!" He then pauses and says "Everyone is buying? Then sell, sell, sell!" Who would ever think that one of the greatest lessons of investing would come from such a slap stick movie?

Real Estate prices have dropped, in some cases, to levels not seen in several decades. If you have ever considered buying a vacation or retirement home in Florida, for example, and you have the means then you would be foolish not to buy now. Can prices go lower? Sure. But if it’s your intention to hold this home for the foreseeable future, does it really matter if the prices go down a little more before they start their inevitable march higher? The same would hold true for your primary residence, no matter where it is.

On Staten Island, residential opportunities, whether they are new homes or resales, abound. Current homeowners anxious to sell as well as builders needing to unload inventory, are willing to “talk Turkey.” For first time home buyers, this is a “no brainer.” If you want to “move up,” keep in mind that while your current home may have dropped in value, the “move up” home, as a percentage of value, has dropped even more. Couple this with historically low interest rates, now projected to go as low as 4%, and this creates a perfect storm of opportunity, if you act NOW!

And there are commercial and investment properties that actually make sense now, too. This assessment is based on income, rather than speculation which was what had been driving the market before the economy dipped. In other words, they make sense based on what they are worth not on what you can flip the property for.

We all know people who bought stocks at their low during the Gulf War in the early nineties. I can guarantee with absolute certainty that sometime in the near future, you will meet some “savvy” real estate investor that tells you they bought their “bargain” property during the down market of 2008/2009.

So my friends, the best advice I can give and perhaps the best investment advice you will ever get, is: Buy Real Estate NOW and within 10 years, they will call you a GENIUS!

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