After May’s big surge in home building, things slowed down in June, as Housing Starts slipped slightly for the month. But, looking to the future, single-family Building Permits hit their highest level in 12 months.

The market for new homes is clearly improving. NAHB homebuilder sentiment saw its seventh straight gain in July, hitting the highest reading in over a year, as a solid majority of builders view conditions as good.

Existing Home Sales posted a small decline for June. But, good news for buyers, the median price has fallen a bit the past year. Good for sellers, tight inventories will prevent any large price drops.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. ~ Thomas A. Edison

He was starting a delivery business… he was making a promise to make deliveries faster than his competitors… he had a plan that covered every detail, every contingency, every dollar that would be spent and thus earned, and he knew he was destined for greatness.

After all of his planning, countless hours of work and a grand opening that would launch this new venture into the stratosphere, he received an abysmal 6 orders to start his illustrious career in delivery.

Yes, 6 orders is a few hundred dollars in revenue, and maybe a bicycle delivery company in New York could have survived it, and though it might not pay the bills, maybe a document delivery company in San Francisco could have started with such a slow first day and then made a comeback.

But 6 orders totaling a few hundred dollars in revenue will kill a delivery business with the overhead of Jet Airplanes, a payroll of employees that included highly paid pilots and well, millions of dollars at stake.

Thus, since business did not increase, the life span of this new delivery venture was literally 1 month.

With the intense belief and desire to make his venture succeed, he refined, re-tuned, re-planned and made the changes needed to exceed the original 6 orders.

With a new grand opening, orders did exceed 6, but were still not promising, however, with excellent service, promises delivered and repeat and new business growing quickly, Fred Smith did not have to close Federal Express again, and it did become the success that he knew it could be.

Most people do not know the story behind the story, that Fred Smith and Fed Ex failed so miserably in the first attempt, (really, just 6 orders) that even the staunchest of entrepreneurs would have given up.

What if he had given up after that first embarrassing and abysmal failure? What if?

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Black Knight’s home price index hit a new record high in May, showing that last year’s home price correction has now fully reversed. May’s 0.7% monthly gain equates to an 8.9% annualized growth rate going forward.

CoreLogic’s analysis revealed home prices grew in May for the fourth straight month. However, annual price growth dropped below 2% for the first time in 11 years, but CoreLogic forecasts a 4.5% price gain by May 2024.

Zillow reports the typical home value in June broke through $350,000 for the first time ever. The new peak of $350,213 eclipses the prior record set in July 2022 and will hopefully motivate more people to sell.

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” ~ Michael Jordan

There was a deep fly ball to right field. The batter had hit it well, but not quite solidly enough to get it over the fence. I watched the action as an umpire — the only one on the field during a slow-pitch softball tournament game.

There was a runner on third base and there was only one out.

I heard the third base coach tell the runner to take his time. Why would a coach ever tell a base runner that?

He told him to take his time because the ball was so well hit. And the coach told the runner to take his time because the right fielder had only one arm.

That arm, of course, had a glove on it. I watched the outfielder catch the ball and the runner tag up at third.

I expected there would be no play at home, but I positioned myself in case just in case there would be one.

The outfielder caught the ball in his glove, flipped the ball into the air while in the same motion throwing his glove to the ground. He grabbed the ball out of midair and again in a single motion threw it towards home plate.

The ball shot towards the catcher like a missile. The runner did not even bother to slide. It would have done him no good.

The catcher was waiting with the ball. The runner was out by so far that he could have just as well been in the next state.

He easily became the third out. From then on the advice from the third base coach in this and every other game was, “Don’t run on the right fielder.”

Becoming a good player had not been a simple task for the right fielder. He was born with only one arm.

It would have been easy for someone so interested in sports, as the young outfielder was, to feel a lot of anger and self-pity.

He could have occupied a seat on the bench and asked himself, “Why me?” over and over again. He could have, but he did not.

He not only played, he played well. He was a leader and was named team captain. He kept the team loose.

He was able to joke about his missing arm like another would joke about his bald head. He admits that he did not get much sympathy, but that was just the way he wanted it. He did not ask nor desire any sympathy.

He had an inner strength that would not allow him to quit. When he set his mind to something, he accomplished his goal. He said often that he was not handicapped- far from it, he was blessed.

He felt truly blessed because he was able to play a game that he loved. He has done well in life. Maybe his experiences in the game of softball helped him to be successful in other areas of life?

Everything we have done in life brings us to the place where we are.

I try always to remember the lesson the young ballplayer taught me.

So whenever I begin to think that the cards are stacked against me; whenever I begin to feel that I am not going to be able to do what I need to do; I remember these words.

“Don’t run on the right fielder.” ~ Andrew Hayes

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Residential construction spending unexpectedly increased 2.2% in May, with a 1.7% gain in single-family builds. It was the first monthly gain in a year, as home builders ramp up to meet persistent homebuyer demand.

The National Association of Home Builders’ analysis of Census Bureau data showed that in the first three months of the year, almost 60% of single-family home building activity occurred in counties where baby boomers make up the majority of the population.

Home sale prices are rising again. A national online database reports that nationally the average home sale price came in above the original listing price for the first time since August of last year. 

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost. ~ Arthur Ashe

You’re a 19-year-old kid. You’re critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8-1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the MediVac helicopters to stop coming in.

You’re lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you’re not getting out. Your family is half-way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you’ll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day. Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn’t seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He’s not Medi-Vac, so it’s not his job, but he’s flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.

He’s coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board.

Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses.

And, he kept coming back… 13 more times… And took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Ed Freeman passed away in August, 2008. May he rest in peace.

Ed’s passing did not get much media attention, in a time when the press tends to over-cover a scandal or overdose of a rock star. But his valor was recognized when he was awarded the United States Medal of Honor.

At a White House ceremony in July, 2001, Ed Freeman was presented with the Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush. President Bush said of Freeman on that occasion:

“Army Captain Ed Freeman did something that the men of the 7th Calvary have never forgotten. Years passed, even decades, but the memory of what happened on November 14, 1965 has always stayed with them.

For his actions that day, Captain Freeman was awarded the distinguished Flying Cross, but the men who were there, including the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Crandall, felt a still higher honor was called for.

Through the unremitting efforts of Lieutenant Colonel Crandall and many others and the persuasive weight from Senator John McCain, the story now comes to its rightful conclusion.

That story began with a battalion surrounded by the enemy in one of Vietnam’s fiercest battles. The survivors remember the desperate fear of almost certain death.

They remember gunfire that one witness described as the most intense he had ever seen, and they remember the sight of an unarmed helicopter coming to their aid.

The man with the controls flew through the gunfire not once, not 10 times, but at least 21 times.

That single helicopter brought the water, ammunition and supplies that saved many lives on the ground, and the same pilot flew more than 70 wounded soldiers to safety.

General Eisenhower once observed that when you hear a Medal of Honor citation, you practically assume that the man in question didn’t make it out alive. In fact, about 1 in 6 never did, and the other five, men just like you all here, probably didn’t expect to.

Citations are also written in the most simple of language, needing no embellishment or techniques of rhetoric. They record places and names and events that describe themselves. The medal itself bears only one word and needs only one, valor.

As a boy of 13, Ed Freeman saw thousands of men on maneuvers pass by his home in Mississippi. He decided then and there that he would be a soldier.

A lifetime later the Congress has now decided that he’s even more than a soldier because he did more than his duty.

He served his country and his comrades to the fullest, rising above and beyond anything the Army or the nation could have ever asked.

It’s been some years now, since he left the service and was last saluted.

But from this day, wherever he goes, by military tradition, Ed Freeman will merit a salute from any enlisted personnel or officer of rank.

Commander Seevers, I’ll now ask you to read this citation of the newest member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and it’ll be my honor to give him his first salute.”

In March, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution designating the U.S. Postal Service facility located at 103 West Main Street in McLain, Mississippi, as the ‘Major Ed W. Freeman Post Office’.

McLain was the hometown of Ed Freeman, a veteran of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

“It is extremely fitting that we should name a federal building after Major Ed Freeman,” Congressman Mike Simpson said. “It is an honor to have known him, and all Americans should be honored that he served our country and defended her in the manner in which he did. God Bless America and God Bless Ed Freeman.”

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Sales of new single-family homes rocketed ahead 12.2% in May, up for the third straight month. Reasons? The supply of completed homes has more than doubled since the bottom, and the median sale price is 7.6% below a year ago.

Existing home supply remains tight, so the index of signed contracts on those homes dipped in May. But demand is strong, the National Association of Realtors reporting “approximately three offers for each listing.”

The national Case-Shiller home price index moved up in April for the third straight month, though it’s still down a tad annually. The FHFA Index of prices for homes bought with conforming mortgages rose to a new all-time high.

“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do little jobs well, the big one will tend to take care of themselves” Dale Carnegie

Like any good story, there’s so much more than meets the eye at Kalahari Resorts & Conventions. Owner Todd Nelson, with the help of his family — high-school-sweetheart wife Shari and their five children, Todd Jr., Travis, Natasha, and twin daughters Alissa and Ashley — has grown his business from a pizza pub in Wisconsin Dells to several sprawling properties that received the title of World’s Coolest Indoor Waterparks by Conde Nast Traveler in 2014.

“Kalahari is a result of hard work and love and represents my family’s dream come to life,” said Todd Nelson, owner, Kalahari Resorts & Conventions. “We aren’t content sitting on the sidelines but understand that hard work guided by family principles is the key differentiator that has allowed us to partake on this whirlwind journey. It doesn’t get lost on us how lucky we are — sometimes we have to pinch ourselves.”

In 2020, Kalahari Resorts & Conventions celebrated the brand’s 20th anniversary and opened its fourth property in Round Rock, Texas. The Round Rock location is the new home of America’s Largest Indoor Waterpark Resort – with a true 223,000 sq. ft. of wet and wild fun.

As the owners of Kalahari Resorts & Conventions, Todd and Shari Nelson have been the driving force behind the development, creation and expansion of the brand since its inception in 2000. Todd and Shari met in drivers’ education class and have been together ever since. Entrepreneurs at heart, Todd and Shari started creating business ventures together right out of high school. From a saloon to a pizza place, Todd and Shari worked hard to ensure success in both business and family – they have five children and 13 grandchildren.

“The greatest accomplishment in my life is being able to work with my family. I couldn’t be prouder of my kids. Seeing them grow and learn, not only as people but also as leaders, has been truly exciting. That includes our extended family of awesome management leaders and associates who helped build this dream and will be crucial to any future success.”

Todd Nelson is defined as a leader in the waterpark industry’s consistent evolution and growth due to a myriad of accomplishments and a brand synonymous with innovation. Today, Nelson continues to serve as the brand’s visionary, overseeing the expansion and inventiveness of Kalahari Resorts & Conventions.

He has been honored with numerous industry awards and profiled in many respected media outlets, including BusinessWeek, USA Today, NBC’s “The Today Show,” ABC’s “Good Morning America” and CNBC’s “Mike on the Money.”

The Nelsons are dedicated to philanthropic giving and corporate responsibility. Under the Nelsons’ leadership, Kalahari has worked closely with nonprofit organizations that serve local communities. Kalahari Resorts & Conventions serves as the host of many annual fundraising events, such as the United Way Duck Derby, Golf for a Song, an annual charity golf tournament to raise funds for Wisconsin Dells High School’s marching band, and the annual Andy North Classic at Trappers Turn Golf Club for the University of Wisconsin Paul P. Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In addition, Kalahari Field, a new synthetic sports field at Huron High School in Ohio, opened thanks to contributions of $500,000 in cash, in-kind donations and fundraising events donated by Kalahari. Kalahari also supports a variety of international organizations, including the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital.

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

Housing Starts shot up almost 22% in May, the biggest monthly gain since 2016 and 5.7% ahead of a year ago. Builders have lots of projects in the pipeline, so building permits rose a less dramatic 5.2% for the month.

The NAHB builder sentiment index hit 55 in June, signaling most builders see conditions as good. Small wonder. The NAR reports “newly constructed homes are selling at a pace reminiscent of pre-pandemic times.”

Even Existing Home Sales gained in May, up 0.2%, and, good news for buyers, the median price was down 3.1%. But prices shouldn’t crater, as there’s only 3 months of inventory, versus 5 months in a normal market.

“America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It was at Valley Forge, almost 250 years ago, that the people of the United States proved that they had the courage to be a nation. Valley Forge is known as one of America’s finest hours, but the only battle ever fought there was the battle of hunger and cold and despair.

You see the plains of Valley Forge and Pennsylvania were the last citadels of a dissipated American army. After two disastrous defeats at the hands of the British, General George Washington had led his discouraged troops in retreat to Valley Forge for the winter.

The winds blew across the plains, and temperatures dropped far below zero in one of the worst winters in history. The General himself wrote “There are men in the camp unfit for duty, because they are barefoot and naked.”

The soldiers lived in small huts built of logs and clay. Many sat up all night by the fire because there were not enough blankets. There was near famine in the camp; men went for weeks without meat. But Washington provided strict discipline for strength, and his wife Martha tempered it with tenderness as she moved among the men daily, praying for them.

When spring arrived they took count. One third of the army had died and another third of the army had quit and gone home. The remaining third simply marched out and won the Revolutionary War.

The United States of America was born.

“Happy Independence Day! I hope you enjoy it and appreciate the country you are fortunate to live in.”

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com

The Fed Beige Book revealed, “Residential real estate activity picked up in most Districts despite continued low inventories,” while “home prices and rents rose slightly.” This is based on data and interviews from Fed Districts nationwide.

CoreLogic reports U.S. home prices in April were up 1.2% for the month and 2% ahead of last year, representing “above average seasonal monthly gains and a rebound in home prices in most markets.”

Realtor.com notes the number of homes actively for sale in May increased by 21.5% versus a year ago. Homes were on the market 43 days, a bit longer than last year but shorter than pre-pandemic.

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. ~ Steve Jobs

The best of the best make their life and work a quest for excellence and that there is a difference between success and excellence.

Success is often measured by comparison to others. Excellence, on the other hand, is all about being the best we can be and maximizing our gifts, talents and abilities to perform at our highest potential.

We live in a world that loves to focus on success and loves to compare. We are all guilty of doing this.

However, I believe that to be our best we must focus more on excellence and less on success. We must focus on being the best we can be and realize that our greatest competition is not someone else but ourselves.

For example, coaching legend John Wooden often wouldn’t tell his players who they were playing each game. He felt that knowing the competition was irrelevant. He believed that if his team played to the best of their ability they would be happy with the outcome.

In fact, John Wooden never focused on winning. He had his team focus on teamwork, mastering the fundamentals, daily improvement and the process that excellence requires.

As a result he and his teams won A LOT.

A focus on excellence was also the key for golfing legend Jack Nicklaus. His secret was to play the course not the competition. He simply focused on playing the best he could play against the course he was playing.

While others were competing against Jack, he was competing against the course and himself.

The same can be said for Apple’s approach with the iPod, iPhone and iPad. When they created these products they didn’t focus on the competition.

Instead they focused on creating the best product they could create. As a result, rather than measuring themselves against others they have become the measuring stick.

We have a choice as individuals, organizations and teams. We can focus on success and spend our life looking around to see how our competition is doing, or we can look straight ahead towards the vision of greatness we have for ourselves and our teams.

We can look at competition as the standard or as an indicator of our progress towards our own standards.

We can chase success or we can embark on a quest for excellence and focus 100% of our energy to become our best… and let success find us.

Ironically, when our goal is excellence the outcome and byproduct is often success. ~ Jon Gordon

Cindy Glynn
Coldwell Banker American Home
479-586-6262
agentcindyg@gmail.com