Page 24 - BusinessWest March 7, 2022

Wealth Management
Facing New Realities
Changing Landscape Should Leave a Harder Focus on the ‘Long Term’
The past few years — and even the past few months — have brought about changes to the landscape that should give individuals reason for thought as they consider their long-term financial goals — and how to reach them. These changes include everything from soaring real estate prices to inflation rates higher than those seen in the past 40 years. Overall, these changes and many others should prompt an even stronger emphasis on the ‘long term’ when it comes to financial planning.
TBy Patricia Matty
he pandemic and the resulting environment of the past few years has brought about a lot of changes to the financial advi- sory world.
While not unique to financial advisory, the widespread use of Zoom (or Microsoft Teams) meetings in lieu of face-to-face inter- actions has been a big change. This is true for initial meetings of new clients as well as existing client financial planning meetings and account reviews.
As we have all experienced, remote meet- ings make it much more difficult to get a real sense of someone’s body language, gauge their comfort (or not) with a recommenda- tion, adequate vocalization of their fears, and an increased difficulty in just making a true emotional connection. Aside from the physi- cal aspect of the change, there have been some other repercussions that I would like to focus on. Some of these changes have been driven by the client, the others are being driven by me as the advisor.
On the client driven side, there has been a lot of moving parts. Some of these changes are monetary, some not. Looking at mon- etary changes:
• Real estate prices have changed drasti- cally over the past several years. For most people real estate is the first or second larg- est piece of their assets. The upending of
the real estate market has greatly increased the value of home equity for a lot of people, which has strengthened their balance sheets. For the Millennials who had not yet entered the market, the price of entry became a lot higher, with parents being asked for help more than ever.
24 MARCH 7, 2022 WEALTH MANAGEMENT BusinessWest