There’s something lurking out over the horizon that could dramatically impact commercial real estate in the coming years, and this has nothing to do with where our economy may now be headed. It has to do with what is right now being proven scientifically about the dangers and the physical harm being done to people from microwave transmissions, including from Wi-Fi, and from 5G cellular transmission towers. This has already become well known in Europe and in Australia, and those places are right now in the middle of dealing with many lawsuits between parties because of this, and they’re implementing new laws and new regulations to deal with all of this, too. But we here in the U.S. have been largely tuned out to all of this, and with our society being quite litigious, I can only imagine the amount of litigation that could be happening here once this knowledge becomes commonplace here in the U.S., and once the attorneys begin filing lawsuits against property owners because of it.
So, for example, if you decide to do some research on this, and you are then able to speak intelligently to your property owners about it, you may convince them that it’s now time to sell property that is located near or adjacent to 5G towers, because of what is being determined scientifically about the damage that is being done to people because of these towers. In addition, as things begin progressing more and more, and people’s knowledge of this situation continues to grow, this will cause more buyers and tenants to find different buildings because of a building’s proximity to towers like these, and this will then directly impact the value of these kinds of properties. In addition to this, one can only imagine the lawsuits that would likely be filed by people who have been living and working in close proximity to these kinds of towers, and litigation definitely is something that your principals don’t want to be directly involved in.
So while there have been many times over the years when I’ve been asked, “How can I get an owner to want to sell their property?”, which is normally a very tough proposition when the owner isn’t really interested in doing so, your knowledge of what I’m telling you here, and your ability to convey it to your owners, could then get them to now hand you a new listing.
With this in mind, what I recommend you do is read the book “In the Dark” by Jason Bawden-Smith, in which he describes what has now become known around all of this in great detail, including showing us photos and the supporting documents giving us all of the scientific evidence. Then I recommend giving copies of the book to property owners who now own property that may become tainted and much less desirable once all of this eventually becomes mainstream knowledge here in the U.S.
In some ways, I see this as potentially becoming similar to people not wanting to be located next to a property with severe toxic contamination, whereas before the 1980s, this was never even a topic for discussion. In addition, this reminds me of the story someone told me several years ago about when they were staying at a resort in Mexico, and they saw hurricane warnings on TV, telling them that the hurricane could be headed directly for the resort. Then while other people at the resort laughed and joked about the idea of the hurricane ever hitting them, the person who told me the story then made immediate plans to fly home, and then did so. Then when they got home and saw on the news how the hurricane had completely destroyed the resort, they saw the exact same people being interviewed who had joked about the hurricane ever hitting them, only now they were completely desperate and devastated from what they had just experienced.
Now there’s something else that needs to be considered here, too, and that is, “Could you be held liable sometime down the road for selling a property like this?”, and that is a subject for you to talk about with your attorney. As we speak there are no laws that I am aware of even addressing this, and any potential liability for landlords around this within the U.S. right now would be speculation.
So in putting this all together, there will be owners who will snooze and still say “So what?” whenever you tell them about this, and there will be others who will instead connect the dots and then realize that they will be much safer by getting out of owning these kinds of properties now, and then transitioning into owning properties that won’t present this same kind of risk to them in the future.
So in keeping this in mind, there could be a lot of money to be made by you by working with these property owners in the second category that I just mentioned, while the majority of your broker-competitors will never even see this opportunity coming to them.