We all know the story of Chicken Little: how a seed fell from a tree and landed on his tail and he therefore assumed the sky was falling! the sky was falling!
He ran and told Henny Penny, ‘The Sky is falling, the Sky is falling!’
And Henny Penny cried, ‘We must run! We must run and tell the king!’
They ran into Turkey Lurkey and when he asked how they knew the Sky was falling, Chicken Little said, ‘I saw it with my eyes, I heard it with my ears, some of it fell on my tail!’
To which Turkey Lurkey gobbled, ‘We must run! We must run and tell the king!’
Of course you know the story, they ran into Ducky Lucky and Goosey Loosey and soon the entire barnyard was in a panic.
And that’s where our memory of the story usually ends. We get the lesson: don’t panic, and that’s great, but the story actually goes on from there.
Eventually this hoard of feathered fowl encounters Foxy Loxy. They tell him their story and when he asks how they know the Sky is falling, they all chime in, ‘Chicken Little saw it with his eyes! He heard it with his ears! Some of it FELL ON HIS TAIL!!”
To which Foxy Loxy said, ‘We will run! We will run into my den and I will tell the king!’
And they all ran into Foxy Loxy’s den . . . and never came out again. The End.
I’m rehashing this wonderfully instructional tale for obvious reasons: it has great implications for our recent and current real estate markets. Of course, you can’t listen to the ney sayers that surround you. You have to tune them out. But understand that in times like these, when there is a cacophony of negativity and fear, there is also opportunity. These are the times when smart companies grow and gain. These are the times that bring out the Fox in those of us who still have one lurking beneath the surface. My hope is that the Help-U-Sell team gets foxy and we come through this winter with enough fried chicken to last decades!