June was Homeownership Month. And as a REALTOR, your job is to emphasize the value of homeownership. It's the product you sell, and you need to let people know that being a homeowner has significant financial advantages.

Here's the first one:

The average homeowner has 40 times the net worth of the average renter.

Why?

The number one reason is that every time you make your monthly mortgage payment, a portion goes towards principal reduction. It's like a forced savings account, building up over time. When you sell the property, you benefit from this accumulation.

Additionally, you have appreciation. Every year, the home's value increases, sometimes more, sometimes less, but over a 30-year mortgage, the property value generally rises.

On top of that, homeowners receive substantial tax benefits that renters don't.

These are three key reasons why someone should consider becoming a homeowner today.

Your job is to provide people with a path to homeownership. The biggest resistance point...

Hey guys, price drops have hit an 18-month high. Here are three stats you need to know:

1. In May, 6.4% of home sellers dropped their home prices. In the last week of May, home prices actually came down by $3,000.
2. This is the first time home prices have declined in the last six months.
3. Homes are also staying on the market longer, now averaging 46 days. We are seeing more stagnation with listings.

When analyzing the market, we consider supply versus demand. We still have very low supply, but demand is decreasing due to high interest rates and record-high home prices. This combination makes affordability tough for many home buyers.

When discussing this with sellers, it's important to explain that a market can have pricing power or pricing pressure. For years, sellers had pricing power due to low supply and high demand. Now, with demand dropping, pricing pressure is entering the market.

The best time for a price adjustment might be surprising—it's at the listing appointment. At...

Hey, everyone, I want to share some intriguing data we received regarding deal failures in September. While we don't have the October numbers yet, in September, we saw an all-time high for deal failures, with a staggering 16.3% of the deals going into escrow falling through!

Why did this happen?

It's essential to understand that most of these deal failures weren't due to inspection issues or seller disputes. The culprit, more often than not, was buyer's remorse.

Yes, that's right—buyer's remorse played a significant role. Buyers got cold feet, and it led to deal failures. So, how do we address buyer's remorse in advance? I'm going to provide you with a simple yet effective strategy: reconfirm, resell, and reassure.

Reconfirm: Throughout the escrow process, it's crucial to reconfirm why your buyers made an excellent decision. Remind them that they've secured a fantastic deal and that their interest rate is favorable...

Imagine someone asking, "Jim, why should I buy a home now? I see a lot of negative factors: record-high interest rates, historically low inventory levels, and soaring prices. Is this the right time to buy?" I'll provide you with four compelling reasons. Ready? Let's dive in.

Reason 1: Sellers who've been on the market for 30, 60, or 90 days are starting to feel the pressure. They might resort to price reductions, creating opportunities for bargain shoppers like you.

Reason 2: Many sellers are now open to offering owner financing, especially if they've struggled to sell traditionally. They're willing to provide attractive terms, like a 4% or 5% interest rate.

Reason 3: Working with a skilled agent like me, we can help you uncover assumable loans. Approximately 70-80% of loans on the market are currently under 4%. We'll explore homes with assumable loans at lower interest rates.

Reason 4: Sellers are offering incentives....

How do you respond when a seller says they'll wait until spring, especially in the winter?

If you can't handle this objection, you're in a tough spot, right?

Let me share a powerful response because mastering the language of sales is key. It's not just about handling objections, but about providing food for thought to help them make the best decision.

So, if someone tells me, "Jim, we'll wait until spring and summer," here’s what I’ll say:

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“I completely understand. I'll be here to assist you then as well. But here's something to consider. Many potential sellers are planning to wait for the same season, leading to a surge in listings. The advantage is better weather and more buyers, but the downside is increased competition.

Instead of one or two listings, you might face 10 or 20. More competition means buyer interest gets divided among many listings, potentially resulting in fewer showings and offers.

Now,...

Guess what?

Millennials, who were the dominant force in the housing market a year ago, have taken a step back. It's been a significant drop.

Now, why are millennials pulling away from the real estate scene?

The primary reason is interest rates.

The real question is, who has taken their place as the leading group of homebuyers? Who's currently driving the market?

Well, it might surprise you, but it's the baby boomer generation, and they're making a strong comeback in the housing market. In fact, cash buyers account for 27% of the recent transactions, and many of them are likely baby boomers with disposable income, not overly concerned about interest rates.

They see opportunities in the market now that they didn't have a year ago when they were competing with numerous other buyers.

So, as you adapt your marketing strategies to changing market dynamics, consider focusing on baby boomers within your sphere...

I've got three pieces of great data for sellers:

First off, the number of offers per listing sold has rebounded to three and a half, moving up from the previous high of five and a half offers last year.

This drop was influenced by rising interest rates, but recently, we've seen a resurgence in the number of offers.

Next, let's talk about pending home sales, which have been steadily increasing over the past three months.

These numbers have been consistently on the rise.

And then there's the excellent news about sales prices.

They've not only recovered to where they were in June of last year, which marked an all-time high for U.S. home prices, but they've actually surpassed that level by a considerable margin. It seems like this upward trajectory in prices will persist.

So, if you're considering selling your home, this might be the optimal time to do so. Looking back at the past decade, it's quite...

Hey guys, in real estate, we often hear the word "affordability". What does it mean and how can we break it down for our clients? Affordability has three components.

The first one is how much people are making. In the last year, on average, wages have gone up a little over 7%. So people are making a little bit more, which means they can afford a little bit more in their house.

The second leg of this is housing prices. Housing prices have flattened out compared to what we were seeing in 2019 and 2020, and in some markets, we're seeing some declines. Last quarter, home prices decreased by about 4%, which is significantly less than the double-digit gains we have seen in previous years.

The last component is interest rates. Interest rates are having the biggest impact on affordability. But it is important to remember that when buying a home, home prices are permanent, but interest rates and wages are temporary. As wages generally...

Hey guys, we've got some good news regarding the real estate market, and that is Fannie Mae does a study, it's a purchase sentiment study. They do it every single month. And finally it's broken the downward trend.

All the way since back in February of 2022, there's just been this downward trend with sentiment among buyers and sellers about the market, about buying, about selling. And it really hit a low point here in the last couple months, but it's broken. Now it's starting to come back up.

Buyers and sellers are now seeing a little bit of a rainbow at the end of the tunnel here. They're saying the worst is behind us, and it's starting to look a little bit better.

So this is good news for us. We're gonna combine that with another piece of good news, which is affordability.

So affordability over the last couple of months has gotten way better. We had an interest rate peak, and now it's come down, down, down, down, down, and it's...

Only 16% of buyers believe it's a good time to buy a home today. That's according to a new study from Fannie Mae. So when we hear that number, it's kind of a shocking number and it's a record low. Let's not put any sugar on this. It's not good.

So when we're talking to our clients that may have thought about buying but are on the fence right now, how can we have just an honest conversation about the market today?

Well, I like this idea of a "then versus now" conversation. The "then versus now" conversation is dealing with real world numbers. And so let's assume you have a situation where you say, "Hey listen, I know you're kind of on the fence about buying right now, but I just wanna walk you through something to think about. If you were back in time six months ago when we started talking about buying, and you bought a house back then, let's just run through some numbers. I'm gonna compare that to where we're...