"Never Ceases to Amaze Me..."

As we get closer to next week's conference in Baltimore next week (http://www.TrumpStrategiesBaltimore.com) I continue to get a trickle of unsolicited emails from people telling me their reasons for NOT coming to the event this year.

The numbers are insignificant, but what is amazing to me is that they are unsolicited and the feebleness of the reasoning.

I have not problem putting this in the blog, because based on what I am reading, I know these folks are not readers of my blog.

There were three I received this week. Essentially they all said the same thing, which goes something like this: "the reason I'm not coming is because of all the emphasis on Prince George's County... I live in Fairfax and I don't see why there is so much emphasis on PG and Baltimore!" Duh, maybe its because in both these locations making money from real estate activities is like shooting fish in a barrel, provided you pay attention!

Pay attention as in read the blog posts and listen to the radio shows that talk about things economic data, job relocation and of course - transit. Both Prince George's and Baltimore City are severely under valued versus the rest of the region. I could take the next three months worth of blogs in telling the story "why". But "why" is no longer important, the more important story is that this is changing and changing rapidly.

Prince George's has more METRO stations than any other jurisdiction, other than the actual city of DC, and up until 12 months ago they were undeveloped with no serious plans for future development. Today, Prince George's still has more stations (save DC), and more planned, but almost everyone of them has either activity going, or starting within the next 18 months. And if you have paid attention to all the other METRO stations in the system, everyone of them has been a catalyst to strong economic development activity and price appreciation for investors - EVERYONE OF THEM.

Prince George's has (after two other strike outs) finally selected a Superintendent (excuse me CEO) of the Public School System who within 2 months on the job has already done more (positively) then his two predecessors, and by all indications will bring the system closer to par with Fairfax and Montgomery County over the next 5-7 years. And most importantly, the jobs are coming to Prince George's and Baltimore in huge numbers.

An increasing job base, an improving school and public safety record and a real commitment to improve public infrastructure in an under valued market smells like serious opportunity to me. But what do I know, I've only been in the DC area since 1968 and continue to be amazed that down the street from my parents "$28,000 house" in Wheaton they are now selling $700,000 "brownstones...

Clearly the people who wrote these emails came from folks who never bothered to listen to the interviews with the folks from Prince George's: http://audio.federalnewsradio.com/weekends/ritr/RITR_03_18_2006.wma?sidelines=1
-or- the two leading economists in the region Stephen Fuller and Anirban Basu http://audio.federalnewsradio.com/weekends/ritr/RITR_02_18_2006.wma?sidelines=1

The other email I got was equally "interesting". This person shared with me, again unsolicited, that he was going out of town to a 4-day event on making money in real estate in Florida. He lives 15 minutes from the hotel where this year's event is taking place. I fully expect to get a phone call in a few weeks asking how the event in Baltimore went, and more than likely another call six months from now asking "when the next in-town session will be...", so he can learn how to then apply what he learned about Florida real estate to opportunities 30 -45 minutes from his house.

I am quite confident he never saw my blog post about Acres of Diamonds, or my reference to this critically important short speech by H. Russell Conwell, the Founder of Temple University: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/rconwellacresofdiamonds.htm

I guess it's true what they say: "In the middle of a ocean of opportunity some folks will still not be able to find the water".

Sherman Ragland - Thank You For Reading...