Property Point

OPINION PIECE

Someone pointed out to me the other day that young people would not know what a “carbon copy” is because they would never have come across a carbon copy of anything.

The move to the digital age has made carbon copies redundant, however, in an excellent twist of irony and a delightful merging of old with new, we still use the term CC when copying people in on emails.

Those same young people probably would not know that CC is an abbreviation of carbon copy.

By way of a short history lesson and for those resilient youngsters who are still sticking with my train of thought, a long, long time ago before personal computers and before emails, our letters and other forms of communication were often produced on paper.                                                                                                            

It was a time even before photocopiers. Let’s not even go into telegrams. Stop.

Anyway, to provide a copy of a letter or document, a carbon copy was created by putting the typed letter or document directly over carbon paper so the imprint came out in the carbon paper below. The carbon copy was an exact replica of the original that was placed above it and could be provided to those who needed to be given copies, or “copied in” as we would say these days.

I know most readers know all this but we often forget the blissful ignorance of youth and it is important not to exclude the dear things.

I heard a slightly gossipy friend of mine labelled a “town crier” the other day and his young friend said: “That’s right, you’re such a sook. You get upset about everything.” We had to explain that a town crier was not someone who spent all day blubbering.

In the real estate world it is important, as an agent, to understand the age and demographic of the people you are dealing with.

Younger buyers have expectations of things that are not necessarily important to older people and whether you agree or disagree with what that person expects or desires, the point is that is what they want.

Younger buyers “these days” tend to expect more modern fittings and fixtures in a way that young people 30 years ago did not expect. There’s no point in judging that and telling them they should be satisfied with something dated because the important thing is that they get in the market and “it’s better than renting”.

My wife recently told a young friend that we were going to be moving out of our house for a week because our bathroom was being renovated. Her young friend looked at her with a blank stare as if to say: “why would you do that?”

My wife realised that the young friend had never lived in a house with one bathroom and assumed we would use the second bathroom while the reno was being done.

I love living in West Mackay and I’d rather live in my one-bathroom house than move somewhere else bigger and flasher (sorry kids) but that’s just me.

It’s different for other people and the important thing as an agent is to understand what other people, younger or older, want and to focus on their needs. Copy that.

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