Happy Friday. This is The Shake 🤝: the weekly newsletter that swerves from one real estate topic to another… try to hang on

Here’s what we got this week:

• The Marine Highway 🚤 

• ReTwit vs ReThreads 📱 

MARKET RADAR

The Marine Highway 🚤 

Peak summer is here and if you were on a boat for July 4th 🇺🇸, there’s a good chance you voyaged along the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW).

Turns out if it wasn’t for our fight for independence from the UK, the ICW may have never been developed… more on this later.

The ICW spans 3000+ miles and stretches along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico from Boston to South Florida and across to Texas.

When America gained independence, the commercial and military use of the Atlantic coast was critical. The consistent hazards associated with oceanic travel made it important to find another transportation route for trade.

So in the early 1800s, a plan was presented by Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin for the initial development of the ICW. It had a price tag of $20 million but was shot down by the Senate even though the benefits certainly outweighed the costs.

Ironically (and timely with July 4th), the development of this unique transportation system didn’t get approval from the US government until after the War of 1812 against the Brits. 

The original plan presented by Gallatin served as a blueprint for the US Army Corps of Engineers. Alas, the ICW was born!

Construction of the ICW was a complex and gradual process that took over 100 years. Piece by piece, it involved dredging channels and constructing bridges where necessary. The waterway was designed to accommodate a range of vessels, from small boats to larger commercial ships.

Early history

In 1826, the first survey for a canal on the inland side took place. Development didn’t move fast as the priority leaned towards railroads during the industrial revolution, but a larger hauling capacity is what made water transport more efficient for moving cargo.

In 1880, Congress passed an act that made the waterways free from tolls and taxes, incentivizing further development and transportation competition. In the 20th century, the channels were deepened, boat steering improved, and the need for cheaper transport increased.

World War I led to the establishment of the Federal Barge Lines and by 1920, the Louisiana and Texas Intracoastal waterways began construction.

The last push for the completion of the ICW came during World War II when German submarines sank numerous merchant ships off the east coast - driving urgency to have the waterway connect between New Orleans and Corpus Christi.

This led to the majority of the continental US being reachable within its own borders. The evolution of the waterways created what is known today as The Great Loop.

Economic Value

The ICW holds significant value for various sectors of the economy, including commercial shipping, recreational boating, tourism, and coastal industries.

Since there are no tolls, fuel taxes are charged to help to maintain facilities. The first fuel tax was imposed in 1978 which started at 4¢ per gallon. Since then it has been raised to 20¢ starting in 1995.

It’s tough to provide an exact monetary value for the entire ICW but its economic impact can be assessed based on its district waterways.

We dug into Florida to investigate and discovered:

• The annual value created by the FL ICW is $16.5 Billion

• Currently supports over 200,000+ jobs

• $3.9 million is spent annually on maintenance to avoid lost revenue of $1 Billion

• Federal and State Tax Revenue both benefit from $1.5 Billion each year

• Over 250,000 registered vessels utilizing the FL ICW

When it comes to property values, it’s obvious that a home on or near the water is worth more. Also, that insurance premium goes upppp 🙃 

Turns out that any home within a 1-mile radius of the ICW earns a certain percentage of sales value due to its proximity to the waterway.

About 4% (or $45 billion) of the $1.2 trillion in FL property values benefit from a higher sales value due to their close location to the ICW.

Annually, the FL ICW makes up about $2.7 billion in actual property sales value 🤑 

That’s why there’s nothing more important in real estate than location, location, location! 📍 

ReTwit vs ReThreads 📱 

It isn’t news that Zuckerberg played his classic game of copycat last week by launching Twitter but with a different logo Threads, which surpassed 100 million sign-ups in under 1 week.

It’s almost impressive how much he doesn’t have a care in the world about copying other social media. Look at what he did to Snapchat with IG Stories, or Tik Tok with IG Reels, for example. Are we even surprised at this point?

Why are we writing about this on The Shake?

If you aren’t familiar, there’s a great community on Twitter known as #ReTwit.

#ReTwit is simple: It’s a group of real estate professionals - complete with Brokers, Investors, Developers, Lenders, Realtors, etc - who support each other. Personally, I’ve never seen another community like it.

Another interesting thing to note is that a large number of the users engaging in the #ReTwit community are “anon” or anonymous users. Arguably the biggest personality within this group is an anon himself, “@RealEstateTrent”, also known as “Strip Mall Guy”. I hope that I never find out who he actually is, because it’s genuinely entertaining opening the app every day to see what he puts out. Who recognizes this guy?

As a broker, I envy the perfect hair, no wrinkles in the clothes, and white teeth every day.

#ReTwit is special because it’s a way of leveling the playing field for all types of people to engage with each other, no matter where they are in their careers.

For instance here are 4 different people who are bringing different perspectives daily (not an ad, just love their content):

1. @CREgir1 — an anon account that is extremely vulnerable about the trials and tribulations starting out in the industry. I personally love how the community supports some of her questions and observations. I wish this page was around when I started in CRE brokerage because so many questions that I had been asked right on this page every day!

2. @fortworthchris — Chris covers the industrial/capital side of the business and has one of the best podcasts you can listen to (not only just for CRE but for business inspiration in general). One of the most humble people in the game for the amount of business that he does. Truly inspiring.

3. @TripleNetInvest — another anon account that covers the investment side of the game. This account is regularly breaking down deals and bringing their opinions to the table, which is helpful to read as a broker.

4. @BobKnakal — The legend himself. Bob is one of the top brokers to ever do it, and still, here he is every day sharing his habits, flashback thoughts (shares quotes from 15 years ago), and advice to the entire community. I’ve never met Bob or spoken to him, but I truly feel like I understand what it takes to be a successful broker day in and day out by reading his tweets alone.

Now, onto Threads.

The early observations are clear: the app itself doesn’t nearly have the algorithm down the way that Twitter does, it seems to be more of a flex show, and most importantly very few have even made a Threads account, with 0 jumping ship completely (by our observation).

It’s hard to say what the app will develop into, but for now, there is one major feature that Threads has that Twitter doesn’t and likely never will: instant integration with Instagram.

With one click on anyone’s Threads profile, you can get right to their Instagram page. I know that the anon accounts who are reading this are immediately laughing, but there is one thing that we need to admit as real estate people, and that’s that the tech industry understands human behavior way better than we do…

To be completely honest, we at The Shake could care less which one of these platforms ends up prevailing, as long as the real estate community stays together.

What would be truly heartbreaking from an engagement and education standpoint is to watch this community somehow get split up. We’re not even trying to sound like hardos but no one has time to really dive in and engage with both, especially in this market.

The titans of #ReTwit seem unbothered, and it looks like especially for now that Twitter will prevail. Can’t wait to write about this mid-Q4 to see where things stand.

Now for the final shameless plug… until we see which one which app will actually rule supreme, check us out on both platforms!

Twitter: TheShakeNews

Threads: TheShakeNews 

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^{DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.}