07/05/2023
Independence Day is not a marketing day.
Now that the day has come and gone and we have all filled up with our BBQs and beer, let’s take a moment longer to reflect on the intrinsic link that is property ownership and our nation’s Independence.
One of my fundamental beliefs as a real estate agent is that a path to homeownership should be available for all.
An unlikely ally of this belief is one of our Founding Fathers, John Adams, a deeply flawed but idealistic man and a proud New Englander.
“power always follows property. This I believe to be as infallible a maxim in politics, as that action and reaction are equal, is in mechanics. Nay, I believe we may advance one step farther, and affirm that the balance of power in a society, accompanies the balance of property in land. The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of equal liberty and public virtue, is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society; to make a division of the land into small quantities, so that the multitude may be possessed of landed estates. If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that ease the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude, in all acts of government”
Franklin, too, had strong views on private property rights that may fly in the face of current land use rights debates.
"All the Property that is necessary to a Man for the Conservation of the Individual & the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who by their Laws have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition."
This view can be summarized in modern English as this: Your primary property is your castle, but all other property is to be used in the best interest of the public when needed.
One wonders what these two men would make of our modern rules on land use.
