At this moment, real estate — more than any other business — is populated primarily by naysaying pundits and prognosticators. Proclamations of the luxury market’s global demise pop up daily on my Twitter feed and I disagree wholeheartedly.
As a real estate broker and investor, I have profited over the years from buying and selling, and I will continue to do so, just not with the extreme returns of the past. Expecting to continually double one’s money may be the problem, along with expecting to parallel the stock market.
I owned my first stock at the age of 13, after receiving some AT&T shares for my bar mitzvah. Even a teenager with a decent summer job can buy stocks, so by the time I turned 25 I had a small portfolio worth a few thousand dollars, but I had never considered being a homeowner until a deal was suddenly dropped in my lap.
In 1981, my Upper West Side apartment was converting from a rental to a co-op and buying it would prove to be a financial windfall, although I quickly learned that purchasing an apartment was a far more complicated endeavor than buying a few shares of stock. It required banks, lawyers, accountants and long list of unexpected complexities involving numerous city agencies. I profited handsomely from a quick flip of the property, but making money was the only similarity it shared with the stock market.
If Apple is selling for 191.05 on a given day, that’s the market price where it will trade that day. Unfortunately, many homeowners insist on personally overpricing properties, so if the owner of 123 Main St. lists their home at one million and the exact duplicate house next door at 124 Main St is selling for 1.2 million, there’s little doubt about which place will sell first.
There are many complexities involved in buying and selling real estate — especially in Manhattan — so perhaps that’s why there is no equivalent of "Mad Money" serving the real estate world on television, but instead campy reality shows. There’s an old story about sales that goes something like this: “I can convince someone to buy a pair of shoes or maybe even a car, but it takes much more than a fancy sales pitch to sell a home.”
When I hosted Tech Hub on WOR Radio, I witnessed remarkable world changing technology that created new businesses while continually innovating existing industries. Today buyers can purchase a grapefruit without seeing or squeezing it, buy a pair of shoes without trying them on, and they don’t need to leave their home to buy or sell a car and they can trade a sophisticated stock portfolio with their iPhone.
However, real estate is the ultimate brick and mortar business that cannot be treated as if it were a stock, bond, or any other conventional product. Despite industry innovations that improve the customer experience through hi-definition websites, 3-D imaging and drone photography, real estate is still a labor-intensive process for the seller, buyer, and broker. Every deal is different, and this highly nuanced business requires a human factor that will always remain crucial.
The real estate market is in the process of a shift, one where aggressive buyers will thrive as the paradigm slowly changes. There is always someone who must sell, and as buyers begin to exploit that phenomenon the market will again rise.
Rob Taub works as a broker at CORE in NYC, where he hosts a weekly podcast. He has enjoyed an eclectic career in film, television, radio, and journalism. Rob has interviewed everyone from pop stars to presidents and has written for People Magazine, FoxNews.com, SI/Cauldron, The Huffington Post, and Thrive Global. Rob is a respected Diabetes Advocate and Obesity Ambassador, writing and speaking regularly about Type 2 diabetes and health. Follow him on Twitter @robmtaub or at www.RobTaub.com. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.