January is my least favorite month. It’s like 31 Mondays in a row. New Year, new resolutions, new game plan. Problem is, the weather along Lake Erie in Northern Ohio typically doesn’t cooperate with all my best and newly-laid plans. The air is frigid, the skies cloudy, the landscape dreary. The hardest part for me is that what stretches ahead is at least a couple months more of the same.
The first two weeks in January are typically a pretty slow time of year for real estate activity. Although there are buyers out there wanting to get a jump on the masses, very few people want to think of putting their house on the market when they’ve just put away their Christmas decorations. My argument about breaking from the herd of traditional sellers and listing your home now when there is so much less competition instead of waiting until spring, is subject for my next blog.
View from our room at Negril Escape
Today as I watch the snow fall outside, I want to talk about the value of taking a tropical vacation in early January. Jamaica in January is a great getaway. Even though it’s officially high season, every hotel I checked had vacancies and they were willing to offer discounts on their high season prices. The sun shone brightly every day. The temperatures hovered between 75-85 degrees. The water temperature was 80 degrees.
You get to live this simple life where all you have to decide is which beach you’ll go to that day or which open air eatery you’ll stumble upon to get your daily fix of fresh Red Snapper and cold Red Stripe beer.
While there, we never turned on the television or read a newspaper so had no idea what was happening in the cold, cruel world outside of our tropical escape. We did not discuss the past year or what we planned to do this year. We lived in the moment, something that is so difficult to do in our daily lives when we’re bombarded with things we must do and can’t seem to live without.
Being mostly unplugged, except for a once a day look at my smart phone and e-mail, was something I haven’t done in years. It was the perfect way to relax, refresh and gear up for what promises to be a busy Real Estate in 2013, if the last 6 months of 2012 were any indication.
While out of the country, a colleague handled my business because phone and internet service were spotty in Negril, Jamaica. Things stayed pretty quiet until a few days ago. This week, despite or maybe because of the frigid temperatures and the realization that this month of Mondays is nearly over, prospective buyers and sellers are coming out of hibernation. It’s time to imagine warm, sunny days. They are sure to arrive here before we know it.
In the meantime, Let’s look to Punxsutawney Phil for some bright weather news on February 2nd.
Share this:
Lake Erie Views 