The 2023 Real Estate Market: Opportunities and Challenges

Join us on this week's episode of Wealth Builders, as we dive into the 2023 real estate market with Andrew Spangenberger and Brandon Rajotte of The Spangenberger Home Team. Andrew and Brandon will share their unique insights and expertise on the current state of the housing market, including the impact of COVID-19, consumer behavior, and regional differences. You won't want to miss this opportunity to hear about the challenges and opportunities facing buyers and sellers, as well as the role of technology in the buying and selling process. Plus, get a sneak peek into the future with predictions for what's in store for the real estate market. As promised in the episode, we have included the link below for the important questions to ask your realtor. Get ready to be informed and entertained on this episode of Wealth Builders! 

The Spangenberger Home Team (spanghometeam.com)

Important Questions for your Realtor

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This podcast is for informational purposes only. Although the information has been gathered from sources believed to be reliable, please note that individual situations can vary. Therefore, the information should be relied upon only when coordinated with individual professional advice. StatonWalsh and Founder’s Financial Securities do not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Consult your tax, legal, or accounting professional regarding your individual situation.

Ryan Staton is an Investment Advisor of, and securities offered through, Founders Financial Securities, LLCMember FINRA/SIPC and Registered Investment Advisor.

Devin Walsh is an Investment Advisor of, and securities offered through, Founders Financial Securities, LLCMember FINRA/SIPC and Registered Investment Advisor.

Check the background of this firm on http://brokercheck.finra.org/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of Wealth Builders presented by StatonWalsh. On the show we have Andrew Spangenberger and Brandon Rajotte of The Spangenberger Home Team of Cummings and co realtors. Andrew and Brandon share valuable insights on current real estate market trends and how both buyers and sellers can adapt to a changing environment. Through our conversation, we address topics like finding the right agent, home sale prices, the interest rate environment, and how the buying and selling process has changed. We hope you find value in today's show, and make sure to like and subscribe for timely updates on All StatonWalsh content.

Speaker 2: 0:36

This is Wealth Builders presented by StatonWalsh, a show designed to pull back the curtain of the financial industry and bring true transparency to the forefront of conversation on the show. We cover topics like financial education, current events, and interview business leaders and industry experts with the ultimate goal of helping listeners discover their own path to financial independence.

Speaker 3: 1:14

Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of Wealth Builders. We have some special guests today with Andrew Spangenberger and Brandon Rajotte joining us from the Spang home team to talk about the current state of the real estate market. So this is, it's gonna be interesting today, boys. I'm glad to have you here. It's not, thanks for having us. We've been, we've been trying to do it for a while, you know, it's,

Speaker 4: 1:35

It's been a while in the making. We

Speaker 3: 1:36

Just had nice big lunch, so I think we're Bell's a full, we're ready to go. Ready. Appreciate

Speaker 5: 1:41

Finding the time for us. We Thank you

Speaker 3: 1:43

<laugh>. No, I appreciate it. So, today kind of just wanted to, you know, introduce, you guys talk about the real estate market, but maybe we'll turn over to you two kind introduce us, tell us about Spang Home Team, all the things you're doing and what, we'll dive right into it.

Speaker 4: 1:56

Yes, sir. So thank you. So this, my name's Andrew Spangenberger. I've been a real estate agent for about nine years now. Initially it started out on my own, just operating as a solo agent. I had actually sold, Brandon sold Brandon's house and sold him a new house. And from there Brandon and I, uh, teamed up. He decided that he wanted to be a real estate agent and it all sounded good. So,

Speaker 3: 2:16

So you met, that's how you first met. So you sold him his first house and you were just like, wow, he's just the best realtor I've ever met. I want to do this. That's exactly where I, you wanna get in there? Yep.

Speaker 4: 2:25

Close. Yeah. Yeah, pretty close actually. My wife and, uh, actually my brother-in-law and Brandon are really good friends. That's how I initially linked up with him to, to sell his house. So that's was the initial introduction and then he realized I was the best real estate agent that he wanted to, to tag along. So,

Speaker 5: 2:43

And, and then from there, learned the business a little bit, decided to tag along with them and thought real estate was a go and gave it a go. So. Awesome. Ever since then, it's been three years. It's about three years.

Speaker 4: 2:52

Three yeah. Years. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:54

Yeah. So you guys have all kinds of exciting things going on. So tell us little more about the Spank Home team and like the markets you're working in little bit and kind of who the team is and what you guys are doing.

Speaker 4: 3:03

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So the team consists of six different real estate agents, myself being one of them. So five additional real estate agents and two admin, two administrative support staff. So basically, you know, we are a top producing sales team in our area of southern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland, if you're familiar with the area, basically, pretty much anywhere north of the beltway, uh, around Baltimore and anywhere south of Harrisburg in Pennsylvania. And seems to be our, our wheelhouse. So that's our focus areas of, of growing our business. So one of our niches, I guess you'd call it, is that we operate on both sides of the line and we, we pride ourselves on doing both sides, uh, proficiently. So we, we seem to have found a pretty good niche and hole in the market to fill. So that, that's,

Speaker 3: 3:50

Uh, now you guys are also something else that's kind of cool. You started a separate comment too, like e b c kind of a home improvements and stuff for people trying to like, so tell me more about that, Brandon, about some other work you guys are doing before we kind of jump into like current real estate market trends.

Speaker 5: 4:04

Yeah. So we saw a niche in the market. We saw an idea pop of work in a, in a sense that real estate agents fast pace kind of environment, things need to get done quick and, and, and fast. Uh, inspections, appraisals need to be done on a timely manner. So ABC was created, it's been two years now and basically we have three, three vans on the road, four guys working for the company. And we are a handyman service in a sense, working a lot of the quick jobs, handrails, things that you need. So we have our hands in that too. We felt the need was there. So

Speaker 3: 4:35

We all one stop shop,

Speaker 5: 4:36

One sub shop. We do a little bit only the investment world too. And<laugh>, ABC came around and, and obviously the real estate markets is, is, is where we, where we strive and where it all started. Oh,

Speaker 3: 4:46

That's awesome. So let's start talking about current market trends, Ryan. Like, let's talk about, talk about turnover you a little bit and talking about, you know, where the markets currently, I know it's been, gosh, it's been a couple last couple years been crazy. Like home price has been up now with, in now with inflation and, and current market rates. Um, so Ryan, let's, let's, I'll turn over to you to kind of ask some questions and start there.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Yeah. So I mean, I obviously I'm gonna let the experts talk. That's the point of you guys being here today. Right. But I think we get a lot of questions in our practice and I think people that are listening to this are, are most curious about what's going on in the real estate market today. Some of the environment or the, the elements of the environment that Devin just described a lot has changed. I mean, for the anyone who's bought a house in the past couple of years, the difference between that experience two years ago versus, or even really a year ago versus today has changed pretty drastically. So I'd love to get your thoughts on, you know, where we are today specifically, but, you know, starting from the beginning, like how did we even get here in the first place? How did we go from, you know, the high price, low interest rate market to, to where we are today? And, and just give us your thoughts on, on where you think we are and where we're headed.

Speaker 5: 5:54

Just start it off three words. We'd like to describe it as high blood pressure,<laugh>,<laugh>, it's a, it's a ever-evolving thing. It's been like that for a while, that this is where we're at. So

Speaker 4: 6:02

No, but in all, seriously. So the words, the words to focus on for today's market is, is shifting market. We're, we're, we're in a shifting market. It's not a bad thing, it's just change. Um, you know, to tell you about the last two years to, to how we got here the last two years to sum the last two years up is chaos. The market's been chaotic. Buyers were given, essentially giving sellers blank checks in order to secure homes. Home inspections became impossible. You know, rates were under three. It was chaos. So it, while chaos it that that's not really sustainable and, and we're seeing the shift coming out of it now and ideally into a more healthy market. But when change happens, you hear a lot of, of different different takes on it and a lot of negativity that surrounds a lot of nay naysayers and a lot of naysaying. Yeah, absolutely. And, and with that being said, you know, this, this is, well now that it's February, but January was the busiest January we've ever had. So, you know, things are changing, unit counts or, or the amount of homes that are being sold is down for sure. Yeah. But at the end of the day, you know, things are still moving and, and doing, if you do it the right way in this market and you're gonna have a lot more opportunities, there's gonna be some challenges. But again, there's, the change is coming, you know, for just one of our counties, one of our service counties, pu published a stat yesterday that median median sales prices are up 9%, but the number of homes sold is down 12%. Hmm. So both of those are pretty drastic numbers and both going in the opposite direction. So I think what it all boils down to is that, you know, significantly less homes are being sold right now. Inventory is trending towards getting better. Consumer behavior is changing drastically. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> for sure. Um, and rates, while they are higher than what we're used to recently, rates seem to be stabilizing. So yeah, all things are pointing towards that, that we're seeing. And you know, like I said, buyers are getting opportunities they haven't had and and sellers are, sellers are losing some steam. Yeah. So

Speaker 3: 8:01

Just talk about consumer behavior and preferences. Have you seen any type of behavior changes or different preferences on the market from, you know, last summer, the last couple summers or years to now? Like the, what people were, the preferences, the type of house they're buying with the new rates or the behavior you're seeing on the market? We

Speaker 5: 8:16

Have, so to kind of go off what Andrew said, it's been chaos for the past two years. So there's a lot of adjustment that's needed to adjust to a, a shifting market. Just one thing we've had in the past three months, which we haven't seen in a long time, is a few deals have fallen apart. And that just shows you that there's more negotiating power, a little bit more leverage on the buy side. Sellers are adjusting slowly adjusting to this market as things kind of stay on the market a little bit longer. And basically the biggest thing that we've seen with behaviors is our buyers, buyers have, um, a little bit more say in this market. We're not waving inspections, waving everything just to get, uh, the house that we want. We have a little bit of negotiating power. We basically a house sitting at list price isn't the opening bid. You know, it's something that may have some negotiation to it may have a chance to, to work a little bit of stuff that we haven't seen in a long time.

Speaker 4: 9:05

Yeah. Now, don't get me wrong too. Now, if a house is priced appropriately and and marketed properly, we're seeing themselves, we're seeing them sell right away and still with competition. So like, again, it's all in that shift though. Yeah. If it's not happen<laugh> in the past two years it had happened pretty much on anything you'd put on the market that was happening. Yeah. Now it's getting to, you know, you've gotta be priced right. You've gotta be marketed properly, you've gotta be, be prepared, gotta have it staged. You've gotta, you know, you've gotta be actually selling your home rather than just tossing it up on the market.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Do you, do you find challenges with sellers and, and getting emotionally attached or people trying to, to really kind of latch on to what's happened? You know, to, you know, something that we talk a lot about in our practice, something called recency bias, which people frame their thought process based on something that's just happened, or current events, or use your analogy analogy. They're saying like, they're, they're what, what, what analogy?

Speaker 5: 9:55

A little soccer analogy to

Speaker 1: 9:56

You. Oh. Which is great. I love it. I'm chasing the crowd.

Speaker 5: 9:59

I love it.

Speaker 1: 9:59

It's fantastic. On our last show I talked to and, and a presentation I've done recently, I always tell people like the market as a whole, and this is probably true just in general with human behavior, like in any decision making process, it, it's kind of like a five year old soccer game where like you'd see one kid kicks the ball and everyone runs after the ball. And the, they, they all kind of chase each other around. And then there's always like one kid in the background who's just kind of like picking up daisies and<laugh>

Speaker 5: 10:24

That, that was Ryan by the way,<laugh>.

Speaker 1: 10:27

But in some parts of the market, like in some parts of life, like the kid in the background, just like kicking dust around is like, he actually ends up being the smart one at the end of the day cuz he is not chasing the crowd. And so that's fair. Love that. The point is that we as humans are always inherently some way that five year old on a soccer field where we're all chasing, we're all trying to chase the same ball. And the game is like, who can get to it first and who can always be at, at the front of the line. But what inevitably ends up, ends up happening is there's only ever gonna be one winner<laugh> and everyone else is gonna be part of the pack. It's just in which phase of the pack. So, you know, the point being with, with recency bias, the challenge is like people relate their decisions to events or things that have just happened in their life. And so relating that to the real estate market, you know, I, one thing I could say as an, from an outsider's point of view, I could see potentially sellers saying, well, you know, somebody down the street just sold their house for$500,000. Right. They were coming in with an offer Ford. Like, that's ridiculous. I want five. They did it. I want it like Right. So do you find that still to be a

Speaker 4: 11:30

Challenge? Absolutely. So, so the opportunities in this market are gonna be heavily weighted towards the buyers. The challenges in this market are heavily weighted towards the sellers. Yeah. That probably being one of the primary is that for so long, um, sellers have heard essentially, like I just said, throw it up on the market, it'll sell, it'll sell right away. Yeah. It'll sell for more. You're gonna get multiple offers. Well, a year ago Yeah, absolutely. A year ago, two years ago. Yeah. Agreed. We're we're gonna get multiple, not the case anymore. Again, like I say, it's gotta be priced appropriately. It's gotta be marketed properly. Uh, it's got to be, you, you have to go the extra distance in this market, you know, read the real estate news every morning, um, and everything. I keep reading, everything's saying, you know, this market is for the educated agent and that couldn't be anymore. True. You know, for the past two years Yes. As an agent, there was agents flying by the seat of their pants and they did just fine. It's not gonna fly anymore. Yeah. So, so really the expertise is gonna come back in. However, sellers, one of the expertise pieces is that getting a seller's expectations redialed in Yeah, because it, it's just not what it's

Speaker 1: 12:33

Been. It's funny how that always happens. It's like everything always kind of reverts back to normal. Like, you know, we call it mean, mean reversion. Like you get back to like whatever the averages are, but it seems to be true in every business. We see it in our world like the last couple years similar to real estate. Like Yeah. I, I tell people this probably a little too loosely, but I'll tell clients like, monkey could have thrown a dart at the wall and picked an investment and probably made money. The same was true for, you know, people selling how like there was this boom, especially in our area of people getting into this industry and doing really well and having like this, this kind of little mini economic boom and now it's getting harder. Like not everyone can just Right. Sell a house or, you know, give advice on investments or, you know, be a mortgage broker for example. And so it's exactly, now we're, we're back into a, a a, a market or an environment where you actually have to know what you're doing Absolutely. What you're talking about Absolutely. To be

Speaker 4: 13:26

Successful. Yeah, no, for sure. Like you said, and we are, I guess we are the investments you're picking as a, as a client who's going to be, or a consumer who's gonna be selling your home. You know, make, make sure as a seller, this is what I tell every seller is to interview multiple agents. Yeah. Make sure you have somebody who's got the local knowledge, somebody who has the experience, somebody who has the proof and the, and the plan to put together to get your home sold for the most money. Not just, I I have a license, I can do it. Yeah. It's not always, that's certainly not the case.

Speaker 1: 13:53

What could be deceiving too, right? If you could have an agent who's in two years into it that the last couple years were Oh yeah, they, you know, they did a lot of sales. Like there's a lot of activity. So from a track record perspective, going back to recent history, looks like they do know what they're doing. Yeah. But Yep. But maybe beyond the, you know, that boom of, of sales or increasing prices, maybe they, you know, they weren't in the business or, you know, something else was going on, so. Right. How do, how does a consumer vet that? Like if they're trying to find a qualified agent, like how do you figure that

Speaker 4: 14:22

Out? Definitely. Well, you know, it's funny, I actually just went on a listing appointment the other night and this seller had two back front and back pages of questions that they were gonna ask me and they were asking every agent they talked to, and I loved it actually. So I got a copy of the questions and I said, I, I just want those because they're fantastic questions. Yeah. And I love that you guys are asking these, you know, talk, talk to your agent about a marketing plan. What are they gonna do to get your home marketed? Are they just gonna take some photos and throw it up on the MLS and, and hope everything goes well because Yeah. That, you know, that's what they did for the past two years. Like, that's not working anymore. You know, so are we talking about bringing a stager in? Are we talking about bringing in new different furniture to the home? Are we talking about, you know, getting some of those updates made? How, how are we going about doing updates? What, you know, diving into all of the specifics and I, I'd be happy to actually give you that list if you wanted to. Yeah,

Speaker 3: 15:12

Yeah, that that'd be great to see me For sure. We put that in our show notes and we can kind of have in there some of the questions to ask.

Speaker 4: 15:17

Definitely your resources. I strongly recommend it. If anybody's looking to hire an agent, it, you are, you should be interviewing. You should not just go just because your cousin does it and go with him, ask some questions. This, this truly matters, especially coming into this market.

Speaker 3: 15:30

Yeah. So definitely we'll put that in the show notes for, it'd be great information for all the listeners today. So going back to marketing, so you guys work in different regions, obviously you're in Northern Bomber County, you guys are in Pennsylvania. Do you guys see a difference in the activity in the markets between the two, whether it's around different, when you had a market or a different type of seller or buyer in those markets? Yeah, man, they're close together. But is there a significant difference between the northern Boer County buyer seller versus, you know, York County?

Speaker 4: 15:54

Yeah, definitely. The, the, that's always been interesting to me, just watching the psychology and, and the parallel, the parallel in the two markets. They, they're very parallel markets. You know, let's just take for an example. If you put the same exact house on the market in a York County, Pennsylvania versus putting it on this in, on the market in Baltimore County, call it Timonium. If you have the exact same house, what what may have happened, just to tell you what I mean by parallel, is that same house in in Timonium or in Maryland may get, call it five offers, five to seven offers, where in Pennsylvania it may get two to three, right? So you're still gonna get the competition, you're still gonna have activity, but it's not gonna be as intense. And Pennsylvania Pennsylvania's a lot less intense. I'd like to, I guess you'd call it. Okay, Maryland. Maryland brings the heat. I just think that there's just, you know, the population's greater, first of all. They're, they're running parallel though.

Speaker 3: 16:41

No, that's good insight. So let's talk about like buy, and I know we've kind of touched on briefly, but buying and selling and today's market, like some of the challenges that buyers and sellers are having, you know, here's some people say, Hey, buy now with the interest rates a little higher and just refinance in a year or so. Like, tell us about the current market and what you're telling people, whether it's a first time home buyer, somebody coming in, buying a second home, or upgrade into a, a larger home. Let's talk about that a little bit about buying and selling in today's market. Think Brandon,

Speaker 5: 17:08

To dive into that. I mean, talking on the buyer's side first, we are seeing, as we mentioned earlier, more leverage, more negotiating power. People are, have an idea that interest rates are high. Is it the time to buy? Is it, is it the right market? Really? We, we like to say any market's a good time to buy, you know, there's always, there's always opportunity and it's finding the right deal and, and working with the right, with the right professional to make it happen. There's programs out there to, to help with interest rates. There's negotiating power now to work with the sellers to, to get a little bit of that back. And like we said in the beginning, starting at a list price is, is almost like an opening bid. It's not that I have a chance to have an opportunity to maybe get something at a, at a, at a good value to, to kind of help with the buyer. So I wouldn't, it's obviously not a challenge on the buy side. It's more of an advantage that we're shifting into, but there's still a ton of challenges on, on both sides, especially on the, on the sell side that we've talked about briefly if, uh, more of getting a reality of what this market is and a chance to understand that we're not throwing it up there and<laugh> and it's just gonna sell real quick. Yeah. We gotta make sure that we're pricing it correctly. Mm-hmm. And we talked about that hiring a professional that makes it work. So

Speaker 3: 18:13

How about inventory right now? Cause I know down where, near where I live in Arundel County, like the inventory is just, there's, there's not much there<laugh>. Like, it's, it's, it's crazy, huh?

Speaker 4: 18:21

Yeah. So that's, that's sold and true from the past two years even until now, for the most part. So for the past two years, inventory has been scarce. And, and what I mean by inventory is, is how many homes are on the market, right? And, and the way they measure that is in, they call it months of in inventory, how many months of inventory are left or are on the market. And what, what that means is how long, how many months would it take for all the current homes on the market to sell if nothing else was put on. And, and based on current sales volume, you know, experts say between five and six months of inventory is a balanced market. What I would call probably healthy market for the past two years we've been right around one or under one month worth of inventory, which is brutal. Again, it's

Speaker 1: 19:04

Gotta be on your toes at all times if you

Speaker 4: 19:06

Wanna chaotic. Absolutely. Yeah. Awesome. You see a house going that you like, you better be there right

Speaker 1: 19:11

Away sleeping in the driveway.

Speaker 4: 19:13

Absolutely.<laugh> absolutely.

Speaker 5: 19:15

Leaving

Speaker 1: 19:15

Letters, camping out in the camping out in the woods in the general area that you wanna live just in case, right?

Speaker 4: 19:20

Yeah, no, you kinda have to. Um, but no, but we're trending towards the right direction, you know, again, I saw another stat that I really liked that realtor.com last, well, in 2021 December on realtor.com, there was 445,000 active listings in the month of December, 2021. In December, 2022, there were 751,000 active listings over 300,000 more almo. Not quite double, but significantly more so inventory seems to be hopefully, fingers crossed, all I say it trending in the right direction to bring back inventory. But again, as I told you, it's being met with less home sales. Yeah. So demands dropping, supplies increasing. So just economics 1 0 1. Yeah. That, um,

Speaker 1: 20:05

Prices should come down and theory.

Speaker 4: 20:07

Yeah. Yeah. And again, just reading articles, you know, everything's saying that prices may shift downwards a little bit, but it's not going to be a crash. We we're not, there's no indicators showing that. But again, simple economics, less, less demand, more supply.

Speaker 1: 20:21

People love the word crash now though.

Speaker 4: 20:23

It's like everybody loves that word crash.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Hear everything, everything's

Speaker 3: 20:26

Crashing, everything's crashing, everything

Speaker 4: 20:28

Comes

Speaker 3: 20:28

Crashing, economy's crashing, stock markets crashing.

Speaker 1: 20:30

Yeah, no, that's, that's interesting. So what do you th I mean, in terms of prices, you know, in a rising inventory, do you I I do you think that's geographically specific? Like, I know from just experience in this area, especially like our proximity to Washington, DC and all the other, like the, the economy in Maryland specifically seems to work a little differently than other parts of the country. So do you feel like that will be area specific or do you think just in general, like the prices are gonna, probably they're going to go down, but probably not as drastically as people think.

Speaker 4: 21:02

Yeah. That, that would be so the world, according to me, I would, I could see some outliers and some, some influence influences. Like DC being something that props up and and pushes a market, I could, I could see that. Yeah. But I think overall we're just going to continue seeing where seller, not so much sellers, but homes are going to be sitting on the market a little bit longer. Inevitably, meaning a price decrease or you're gonna have a buyer coming in and negotiating. So again, inevitably where the price ends up lower than what that was listed for. So, you know, I don't know that we're gonna see a j I don't expect that we see a giant fall. I could see some adjustment going in there. Yeah. But again, rather than, than the market taking off at a crazy rate, how we've been, it's more, it's way more steady, it's way more stable. I like to call it a lot more healthy and, and more sustainable,

Speaker 1: 21:47

More realistic in a lot of real

Speaker 4: 21:49

Ways. Realistic, more realistic real

Speaker 1: 21:51

Estate. So how do you think mortgages, we talked a little bit about mortgage rates. How do you think mortgages are affecting the market as a whole today with the rate being, you know, obviously a couple years ago or a year and a half ago, it was dirt cheap to buy a house. Like if, I mean I wanna call it free money, but two and a half, 3% is cheap to buy something, you know, an asset worth, you know, in some cases half a million dollars plus nowhere else in the market, you can borrow money at that rate. Now we're looking at, you know, sixes sevens for a while, like, you know, in the low to mid sevens at one point. So where is that today? What effect do you think that that's having on the environment and, and kind of the sales process and are you guys seeing any challenges?

Speaker 5: 22:34

So we, we were just talking about this actually, and, and talking how the buyer, obviously, like you just said, you're doubling the rate, it's gonna scare everybody. This isn't the time to buy, this is the way to do it. Yeah. And talking about lending and mortgaging and obviously it's not necessarily our field, but we we're dealing with it every day. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you gotta get creative just like we got creative in the past two years. So you're seeing different kinds of opportunities pop up on the lending side, we just had 1, 2, 1 buy down. So basically having an opportunity to have the seller buy down our rate, an opportunity to get a good deal for a house, and then also see a lower rate that it was at the benefit of the buyer and the seller putting, you know, a little bit into the deal to make it happen. So lending's adjusting and they have to in order to make it work. So the people that we're working with we're trying to explain that and understand that don't necessarily be so scared of those rates, we can work with'em.

Speaker 4: 23:23

Yeah. And so there's, you know, obviously the 2, 2, 1 buy down program, there's even a three one buy down that I'm familiar with. But you know, there's also o other loans out there that, that a lot of buyers are going after, or at least a lot of lenders are excited about. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and this gets to be a taboo word, especially from the oh eight time, is that they're adjustable rate mortgages. And before everybody says, oh my gosh, adjust it. Well, so there's some adjustable rate mortgage programs out there that, that are 15 year fixed. So they, they could be fixed for 15 years. So you vault yourself 15 years for rates to get better than where you currently are. Yeah. When statistically speaking, you have good odds and, and you know, you're taking a substantially lower rate up front. So there's ways around it there. You have, like Brandon said, creative, we, we gotta have an arsenal of lenders who have creative options, who can, you know, help clients out based on each need. Yeah.

Speaker 5: 24:13

Well and another thing we're seeing too, in the past two years, cash one, conventional one, if you had a VA loan or U S D A loan, they weren't even being considered. Yeah. Now they're coming back. VA buyers have an opportunity. FHA buyers have an opportunity or more of an opportunity, more lending options that require less of a down payment have options. So it's gonna level it out. Andrew pointed on more of a healthier market. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, those are the kind of things that, that strive towards that healthier market.

Speaker 1: 24:38

So talk about that for a second cuz I think that's something that a lot of people don't understand. I like personally don't really understand of like the type of financing that you're getting. Why one would be viewed more favorably than another Yeah. In a

Speaker 4: 24:52

Deal. Yeah, definitely. So, so for myself, um, I work with majority sellers and, and less buyers. So I, I hear what sellers reactions are when they see offers. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> again for the past two years, you know, like Brandon said, we've had a ton of cash and conventional offers. Yeah. Those are, those are ideal. You d if you're dealing with cash, obviously you don't have to go through the lending process whatsoever. If you're going conventional, you don't have to go through as detailed of the lending process as some of the government backed loans. Va, U S D A F H A. Yeah. So, you know, sellers have, again, this is part of where sellers are, need to get their minds adjusted to not being expecting to see the cash and conventional offers. Now, obviously they're still gonna happen of course, but they're certainly not as prevalent as they were. I mean, you know, it it, it was intense with the amount of cash offers that were coming in. I mean, I think there was one listing that I had that was, I I wanna say it was somewhere around 16 or 17 offers and I think 13 or 14 of them were cash. Wow. And, and we're talking a half a million dollar house. And so Yeah. Yeah. The, the fact that somebody can't buy a half a million dollar house just cuz they're a veteran. I mean that's, that's tough. That's tough to have to tell somebody. Yeah. As a veteran myself, I, you know, I not being able to use a VA loan, but where that came from was, so obviously with everybody putting cash and conventional offers out there, that's always the desire. But now that those offers are slowing down and, and the VA F H A U s T A guys, they're getting, they're getting an option at it here. They're getting a crack at things. Yeah. You know, things are good for that. But the reason, the reason that they take such a bad wrap is that they do have extra hoops to jump through the government's involved. So it doesn't get much easier when the government gets involved. So, so there's some extra,

Speaker 1: 26:33

You deal with it every day in our business, of course another acronym law gets passed and then we're learning all this stuff. Right, right. We just, we just did a show about the new, the newest version of a newest version of a new law that happened a couple years ago and there was already 2.0. So I'm sure there'll be a three,

Speaker 3: 26:49

Right. 3.0 is coming soon. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4: 26:51

Hopefully not.

Speaker 3: 26:51

So one thing like, uh, we love in our business is use said technology. So is there type technology used in the buying our selling process in real estate?

Speaker 4: 27:02

All of it. Yeah.

Speaker 5: 27:03

<laugh>, that's all we

Speaker 3: 27:04

Deal with. Yeah. So brand. Tell me about some of the technologists use in like the modern day like agents world when somebody's buying or selling property.

Speaker 4: 27:10

For

Speaker 5: 27:11

Sure, for sure. So technology's always been involved at some point, at least you know, since I've been around. But we again talked about this how covid o's impacted so much across the board. Everything's become, become so streamlined and, and tech technology based and real estate just had to follow suit. We use a lot of, every software, you know, between zip forms and DocuSign, E-sign, we'll use title. Companies are using different platforms to be able to get documents in. Um, we're even seeing some e settlements out there. So

Speaker 3: 27:38

No more big stacks of tell me you don't have West or what's going on. So fast's gone. I was,

Speaker 1: 27:45

I should too excited if you're telling me you can buy now. I, when we, when my wife and I bought our house, I remember sitting at a huge conference room table<laugh> and the lady was just like sliding paste pieces of paper, let's still across the sign banks. I feel like we were there for like 20 minutes. My hand, I, I think I had to change pens cuz I ran outta ink.

Speaker 4: 28:02

But tell us no. So that still happens. So for the majority of settlements, you know, I don't know what the actual number is, probably 95, 90% are still happening wet. They're still a big stack of papers. Yeah. We

Speaker 5: 28:14

Hear people get excited about that.

Speaker 1: 28:15

All the size folders that I had. Absolutely.

Speaker 4: 28:17

No, that's still a thing. Still absolutely a thing. But they don't have

Speaker 5: 28:20

Your buyer come in and say, I thought we do e-signatures. Although all they're all this, no, not here, not still

Speaker 3: 28:25

Banks not this part.

Speaker 4: 28:26

Right? Yep, yep. Yeah, no. So that still happens. So, you know, there's, there's certain transactions out there if, if it's a cash transaction, a lot less ba obviously there's no bank overlay on, on rulings. And so those can go to an e e e settlement. Some of the more simple transactions, they, they've, I've seen them get e settled. It's not super prevalent and it hasn't gained a ton of steam, but, but I mean it is happening. So technology's extremely prevalent. I mean, you know, even down to how you search for your home, the mls, it's the multiple list service that's, that's the program that all real estate agents use to input their listings. So, so that is kind of the brain of real estate and you, that's where you see like a realtor.com, Zillow, all of those.com websites that that pick up the, the new homes that are coming to the market. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, they're pulling their information from the mls. So the MLS is extremely important as a buyer to be right on top of the current now information. Yeah. Rather than waiting for some other third party websites to update Some of'em take a while, but being ready for that as far as technological technology is concerned, but also three of the largest MLSs in the country have all teamed up and they have pledged to essentially create a new consumer search platform. And that's gonna be a huge disruptive too and I'm really

Speaker 1: 29:44

Excited. So like a competitor of a Zillow or realtor

Speaker 4: 29:46

Or, well it,

Speaker 1: 29:48

Yes. Is it still something through a realtor or will it be like direct to consumer?

Speaker 4: 29:52

Yeah, so it's gonna be direct to consumer from agents. So not necessarily competitor. It's gonna be a disruptor for a realtor, well for Zillow, for all the extra third party sites that that pick up that feed because this is going to be a live time. So the three, the three MLSs that did it was bright mls and that covers a large part of the east coast. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> a lot in Northeast. And then there's CR mls, which is California Regional and uh, e Colorado. They've all joined up and uh, said we're gonna bring platform direct to consumer and uh, I'm really excited about, I hope they can put it together is

Speaker 3: 30:25

Exciting. Yeah. Having disrupters like that is critical I think.

Speaker 1: 30:27

Absolutely. So do you think, going back to those third party systems, do you think that they play a role in adding value or making it harder to work through? Because I, I mean I like I'm thinking of one in particular question gives you Yeah. And, and, and I know like it's a, it's a re good resource for consumers, but I guess my question is, does it actually, like sometimes too many resources can be bad in some ways. Like too much information can cause more problems than it solves. And so I guess my question is do people get attached to those things? Like, you know, they, a lot of those sites have estimated values of properties, for example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you'll look at that as a buyer and you'll say, well, you know, they're listing it for this, but the, the estimate is intentionally trying to not use names Right. Of

Speaker 4: 31:13

Specific sites. I know which one and if it's the one I'm thinking of the a in their name stands for accuracy. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:18

So

Speaker 4: 31:18

Yeah, they're no, the, they're good, they're good, they're good resources to have because an educated consumer, I, I'd prefer to work with an educated consumer. Now is all of the information that some of those third party sites push accurate at? No, sure, no, absolutely. But there's some legitimacy to it of course. And, and seeing market trends and, and watching what prices are doing around a certain house that you're looking at. Yeah. I mean that's helpful. Yeah. So, you know, those sites are good, but, but I'm really excited to get, to have direct information from an agent to a consumer ra rather than somebody else putting a spin on it. And

Speaker 1: 31:51

Yeah. No, I'm,

Speaker 3: 31:52

What's the timeline for that? Is that something

Speaker 4: 31:53

That I don't, I'm not sure. Um, I know they've been talking about it for a few months now and then they had started publishing again an article that says that they're getting some, some traction when it seems so hopefully soon. Oh,

Speaker 1: 32:06

Interesting. Interesting. Could be, could be valuable. Interesting. No, I think, I think that's, uh, that's one of the things that creating a more of an open market feel cuz real estate can feel sometimes, I mean, as someone who's gone through the process, like it can feel pretty subjective sometimes. Like you have inspectors and like they're human beings, like they have their opinions on stuff, you know, the people that do the appraisal, like which comps they decide to use or like how they get to it. So I feel like the process sometimes can feel a little subjective and there's all this information floating out there in the universe for sure. It's like, how do you make sense of all of it to figure out like, am I doing, am I actually making the right decision or am I not? So definitely

Speaker 4: 32:40

It's,

Speaker 1: 32:40

It's definitely an interesting,

Speaker 4: 32:42

And and all that's to say is starting out with an agent that you trust inherently upfront is key. Yeah. Absolutely crucial. All the more reason to talk to multiple before you choose

Speaker 5: 32:51

Is this where we insert our plug and

Speaker 1: 32:53

Say, put the plug in from our

Speaker 3: 32:59

32nd advertisement home team<laugh>. It's a, it's a paid advertisement. Hey, we'll take that. So let's take our, our crystal ball here. Let's look into the future a little bit. So what do you see over the next 12, 18, 24 months? What the market's gonna be looking like?

Speaker 4: 33:12

I hate that question. That's

Speaker 3: 33:13

Why I asked it.

Speaker 4: 33:14

<laugh>. No, look, so you know what, here, here's what I can talk to is what does 2023 look like? And and that's the market we're in right now. And all signs are pointing towards us staying on track of where we're at. You know, less homes are gonna sell in 2023 than than the past couple years. Our, our industry will shrink. I mean inevitably it's got, it's gotta happen. It's to get healthy, we have to shrink up a little bit. Yeah. S are gonna be able to negotiate and consumers are gonna have to negotiate. Buyers are gonna want to, sellers are gonna need to, rates are high. They're, they're high for recent times, but I, I believe they stabilize.

Speaker 1: 33:47

Not historically though. Not at all. I gave reminded that every time I complain about looking for a house, now my dad's like my first mortgage was 15%. I

Speaker 4: 33:55

Love working with my, my, our dad's generation where, where they're telling us about 15, 19%. I'm like, exactly.

Speaker 5: 34:02

They said, these rates look good.

Speaker 1: 34:03

<laugh>, historically speaking, it's, it's not the highest, it's not bet.

Speaker 4: 34:06

But, you know, prices may fall a bit, but it's not gonna be a crash. You know, homes aren't gonna sell right away if they're not not priced properly. And homes that are priced properly and marketed well, they're gonna sell and, and they very well could sell with competition. So, you know, and, and good news for buyers home inspections, they're gonna finally start seeing how good news for the home inspectors too. They're, they're taking a beating out here. You know, I think this is how 2023 plays out. I think we're in it, I think we're seeing it and, and maybe it's just me being hopeful, but I, I think all things point to stable. Okay.

Speaker 5: 34:35

It would keep saying the word healthy and I think that's a good way to put about it is it, it was so much chaos the past two years. So if anything is heading in the right direction, as much as we can't predict what's gonna happen, yeah. It's, it's on the right path to be able to make it more stable for, for all parties involved.

Speaker 4: 34:48

All that's to say for, for me is I think the great unknown is inflation. So if inflation keeps taking off, uh, you know, God only knows what happens after that. But that's beyond me and my pay

Speaker 1: 35:01

Grade. So Yeah. No, those are all good points. I think, you know, that's, I think what's happened over the past couple years in a lot of parts of the world, not just real estate in our world and, and many others, is that we got a little gluttonous. Like we've all been over, like to use a simple analogy, we've been overeating for the past two years. Yes. We went to the doctor Yes. Checked our cholesterol and said, dude, this is bad. Like, you gotta die back a little bit. And so now we're on a diet, we're getting back to normal and trying to get fit again. That's beautiful. The McDonald's franchise owner is because we're not out buying hamburgers anymore. Exactly. But it's part of the deal, right? Yeah. Like, so yeah, I, I like that analogy though. Healthy is a good way to put it. Cause I think it, it puts a, a positive spin on something that gets a lot of bad press about right. Doom and gloom and the, the word crash, it's all the other, everybody

Speaker 4: 35:47

Hates the word, it hates change and we get that. Yeah. But, but just thinking about it logically.

Speaker 1: 35:52

Love it. No. So I think, you know,

Speaker 3: 35:55

This was great guys. So this was, thank you so much for taking the time for all the insights and everything. So make sure you go out, check out Span home team. I know you guys are on Facebook, social media, what's your, your URL for your website. Give us a little more information where people can find you. For

Speaker 4: 36:09

Sure. Span home team.com and uh, we're all, all over the, the Facebook as well. Awesome.

Speaker 3: 36:14

So yeah, make sure to check them out. Really appreciate it guys. So if you guys like this episode, we'll also have the show notes, some of the questions to ask the realtors you're working with, which as we talk about today is extremely important. So make sure you like and subscribe to today's episode. And thanks boys. I really appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Speaker 4: 36:30

Thanks so much guys. Thanks for having

Speaker 3: 36:31

Us. See you next week, everybody.