He Told Me "You're Wrong!"

[Grant Shipman]

In a popular real estate investors forum, I posted about the shift to the 1-person-household being the dominant household size.

What did I get in response?... An advice-giver chimed in not in response to what I was asking, but to tell me....

One response.

"You're wrong."

It basically went like this. "You're wrong. First thing you need to do is get correct information. Married households account for 48.2% of households. Single person households account for 27.7%.".

This was from an accomplished and respected investor.

He was missing it. Listen carefully, or you'll miss it too....

------------------My response is below with question for you to follow-----------------

Hi @[Identity Hid]- I so appreciate the response- I love a man who knows their numbers! Even though you're right, I'll have to respectfully say you're wrong...in this case (hahaha), or we're both right :)

I guess it may have been foolish of me to make a statement that is prone to miscommunication. The term household can mean multiple things. I'll hit the top usages of the term "household" below, then clarify what I'm communicating.

• -US Census Bureau: people per financial unit
• -Insurance (General): person or pair of persons plus dependents
• -Real Estate (Rental) Investors: people per living unit.

This makes is easy to intercommunicate. I'm using the last usage above, as we are in a real estate investor forum. Rental investors are concerned with living units because that is who they rent to. It seems you are referring to US Census Bureau definition- and are spot on. There are many financial units (say a marriage) that are financially or legally united that do not live together OR they live together and additionally one or both maintains a second home in a different local for work/etc. This means a married household (aka "two-person-household") according to the US Census Bureau, may (from a real estate investor definition) count as two one-person-households and potentially not a two-person-household at all. This is further inflated when we focus on a real estate investor's concern, the population of those renting and exclude those who don't rent.

Harvard Reports the following on Renter Households:

• 1. - One-Person Households: 37% (living alone)
  2. - Married Without Children Households: 16% (two person households)
  3. - Family With Children Households: 33% (3 person plus related households)
  4. - Other: 14%

I hope that helps remedy my previous oversight. I further ask your forgiveness for I posted a stat w/out sourcing it. I've corrected that :)

-----------------------Questions For You-----------------------------------

1) As a current or aspiring investors, how do we figure out if information is correct/incorrect or complete/incomplete?

2) If getting in front of a trend makes you rich, how do you you know whether it's a trend or not?