Merry Christmas 2022!

Real estate achievements: #1 in Blackhawk, #80 nationwide, $1.6B+ in transactions, 1,350+ homes, 39Y+ experience.

Merry Christmas!

What a great time of the year! I wish you and your families a very safe and enjoyable day.
I look forward to connecting with you soon to help with any of your real estate needs. Give me a call 24/7 at (510) 406-4836

My Best Always,

Joujou

Walnut Creek on Ice

Located in: Civic Park

Address: 1365 Civic Dr, Walnut Creek, CA 94596

December 24th

11:30 AM-11:00 PM

December 25th, 11:30 AM-9:00 PM

Open until January 16, 2023

Phone: (925) 935-7669

walnutcreekonice.com

Client Testimonial

Joujou Chawla is truly amazing! She is the best of the best. I don’t think I could have found anyone better than her to handle my real estate transactions. She represented me as a buyer 13 years ago. It was a short sale and a very challenging deal. She was able to pull it off and exceeded all my expectations. Now 13 years later, I am still very grateful to her for getting such a beautiful home for my family. Last week, she completed another deal for me. This time she represented me as a seller for another property. She and her support team worked tirelessly to get the deal done in record time. She exceeded my expectations again. It proves that she does have the expertise in handling both buying and selling transactions. She knows exactly what it takes to win a bid. She is very familiar with the market in this area. She also has extensive knowledge of negotiation and incredible networking skills. With these outstanding qualifications, no wonder her business kept growing year after year.

- San Ramon Seller 2022

Compass real estate graphic: “Real Estate is local. You need a local expert.”

DID YOU KNOW?

3 Years Ago

Three years ago last week – on December 12, 2019 – a cluster of patients in China’s Hubei Province, in the city of Wuhan, began to experience the symptoms of an atypical pneumonia-like illness that did not respond well to standard treatments, marking the beginning of the COVID-19 Global pandemic that has been associated with the deaths of over 6.6 million people with about 650 million cases recorded, over 1 million deaths in the US. Of those about 28% were aged 85 years and older, 51% were between ages 64 and 85, and 25% were aged between 30 and 64 years of age. About 180,000 health workers have died globally from COVID-19. The seasonal flu causes between 294,000 and 518,000 deaths each year globally according to the CDC. The cost of COVID exceeds $12 trillion globally. Looking back allows us to see ‘the big picture’ more clearly. Today I will not dare to touch all the issues around how this pandemic was handled by governments, corporations, and individuals. I will address the impact on real estate and some lessons I have learned about how COVID impacted our world, over 3 years, not 3 months or 3 weeks:

Most predictions are guesswork. I was almost CERTAIN with strict lockdowns and 100% consistent mask-wearing, we could beat this within a few weeks/months. I was wrong. VERY wrong.
Life goes on, ALWAYS. Marriages, births, deaths, divorces, etc paused – at best – for a few moments and then continued.
Markets can dip and recover quicker than one might expect.
Stopping anything often requires a LONG time and LOTS of effort to restart. Re-starting many areas of industry after the 2008-10 Great Recession took YEARS to re-start.
The desire to recover and make up for lost time is always exaggerated during moments of deprivation. Deprivation fuels desire.
Healthy homes and lifestyles are ALWAYS good for you. Healthy immune systems – and all systems that address prevention – are always good.
We re-discovered – or were again reminded – of the importance of nature.
We learned that REACTIONARY real estate moves are often foolish. ACTING with purpose and a strategy is usually much wiser.
We discovered places to live many thought was never an option.
The world became significantly more aware of high taxes in areas and asked what exactly they were getting in return for those high taxes.
The world was reminded that TIME IS THE LAST LUXURY, and many plans were accelerated: moves, retirements, buying or moving homes instead of waiting for that perfect moment, etc.
We saw that when workers earn more, the economy SOARS. The industry was woefully unprepared for this demand surge. What was interesting was that when the masses earn more, they spend more, almost immediately (unlike wealthier people who often can afford everything they want/need already). Imagine we had an outstanding supply to keep prices in check. We also saw how when the masses spend more, the rich get EVEN richer!
We saw how corporatism is often a greedier version of capitalism: many corporations raised prices well beyond rising prices, because they could, further fueling inflation that will now lead to many losing jobs and suffering as the FED tightens the money supply at an alarming rate.
We learned that as a society we have a lot of work to do in our ability to unite against a common enemy, or for a common goal.
We saw how the media cared much more about scandal headlines than reporting facts, often fueled by equally divisive politicians and their enablers. Real Estate media was no exception.
We realized that those cheap imports are very expensive when you cannot get them delivered, including many building materials. We also realized that making these things locally will cost LOTS more.
We saw how trade tariffs are paid for by consumers, not industry, as are all rising costs.
We saw herd mentality at its extremes, especially amongst speculators. Those that purport to be individuals and independent thinkers were proven to be quite the contrary. BITCOIN – which started to be used in real estate was about $7,300 in December 2019, soared to over $64,000 in November 2021, and is now trading at around $17,000.
We saw massive fraud and corruption exposed: there will always be parasites taking advantage of ‘the system’. Even some ‘top brokers’ made headlines for selling VIRTUAL real estate. The press loved it!
World War 1 was followed by the Spanish Flu that caused massive destruction and division. That was followed by massive inflation. That was followed by massive deflation. Will history repeat itself? If so, maybe the ROARING 20’s Part 2 is in our not-too-distant future too?