If you really care about influencing the opinions of others, I would recommend that you read a little bit about the ‘psychology of denial’.
The psychology of denial says that once a human being has made up their mind about something you have almost zero chance of changing their mind.
Related to the psychology of denial is a feature of the human brain called the reticular activating system (RAS).
The RAS causes us to focus on what we are interested in and filter out all of the other extraneous input. For example, you go buy a new car and as you are driving home you ‘happen’ to see numerous cars just like yours – your RAS is alerting you to something you are interested in – and your RAS had been filtering all those cars out until you bought one.
The RAS also helps up maintain opinions that we hold. If I decide that the world is flat (and can convince my brain of that), my reticular activating system will cause me to focus on all the ‘facts’ that support my (incorrect) view of the world. My RAS will also filter out (deny) any facts which would upset my view of the world being flat.
So, how does this apply to real estate?
Currently we have a nation of people that mostly believe: “real estate only goes up”; “you can’t go wrong with real estate”; “it is better to own than rent”; etc.
Some local beliefs: “we are running out of land in San Diego”; “more people are moving to San Diego everyday”; “if I don’t buy now I will be priced out of the market”; etc.
The RAS’s of the people holding these beliefs cause them to focus on the positive news about real estate (which is provided in spades by the real estate industry, US government, media, etc) and filter out (deny) any of the reality about the current trends in real estate (which we discuss in this forum).
When you try to point out real estate realities to these people their RAS has to do something to allow them to deny your input. Categorizing you as a ‘gloom and doomer’ or ‘pessimist’ or even ‘arrogant asshole’ helps them maintain their (delusional) reality.
I have been on the ‘gloom and doom’ bandwagon for about 4 years now and I have made numerous attempts to educate family and friends about the future we are facing here in America.
None of the people that I tried to educate about silver and gold purchased any (too bad – could have bought gold for about $375 and silver for less than $5).
None of the people that I have tried to educate about real estate have been influenced by my input either.
Between 2002 and 2005 I sold five fourplexes and explained to many people why (the market is about to tank) (yes, I sold “too early”). Regardless of my words and actions, my sister bought a 400K house in 2003 and one of my co-workers bought a 900K house in late 2005.
Anyway, my point is that you shouldn’t get worked up about people denying what you perceive to be reality. They will eventually realize that you were right and then they will like you even less!!!
