Are you showing up as the knowledge broker of your market?
The November 18th episode of This Week in Housing covers the latest pressing issues on foreclosures, affordability, and important data regarding housing on a national scale.
I was joined by David Childers from Keeping Current Matters, as well as fellow Rockstars Simmi Kher from Seattle, Washington, Andy Tse from Silicon Valley, and Alicia Soekawa from Richmond, Virginia.
This episode is jam packed with amazing insight from these three different markets. Make sure to take note of how they all use the latest housing data to work with their clients to move up or make the right decision for their present situation.
I also shared the 3 biggest steps you need to take to finish this year strong and hit the ground running in 2021. David also gave a more clear definition on what a foreclosure crisis is and provided important past and current data.
We also talked about the current reality on forbearance data, mortgage rates, and gave powerful scripts to share this information in a clear and helpful way to your market.
Being a knowledge broker of your market is about being consistent, putting in the time and effort to take this data and communicating it through your marketing, so you can create trust with your clients.
Listen to today’s episode to discover the helpful script and data you can incorporate into your marketing, so you can start helping your clients in their current needs!
For the majority of my life, I’ve been passionate and dedicated about changing lives by giving away the very best strategies, tactics, and mindset techniques to help you and your business succeed. Join me as we take this to level 10!
Keep up with me and what's new on my other channels:
Website - https://TomFerry.com
Facebook - https://facebook.com/TomFerry
Instagram - https://instagram.com/TomFerry
Twitter - https://twitter.com/TomFerry
Podcast - https://TomFerry.com/Podcast
YouTube - https://youtube.com/CoachTomFerry
The November 18th episode of This Week in Housing covers the latest pressing issues on foreclosures, affordability, and important data regarding housing on a national scale.
I was joined by David Childers from Keeping Current Matters, as well as fellow Rockstars Simmi Kher from Seattle, Washington, Andy Tse from Silicon Valley, and Alicia Soekawa from Richmond, Virginia.
This episode is jam packed with amazing insight from these three different markets. Make sure to take note of how they all use the latest housing data to work with their clients to move up or make the right decision for their present situation.
I also shared the 3 biggest steps you need to take to finish this year strong and hit the ground running in 2021. David also gave a more clear definition on what a foreclosure crisis is and provided important past and current data.
We also talked about the current reality on forbearance data, mortgage rates, and gave powerful scripts to share this information in a clear and helpful way to your market.
Being a knowledge broker of your market is about being consistent, putting in the time and effort to take this data and communicating it through your marketing, so you can create trust with your clients.
Listen to today’s episode to discover the helpful script and data you can incorporate into your marketing, so you can start helping your clients in their current needs!
For the majority of my life, I’ve been passionate and dedicated about changing lives by giving away the very best strategies, tactics, and mindset techniques to help you and your business succeed. Join me as we take this to level 10!
Keep up with me and what's new on my other channels:
Website - https://TomFerry.com
Facebook - https://facebook.com/TomFerry
Instagram - https://instagram.com/TomFerry
Twitter - https://twitter.com/TomFerry
Podcast - https://TomFerry.com/Podcast
YouTube - https://youtube.com/CoachTomFerry
Hey everybody: we're live here on facebook, tom ferry here, sharing with you, uh david childers, from keeping current matters and an all-star panel of rock rockstar agents, one from richmond virginia one from silicon valley right here in california, or actually, as i say, that i'm in texas And also another one from the great state of washington in seattle. So as we jump into today's conversation, if you're just getting with us, live or you're watching this, you know sometime in the future we're going to talk about the three pressing issues right now and then i've got some opening statements. I want to make to really make sure that your mindset is right and your disciplines are right for what we need to do to make sure we win not only for the next 43 days but all of 2021.. So let's talk about what's pressing right now the things we'll be discussing today.
There is a tremendous amount of headlines and fear mongering around foreclosures. You can go right now on youtube and you can search for closures in 2020 and you can see people that are getting up and saying it's just like 2007, eight nine, the world's falling apart. Here's the data, but i'm not sure what data they're looking at, because we're going to show you some data today that is going to calm. Some of that get you to think of us, as the old line goes reminding ourselves that headlines do more to terrify than to clarify this, isn't about getting clicks and about you know this click bait phenomenon that anybody could play into.
Let's get the real data, the real facts around foreclosures we're going to show you the numbers, so you can go out and do what you do best, which is be the knowledge broker. Be the educator, be the one that sits down with people and says i know you're hearing that when you hear that tell me what are you reading what headlines? What articles show me the data, and let me show you the data that we're seeing in terms of the mortgage market, forbearance and everything else, so we're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about affordability. I've been in a lot of dialogue over the last several weeks with the ivy zellman's of the world, david childers, my co-host about, what's going to happen right just looking at the 10-year treasury, what's going to happen with mortgage rates, many people are saying we could be In the twos all the way, through 2021, we're going to show you some different data today, some people are even arguing that by the end of 2022, we could be back to the fours.
That's a little far out for us to really predict, but we want to make sure that you understand, so you can best inform your clients and then the last one is we're gon na do some general market updates like what's going on with housing on a national Level, because, as always, what do you want to do? You don't want to just say: hey here's what's going on in newport, beach, california or here's what's happening in plano texas, you want to say, here's what's happening in plano and here's what's happening across the country. That type of language makes you the knowledge broker the one that people trust so speaking of people that we trust. Why don't we bring in our all-star panel? I got tristan over here, so tristan go ahead and get us uh all on the show. So david childers, our co-host, the king of keeping current matters good morning david. How are you good morning? We are good uh excited to be and excited to talk about a lot of the topics here of what's happening in the market right now. So a lot going on so excited to hop in on this. I love it. I love it well.
Thank you. So much i've got two rock star uh, two rock star female agents, one from richmond virginia one from seattle, sema. It looks like you're muted, so you may want to fix that real quick, so uh alicia tell the audience who you are, give a little update on you and your business great uh, alicia zoe kala with uh. I have a team at long foster, realtors and i am a residential real estate agent here going.
I just finished six years been a recently newer coach with you and your systems and i've been um very excitedly having a very strong year, despite all the craziness and i'm interested to hear what david says peaked at the slides and um. It's it's gon na, be not what we think it is like everything in the world. Yeah remember headlines do more to terrify than they do to clarify we're not looking for click bait, we're looking to educate people, so they can make good decisions and help their buyers and sellers. So speaking of simi from up in seattle, so welcome simmi.
Give him a quick uh who is simi and and then we'll get into the show hi everyone i am simi and i'm from the greater seattle area, one of the highest peaking markets of the us. So it's an exciting time to be in real estate. At the same time, there's so much of nervousness that you have to become an educator and educate your clients, it's a great opportunity to be of service to our clients. At this point, it's a great year, in spite of all that's happening.
I agree. I agree and i've got my long time friend long time, client we go way way back. He shared the stage with me many times, uh, andy c from silicon valley, one of the top agents on the planet so andy welcome to the show, hey everyone, it's andy! How you guys doing i'm out in silicon valley, saratoga i've been doing real estate 18 years, i'm at intel real estate. I've got a group called t group, great team and and tom's right he's been my coach since day, one 18 years, it's been great yeah and just for context.
My friends andy sold 41 homes in september, which is not a bad. It's not a bad career. For some people, but that was a nice good month for you and then october looks like it was about the same so congrats thanks so before we jump in. I want to make a statement - and i know for everybody out there watching on facebook by the way as you're, watching this and you're with us live uh. If you need a friend or two that maybe needs to get their head right about the market tag. A couple of your buddies and say you might want to check this out right, maybe tag your entire office because, especially i'm gon na make a statement david before we jump into slides here in the u.s. There's a lot of talk right now about states shutting down again, and you know what does that mean and how is that going to impact housing, and i want to give you guys a little insight before i turn over dave in the slides that, as we watched Covet unfold in the very beginning, in the u.s right, we were on the front line in early march, saying to our clients: hey, listen, we don't know what's going to happen, but we know that your house always matters and things may change as we as we look At our home, do i need that often do i need a better backyard. Do i need you know more space in my home? Is it time for me because of remote working to start making moves? We knew these things were coming.
So what did we say to all of our clients, and i want to just give you all the reminder - safety, first safety, first and foremost, always and forever, for you for your family, for your customers for the people that are near and dear to you. We always need to keep that in our mind, no matter what, but under safety, it's also being rational. It's not getting crazy and wrapped up in the news cycles, but instead focusing on the data staying calm and taking care of the people that matter most. The second thing we said to everybody non-stop was you've, got to keep the business moving forward.
So what does that mean? Taking care of your customers, making sure they're informed making sure that your transactions are closing? It also means my friends that you continue to do the marketing and things that we know we need to do to keep the business going and the third one is load the cannons and load. The cannons was a metaphor, an example of hey what we need to be thinking about, as we sit here right now with 43 days left between now and the end of the year. If you're not today, setting an aggressive listings taken goal for 2021 you're making a big mistake now, you might say tell me i'm on a team and we work with a lot of buyers. I understand you need to go back to your team leader and say if we're not making an aggressive goal for the number of listings we can take, because we do have a massive challenge in our country.
We see the same thing in canada. We are seeing the same thing throughout europe, we're seeing the same thing in australia and new zealand, not enough nice homes on the market. And what do we know if, in fact, we see the same thing we felt earlier this year in april? If it happens to us again, we know what to do. We know the place to run.
So i want to remind you all my friends. Safety first keep the business moving forward and load the cannon, especially with the data points we're going to cover today so david. I'm going to turn it over to you. Let's show some slides and let's get right into this conversation about. Are we going back into 2009 again right right? I think that's the you know it's interesting tom. Is we get this question of foreclosure crisis and things on youtube different people talking about it? You know, agents asking questions. I have you know brokers. Calling me saying: i've got agents in my office saying when are all the reo properties going to show up? You know we're waiting on that, and you know this is a big question right now, so i want to.
I want to walk through some data, and i want to i want to do this in this way and let me position it this way and i'll use an example. Alicia - and i are both here in richmond - virginia okay - and we we go through this and let's say that you know uh through economic uncertainty through downturn and i lose my job and and we lose our home. We have to you, know it's foreclosed on and we go through a tough deal. That's a crisis for me and my family may not be a crisis for alicia in in and her family in this case.
So i want to start out and maybe define what a crisis is, but do it in the covering of you know. People are going through a lot of things right now, with unemployment with needs with with everything happening across the country. What i want to try to do is give you the facts and then be able to to equip you to use those in a way to to go out and help people. So if we start to to think about this, where i would start is, let's define what a foreclosure crisis is and where we are today.
So many of you have seen this slide if you've been following uh keeping current matters for uh. You know during this time, but this is a look by quarter going all the way back to 1999 of the uh foreclosure cr foreclosure filings in this country, and i've highlighted there in the middle in red and i'm going to call that a foreclosure crisis. It's around the you know, 2008. 2009 time frame.
You see the peak there at over 500 000 uh filings in one quarter, and then you see it quarter after quarter after quarter uh there in the crisis of what we know in the rearview mirror was the housing crisis. Now, if you start to look to the right there, the at, if you go all the way back to 1999, the average number of filings in this country is 206 000 foreclosure filings per quarter historically for the last 20 years. Okay, so keep that number in the back you're at 206, 000 uh foreclosure filings on average per quarter going all the way back to 1999.. Where do we stand today? Most recent data in the second quarter - 23 900 foreclosure filings uh in this country - largely do the drop off to the foreclosure moratorium in place uh in this country right now, so our foreclosures going to increase. Yes, they are when this moratorium is lifted and the headline you can expect to see is foreclosures are going to double. Foreclosures are going to triple. Foreclosures are going to go up, however many number of times well. The reality is where we stand off of current numbers, that number could uh go up eight and a half times before it even hit the average number for the last 20 years.
Now, i'm not i'm not saying that. I'm not suggesting that's what's going to happen, but i just give you a little context as we start this conversation of where we are where we've been and what you can expect to be talked about in the media. Tom talked about headlines do more to terrify than they do to clarify so expect to see that ramp up as the foreclosure moratorium is lifted. Now that gives you perspective on what a crisis is and again i'm going to go back to say if somebody's foreclosed on that's a crisis for their family, let's recognize that, let's be sensitive to it, but when we started this, this came out of the concerns of Forbearance and it's just not playing out the way the prognosticators might have said on the front end was you know, hey initial forecast was as many as 30 of mortgages would go into forbearance and the reality is.
We peaked at about 8.6, we're currently at 5.67 percent, and if you even remember that talk at the time, it was all these mortgages are going to go into forbearance and every one of them is going to turn into a foreclosure. Now, i'm not going into all of that information today we talked about it last time, but we know a small fraction of these are candidates for foreclosure. It's not a large portion of of those that go into forbearance. We know a lot of people continue to make their payment a lot of people.
Uh, you know are in some sort of a workout with their um, their bank and so just not playing out the way that that people thought on the front end uh very similar to two way the the way people are looking at 2021 right now now, if We look at appearances. I got ta jump in really quick. So andy is, you know, andy and myself are the two that have been around the business. You know, as you are for a long time so andy when you see these numbers - and i i was just doing some quick formulation, so let's say we've got 138 million homes in the u.s.
You know that 42.1 percent of them have no mortgage with. Let's just call it at david's number right that 5.67 that looks like about three and a half million people yeah, like a really that's a big number, so andy, what's going through your mind and then, ladies i'm going to come to you also well i mean, i Think we're all in our own little bubbles in real estate right and obviously i'm in the silicon valley and half the time we honestly feel guilty, because, when kobe comes into play, what happens everybody's staying in shelter? What do they do? They search for their friends on facebook, they search the internet on google, they watch movies on netflix right, they buy their. You know, entertainment on their iphone and i'm in a place where that's all happening here, and so all we've seen. Is the stock market go crazy to silicon valley, bank stocks all go crazy and you know everybody that works. Those companies have got all these rsu stocks and that's made our real estate business just go booming and crazy. So i don't want to say that we're out of touch, but that's the our reality, and so i have been watching those same. You know forbearance, numbers and, and we've been speculating too on the foreclosure stuff, but i don't see it happening just locally. For me, i see it, maybe in other industries so uh, you know: glenda baker, our good friend out of atlanta, she was on my team call she's she's phenomenal.
You know best asian atlanta and she was telling me how she, because she's in the travel industry, right and she's in more in the entertainment industry and they're getting hit a lot harder. Her numbers are different than my numbers, and so i think you're going to just see it play out differently across the country, yep alicia. What about in in richmond virginia? What do you? What do you see when you see all these numbers? What do you think you know i i'm kind of surprised um. I think there is a lot of fear of people having this hypothetical in their mind.
What if this happens? What if this happens but again, i'm similar to andy i'm a complete different um environment. We don't have the silicon valley, environment and our cost of living is a lot less than richmond comparatively to your larger cities. What i am seeing is a lot of people moving to richmond um, the cost of living and the traffic's, not bad, and it's easy and because the um affordability is so great here versus like northern virginia and dc and people working from home now and it kind Of is looking like. A lot of people are not going to go back.
It is now opening people's eyes to like hey. Maybe i can live in richmond. I like the school systems better. I can get more house for my money.
I can get more space and i can just commute like you. I think you did a a video on that. I can just commute to the office once a month, or maybe i don't have to go back again and i'm seeing a lot more of that and um people also selling in richmond, because they want to now go be with their families in florida or wherever they're. Like texas, wherever is going on so we're seeing that um, we are based um, i'm i i'm based in the suburbs of richmond, i'm not really seeing.
I would have thought we would have seen a lot more of a migration from the city out which was surprising that it's not as much as i thought it would be. Definitely it is there, but i think people are kind of kind of weathering. What's going on and people are sticking to that, but again for us in our community here we haven't been as hard as some of the larger cities like new york city and things like that and i'm sure david lives in the area so make sure he can It almost as if, like nothing is going on, i mean you just see people wearing masks, but we're all just doing our thing. So that's so david i want to. I want to come back to you and then i'm going to hit you in a minute with a question david. You look at the next two slides. I think we should. Let's show the next two slides, especially that quote, and i think i think it goes without saying.
We need to go a little deeper on the research and just like back in 2007-89, when we had the map of the u.s, and we saw where the foreclosures were, and for my friends i'm doing this from memory. It was kind of up and down the mississippi. If i remembered right that was the largest percentage of foreclosures i'd like to get some updated data, i think that'd be very helpful for all of our viewers yeah for sure. So, let's let's go and let's look at these slides, real, quick and let's talk about that.
Andy made a great point and what what is making up the predominance of the economy? Glenn has you know mentioned delta is a huge employer in in the city of atlanta, and you know a tough uh, tough business right now. But when we look at the numbers they are decreasing, those on forbearance, they're decreas decreasing quite dramatically, and i think what we can look at that and say is one back in the housing crash. Forbearance was not around today, it is, and it's largely done its job, which was to help those in need, survive and in weather, the the storm of the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, and so i think, when we look at this 2.74 million homes. As of the last tracker uh in active forbearance, so when you look at the numbers and where we were, you know and kind of peeking out we're seeing those come down want to see those continue to come down now, the question is a lot of people still Going into next year, when they come off of that, what's gon na happen, but but what we know in the quote that you referenced there is from the mortgage bankers association.
That says, nearly two-thirds of borrowers who exited forbearance remained current on their payments and repaid their for-born payments or moved into a payment deferral plan. Remember we talked about banks, don't want these homes back and they're, giving them options to you know to move forward in all these borrowers have been able to resume, you know or continue their pre-pandemic monthly payments. So um, you know the the way the data is coming out is showing that people haven't have an option uh. You know that they didn't have back in 2008 and if you were to ask me you know what is the reason for the top three reasons for that.
It would be equity, equity and equity. You mentioned uh the 42.1 percent of homes that don't even have a mortgage in this country. People have used equity since the housing crisis very, very differently uh in this case, and it shows up in those that are in active forbearance. If we look at this, the punch line of this slide - uh is 91 of the people in active. Forbearance have at least 11 equity, and so that's a that's, a strong, strong position for people today. Why does that matter? Because it gives them options, they could go out and sell the home. They could go out and do something uh before it goes into foreclosure. If we take the numbers that we just looked at 2.75 million mortgages in forbearance, we know that if we reverse these numbers, that would mean that nine percent have less than 11 equity.
Let's go conservative, let's say that's! That number is 10 and that gives us 275. 000 mortgages. Well, if that were the case, and every one of them went into foreclosure and again i'm not saying that, but let's say every one of them did and we look back historically. Last september we had six uh 1.6 million homes on the market.
This past september 1.2 million, if every one of them went into foreclosure, it wouldn't even bring inventory levels to where we were last year and we were under supplied. Then right. And so when you do the math on this and you you kind of take out the emotion and the everything that people are thinking it just doesn't play out now, i'm not suggesting there aren't going to be issues. I'm definitely not saying this is not something we don't need to be talking about in the market, because i think to alicia and andy's point.
A lot of us are in markets where we're insulated from it and we don't see it and oh by the way people aren't going to come, knocking on the door saying i'm in trouble right now. I need help, that's a message: we need to get out there and say: hey! Look if you do need that we want to be a resource for you see when you hear all this, like andy you're, somewhat in an isolated marketplace right in seattle, but you're working seattle in the east side. You know when you hear all this. What goes through your mind? I think it was very interesting.
You know when i was listening to david. I was thinking about it, and every client of mine has equity in their home right now, even if they bought it like six months back. I've seen so many of my clients refinance because of the interest rates and some of them haven't actually been able to take out money and use it towards stock, because stock is going higher as well and they're trying to invest on that side. So i think, i'm again, you know in a market which is very, very isolated, um, microsoft, amazon.
So i have i'm in the tech industry market. But one of the trends that i am seeing is that people are moving out of the greater seattle area to areas where it's much cheaper, which is not cheaper in terms of the other countries. Still, like you know, 800 or million property ranges then from where they're living right now, because they have so much of equity in their home and they're moving from smaller homes to like acreages, because they can afford to buy that now with the amount of equity. So that's a it's a very interesting time to be in um. I haven't had anyone come to me about talking about foreclosures? I do get that question from my buyers. Sometime. Do you think we're going to go into foreclosure? Shall i wait and then it's you know as a it's our duty to educate them and say you know, probably waiting is not the right time. If flow closures come, let's buy an investment then and let's buy you the primary home.
Now that's good and so so andy. I wanted to ask you the same question. I mean. How often are you hearing hey when are the foreclosures coming and and what is your response because i was watching andy as a wordsmith? I was watching your mind and sami was saying yeah, so okay, so these are really good questions and something that i want to remind everybody about is every time a house sells someone buys it it's a net, zero game, so yeah you guys could talk.
Everybody could talk about all these people leave the area, but you know what everyone that sells someone's moving in and we have an inventory problem. So if you don't have an inventory problem, i mean, if you have an inventory problem, that means more people are coming than leaving. So we have inventory problems right. We have super low inventory.
People are moving to these areas or buying up and things like that. Um one of the things that i think i talked to gino bafari a lot and you know head of home services, and he was telling me how some of their projections are incorporating the way covet has changed the demographics of buyers and sellers. You know traditionally baby boom generation, right largest increment of our population they're, not selling the way they would normally be selling they're, not moving to retirement communities, they're not going to senior care right, they're, either staying in their house or worse they're, going down and buying a First-Time home owner buying, like house so now, they're competing with first-time home buyers and they're, not selling their other inventory. So that's created, you know a choke on inventory um so that that's just something that i you know, i think is.
Very people have to understand that right, so uh, if you're having an inventory problem, people aren't leaving the question that i want to know, and maybe david can answer. This is basically, we saw everything go bonkers once the government passes a three trillion dollar stimulus package right. The way i explain it is lots of money went to lots of rich people. There was nowhere to invest it, not oil, not gold, so they threw in the stock market.
That goes up. We see everything go bonkers and that's where people are getting all this money at what point does the other shoe drop? Because you know government pelosi they're talking about another 2 trillion in this package, does it even matter? Does inflation even matter? I'm just curious like how does that? How does that affect us? Well, i think the there's a couple things there. So if you were to ask me a couple weeks ago, are we going to see another stimulus package regardless of who's elected? I would have probably said: yes, you fast forward to today and i go. I don't know i so i think there are questions around that. Um, you know the the the enemy and we're going to talk about this in just a minute mortgage rates, but that is the big question of inflation. And what are we going to see going forward and i certainly don't have a crystal ball to be able to. You know forecast that. But i can tell you: there are a lot of people and and we're starting to see an inflection point in the market that i'll talk about in just a second that, i think, is worth taking a look at uh relative to.
What's you know what's on the horizon, so just just just to finish answering tom's question. I think so many buyers have this wishful thinking that all these people are in really bad trouble and they're gon na have their houses for clothes on, and it's not true around here. It's just not true, no yeah, we're seeing you know it's interesting. You you have to go mark for everyone watching you have to.
I go back to the same thing if you're not studying the mls every single day, if you're not looking at pricing trends, if you're not looking at this community versus that community and really analyzing it when someone says how's the market or are foreclosures coming right, you Have to be armed with the data and if i got you on the phone with my clients in hoboken, new jersey or alicia. If you talk to you, know one of our clients in new york city they're, now finally seeing transactions at a somewhat typical level. But if you go back to april may june july i mean it was a ghost town and, and the conversation was everyone's leaving manhattan and i'm like not everybody, not everybody and and homes were listed and the inventory did spike there and now we're seeing it normalize. So andy to your point again, you got to go market by market so for everybody watching you got to know your market inside and out, and that's what's going to give you the confidence david.
I want to show them that that slide from uh showing time and then let's get right into affordability, because it's going to answer a little more of andy's questions and then we'll keep bouncing through this panel yeah. But let me let me pop this up here: real quick, just an amazing quote that our research team found from from showing time it makes that point, and it says, market data has always been a powerful tool for real estate. But 2020 marked a new high point for how data was leveraged, to encourage informed decisions and help real estate professionals reinforce their status as market experts. We've been talking about this since, since march tom and you've you've driven that message, they go on to say, while interpreting data can seem overwhelming, the industry jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of new market data tools to get a true appreciation for how their markets Were responding to the pandemic and reduce client fears about its effect on their buying or selling goals? You know we're seeing it said in multiple places that the difference maker in in in the world there's so much emotion, there's so many people there going. What about this? What about that? What's gon na happen here that being able to you, know channel my inner oracle and say calm down, sit down, think plan and act and look at what is happening so that we can give people the best advice possible. So, let's, let's talk about affordability: let's talk about mortgages because that's gon na it's gon na go back to andy's question and and maybe open some uh, some different perspectives for people yeah. So, let's, let's hop in there and have this conversation, you know uh, our research team brought this information and when i saw it, i just i looked at it 12 times this year on the average 30-year fixed. We broke in a new record for a low and when you look at that, you just go wow, it's crazy.
I mean 12 times since they've, since they've kept the records on the average 30-year fix. We've broken that uh. You know 12 different times now. You can never know you're at the bottom until it's in the rear view mirror, but we're starting to see a shift, and i think you know, as we look at last week.
The average rate right now is 2.84 up from 2.78, the the prior week. So, seeing a little bit of an inflection point, i would offer that that is being driven by talks of vaccine um. You know hope, and you know optimism for the future. Now i'm not saying that we aren't in a situation right now.
We've got a winner to go through and some issues, but most economists are, are kind of shouting: hey, there's, nothing fundamentally in the economy that has to be fixed. That was broken that caused this now we've got issues caused by the pandemic, no doubt, but as good information and positive information comes out, you should start to see the the markets turn and start to see. You know that that indicator of rising uh uh, you know interest rates being a byproduct of that and i brought in a bank rate quote. It says: rising yields on government bonds reflect new optimism about the us economy, but the trend could bring unwelcome news for mortgage borrowers.
Higher rates on 10-year treasury notes generally mean rising rates for 30-year mortgages. What's the simplistic word there, an improving economy is going to bring higher rates. Okay, so so higher rates are a a side effect of of an improving economy. As as there's caution in the market, that's where we see you know rates, start to drop and start to try to stimulus, uh the you know the housing market and and we're starting to see a little bit of an inflection point there. Where you know there was so much of this year that you know we were like okay, what's the what's the next bit of information, that's going to come out, you can, you know, contract the coronavirus by you know doing something you didn't even know, and now it's Like okay, what's the next bit of good information, that's going to come out you're, even seeing that the first vaccine comes out, and it's this effective. The next vaccine's five points better effective, so the market is now looking for all right. What's the next bit of good information, uh, that's going to come out! Um interest rate projections have now been given by fannie freddie, mba nar hold on one second, i i got ta connect here. So first everyone watching live.
I wan na know what i wan na see it in the comments. What are you saying to your clients right now, as we go into winter, which historically transactions will drop alicia between 12 and 18 nationally in the fourth quarter? And yet many of us are feeling like the spring market of 2021 started in september of 2020, like the the level of and i'm seeing the head nods right, andy the level of busyness right now going into the holiday season. My question for everybody out there watching is: what are you doing? What is your best strategy to inform and educate and help buyers and sellers right now, because i don't think we're slowing down at all but alicia? I want to turn to you when you, when you hear all this stuff about the 10-year treasury and the bond market and things improving. What are you thinking about? How do you as an agent position yourselves and your clients, to win in this market and then andy? I'm coming to you next and see me you also well.
I think people have a misconception that the rates are going to stay under three forever right. Everyone just has this assumption and i try to repeat like perspective. I guess from my clients and let them know like now is the time if we can find your property, but you may have to outbid someone else, so it kind of weighs itself out. So you may get these great low rates.
However, you may pay more for your house and sometimes things kind of level itself off, but i can i always tell people, i don't have a crystal ball like no one. Everyone can have predictions, but we didn't know. This was going to happen this year. I don't care who predicted that nobody, so i always tell everybody use whatever's going on now.
Do you need to be in a house? Is it not working for you? Do you need to make a move, so we make the best decision now for what you and your family need now and what can i help you now and don't worry about 10 months from now a year from now, because no one can control all that stuff. All we have is right now to make the best decision for your family. That's just basically what i tell my clients andy. I want to go a different direction, same question. You hear all this information now you're talking to a seller who's like yeah, but you know we're thinking about maybe holding off and maybe doing something in january or february. What's your advice, what's your strategy, so what i tell everybody, is you really need to know your market so there's a question i hear on this facebook someone's asking. Can you speak about the correlation of unemployment and shadow inventory and that may be ready to list? So i remember back: in 09 2010 everyone kept talking about shadow inventory inventory. This shadow inventory is going to hit the market and it's going to explode the supply and our markets are going to tank and it never happened like not where i work.
I never saw the shadow inventory right so but the question is, you need to know what your market correlates to. So i can tell you so like my son and his friends. They they always like drop notepads. For me, when they're in high school and last summer, they all came back they're all like juniors in college now, and i was like what do you guys do for majors they're? Like econ statistics, i was like, let's do some real work, so we dug deep into our mls all the data and we ran correlation analysis against s.
P 500 interest rates, google stock apple stock, and we found that we're 90 correlated with apple stock in my marketplace. At saratoga cupertino, you know that kind of stuff santa clara. So if i'm looking at google stock or apple stock and they're spiking, then i know my market's going to be just fine, because you know all my buyers are coming from those companies and their employees and their stocks are doing great and they're making money. And that means my real estate is going to do well.
So what i would advise everybody there are leading indicators and lagging indicators. A leading indicator for me is apple stock. A lagging indicator is going to be number of houses selling. So you guys should know what are your leading indicators in your specific marketplaces and how does that translate? How does that correlate to sales 100.
So great you answered eric's question spot on right spot on so as apple stock goes andy's business goes pretty much yep pretty much, and that's also advice that i give my sellers. I say: you're, not hedged. People think i've got stock and i've got real estate. You're.
Not hedged you, you have no diversification, you're all in applesauce, if you're in silicon valley and you own a house and you work there yeah sami. Do you see the same thing i mean you got? You know amazon and microsoft and all these huge companies up in your marketplace. What say you absolutely it's the same right? We have people, the stock is going up and they have more money for down table, so the price range that they can buy in is increasing. At the same times with the sellers, i you know it, i do get the question that historically doesn't the real estate market slow down at this time and then think - and you know - and i tell them look at the data - the data is not pointing to that. We are in the lowest inventory right now, so if you put your home on the market, there are buyers that are just going to jump on it, and so it's the same right. I you know, as long as i've been in the real estate this year is one of the phenomenal years that we did have that you know when i was looking at david's curve. We, it shows three months of slowness. We probably had 15 days of slowness in seattle market and then it's just been going up and down up and there's so low inventory that anybody seller who is willing to bring up and that's, i think my job is to educate sellers.
It's right time to sell with the rate of interest so low, and maybe i'm just going to use that slide where it shows that they're going to increase to educate my buyers and sellers more yep, andy from a marketing standpoint. You know: we've got a lot of agents out here watching a lot of people be watching this over the next few days i mean you're, you are dominating in your marketplace and there's a lot of good agents in silicon valley, but you know you are clearly the Record shows the wall street journal top 1000 you're way up there. What's your best advice right now for marketing to attract more listings, getting the word out to get more listings. What are your thoughts? Well, look the thing about marketing.
Is it's not going to give you everything you want tomorrow i mean the reality. Is i'm successful because i've been doing it honestly, you and i had a conversation in 2010 when i was about to get out of the business and instead of doing that, i doubled down. Put all my money in farming, the golden triangle in saratoga and from that 2-3 000 home farm. Now i market like 50 100 000 homes, okay, so you're not gon na get it overnight.
I think the marketing that you do if you're looking for a short-term um, you know gain or a short-term response. It has to be poignant. It has to make sense the one that we've always gone to is the help you know campaign where we're saying: hey: we've got a buyer specific, it's real people, it's tangible and that kind of stuff, but what you really want to do is have a long term Vision of how you want your brand, your marketing to go and the value that you're bringing to people and then incorporate that into you, know short-term pieces that can might generate the phone call. I've got a buyer kind of thing, but you know i think all this data is really important, but i think you also want to give the data and then tell people.
What's the talking point, how can that you know help me? What's the you know tangible thing and what's the action i need to take, so i think i think you know people are scared and but look at the slides that david just put up, i mean forbearances, that's way less than i thought right and we're way below The foreclosure average i mean - that's that's incredible. I didn't know that, and so now i'd be able to go out with confidence and tell people it's a much stronger market than i thought, and even though i thought it was, you know, based on my correlation with these stocks even nationally, like look how low that Forbearance and foreclosure is it's amazing, and if you look at the data and you take it all the way down the line right, if two-thirds of them continue to make their payments, even though they filed for foreclosure you're. Only talking about four months of the average of two hundred six thousand, it's a really small percentage, but i wan na come to you as a coach and as an agent i wan na know. What are you recommending to your clients regarding marketing to their database? Right now, how do we take this information and educate our customers, because andy and i are on the same page - geographic farming, all the long-term branding stuff? All the trust creation that we've done over the last decade has paid off in droves short term. Everybody can reach out to their database. What advice do you have to educate them today? I think just you know, obviously using the the wide the social media aspect you can you know, post share the data, have conversations and and we're all trying to reach all of our contacts right now right prospect for 2021. This is a great reason to call people and just to say, hey. I know you're listening to the news and there's crazy stuff going on right now, but just to make sure you understand what the real deal is and i'm the expert in the market - and i i know you trust me right, because your people trust you that you're Their database and i'm 90 referral base.
So that's you know i go deeper in my database, i'm getting ready to have my big pie function, and so i have these conversations. People come and ask me, you know i get texts all the time what's going on. Are we gon na be worried and i tell people no, i mean i don't and honestly i was just having a thought and i think why also in the silicon valley and seattle area too, if you're, if we're all shut down and no one's really driving their Cars you're not spending money on gas you're, not really getting your new car you're not going on the vacation. You wanted to go on you're, not you're at your freaking house.
So i know contractors are busy. You can't get a contractor in there everybody's putting money into their houses, everyone's upgrading, everything everyone's doing that addition, if they don't want to move they're getting more value into their homes, they're refined, because the rates are so low, so they're getting you know, they're not paying. As much towards interest, i'm seeing so much more money being put towards the house, an investment in the house and people are willing to pay more money to have more space acreage whatever. So i think, what's happening is the budget that we had to do all this. Other extra stuff is now going towards your home because you have to stay home, so i think what i'm seeing and telling people to do is you know you can never like an investment property is different than your own home right. Your home is not, and i always tell you your home's on an investment property at your house, it's your home, so you need to do what you need to do for yourself to make your home amazing and not and don't look at it that way, if you're Doing for investment yeah, it's all numbers, so that's kind of the advice. I give people and not to be afraid and not to go, come out of fear when you're looking for your home and what you need to do - and i don't know if you guys are seeing that too. I can't get contractors to come here.
It's ridiculous! So yeah everyone's booked up, so i think you're we're going to see more and more people investing in their homes in general, yeah 2020, no doubt has been it's like. The tale of two we've got tragedy and triumph right depending upon where you look and and what part of the country you're in and what part of the world you're in yeah david we're talking a little bit about mortgage rates, and i know it kind of leads Nicely into the next two slides, i think, there's some urgency for everyone out there watching right now sure there's some urgency uh, i'm i'm gon na leave you guys with one thought regarding your database. I literally just talked to in the last. Let's call it two weeks, nearly 250 of the most successful teams around the country that we're coaching right teams in australia, teams in europe, us canada, mexico, mexico, city, cabo, san lucas, all over the place and the thing that i'm telling everybody is right.
Now you need to be scaling the unscalable. You literally need to take and shoot a personal video to every single past client, every person you consider a dear friend every person. That's ever referred to you a piece of business and just say simi, i'm thinking about you. I hope you and the kids are doing great right congrats on your grandkid and boom, like that video stay top of mind because be clear.
My friends as as the world continues to shift and everybody goes to this device. You're gon na lose some business. If you're not saying top of mind with the people that matter most the more immediate opportunities your database, so david, this slide gives them some reason to communicate with their database, because you - and i both know - of the not 42.1 percent of people that have a mortgage. They're still, i've heard numbers of as high as 50 of everyone that has a mortgage still has an interest rate with a four on it right right. So i i think that you know we're starting to see projections made about what you know what's coming. What's coming in 2021, we have a first look at it here from fannie and freddie, mba and nar, and you know you look at it and anybody that's been in the business for a while. You don't see rates, you know skyrocketing up, but certainly i think the the message out there and what people are going to hear is. I hear rates are rising right and my guess would even be these were a lot of these were made before we're starting to see this inflection in the market.
I think it may be revised up. There's no one. You know calling for crazy increase in uh in rates, but again going back to what we talked about. Two eight two uh, you know seven on a 30-year fixed, makes three and a half or four percent look high right um.
It makes people kind of go whoa. What's what's happening here and so, as we start to turn, expect to see more of those projections coming out saying: hey rates are going to rise and and i'll use. One quote here from ali wolf. She says this affordability will actually work against the housing market.
In 2021., we've seen home prices have gone up, double digits, double digits in some markets um you know year over year and at certain point those that house appreciation offsets the savings from the mortgage rate, so affordability. We started talking about that a couple of weeks ago. Tom is we see rates rising as we see people saying i'm uncertain right now, but there's that cost of certainty as we move into next year and things will become more. You know certain as good news comes out.
Higher rates certainly projected appreciation by by experts across the you know the spectrum in housing. Saying, okay, look, you know prices are going to appreciate going into next year, so i think the the message in short, is now is the time if you're going to do something now is the time to take advantage of those low rates in those prices. Andy. How do we say that and not just come across, like a knucklehead salesperson who's trying to get a listing? How do we say now is the time you got ta do rates are low? You got ta sell now you got ta, buy now, um, okay, so the real way you do it is.
You need to ask them: why are they selling? Where are they going, and you need to show that the investment that they're making out of the like? I always talk about like how does this correlate to whatever it is that you're buying? So if somebody is moving up right, you know maybe and and they're doing it in like a market, that's not as hot as ours. I think it's a great time to sell, because you're going to take all this equity out of here in a fashion free market and move it there it just it's really. Just it's it's you. It's it's real estate, you're analyzing.
Why are they selling? You know? I mean it's hard, it's hard to make you what you're trying to do in that situation. You're trying to say the reason why they should sell is because it might not be as good later and and then that is what i'll say i'll say. Look. I know we're at an all-time high. I know right, the stimulus package happened, our everything's going great, and so what i'll say is look if we sell now and you get x amount of money is that enough to you know, live the lifestyle that you want to live or accomplish your goals that you Want and if it's enough it's probably it's probably a good time to do that, you know i have a um, a dialogue that i do a lot of times. I had a client with a you know: four million dollar house. We got an off market um offer for 4.15. Originally we were going to go on the market at 399 and the goal is to get to five or four three and i said, look you're in vegas.
You just cashed out 4.15 million dollars. Do you want to risk 150 to make 250 or 300? We can totally do it, it's up to you and so that's the kind of thing i would say in a listing presentation of why you would sell now because look the market's incredible all-time high. Look how much money you've made since you bought it. Do you want to wait and try to get a little bit more or is it enough to make the move and live the lifestyle that you want to live? So that's how i would just say: love it sami same question.
What are you saying to the person you know because we we're always in this position of like you know, i don't want to come across as some just sales person, i'm here to be an educator, and yet it feels like we need to be like standing on The rooftops going, if you've had any thoughts of selling now is the time. How do we do it? I think i i would pretty much follow what andy said. You know that it is the right time to sell. There is so much of equity in your home.
You are going to be making a lot of money, and is that enough for you and you have more buyers in the market, so every home right now sells if the market doesn't change, even if the prices don't go down and it does stabilize a little bit. Uh, you might not have 10 buyers for your home, you might just get two or one to buy your home and so right now let the market drive the price for you and it's a great time for that market to drive, and you know i educate them On what are the pros and what are the cons of that, and can they buy something in what they are looking for? Are they looking to get money out of their home if they're just getting looking to get money out of their home? It's a great time to do that and again, i think every seller is different and every we as our duty is to educate them and make sure that we are working for them and educating them and serving them in the best of our capacity yeah. Once again, my friends that are watching i, i cannot emphasize enough the importance of one-on-one hand-to-hand combat whether it's a text, a video, a personal email, a phone call to every single person in your database and without coming across too salesy. The question is: are you living in your ideal home now, like with everything going on? Are you living in your ideal home with your work? Life school life, home life, live life holiday life? Are you because you know, as andy said, we're seeing people moving in and out, but one comes on the market there seems to be more buyers. There seems to be way more buyers which david you could speak to than there is inventory so david.
Hi, great info! Can you write in the inbox the names of the speakers ? Please please Thank you so much 🥰
Great value as always👌
Great program today!
I love, Its so important to actually understand real estate.
This was an amazing crossover event! Thank you!
THANK YOU SO much for doing this thorough interview with the Best of the Best! So Valuable! <3
Excellent podcast. Definitely changed my perspective.