MLKing Afterglow: What if we weaponized real estate wealth & buyer agent rebates for Valentine’s Day?
In January 2019, Starbucks posed Martin Luther King’s challenging question in a full page NYTimes ad: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?” Those words still stir the conscience – now in equal measure to the ability of Embrace Boston, an immersive sculpture on Boston Common, to move the heart with love. How does that translate to real estate?
Both scripture and MIT’s uLab ask, “What wants doing?” At the macro-level, affordable housing advocates are working on systemic policy changes. But what about personal actions on the micro-level? What might ordinary people do? Welcome the opportunity to discuss theological perspectives on housing, not as an exercise in debate but cause for corrective action, whether through the public or private sector. If you’d like to offer your insights and stretch idea starters like this sample from:
#InspiRE: Innovators for Spirituality in Real Estate
Imagine an app that allows homeowners to share a fraction of the windfall profit they received during the pandemic (a record $6.9 trillion in 2021)?
Or a coalition of money-savings real estate companies who encourage their clients to donate 10% of the rebate they receive at closing from their #BuyerAgent?
Host #Hack4REGood and direct donations to organisations serving needs of 7 million Ukrainian children who are at risk this Winter according to UNICEF?
CALL FOR ACTION:
What would it take to mobilize the real estate industry to pursue that Idea Starter before Valentine’s Day?
MIT’s Ideas Competition is always an opportunity to think BOLDLY, and 20 years ago submitted an idea that’s worth revisiting. Can we use the after glow of MLKingDay to mobilize an army of homebuyers, sellers and real estate innovators to weaponize real estate wealth and buyer agent rebates? To provide heat and emergency relief on the ground in Ukraine for Valentine’s Day?
As MLK said, “We must use the weapon of love.”
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