Find your own value level

I went to an auction recently where an apartment was being offloaded for $2 million plus. I walked around it and marvelled at the designer taps and marble floors. I wondered if anyone ever got any sleep in a bedroom as ostentatious as this one.

By the way, how ARE you sleeping?

I’m sleeping very well. Why? Because I know my values. I know what they mean to me what I am willing to sacrifice. I am also clear on what’s not negotiable, both in and out of the office.

I saw Dr Markus Miele speak while he was in Perth. His great-grandfather co-founded the 110-year-old business which sells the quality appliance brand, Miele, worldwide.

During his speech, it struck me that this man and the company around him are clear on their values. Key points of how they operate include not becoming a discounter and focusing on always getting better by innovating and improving what you offer. Dr Miele noted that consumers will pay for value when the value of what you are offering is explained or demonstrated to them.

While he might have been talking about white goods, they are pretty good principles to apply across business and your life.

The uber-rich will always be so, but it’s the people renting their rich and famous lifestyle from the banks who are learning the hard lesson. It hurts. This rate of consumption is not God-given, or even a Jimmy Cho-given right. Those sprees are hitting you right in that $3000 King Street handbag. The devil (who is not wearing Prada) is standing at the door, banging loudly and demanding to be paid.

For the rest of us, quality is what now counts. We’re spending more carefully and want to know what the values of the products we are buying are.

It’s also about finding the new balance and level of those values. Does a salesperson turning up at your house in a shiny new luxury car make you want to deal with them more or is it now about the quality of the service they provide.

For most of us, we’re now looking for quality that will last and don’t mind spending a little more of our hard-earned dollars if it’s a cornerstone of the product.

Even British fashionistas Trinny and Susannah advocate spending money on classic pieces and less on trendy, seasonal items. They always look good, so it’s hard not to agree.

Perhaps now is the time for smart statements – not gauche ones – at every level, from how you invest to how to you live.

Hardwired to own

Property is more popular than porn.

Yes! You read that right.

I went to a seminar recently where Rental Express MD Chris Rolls told us that 42% of people who have access the web view porn but 74% of people who have access to the web check out the real estate.

Sure, some of them are looking at villas in the south of France, dream homes on the Dalmatian Coast or a funky loft in New York, but the majority of people are looking for a local place to call their own.

It’s really no surprise given shelter is one of the fundamental concerns in our life. Everyone should be invested in that idea.

People like to look at property or homes because they feel an emotional connection. Love and greed – or both – are drivers. There’s the desire to have a place which shelters your person, your family and your soul. It something you can make pretty and entertain in. Alternatively, it’s a place which offers good investment return.

Australia is a country so very wired into the notion of home ownership. Unlike our European cousins who in many cities never even consider the idea of owning. Renting just is what they do and they’ll do it for life.

We’ve adopted the post-war view of a house in the suburbs and very much built the foundations of our life around it. In times like this we naturally become rather sentimental about our homes and they morph into even more of a backbone and a blanket. Security equals salvation in this climate; homes become the icons of our lives.

Australian society honours ownership. From advertisers showing off massive plasma televisions to home builders and the government, everyone is trying to convince us this is the best thing to do – and do now. There’s an expectation that owning a home has become a divine right and buyers want the best deal.

The post-Gen X and Y’s are fixated with having things quickly and early and they’ve been partly responsible for the uptake in city apartments. There’s now a generational expectation they will become involved in the property market early rather than waiting to become established in other areas of their life. We’ve wired them to do that and push them at every level.

Balancing that out, their psyche sees property more as a commodity and they have a positive, flexible attitude towards it. Unlike the homes of our grandparents which were homes for life and where the furniture may as well have been cemented to the floor, this generation will live in many more homes over their lives and have fewer or no reservations about diving in.

Property is a symbol about everything good in our society and it’s driving young people to buy in record numbers. If you’re a cynic, you might say that people are using real estate views on the Net as the new porn – to dream about the place they want but may never own.