Francisco Miraval
I recently heard the story of a couple who, due to special circumstances in their lives, needed to buy a house within a short time and at a specific area in the city. They were unable to do it and they subsequently lost thousands of dollars. The reason that led to that situation deserves some analysis.
The couple, both in their 50s, had a good real estate agent, good credit, and enough money in the bank to pay cash for the house they wanted to buy.
They visited several properties and, after selecting one, their asked their real estate agent to send an offer. Then, something unexpected happened. The couple decided to talk with their son, in his early 20s and living at home with his parents.
The son did what many Millennials typically do before giving an opinion: he went online to find information. He compared the value of several properties in the area his parents wanted to buy and how much money people were offering for those properties.
Armed with that information and suddenly, after just a few clicks, feeling a scholar in real estate issues, the young man convinced his parents the real value of the property they wanted was significantly lower than what they were willing to pay and, consequently, their offer to buy should also be significantly lower.
The parents, perhaps intimidated by the newly acquired wisdom of their son, perhaps happy because they have found a way to save money, fired their real estate agent and, with the help of their son, wrote a new offer to the seller, significantly lower than the original proposal.
They were so sure of what they were doing that they sold their house (following, again, information their son found online) because their assumed that in just a matter of days they would be moving to the new house. But their offer for the new house was rejected for being too low.
They family was forced to stay in their “old” house, now with a new owner. They had to pay a fine of hundreds of dollars for each day they stayed there. Finally, they found a place to store their belongings and they moved to a hotel. In the meantime, they were forced to use their savings, making very difficult for them to buy a new house in the near future.
Obviously, I am not saying we should never believe what our children are telling us because otherwise we will run into trouble. It is clear that our children have many things to teach us precisely because of their ability to find information. But that ability seems to be the Achilles’ heel of the Millennials, because they have information but they lack the historical context giving meaning to that information.
Talking about the importance of history and the search for meaning reveals how obsolete I have become. Yet, having information and understanding it are two different things. I am sure Millennials will learn that valuable lesson very soon.