Politics and Property: The Influence Politics has on Real Estate with Anna Lloyd

Episode 81 promises to equip you with the knowledge needed to navigate the complexities of real estate and politics, featuring insights from Anna Lloyd, a successful realtor and investor from Ohio.

Anna spent almost ten years in marketing and international brand management fields before leaving the corporate world to serve families buying and selling their largest investment - their home! She is currently a full-time Realtor in Greater Summit & Cuyahoga Counties, here in Ohio, and has sold over $60M of real estate since 2019. She is also an investor and holds a portfolio with 35 doors in the Akron area & is opening her first Airbnb this fall. Outside of all her real estate endeavors, she is married to her amazing husband of 11 years that she met in high school, and they have three kids together, all currently 4 and under.

Connect with Anna: 

• Instagram - @annalloyd1
• The Young Team Website

Connect with USS: United SHE Stands Instagram

This episode was edited by Kevin Tanner. Learn more about him and his services here:

• Website: https://www.kevwyxin.com/
• Instagram: @kevwyxin

If you purchase from any links to resources or products, the show may make a small commission.

Transcript

Anna: 0:00

Because my concern a little bit is we're doing all this building while a big portion of our population is holding on to inventory. To me that's smelling like the foreshadowing of a big buyer's market later on and a major oversupply.

Ashley: 0:23

Welcome back to the United she Stands podcast, the show that brings kindness and women into politics. I'm Ashley.

Sara: 0:29

And I'm Sarah, and we're two women from Ohio who are here to become more educated about American politics and build a community so we can all get involved and make an impact together.

Ashley: 0:39

We hope we'll inspire and empower you along the way. Hello everyone and welcome back to United she Stands podcast. Today. We have my friend and realtor, anna Lloyd, on the show with us. We're going to get into several things today relating to how real estate is impacted by politics. It's going to be a fun one, and we are so excited to have Anna. I'll kick us off here with a little intro. So Anna spent almost 10 years in marketing and international brand management fields before leaving the corporate world to serve families buying and selling their largest investment their home. She's currently a full-time realtor in Greater Summit in Cuyahoga Counties here in Ohio and has sold over $60 million of real estate since 2019. She's also an investor and holds a portfolio with 35 doors in the Akron area and is opening her first Airbnb this fall in Akron. Outside of her real estate endeavors, she is married to her amazing husband of 11 years that she met in high school, and they have three kids together all currently four and under. So just a little bit busy. Welcome to the show, anna.

Anna: 1:43

We're so excited to have you. Thanks, it's awesome to be here on the other side. I love listening to you guys, so thanks for having me.

Sara: 1:52

Yeah, I'm so excited, we are so excited to have you and, like I said, I've heard a lot about you, so it's nice to meet you, even though it's virtually. That's how we do things these days. So, yes, thank you. Yeah, absolutely Thank you. All things these days. So, yes, thank you. Yeah, absolutely Thank you. All right, I'll go ahead and kick us off then with the first question here. Can you just tell us how you got to where you are today and what led to your real estate profession? I know we kind of talked through a little bit of your journey in the intro, but if you could add some more color, that would be great.

Anna: 2:17

Yeah, sure thing I'm trying to keep it brief. But, as Ashley mentioned, I got a degree in marketing. I was actually at college with Ashley. That's how we met and I ended up working for Trek Bicycle if anyone knows bikes for quite some time and loved it and traveled the world and got to work on brand campaigns and all sorts of amazing things.

Anna: 2:41

But ultimately I think I got a little tired climbing the corporate ladder and we wanted to start our family by our family. So we moved our family back to Ohio, started our family and at that same instance I was looking to make a career change and I was already investing in real estate in Akron. I had bought several properties with my brother, like rental properties, duplexes, small things like that, and was kind of loving it and real estate kind of runs in my family's blood. So I said you know, I think it'll be interesting to do something a little more people-focused, get back into building relationships with people, a little less focused on the corporate bottom line but still getting to use all the business background. And that's really, I feel, like real estate just made perfect sense and it's been amazing. I got started with the young team, which is like the top team in the state of Ohio back in 2019. And just never look back. I've loved it.

Ashley: 3:40

Yeah, and Anna actually just side note helped me and my husband buy our first investment properties and she was just fabulous to work with. I knew she would be, but I mean just so much care and just yeah, just amazing.

Anna: 3:51

No, it's just, it's. My favorite part of the job is just like reconnecting with people and helping them, like whether it's their pursuit of investments or just the next chapter for their family. It's, it's really awesome.

Ashley: 4:02

Okay, so let's dive into our first topic here. I know we want to touch on a few things, but let's start with the settlement agreement with the National Association of Realtors. We will probably refer to them as the NAR, as they are known. Can you give us some background here? Just how did this settlement come to be? What is it?

Anna: 4:19

Yeah, absolutely so. Basically I'll try to give like the real highlighter notes, because there's been so many headlines about this and it causes a lot of confusion. But basically the US Department of Justice was concerned that real estate agents were making consumers you know, buyers or sellers feel like they couldn't negotiate commissions, especially on the buyer side, largely because for the most part there's kind of just been longstanding understandings of what commission should be for a listing agent and a buyer agent and typically the buyer agent's commission is a portion of the listing agent's commission that was pre-negotiated in the listing agreement. So many times a buyer agent's not even really talking very openly with their client about compensation and you know things have just kind of unwound a little bit with that setup.

Anna: 5:10

Now, that said, you know, prior to all of this upcoming change which is actually going active very soon here on August 17th, when a seller would hire a listing agent, kind of like I mentioned, the commission would be negotiated and then kind of split between the two agents and then all of that would be listed upfront on the MLS, the multiple listing service, which is what feeds, you know, all listing information to realtorcom, redfin, you know all of these websites. So, because it was promoted by the MLS all these years. Commission I mean the Department of justice basically stepped in and said it's not fair to buyers um, because you know that they don't really get to be a part of discussing compensation of their agent because maybe that money could have gone to the buyer, maybe that could have gone back to the seller. And I think it's just people have not felt that, even though it's always been negotiable, they haven't felt that it has been. Does that make sense?

Ashley: 6:06

Yeah, that is interesting Cause I've always like heard right, At least like back in the day before we really even like reconnect or whatever it was always like if you're buying, you should use an agent, Cause it doesn't cost you anything. That's what you've. I've always heard that, so it's interesting to hear you explain it that way.

Anna: 6:22

Yeah.

Anna: 6:22

So in a lot of ways it hasn't really felt like it costs the buyer anything because it's not really feeling like it's coming out of their immediate pocket like another closing cost, like what you have to pay to set up your loan fees or what you have to pay in title fees or for your home insurance.

Anna: 6:39

Basically, the commission has essentially become built into the cost of the home the purchase price and financed essentially and to be honest, that's probably really not going to change, despite what the headlines are saying. You can't realistically expect a home buyer to now come up with an additional two and a half to 3% of the purchase price as a part of their closing costs. So in essence, probably not a ton is changing. But what this is all leading to is, in an effort to prevent what they're considering, price fixing and to encourage negotiation between all parties, a set commission amount is no longer allowed to be entered listed anywhere on the multiple listing service. So basically, the fields in the MLS related to commission any sort of co-broke fee, anything are now being removed. So it almost feels like less transparent.

Anna: 7:38

Yeah, that's what a lot of people feel Now.

Anna: 7:42

I think a lot of this is like the MLS doesn't want the NAR doesn't want liability, the national association of realtors.

Anna: 7:47

And the way they do that is they say, well, since this has been viewed as price fixing and we're having you know to settle, um, we're just going to remove any liability and we can know we can no longer be accused of price fixing because we're not even going to talk about commission or allow the talking of commission on the multiple listing services throughout the country.

Anna: 8:06

That does not prevent you know zillow or a brokerage's website, you know kwcom, expcom, from having their own commission fields or from offering some sort of seller concession publicly, but it essentially has eliminated the multiple listing service from having any ability to communicate those things to prevent this essentially going forward. Got it? So I think the last component to it is, in addition to all these conversations about commission and making sure that that feels negotiable to people, even though it always has been. We're trying to change the perception of that and encourage transparency of fees. The other element to this settlement is that real estate agents are now required legally to have a signed buyer agency agreement with any buyer that they are working with going forward and their commission owed has to be spelled out very, very clearly. No ambiguity at all in that agreement.

Ashley: 9:10

Which is interesting because I mean, the minute I started working with you, I signed something right, and that's how the young team works. I was gonna ask you most realtors just do that.

Anna: 9:19

Yeah, that's not how 99% of realtors work.

Anna: 9:22

Oh, okay, they should. But you have to keep in mind that on average, a realtor in Ohio probably nationally it might be a teeny bit higher, but in Ohio the average realtor sells six houses a year. Most, most realtors are part-time. They're hobbyists. They're doing it, you know, as a an aside to another job. They're helping. They're just helping their friends and family, you know. And then you have teams like the young team or groups like the young team where this is what we do full-time. We operate at a certain level of professionalism. We have very high, you know, unique value that we can offer our clients and so we require agency and we establish that very clearly with our clients. But that's kind of an exception to the rule today and this settlement is meant to really enforce that so that again, buyers aren't coming in, especially buyers aren't coming into the process of making the biggest investment of their life having no real understanding of the relationship that they have with the person who is representing them through this process. Gotcha, Gotcha.

Sara: 10:28

So before we move on, is there any other impacts to Americans who are either selling or purchasing a home, and how does it impact you and other real estate professionals?

Anna: 10:37

Yeah, great question, sarah. I think that's the question that's on everyone's mind. It's the question that a lot of people who are now calling us to work with us are asking. They're saying how does the settlement change? You know, change anything? Buyers are saying do I, do I have to pay you? Now Sellers are saying do I still have to offer any sort of you know compensation to the buyer agent?

Anna: 10:58

And really, at the end of the day, at least when it comes to like a team, like the young team and others, very little is going to change other than the conversation a little bit. You know, at the end of the day, buyers are still going to buy homes in a very similar way and they're going to pay very similar fees, and sellers are going to sell homes in a very similar way and pay very similar fees. It's just going to look a little bit different. It is still very much in a seller's best interest to offer a co-broke concession of some sort, because that encourages the really high quality agents to bring buyers to their home and hopefully perform on a very smooth transaction, and it also helps maybe keep a little bit of the control in the seller's pocket, because they basically preemptively communicated what they were willing to compensate, instead of maybe leaving that fully up to the buyer and the buyer agent. At the same time, if that's not spelled out, for some reason on the seller side, there is no compensation offered or any sort of you know enticement.

Anna: 12:04

I guess you could call it.

Anna: 12:06

Then a lot of the buyer agents are going to be instructing their clients to still request that sellers compensate their services, but it might look more in the form of asking for a closing cost credit.

Anna: 12:17

Yeah, like, hey, I'll offer you this price, but then I would like 3% of the purchase price back in closing costs so that I can compensate my realtor. People who maybe have a little bit more cash might just say, okay, I'm going to actually offer a slightly lower price or less price and I'm just going to compensate my agent myself. I think the great news in all of this is that now especially, buyer agents are going to have to have much more transparent conversations with their clients about commission, and that's good for people who operate at a really high level. That might not be quite so good for people who are not comfortable doing that or have been doing this for 40 years and have never done that and they don't feel comfortable. But I think overall, at the end of the day, very little is going to change. It's just going to be a little bit of how the conversation happens, and the only thing that's going to increase, hopefully, is transparency on the buying side about what a buyer's rights are in the commission negotiation for the realtor.

Ashley: 13:16

Got it. So, overall, little gray stone because it hasn't been implemented, but feels like it's generally not a huge change and what will change feels pretty good, yeah, I think so.

Anna: 13:26

Overall, I think we'll be good. There's definitely going to be like enforcement. That's going to be really confusing. Right now, the NAR, the National Association of Realtors, is saying that the MLSs are the ones who are going to enforce this. How do you enforce this? The ones who are going to enforce this, how do you enforce this? Currently, it's basically saying that you cannot even show a home to anybody without having some sort of an agreement in place. That might even just be like a one-time tour agreement or, you know, something like a one-week agreement for a certain zip code, which, again, that's how most people like, like agents that are on the young team and similar teams, operate. That's not how the vast majority of realtors operate. I have to sign, I have to have my dad sign, this three page agreement before I show him. You know a house, but that that technically to to stay within it, within you know, legality is is what is going to be required now.

Ashley: 14:19

That'd be interesting to see how it plays out. Yeah, all right, let's switch gears a bit. I know, when we first just chatted about you coming on the podcast a couple of months ago now, we wanted to touch on really how the presidential election and presidential election years in general typically impact the housing market and interest rates. So can you tell us a little bit about how and why presidential elections do have an impact on the housing market?

Anna: 14:42

Yeah, absolutely so. I thought this was it's an interesting conversation one because it is an election year and I think there's a lot of this is kind of like myth versus fact. A lot of people think or believe that an election can have, honestly, a much greater impact on the housing market than it actually does in true reality. You can see changes and fluctuations in certain metrics, certain things that do affect the housing market, but in general they are very temporary and short-lived. So, for example, the main things you would look at when you're looking at how an event like a political election could impact the housing market, you'll look at the number of transactions, you might look at prices of homes and you look at interest rates. So those are like the three things that we can dig into with this and then I'll just I'll touch on one of those and then we can kind of build from there.

Anna: 15:41

But if you look at, just like the number of home sales in an election in a non-election year versus an election year, really there's very little change, with the exception of the month of November. So typically in the month of November in an election year you will see less, less transactions than you would see in a November. In a non-election year, that tends to just be a very clear correlation. People are uncertain, they're hesitant about making such a big decision during a pivotal time. But it's important to note that this slowdown is very temporary and usually in December and January you see it bounce right back to normal.

Ashley: 16:22

Yeah, it's interesting. Like interest rates is where my head goes, especially like knowing that the president has like it doesn't impact those. It's the federal right, it's the fed that does. So I always just think that one's interesting. But to your point it's. I mean it's just like the stock market right. People think it's good, it's good. So it's almost like that kind of dynamic where you know people feel like, oh, maybe I shouldn't buy a house right now. It's really no, everything is normal with the housing market. It's just like that, that human reaction to to kind of not pull the trigger.

Anna: 16:52

Yeah, completely, and I think, like interest rates, that's another big one of the three that I mentioned. So interest rates are impacted by headlines, you know, like the tone of the news, the tone of the American population, that can impact interest rates. So I looked at, just like in preparation for this podcast, I was looking for some more specific data around these metrics and Freddie Mac is the source basically stated that mortgage rates decreased eight out of the 11 or sorry, like leading up to eight out of the 11 last presidential elections. So basically, in the year, the months leading up to an election, rates soften. Well, guess what's happened this year? The exact same thing. Oh, really.

Anna: 17:36

Yes, like so. Last late 2023, at the end of the year, rates were up in the 8% and then they kind of peaked there I think it was in October or November and then they started softening and we went into 2024 with the Fed communicating that they were anticipating anywhere from four to six rate drops in 2024. It didn't really go to plan in the beginning of Q1. They basically did almost nothing. They softened maybe once, and now we're actually hanging out right under 7% and some clients that are like in a really very highly qualified or getting into 15 year mortgages, et cetera, they're they're seeing rates in the lower sixes.

Anna: 18:21

So there has been this softening and the mentality in the market is that that is going to continue to happen. We're seeing good indicators on inflation, on employment. You know messaging is coming out. You know the president wants people to feel good so he can get more votes. So it makes a lot of sense that that would be the case, and so I thought that was a really interesting stat and I'll repeat it one more time that mortgage rates decreased leading up to eight of the last 11 presidential elections.

Ashley: 18:50

Yeah, that is an interesting stat. Thanks for looking that up, yeah, of course.

Sara: 18:53

Yeah, thank you. That is interesting because I know nothing about buying a house at all. Like I'm learning so much and my head is kind of like spiraling right now, but I, yeah, I would think the exact opposite of like everything you just said. So that's really fascinating.

Anna: 19:08

I thought interest rates was a cool. I mean, interest rates are just such a hot topic right now. Um, there's so much perception around it because people are less and less so but still kind of hanging on to the rates of 2020 and 2021. They dropped down into the, you know, less than 3% range um, all time low. And so, even though 7% is the the national average interest rate for the last 30 years, people have felt like that's really high, you know, and you had a significant amount of the population that refinanced into a lower interest rate, even if they didn't move. So there's, you know, there's still that, just again, so much conversation about interest rate. We can touch on that a little bit later when we talk about the overall housing market. But, yeah, interest rates are probably the biggest, the biggest thing that people wonder and consider when they're thinking about making a move, and there's a little bit of that conversation in the back of a few people's minds when they're thinking about how the election may impact their move and if they should move now versus later.

Ashley: 20:09

Yeah, so I know I was one of those. I don't know if you would call them idiots or not, but I was one of those idiots.

Ashley: 20:13

I gave up a 3% interest rate to move last summer, so but your point, I still like yeah, and my, my dad even told us that when we moved and I was so worried about, I was like, oh, like I can't. He's like you know, this is like actually a normal rate for, like you know, the nineties or whatever decade it was. He's like this was normal, like people do all the time. So I was like all right.

Anna: 20:34

Yeah, I think your, your only regret was the room for the Christmas tree. Right, yeah, it was the Christmas tree.

Sara: 20:39

Oh, it's my biggest regret too, and I was obviously not living at the house at all and involved in the decision.

Anna: 20:45

but it hurt. Oh yeah, exactly, I told her I don't have room for it either, but I gladly take it off her hands.

Ashley: 20:50

Yeah, I told her do you want a 14 foot Christmas tree?

Sara: 20:54

Yeah, I'm like, I'm in a like a single bedroom apartment.

Anna: 21:02

I'm like I'll just lay it down on the floor, It'll still be pretty. Sarah needs the 14-foot Christmas tree, there's no question. The last thing I'll touch on just is the third metric that can be or have perception versus reality about how the election can impact it is home prices. So natural question would be do we see home prices drop during election years? Do either of you have a guess?

Ashley: 21:23

I would say they don't, they will go up I.

Sara: 21:27

So I feel like my my gut has been wrong on all of this, so I'm gonna say the opposite of my gut. I would think they go down then, okay great guesses.

Anna: 21:36

Um, they do not typically go down during election years. Prices typically stay pretty standard or immune to the election and more impacted by the laws of supply and demand, interest rates etc. So another article that I read. I'm terrible about sourcing things, but there was a housing analyst, ryan Lundquist, who basically said that an election year does not alter the price trend that is already happening in the market. So home prices stay pretty resilient and they actually tend to rise generally year over year, regardless of elections. So if you were to look at an actual bar graph of home prices for the last 20 years other than the crash of 2008 and the recovery from that, homes in the majority you know the national average I would say have been on the rise consistently, regardless of election years for probably even more than 20 years. I think it's going backwards of 40 years.

Ashley: 22:33

Yeah, that's why I guessed up. I just know like home values typically rise always, so obviously besides the crash there, but yeah, that's interesting to know that there's actually no impact when it comes to election year.

Sara: 22:44

Yeah, I was just kind of like reflecting on that in my head. Election years are huge. This presidential elections are huge, but it's just so funny how we as a society tie so many things to the presidential election and how like having and like how they all like intertwine together or how we assume they do but maybe in reality don't like. That's kind of just that's really fascinating to kind of rewire in my brain there.

Anna: 23:11

Yeah, absolutely same for me, yes, okay, so let's talk about your more of like the uncertainty factor. It tends to be a group of individuals who don't necessarily have to sell, but they know that eventually they're going to be right-sizing or they're going to be moving permanently out of state, but they don't quite know when they're entering retirement. But they often have flexibility as to when they make the move, and so they're a little more discerning about when they put their home on the market. They're often concerned about getting top dollar, when's the most, when's the highest demand, et cetera, et cetera. And so more often in a year like this, we'll hear people say I think I'm going to wait until after the election and just kind of see how things pan out.

Anna: 24:16

I wouldn't say that that's the vast majority of people by any means. Most people are in Ashley's situation. They're making a move because they need to. Their family has changed, their job has changed, any sort of number of factors that lead to them needing to buy a home. Their rent became too high. They finally saved enough money, whatever it is, that's largely what is leading to people making a move buying or selling. But there is still a little uptick in those kinds of conversations with the more discerning buyers who don't have to have a sense of urgency around their move.

Ashley: 24:46

Yeah, that's interesting, yeah, and it's more just like perception of what could happen or right, like that uncertainty, yeah, and, and I mean to your point, history will tell them like it's not going to hurt them to wait, based on the data, right, it's never going to hurt to wait, I guess.

Anna: 25:01

Yeah, absolutely, and we, you know, normally I'm going to direct the focus to these are the things that are really going to impact the performance of your home sale and how much I'm going to be able to help you net in that process. You know, at the end of the day, what? What the seller should care about the most is what are they going to walk away with? Yeah, that's usually not going to be very impacted by the presidential election We'll focus on yes, buyers might take their eye off the ball a little bit, you know, during certain times of the year, but that's the same thing for holidays. I'm never going to recommend that someone lists their home on the 4th of July. I'm never going to recommend that someone lists their home on Christmas day. So it's, it's a very similar conversation to that. It's just one more little event that year that we want to guide a client around.

Ashley: 25:45

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, we're going to move on to our last topic for today. So, as a real estate professional, what do you think the biggest challenges with our current housing market? I mean housing in general is a hot topic in the news always, but it feels like especially in the re in recent years. I mean housing in general is a hot topic in the news always, but it feels like especially in recent years. I mean, you know, pricing for houses has just went up so significantly. So just where is your head around this? Like what do you think the biggest challenges are that we face.

Anna: 26:09

Sure, I think about this all the time. Depends on the day, most days of the week, I think you know, currently the biggest consistent challenge that I observe in this market every day is a lack of inventory and a decreased affordability. So this all comes back to the standard law of supply and demand. So building home building came to almost a screeching halt after the 2008 market crash and it really just did not recover until it was almost too late, essentially. So, you'll see, you don't see quite as many home builds, you know, 2008 to 2016 or so, and then building really started ramping up again, but not quickly enough, and that has really the one of the biggest reasons we're in the housing shortage that we're in right now. Then you couple that with the you know 3% and lower interest rate that the vast majority of homeowners were able to either capitalize on by buying in that, you know, during COVID, or they or they refinance during that timeframe, and so now you have a significant amount of the population sitting on mortgages that they don't want to let go of. They don't want to let go of the interest rate, and those things coupled have just made it even more extreme.

Anna: 27:30

What does that lead to? Low supply that can nowhere meet the amount of demand that there is in this market. So I think that's made it really really tough. And then, of course, because of the low supply and high demand, that has only led to higher and higher prices. Prices have gone up significantly nationwide too high in some markets that it's become crippling. Cleveland is a market that's actually appreciated healthily and is not experiencing the same kind of price and valuation crashes that other markets are, but still you have the rates having only gone up a little bit down this year, but basically trending upward, prices also trending upward and inventory not trending upward at the same rate. So that has led to a consistent challenge with people being able to enter into home ownership or improve their living situation or get to the living situation that would really be ideal for their chapter of life.

Ashley: 28:28

Yeah, yeah. I have so many friends who, like you know, bought what they thought was a starter house and they're now like, well, no, it's going to have just have to be my forever house because it's crazy out there, so hopefully it writes itself a bit. But I also know like during COVID the building like building took a hit then too right Cause of supply chain issues. I, we built our house right at the start of COVID and that was like a huge. Luckily we started early enough but like they were telling us, houses after us were having like lumber right, lumber prices soared, like stuff. Like that happened because the supply chain issues with everything shutting down with COVID, so that I think took a hit to just everything being built as well.

Anna: 29:04

Yeah, completely, and I think building is an amazing example. Building is picking up as fast as it can. Over the last couple of years because we've gotten a little bit more. Through COVID, prices eased a little bit, especially on things like lumber that was probably one of the biggest you know prohibitive supplies needed. That was killing the ability to like build, you know, I guess, shot the prices of home building up so much. But then, even when you know, obviously inflation increased and then it softened a little bit but a lot of the builders kept their prices high because they could, because the demand was so high, and that again just has only fed into it being harder and harder for people to get into homeownership or get into the kind of home that would serve their needs for the next chapter.

Anna: 29:55

And I think an interesting statistic too that my lender at Cross Country Mortgage shared with me this morning was that 50% of the mortgages that they are setting up right now are, for first time, home buyers. That's significant and a big part of that it's not because all of a sudden, like all these people have paid off their college debts and now they can buy, like that's part of it, but it's really to the previous comment I made, which is that you've got too many experienced homeowners, existing homeowners, holding onto their homes. Yeah, that makes sense. And so now all these new buyers who are not, in all, usually in the best position to compete in this market. You know 10, 15 offer. You know way multiple was for each home they're trying to offer on um. You know 10, 15 offer. You know way multiple for each home they're trying to offer on um. You know, with the interest rates where they are and uh and home prices where they are, it's just making it really tough for people and that's a that's an emotional rollercoaster for everybody, including me.

Ashley: 30:51

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it is. Yeah, yeah, it's just it's, it's rough out there. I mean for sure.

Sara: 30:55

Yeah, it really sounds like the perfect storm. Really, emphasis on the sarcasm, with perfect there, but let's tie this back to politics, since that is our brand here. Do you think there are any policies or legislation that could help this issue?

Anna: 31:11

I can give like blanket thoughts around this, since I am not a politician by any means, and that's why I enjoy your podcast. But the couple high-level things that I think would be really interesting to look at, that I know our government has used to address other similar issues would be financial incentives, tax rebates to help one first-time homebuyers, but also maybe to incentivize the existing homeowners to relinquish their low interest rates and move on so that we can open up that supply. Because my concern a little bit is we're doing all this building while a big portion of our population is holding onto inventory. To me that's smelling like the foreshadowing of a big buyer's market later on and a major oversupply if our population growth does not, you know, continue to meet that demand. So I think if we could free up some of that inventory and incentivize people to do so, that would be amazing, whether or not government-backed loans could be, you know, can we offer lower interest rates, you know, especially to those buyers or those sellers for letting go of that and moving into their next home, or get a little bit more aggressive with how we incentivize first-time homebuyers? I think that would be really helpful.

Anna: 32:25

And then the other thing I think that needs to be looked at and I can't dig into this too much because it's really not my area of expertise, but I hear about it constantly is we are still very much in need of housing.

Anna: 32:38

There's a very high demand for new construction and low-maintenance living and our biggest challenge is we can't find the land. Builders can't find the land, especially when you're in Cleveland or Cleveland property big city like that so much of it is already built up. A lot of that inventory maybe has become very dilapidated and actually needs to be torn down and rebuilt or completely restored. But we're really struggling to either find the land or get the permission to rezone certain areas so that development can occur where it is needed. So I can't get into you know, all of the challenges with gentrification and certain things like that. There's so many layers to this but it is limiting builders ability to to meet and satiate the current demand that this market has when they can't find a reason on the land that would allow them to to move forward and, you know, stimulate the economy and provide housing to all the people moving to this area.

Ashley: 33:35

Yeah, and just a plug, because we just like to remind people that zoning is your local government. Your local government matters. So there's your plug. It's not all federal policies guys. Very helpful, anna, thank you. I think we're going to start to wrap, so we like to just kind of end with like a opinion piece or opinion question here. How are you feeling overall? Are you optimistic about the housing market?

Anna: 33:59

I am an optimistic person so in general I would say I'm very optimistic about the housing market. I also love what I do, so that helps too. But I would say, really, you know, I'm very optimistic about it. On a micro level, on a local level, because you know I service the greater Cleveland Akron area we are gaining more people than we're losing. We have big hirers like Cleveland Clinic, especially Gojo Smucker, all these big organizations that are building headquarters here. So much opportunity.

Anna: 34:37

And then you have that coupled with many people who have learned that they are pretty much going to be permanently remote in working for the foreseeable future and are choosing to relocate out of these very expensive metropolis areas that have seen significant you know home value crashes and and move to the Midwest. That's way more affordable, slightly low, slower paced you know slower paced way of life and you can get a mansion for a million dollars instead of a one bedroom flat in the Bay Area. So that is driving a ton of demand here. And in general, as I mentioned earlier, the Cleveland area has seen very steady appreciation in their home value, but it's been very stable. It hasn't been this like extreme appreciation that's now flat lighting or or declining, like it is in some of these really big cities. You know Austin, for example, um number of number of cities out in the West coast, um that they're really struggling with that here or not.

Anna: 35:36

So when I have a client who's worried about, quote unquote, overpaying for a home or you know I'm only buying in Cleveland it's like, actually, your asset is probably the safest here compared to, you know, buying in one of these other cities. That just doesn't have the stability that our market has. So, in short, yes, I'm extremely optimistic. Business is booming. I love. Clients are happy, people are getting homes every day here and they're thrilled about it, and they're still selling their homes for top dollar, even if they bought their house a year ago and then had to renegotiate. In general, the conversations are more positive with our clients than they are negative, and I hope that continues for the foreseeable future.

Ashley: 36:17

Yeah, that's awesome. I just a side note on kind of just. You know you talked about the micro here in Northeast Ohio and I also don't know where I found this, but if I find the source I'll put it in the show notes. I read an article about how, basically, akron is like a recession proof real estate market and how, like you know, literally like it, like people are continuing to rant through recessions. People are continuing to rant through recessions, people are continuing to buy through recessions here in Akron. Obviously, I know you talk more about Cleveland, but I forget what the article was. I'll see if I can find it. But same thing I mean homes prices. You know they haven't like drastically done anything, dropped or risen, like they're just, it's very stable, which I think is interesting.

Anna: 36:50

Yeah, I think so too. And you know the other thing too, just like you know with Ashley's experience this is Akron area, cleveland area are extreme, extremely attractive to investors. Uh, there's good and bad to that, but the good to that is that that just continues to bring more economic development to this city. Um, some now some investors are not improving the community and we want more investors here who are going to improve the home, the properties that they own and their tenants' quality of life. But that just continues to bring more interest, engagement to this area.

Anna: 37:27

We get calls I would say probably daily from people whose money is going to go so much further here than it is where they currently reside. Sometimes they just decide to invest in an investment property for that reason. But many people are also just making the move and they're just saying I think my quality of life is going to be better here, my investment is safer here. And I think, to Ashley's point, there's enough development and investment going on in Akron and in so many of the cities in the Cleveland area that that's why I don't think this is just a blip. I think this is a long-term trend and that's why I'm very, very bullish on the housing market here.

Ashley: 38:06

I love that. Anna, thank you so much for your time. I know you're a very busy lady doing all the things.

Anna: 38:11

Having all the children you know like where are they? You might have to edit out some of their laughs.

Sara: 38:17

No, I didn't hear them at all I was going to ask you. Yes, thank you so much, anna, and I think if we've learned one thing today, it's moved to Northeast Ohio and hit up, anna, I think it was last year.

Anna: 38:29

this year, like Cleveland, cincinnati and Columbus, were on the top three of the 10 hottest real estate cities in the entire country.

Ashley: 38:38

Yeah, I saw it was this year at the beginning of 24, they put that out, I think. Yeah, yeah.

Anna: 38:43

Crazy. Cleveland's been on it twice, I think and it's like, oh no, the secret's out. But like that's amazing, like that's so good for for the Midwest and for, obviously, your, your housing, your housing, yeah exactly Awesome.

Ashley: 38:56

Well, thank you so much, anna. Yeah, thank you, guys tuning in and we will catch you guys next week.

Sara: 39:10

Thanks for joining us for today's episode. We really appreciate the support. We would also really appreciate it if you hit the follow button and share this episode with anyone you think would enjoy it, and we'd like to thank Kevin Tanner, who edited this episode. If you're interested in learning more about him and his services, his website and Instagram are in the show notes.

Ashley: 39:28

With that, we'll see you next week.