The real estate boom will end

In Connecticut, there are very few natural resources. There are no minerals or natural elements to be mined or harvested. But after a century of suburban growth, radiating from New York City and our constellation of small cities, we have created an economy as basic as growing food. Connecticut has places to live, lots of them, and they have value.

Proximity to New York and cities like Stamford or New Haven via rail and road was the engine of home creation because Connecticut is a lovely place: Landscape, coast, history found in a maze of small towns, most with antique centers. This resource may not be natural, like precious metals, but its value is as abiding.

Like any commodity, value flows with the health and mindset of the culture that uses the commodity. Like the stock market, Connecticut real estate has had huge booms in value, and terrifying collapses. Rather than assume a “new normal” (as some did in the Dank Decade of the Great Recession), I think buyers and sellers need perspective.

Great stock brokers know how to frame their expectations, as do those whose life work is in real estate. Architect

Jack Franzen created J.P. Franzen Associates in Southport. His firm’s award-winning work of complete design services, including landscape design, for over three decades has seen booms and busts, and the decade after the 2008 real estate bubble burst, where slow or no growth in real estate values, and spotty construction activity was seen as a permanent shift, Jack knew differently — as he does now.

“I think it’s inevitable that the current ‘tsunami’ of demand will subside. However, I think as new people enter the workforce, the trend for remote working will increase. There will be no turning back,” he said.

Rather than sing with the chorus of those declaring that cities are forever changed, by COVID-19, Franzen sees how the housing consumer has changed. “People will seek a better work/life balance by owning a country or weekend home if they can afford it, or finding employment with the ability to be close to kids if they have them, or just recalibrating connection to nature and the outdoors.” Those shifts will be permanent, Franzen says, so “as a result, pricing of urban real estate may suffer, and suburban/country real estate may benefit.”

Barbara Ballinger, a design and real estate writer, is in constant contact with the real estate world, nationwide. Her book “Not Dead Yet: Rebooting

your life after 50” (coauthored with Margaret Crane) thinks about how humans change, regardless of real estate booms or busts. Her thoughts on our present bubble are based on the facts on the ground as she sees them.

“First, I don’t think the real estate boom has ceased to have momentum from what I am hearing from numerous sources who I interview for my real estate and design articles for many national publications. Instead, I think it may not be quite as insane. I still consider the market robust in many areas of the country, even rents are going up in New York City,” she said.

In the din of a boom, her perspective is a good one. “I think when the markets return to more normal or the new normal, it will benefit all — homeowners, wanna-be buyers, architects, real estate salespeople, contractors. People will take their time to find the right house in the right location at the right price that doesn’t cause them to lose sleep rather than rush and ignore signs. I think we all need to stop, take a big breath and make a list if looking to buy what we really want and how much we’ll spend. Have an architect, contractor or home inspector thoroughly check out the house and weigh all pros and cons on a list — yellow pad or computer. And if you plan to sell, think long and hard why you are moving and where, again pros and cons.”