Articles

The New Face of the Affluent: Sept. 18, 2009

The following is from a luxury real estate conference I went to earlier in this week in Vail, CO. The speaker was Dan McCarthy of NCI Communications and the creator of www.ViralHousingFix.com. This is a story he told at the conference and his recent blog post.

" I opened up a speech I was giving to a group of luxury real estate agents at a conference in Beaver Creek.I wanted to find a way to illustrate the profound shift that has occurred among affluent Americans as a result of the economic contraction — something that would capture the essence of the change and put a face to the different statistics I was about to share.

An incident on the plane flying out to Vail sprung to mind. As we were getting ready to pull out of the gate, an agent came on board and asked whether anyone in the packed plane would be willing to give up their seat. The gentleman sitting next to me in First Class — a well-groomed and obviously experienced business traveler — raised his hand and asked, “What will you give me?” The agent was surprised; he hadn’t expected someone from the front of the plane to volunteer. “Will you give me an international round trip ticket?” the man asked. “I can do that,” the agent said.

While people clapped and the man gathered his belongings, I asked what had prompted the offer. “My son is graduating this year and I’d like to give him
a trip somewhere fun. I don’t need to be anywhere this evening and I figured, why not get something free?”

Off he went, the CEO and owner of a mid-sized manufacturing company, to spend the night in a hotel, a free ticket voucher in his hand.

That’s the new face of luxury: Looking for a deal, keeping their standards high."

By Dan McCarthy, www.viralhousingfix.com