No matter what subject I write about, the questions I’ve received in the last two months are always the same: Is it a bubble? Is it over? Is it turning into a buyer’s market? Should I sell now and buy back when it crashes?

This week, in particular, I received a number of e-mails pointing to a 19-per-cent decline in the number of sales over July 2003. Is this the beginning of the downturn?

I guess I always have the same answer: It isn’t about the market; it is the deal you personally make, period.

Of course, people don’t want to hear that. It implies that you actually have to do some work, ask yourself some serious questions, such as: Do I want income? Do I want to earn a profit through a quick sale? Have I identified an area I actually want to own in? Do I know what exactly I want to own?

No, we want to know whether it is a good market, and then we feel better. Although I have yet to meet anyone who said: “I bought a lousy deal, but goody, I bought it in a good market.”

Of course, I don’t blame them, because to some extent they are right. I teach in my real-estate investment courses that it is timing — not location — that has made the biggest profit for the average person.

But it is timing plus understanding oneself that really matters. And that can be difficult. Who do you listen to for advice?

What I have learned over the last 37 years of buying and selling real estate is that at any time there are two prevailing camps debating questions about real-estate markets.

I have run a real-estate talk website, www.realestatetalks.

com, since 1995 where people from all over the world debate real-estate issues. And whether they are debating conditions in B.C. or in California, there are clearly two camps.

Some see every statistic as an opportunity to forecast hell, and some will always forecast nirvana.

And so, I have learned that there are the “yeah, butters” and there are the “pony seekers.” The latter refers to the old story where a mother saddled with twin boys that are total opposites — one the eternal optimist and the other always miserable — takes them to the psychiatrist, who comes up with an astounding solution.

On their birthday, he says, put the pessimist into a room full of new toys and give the little optimist a room full of horse manure. The mother does this and on the birthday peeks into the pessimist’s room. There he is, complaining: “I have so many toys I don’t know what to start with, and I bet they’ll break.”

In the little optimist’s room, there he is, with a shovel, flying thorough the horse manure, shovelling madly. The mother says, “Sweetheart, what are you doing?” The little optimist cries, “Mom, you can’t fool me; with this much horse manure, there just has to be a pony in here!”

I am always accused of looking for that pony, as far as investing in real estate is concerned, just as there are others forever looking for the negative side of things.

In today’s market, the “yeah, butters” point to higher interest rates, falling volume or some other negative statistic, and come up with a long-term conclusion that “all will be bad.” Instead, I look at the most under-reported inflation in history and conclude that hard-asset real estate will be much higher in the future.

(Consider: real estate in Britain is climbing by 20 per cent year over year; Vancouver‘s average single-family home is up 22 per cent to $521,782; Vancouver Island prices are 18 per cent higher; the price of oil has skyrocketed; lumber has almost doubled in a year; we’re in a construction boom and the Olympic building has not even started yet.)

I see the pony, while others “yeah, but” away at the statistics.

No matter who the debaters are, the real-estate market just is. It has its ups and its downs, and it will continue to have its ups and downs.

Nothing goes up or down in a straight line forever. But, if you want to create passive income through owning rental property, ask yourself the above questions, do some learning and growing, and go for it.

If you agree that we live in an inflationary world, then this great hard asset will continue to perform in Vancouver just as it has for 50 years regardless of this or that market condition. Just look around at your friends and neighbours and fellow workers, and look at those with real estate and those without. Who did better over the years?

I’ll say it again…. Keep looking for the pony.

Ozzie Jurock holds his monthly Real Estate Action Groups in Vancouver, BC and can be reached at 604-683-3870 or [email protected]

© The Vancouver Sun 2004