Right on the Market: 2024 Housing Predictions | Revers Market Crash?

Celebrate with us as we knock it out of the park with our 2023 housing market predictions, bringing you a treasure trove of knowledge on why home prices keep climbing up, up, up! Joining me is Bryan Laflame from Movement Mortgage, as we lift the veil on Seattle's real estate scene to showcase the wonder of compound appreciation. We're not just about patting ourselves on the back; we're here to arm you with the insights you'll need to navigate the shifting sands of real estate and lending with absolute confidence.

As we dissect the stability and projected growth of the housing market, we'll unpack the effects of inventory ebbs and flows alongside the influence of those pesky rising mortgage rates. Whether you're a homeowner looking to play the long game with a 30-year fixed mortgage or a newbie to the market feeling jittery about affordability, our conversation is a must-listen. We're ready to bust myths, compare historical data with current trends, and guide you away from unwarranted crash fears into the realm of informed decision-making.

In our real estate services and client education spotlight, we pull back the curtain on the industry, revealing the nitty-gritty of property vetting and the high value of saving our clients' time. Technology is our sidekick here, revolutionizing traditional real estate processes with video walkthroughs and loan-matching magic. Plus, we tease our upcoming live online broadcast—chock-full of real-time wisdom you won't want to miss. Ready for a partner on your property journey or just in the market for some honest-to-goodness real estate chatter? Tune in, and let's unravel the mysteries of the market together.

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Explore through neighborhood vlog tours, city pros and cons videos, and get unmatched insights into relocating to the Greater Seattle area! Transition confidently with guidance from a native Realtor® who's eager to help you settle in your perfect home! 🔑

Whether you are moving in 9 days or 9 months, give us a call ☎, shoot us a text 📝, or send us an email 📨 so we can help you make a smooth move to the greater Seattle, WA area! 

Aaron Morrow Realtor Serving (King, Peirce, & Snohomish counties)
📱Call or Text: 206-451-3771
📨Email: aaronmorrow@livinginthegreaterseattlearea.com
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This is my Intro to every Podcast and YouTube video 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hey everyone, it's Aremaro here again and Brian Laflame, my Washingtonian, the Linder guy at Movement Mortgage. And again, I'm your local roater here in the Greater Seattle area and, as you can see from our thumbnail, I'll splash on the screen again. We were right, brian. What were we right about?

Speaker 2: 0:32

Well, according to my wife, nothing, nothing.

Speaker 1: 0:37

We were right about nothing, absolutely nothing.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Annual predictions of what's going on in the housing market and where we expected to go, and we were one of the only ones who were right for 2023 about what was going to happen with housing prices. There was a doom and gloom and crash, coming with rates high and the amount of appreciation that we'd had recently, and everybody said rates were going to go down or home prices are going to go down to five, eight, 10, 20 percent. Some people didn't happen. We told you it wouldn't happen. It didn't happen.

Speaker 2: 1:08

Yeah, couldn't make sense at all.

Speaker 2: 1:12

No, definitely not, Definitely not, and I can tell you through this podcast right now and thinking well, of course you guys are going to say housing prices are going to go down. You're real. You're a lender. I promise you we make the most amount of our living off honestly helping people. If we dishonestly help people, we have no chance of helping those people and their friends and families again. If the market was going to crash, we would tell you because people still need to buy and sell houses in the market. Crash we still. We had 3.7 million homes sold last year, 3.78 way down, but that's still 3.78 million. People who bought did a real estate transaction. We still need that. That's still our source of revenue for our businesses. So we honestly will tell you what the housing market is going to do and why.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Yeah, precisely that's. Absolutely correct. So no market crash incoming.

Speaker 2: 2:00

No, no, no we definitely had.

Speaker 1: 2:05

So I made a video last year. It was more of you know. Obviously it was. We were kind of in a slight correction as far as higher interest rates go. We definitely had a deceleration of price appreciation across the board.

Speaker 2: 2:21

Yeah, thank the gods.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Yes thank the gods that we did, because I mean, here's the thing if you look at the, I don't have the stats in front of me, so I'm just making up numbers here. But well, and they're not actually made up numbers, they're rough estimates. But if you look at, like, the 30 year average for the entire greater Seattle area, I think we're in Brian can he can fact check me on this if he knows the numbers, but I think they're roughly around it's about 4% appreciation on average for a 30 year period for just the greater Seattle area. Now, there's a lot that goes into that because every city has different price appreciation. Our team, actually we kind of geek out on the numbers and we could pull out appreciation charts that we have Excel spreadsheets on tracking the appreciation for specific cities on how they've been favoring and you know, in certain areas, like even in like 2019, right before COVID there's a lot of areas that there were actually some negative numbers.

Speaker 2: 3:30

Very slightly. Yeah, county has historical appreciation of 8.74% of the best five years. 7.72% were last 10 years and over the last 60% or 63 years, 5.75. So you're right on over the 30. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: 3:46

So, and here's the thing, I mean that 5% number two, like and I'm just being so, even my 4% number, being super conservative here, guys, like, still like, think about it, like when you own a house, that's like 500K, for instance, and then you have it, appreciate 4% on that. That's a good chunk of change, you know, and it's a hot thing.

Speaker 2: 4:07

I've got those numbers actually I'm going to do it at 5%. So if you have a house of 500,000 and appreciate is 5% for the year that's 525,000. Now you've made 25 grand. If it appreciates another 5% the next year it's not 550, it's 551, 250, because now it's 5% of 525. I think you know it's not a lot of people mistake when they do their math on it is this is compound appreciation. We don't go back to a base on a 500 and appreciate 5% and sometimes it's 4%, sometimes it's 8% and sometimes it's horribly 18%, and then we have a couple of two and 3% years after that to balance it out.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Yeah, exactly Precisely. And yeah, no great point, brian. Yeah, so, regarding that, back to what I was saying, what we saw recently, over the last year and again thank the gods was a deceleration in appreciation, because what happened over the pandemic was not the 30 year average or the 20 year average or even what happened in the 5 year average. That was crazy. What we saw in certain cities we were seeing a year over year price appreciation of over like 30% appreciation in certain cities and that was nuts. I mean, there were houses that, like in Kirkland for instance, I was seeing people on houses that were like just just at a million dollars. Right, we're not talking about multi million dollar properties, they're just that a million dollars or some even sub a million and people are making offers 300 K above list price and it's like and if you're from the Seattle area, first of all, a million dollars for a house in most of the country unbelievable a million dollars is starter.

Speaker 2: 5:54

For King County, Seattle, the average home price is over 900,000. Excuse me that average, the median home price is over 900,000. I have the numbers somewhere here. Yeah, the median house pricing King County, and no, no, no here it is 944 in Seattle and 885 five in King County.

Speaker 2: 6:19

So a million dollars in Kirkland. That's just above the median house price. So if you're watching this and you know some other part of the nation or some other part of the state, Aaron's not just saying just a million dollars. If it's just like in Kirkland, that's the true, that's the entry level and so people are going.

Speaker 1: 6:35

That's like an entry level. I can come in. Yeah, that's like an entry level, like first time home buyers, single family house Of course you can get a condo for less, you know, but like when you're looking at single family housing like an actual house, that's the barrier to entry, you know here's a little bit of a here's.

Speaker 2: 6:51

I wish juxtapose how different it can be between just Seattle and Tacoma. The median price for condo in Seattle is $583,000. The median price for a home in Pierce County, which is just the county south if you're not from here, just coming south of there is $524,900.

Speaker 1: 7:10

Yep.

Speaker 2: 7:11

For the single family house. That is the difference between these two places.

Speaker 1: 7:15

So that's how much farther in your buck goes, yep. Yeah, so much further if you want to drive a little bit, and that's why there's a lot of people that, over the years, have decided to move further and further out from Seattle and Belvedere, either more up north or more down south, to get more bigger and bigger thing for their buck.

Speaker 1: 7:39

I've had first time home buyers that started with condos. More they tried to be more centralized, closer to Seattle and Belvedere or even on the east side, and then they moved more down or more up as they started upgrading because they wanted more bang for their buck. That's what happened, yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:57

And the more established you get, the more you're able to do something like that. You're raising a family. You don't have to be as close to the city anymore. You can drive in, not at work. Maybe you have one of the spouses who stays home. You work different schedules, but that's either here or there. From somebody who grew up in South Tacoma, maybe you want to move north if you're going to move out of Seattle. Otherwise, this is the product of South Tacoma, so maybe you don't want to be moving too far south and raising your kids there, all right. So, Aaron, what do you think is going to happen in 2024 in the local Seattle area market?

Speaker 1: 8:35

Oh man. Well, again, we keep saying some of this stuff, but I feel like we keep getting different viewers that keep popping in at different stuff on different episodes, so I might be repeating some of myself. But again I will say since interest rates have started to go down back down slowly again, I think, as interest rates continue to drop, we are going to continue to see competition increase in the home. More home buyers are going to come out of the woodwork. We are already seeing more home buyers take advantage of coming back out.

Speaker 1: 9:12

I've already had more conversations with home buyers that sideline themselves last year or a year and a half ago, that just felt like they could not afford the higher interest rates that are even thinking okay, you know what? I see that we're on a downward trend with the interest rates right now. I want to get into purchasing right now as they're going down before they get to the point where everyone already has thought of this and everyone's out there looking again, because those same buyers that I'm talking to were ones that actually started on the tail end of the pandemic and then sidelined themselves. So like they already know what the pandemic level competition looked like and they don't want to deal with that again.

Speaker 2: 10:06

You know what I mean Okay, yeah, so I want to talk about that a bit the pandemic level competition and it's coming back with rates in the fives and sixes, not rates in the twos. Yeah, it just is. We are starting out. We started out 2023 with about 80% more inventory than we started 2022 with. By the middle of 2023, 2022's inventory had eclipsed 2023s. So we went down an inventory precipitously. We've come back up as rates have continued to go up. When they hit 8%. That's an inventory driver, not inventory. It doesn't take inventory away.

Speaker 2: 10:43

But the greatest hedge I think most people care about is housing prices going up, continue to go up. Rates being high, it's going to be unaffordable. I can't afford a house I wish I would have bought when it was. The greatest hedge against inflation is a 30 year fixed mortgage. Your housing costs are set. They will go up gradually with taxes and maybe homeowners insurance will go up a bit, but they're set. They're not going to go up like rent will go up. I was teaching a homebuyer class last weekend and one of the people said to me my rent has gone up 20% in the last three years. So the competition is there. But I promise you, the people that won out in the COVID competition are happy that they did.

Speaker 2: 11:24

People calling for real estate crash Okay, let's say that happens. You still have to live somewhere. You still have to live inside. The real estate crash that happened in 2008, 9, 10, 11 and bottomed out in 12 was due to unaffordable mortgages, so people putting people in mortgages they could not afford and therefore those people foreclosed on those homes. That's not what this is. Now these people are in 30 year fixed mortgages. America is the most conservative mortgage generation in the world. The Dodd-Frank Act made sure of that. So even if the market does crash which it's not going to, which we have the data to show that it just can't, it simply can't, and less and less. For some reason, we build 7 billion homes tomorrow. If we can build 6 million homes this year, then perhaps we'll have a dent in it, but that's not going to happen. So, even if the market crashes, your housing cost is set. Yeah, If rates go down, your housing cost can go down. If rates go up, guess what doesn't go up? Your cost of housing.

Speaker 1: 12:25

Your cost of housing.

Speaker 2: 12:27

Whatever happens to the equity position you have in your home, your cost of housing doesn't go down.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Agreed. It's a fixed mortgage. It doesn't go up. I think that's what people need to understand and I think there's this whole, it's the whole demystifying it. That's the whole reason there's so many solutions to the whole, excuses of not buying due to just the fear of a market crash. Find a home that the numbers work now on the loan and that you're okay with being in for the next foreseeable future. Like find a home that you're okay with, like worst case scenario for the next 10 years. Like find a home that you're okay with being in a decade. Write that out if you need to, because that's going to be better than your. How is that not any? How is that not more secure than any type of or at least for 99% of renters situations out there?

Speaker 2: 13:37

You control your own destiny there. You have to live inside. You're not going to get somewhere. I mean, if you're going to wait for the market to crash, are you going to be able to time the bottom? Did you time the top of this market? It hasn't topped yet. Also, in 74 of the past 82 years, real estate has risen on average of over 5%. And a lot of people say, well, we just came out of a really big real estate run up and so of course, it has to go down. We had 10% of appreciation in 2020, 19% of appreciation in 2021.

Speaker 2: 14:08

During I'm going to put some context to that yeah, go ahead, as we talked about did. If real estate prices fall, your housing is fixed and in between 1943 and 1947, housing prices compounded 118%. That's insane. So obviously they went down the next year or they went up for 43 straight years after that 118% compounding, and then, inside of that time where they had housing prices continued to go up, from 74 to 79, prices compounded 93%. They went up for 10 years in a row before they fell by 1% in 1990 and then another 14 years after that. So, yes, real estate prices did go up.

Speaker 2: 14:58

Yes, we wish we would have bought in 2018. Yes, we wish we would have bought every single house we could in 2011. But we didn't, and real estate prices are set to continue to go up for a few reasons. One, inventory constraints are still here. New home construction actually increased, eclipsed resale construction in meeting house price for the first time in 40 some years, because the real new construction supply but even new construction supply we put on the house. We had about 1.4, 1.5 million completions this last year. That's still about five to 600,000 fewer than the household formations that were brought on to the market. So the people that needed to buy and rent 2 million plus more were added in 2023. New homes that were put on the market less than 1.5 million.

Speaker 2: 15:49

Nine out of the past 10 years we've had more people come into the market than we've had homes that we've built for them, and so it just keeps exacerbating that problem. We went from the whole 5 million homes sold in 2022 to 3.78 million homes sold in 2023. Housing prices still went up over 5%. So we have 1.2 million less fewer transactions. Housing prices still went up. We don't have the things to sell people and we have way too many people to whom we're trying to sell. So that's the thing I want you guys, if you're watching this, to keep in mind. The mathematics, the data of it all shows. This is where the market is going. We can choose to get on board or we can choose to click on the click baby. So if it bleeds, it leads the market's going to fall by 15%, 20%. These people have said it every single year since 2012.

Speaker 1: 16:37

And that doesn't matter for the majority of the people that are interested in listening to that stuff, because I'll tell you why. Think about an actual, true market crash, if it happens, and think about back to 2008, when it did. Who are the biggest players that can take advantage of a market crash? It's not you, the home buyer or potential home buyer that's struggling right now, thinking about trying to buy a house and trying to afford to get into a mortgage and thinking maybe the monthly payments are a little bit too high, etc. Etc. Maybe the interest rates are a little bit too high. Competition is crazy right now. It's the people that could make cash offers and these investors that can have, these deeper pocket investors that can just buy up everything and gobble up the market. When, if a market true, a market crash happens, they come in with their cash and they can just start nabbing stuff up. That makes the most sense for them. You really can't compete with that as a first time home buyer.

Speaker 2: 17:46

It happened with home builders after the crash of 2008. That's what happened with home builders.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Yeah, it's even in a buyer's market, even when it flips, in that situation, if you come across a cash buyer that is competing against you, you're not gonna win that fight and you have to go for a different house. Now, I mean, you're still, I mean, in any market. Work with you know this isn't doom and gloom in any market. You're ever in foreseeable. You should be working with an agent that can get you to the finish line and get home right, yeah, but we're talking about this mythical market that's May, never, ever, ever, ever, probably most likely will never come and we're hedging our bets against it, you know, but like only time that this crash has any Any opportunity to exist as post 2030, when the youngest of baby boomers are either moving out to assisted living in mass or, unfortunately, passing away.

Speaker 2: 19:01

It's a huge generation of people that will be leaving housing behind, but that is, at best, going to start in 2030. So are you gonna wait another six years for it to start and then just get it on the start of that market, or you gonna? Are you gonna? Are you gonna make the decision that's best for yourself and the best to investigate it right now?

Speaker 1: 19:20

That's the only way we can get in change.

Speaker 1: 19:23

Yeah, for sure, for sure. But yeah, I think, brian, you were dead on with all of your 2023 predictions, heading into 2024. It's happened. How it's played out, you know, I, I bet you 20 bucks again. It's gonna play out how we've already predicted for this year. We'll keep watching it. We'll see how it goes.

Speaker 1: 19:45

I've been talking to I just showed a buyer this morning in Everett. It's kind of an interesting scenario. So it's a house that's, I Would say, not quite in the first time home buyer range forever, but maybe, like, maybe a little bit on the higher end because it's like in the under care range, you know. So it's pushing it up there, but, like a first-time home buyer probably can get into that depending. You know what I mean. Like some first-time buyers might say that's in my budget and some might not. You know, because, like this first-time home buyer that I'm working with, her Price range for that range is anywhere from probably, like she's looking anywhere from six to nine, you know, but this was still pushing it and when we're looking at it, it's interesting. So this house has been on the market for eight days.

Speaker 1: 20:32

I'm the thing that we're finding in this situation Because, like ever, it's not as for that price range it's not as hot right for that price range as, let's say, if you were to find a million dollar property in Kirkland or find a you know a $5,000 property in rent in, or you know there's different Activity levels in different cities around the greater Seattle area Depending on the entry level right for for the area. But so for this house it's been on the market for eight days and I was wondering. I was like, well, I wonder why it wasn't have. So they actually had two decently solid offers on it, but the seller hasn't moved forward on it and the first offer was contingent. What that means is the buyer that made the offer on it they also have a property that they need to sell and it wasn't contingent upon them being pending, they just listed right. So that's like fairly risky and I get it.

Speaker 1: 21:35

I, as a listing agent, probably wouldn't want to go that. I wouldn't want to go for that as my first option. Second option or second buyer just made an offer on this property two days ago and they it was again full price. So both of these offers full price and but this, this offer, it was a full price offer that had an inspection contingency, which again, like people are like yeah, no brainer, inspection contingency right and For the whole last year that has been kind of more the norm. That's come back. That's a normal thing to throw those back in there.

Speaker 1: 22:20

And you know I am a huge advocate for my buyers to have an inspection. I am not. You know. My buyers need to have an inspection From the listing standpoint, it with their listing team that had they, they paid for theirs or they had their seller have the pre-inspection. So from their side, in their point of view, if they've had the pre-inspection they provided it they want this, the buyer, to do their homework up front, to not have that contingency and play in the deal. So yeah, so they're, they're figuring that out on the side while the property is still available. And that's why the property was still available eight days for us to still go see it. Because when I put this in front of my buyer eight days ago my buyer is like great, I want to go look at it but I can't for a whole week.

Speaker 1: 23:13

So I was like I don't know if it's gonna still be available. So I was. I was actually surprised that we were able to still keep the showing today. I booked it and I'm like I will tell you a couple of days beforehand and keep track to see if the showings good, and I'll call the listing agent the night before to make sure that everything's still good, and Lo and behold, this is the whole story up to it. Anyways, long story short, the property is not for her but like I just thought it was interesting that that's kind of going on within that price range.

Speaker 1: 23:46

Again, it's a hit or miss because I'm seeing some other houses where they, you know, have another buyer that's looking in it arguably a even a less competitive market than ever. It's even more north like and it's actually one of our buyers together um in up in like Marysville, arlington area, and that's more in the entry level price point. I think it's she's looking, they're looking between four to five. Yeah, there's been a few houses that go within 23 hours. So, like you know, it's just hit or miss all across the board where you're looking. So we're just keeping track of all that and I think buyers just need to be Uh, with an agent that they're light on their feet. They're looking at the statistics and figuring out what works for them.

Speaker 2: 24:37

You know Well people ask me often why do I even need a realtor? And that's a normal question because we have painted realtors as a quarter family selling sunset. You know it's. It's a job. People know about my think.

Speaker 2: 24:50

A Uh, during really good times there's a lot of people real estate agents but there's no way a layman would have got the information on that one house. That one was contingent, one had an inspection contingency, but the sellers that are done a pre-inspection and this is why it's going to be available. What has been missed? No way that you're going to have that information going in to negotiate.

Speaker 2: 25:07

If the house had been for her, if you don't have an agent on your side like that, if you don't have somebody who's advocate for you, knows what's question to ask, has a good reputation in the market, so, like that, as you were saying, all the stuff that you had done, just like it's a normal part of your job, I'm gonna keep watching it, I'm gonna call the agent beforehand, I'm gonna have the whole store before you go see the house. That's just you doing your job. But that's things that when people walk up to an open house so they see a home on zillow and they contact an agent To show them the house, and they have no idea what goes into that for the good ones.

Speaker 1: 25:40

Well, and I think I think it's switching it's service. It's definitely a service-based industry, but it's it's a niche of really finding clients that Are like I need to hire a full-time Go get her agent that's gonna go to bat for me, that's looking for these off-market deals, that's hunting, that's negotiating for me and is doing the homework. And then that's what I educate my buyers on and advise them on. So, like I am a big At my heart, it's I'm a heart of an educator and I tell my clients the biggest thing is we do all the homework up front. So then we are eliminating a ton of properties before we even go see them and it saves our and it's not for, it's not for me, it's not like me to save me from wasting my time. It's I'm valuing my clients time and I don't want them to have to drive out to a ton of properties that wouldn't have worked for them. You know.

Speaker 1: 26:40

So, like, for instance, that one client that I was talking about in Arlington, I know specifically that They've expressed to me the things that they're looking for and it's not just a prop. You know they want property that either has the garage or they need a property that they can build a garage on. So if they're looking at something that doesn't come with the garage, I know it's super important to them that that property needs to most likely be able to build that Garage on there. So if I'm looking at a property, I'm going to do my best to figure out If that can probably get done ahead of time. Now there's only so much that you can do, but, like there's things that you can be blatantly obvious about. So, like those are just questions. It's as simple as like sometimes just asking the listing agent.

Speaker 1: 27:29

So like, in that that situation I saved us time driving up to granite falls one day for a Sunday showing, just to say because I found out that we couldn't build a garage in the front yard because, um, both the well and the septic and the septic's drainfield were all in the front yard. So there was nothing that we could do with the property, and not only that, half of it was in a flood zone. So, like there was nothing that could be done with the property. So even though, like, it was this shiny object at first, you know it saved it, saved the client's time and saved me time, you know. So like, ultimately it's just making the most efficient use of my, our client's time. So, like I always tell my clients, these are the things that we're doing up front and at the bare minimum let's just double check to make sure that this property can probably go with your loan type too.

Speaker 1: 28:26

You know that sometimes usually comes more into play also with the condos, you know if they're like going FHA, um, but still, you know, if I'm seeing something looks pretty rough, like I want to even know like, can this even pass conventional? Like, like I want to know that before, like I waste the client's time driving If I know they're like 45 minutes away from something I don't.

Speaker 1: 28:50

I don't want them to have to see it if it's iffy, if, if it's like 99, sure it can't, you know, go through, you know. So those are just the things I'm looking for up front before to set them up, uh, for success, and ultimately it saves them so much more time not having to see a bunch of uh, wild goose, chases, stuff, you know.

Speaker 2: 29:13

It takes some time and saves them emotional capital, because buying real estate is incredibly emotional and it should be. Get the mortgage part done, do you go through the rationality of the numbers? And then you get to be excited about buying a house and if you have an agent who doesn't know those sorts of things, that you can't do this thing that you want to do With the house because of things that are underground how how would a normal person know that? Then you run the risk of getting excited and comparing every other house, this one that you cannot have, and it can really taint the experience for you.

Speaker 1: 29:40

Right, yeah, and you know what? And here's the thing, I'm always honing in on my craft and learning more, and I'm learning from other agents that I work with too. So like christie, for instance, on our team. So like what I was doing, like I pride myself in trying to go Like again, above and beyond for any client, whether they're domestic or relocation based. You know, because we get a lot of relocation based peeps from linkedin and social media and youtube.

Speaker 1: 30:07

But one service that we provide them, and also our Local peeps that are too busy to actually go see the properties themselves, is I like to. If there's a property that we need to rule out, sometimes, I'll go preview it first for them and do like a with I got to get permission from the listing agent but do a video walk through for them, because a lot of times they're not video, they're not available for a live video, so I'll do a recording with permission for the listing agent. Um, the old way that I was doing it was I was recording it and uploading it as a private video on my YouTube channel instead of on the link, cause I just I didn't know that there was any other, better ways and that was working, like for my clients that was totally working.

Speaker 1: 30:50

But then Christie pointed out just a much easier app that I could use, which Marko Polo, cause that's like a text-based communication app, where you're in a communication thread that you can just All little video. That's Shoot the video and it's uploading it at the same time, and then you can follow the thread.

Speaker 2: 31:08

I take kids all the time. I love it.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Super easy and I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't know why it was, and then it's there. Then I don't have to worry about it. Now I can drive to the next property and not worry about waiting for upload later.

Speaker 2: 31:18

So it's just like yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:20

There's things that I'm always tweaking and like getting better at, but like the intent is always to make sure that I'm providing the absolute best service I can for the client and always getting better, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:32

Yeah, and if you're a real estate agent, watching on our social medias or listening on the podcast, you know that that's not everybody. I talk clients all the time. Aaron and I were talking earlier about our level of production at a little flame group in relation to the rest of the nation and it's up there. But what that gives us the opportunity to do is work with hundreds of agents a year and I'm telling you, if you're looking to hire agent, not everybody has that on their mind all the time. How can I get better for my clients? How can I get more efficient for them? How can I get them one step ahead? How can I get them $1 off? How can I help them? And that is always on Aaron's mind.

Speaker 1: 32:09

Oh, absolutely, I mean. I just say it with Brian, though, like I love, I will say this because I work with I've worked with a ton of lenders and I still work with multiple lenders. Brian is one of my favorites. He's one of the best, and we One of One of. Yeah, one of I got to throw that in for legal purposes.

Speaker 2: 32:31

We're going to edit out that one of in post.

Speaker 1: 32:35

In post production. Wrap that up? No, but like I love doing so, like Brian, we do our Zoom meetings with his team to really walk the client through not only to not only the financials and the homebuying side of it. So then the homebuyer will get a complete picture of how this process will work before we even get out there looking at houses. And it's one thing that I love that we team up so well on in like I don't even know if I'm using, I make up words, but synchronicity synchronization, synchronicity, you're right.

Speaker 1: 33:15

Synchronicity. You know what I mean. But yeah, so yeah, and you know we're always looking for feedback and that's one of the feedbacks we've gotten from our clients that we've partnered with that they enjoy. That has helped a lot is when we combine those meetings and kind of hit it as a bunch of punch and they get the full picture. You know, Zoom is a big deal for us, especially when you can join.

Speaker 2: 33:40

It's amazing because this is such an incredibly important time for people with either their first, maybe their second or, at best, their third and maybe a couple of more that they've done in their life. And you know, Aaron and I are not so arrogant to think that we could do your job day one, that we could step in and do everything that you do the first day. But we really expect that of you because you're making lifelong choices based off very new information that Aaron and I are giving you, and so we're big on Zoom calls and big on the handholding communication aspect of like this can be either a very fearful time if you're left alone to go at it pretty much your own on your own, or it can be an incredibly memorable and wonderful time if you've got a good team there, that you feel safe around and know that they're gonna over explain and that you're never gonna feel dumb for asking a question.

Speaker 2: 34:26

Look at the two of us. You can't. I mean you can't be. You're already the smartest person in the room when you were there and you're fine.

Speaker 1: 34:34

And the humblest. I mean not the yeah, anyways.

Speaker 2: 34:41

You just proved my point.

Speaker 1: 34:42

Yeah, I did, anyway, call me. Anyways, what I was gonna say is that, yeah, we always, I always saw clients that I always leave every conversation trying to remind them what the next step is, so then they never have to leave that conversation wondering what they had to do next or what they should do next. They're always gonna have that reminder. And then it's also why I really tried to build up a lot of these videos that I've thrown on a YouTube playlist for my clients to send them, of basically answering the most common questions they have about the home buying process. So then that's there.

Speaker 1: 35:20

Out of back Cause, I know I do have clients that I've had text me at like two in the morning that I've been sleeping Like so I don't, I don't see it till I wake up, but then I get a follow up text. Oh, aaron, I remembered you had you sent me that link to that playlist. Thank you, you had an answer to blah, blah, blah. So, like, like, there are people that like are just wondering, like what I told them was the next step. You know, and they'll get emails from us and text messages that tell them like we are trying to help them in every way possible to make sure we are holding their hand every which way besides physically through the process. You know what I mean and you know it's great I don't know.

Speaker 1: 36:10

It's good, it's rewarding, it's fun and, yeah, I think so. 2024, it's going to be interesting, I think, for people that are listening, that are thinking maybe this is your year to look into home ownership, even nationwide. Whether you're local or nationwide, reach out to us because we will introduce you to who you need to be connected to locally to get the process started wherever you are, to make sure you are on the track of home ownership correctly. And yeah, we just we want to see you succeed. We will, we're your cheerleaders. Like we want to see you get into home ownership because we're tired of seeing too many people get stuck in the rental cycle that want out.

Speaker 1: 36:54

If you want in and you're like I don't want to buy because I like the freedom of renting and keep moving and stuff, that's fine, like, honestly, buying is not for you. If you're someone that wants to resell every year and move somewhere else, like that's expensive, like doing that, like that is it costs money to buy and sell property, so like, don't be doing it. If, even if you're like doing it every two years, unless you've made a significant amount of money on appreciation, it's usually not worth it. So, like you know, look at the numbers and like, if you're someone, that's like I'm gonna be I like moving into a new. I enjoy moving into a new place every year or so.

Speaker 1: 37:39

Renting is probably more yourself. So like and you know this if you're listening to this, like you know it, like you don't need me to be telling you this. But for those out there that are like wondering, like I'd like to stay in one place for at least five years and not see my rent increase and have something that I own and be able to do whatever I want to my home and all that, let's see here. Oh, we have a comment from a LinkedIn. Let's see here. Again, I believe it's Desha. Sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong, desha, but you said hi, just joined. Okay, let me throw it on.

Speaker 2: 38:19

Hey Desha.

Speaker 1: 38:20

Ryan can see it. Hey, Desha, so just joined. Did I miss the portion around refinancing? I bought in 2023 in DC and I'm hoping to refinance Okay.

Speaker 2: 38:30

All right, I got you Desha and this is you not me.

Speaker 2: 38:32

Yep, I anticipate refinances to go up about 60% next year In volume. I anticipate purchases to go up about 2% to 3%. That's going to be about a 12% increase in just mortgage activity, and other activity is going to go up as well. So, yes, you did not miss the portion about refinancing. Refinancing can be absolutely the right call for you. What I would do is I would call the real estate agent that sold you the home.

Speaker 2: 39:00

If you still have a good relationship with your lender, call that person. If you don't remember your lender, or if you use like Rocket Mortgage or some online lender, call your realtor, ask them who they use and set up a consultation now. You're going to want to look at where your rates are, where your options are and when it might make sense, so you're ready to pull the trigger when it's time to pull the trigger. Do not wait until it is the time to refinance, because a couple of things will happen.

Speaker 2: 39:24

The lender you're working with is probably going to be super busy and you want to make sure that they have time to set up for you, and you want to make sure that the market fluctuates daily and a minute, an hour, an hour, and sometimes we have different rates throughout the day. We always have different rates day to day, but sometimes, even throughout the day, rates change. So when you hit the target that you need, you want your lender ready to lock it in so that you don't lose it. So make a connection now. Sit down, even if now's not the tender refi. If it happens in March, maybe it happens in December, or maybe it happens in 2025. Your specific situation will be different, but set it up now.

Speaker 1: 40:01

Thanks, Brian. Yeah, hopefully that answered your question, Desha, and Desha, if you have any more questions. For Brian again, I know he's local to Washington, but if you ever just want to pick his brain after the livestream, since you're on LinkedIn, his contact information I'm going to be pinning in the comments below on the livestream after we are done live here, when we're wrapping up in probably 10 minutes or so. So good, Thanks for joining.

Speaker 2: 40:28

Yeah, thanks, Desha.

Speaker 1: 40:30

Yeah, she says thank you. So, yes, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for joining. Hopefully maybe it's around your lunch break or something so awesome Good.

Speaker 2: 40:41

Hopefully it's on your happy hour time, Desha, it's gonna come up on Thursday. Yeah, happy hour. Yeah, On a Friday it's happy hour time.

Speaker 1: 40:46

Yeah, happy hour time on a Friday.

Speaker 2: 40:48

Day 15 for you, Desha.

Speaker 1: 40:50

Yeah, I, oh gosh. Yeah, I forgot to watch on DC. Yeah, perfect man, I forgot where it was in my brain.

Speaker 2: 40:58

We were talking about where we see the market going. I'm gonna say I'm gonna go my predictions out there. I think we're going up four to 6% in real estate prices. Inventory is gonna be constrained as rates get down into the fives. New home new weekly new listings will continue to rise, but actual inventory will continue to fall as those houses will get sucked up pretty quickly and we're gonna have multiple offers and fewer price concessions. We already have price concessions or not price concessions price drops. So an average market has nationwide not speaking of Seattle area, but nationwide has price drops of around 36%. So about 36% of homes go on the market and then drop the price and then are sold. We're trending right now around 30, 31%. So that means that buyers are saying that this market is here to stay, and so I think that we're gonna continue to constrain inventory as more people come on the market.

Speaker 2: 41:50

And I'm gonna give you a little bit of the reason why. We talked about it in a podcast a couple of weeks ago. This is why lower rates do not lead to more inventory, even though they lead to more sellers. So I said, we'll have more new listing data every week. So more new listings every week and we'll have less inventory. What happens with people who have a 3, 4, 5% mortgage is, as rates get down to a place where they think they can take action and they're fine with taking maybe a little bit higher payment, or they have a few hundred thousand dollars in equity and they can move into this move up house that they really wanted, this move down house that they really need, depending on their station and life, how the kids are, what the job is, everything. They're gonna put the house in the market. That adds to new weekly listing data, but they're also gonna buy a house that's on the market and so that takes away from the inventory.

Speaker 2: 42:35

They're in net zero as rates come down and millions and millions and millions and more people qualify. First time home buyers make up over one third of the market. First time home buyers mortgage their property at a 93% clip. So 93% of first time home buyers take out a mortgage to buy and that means that they are incredibly interest rate sensitive. So what we have is a ton of buyers who do not have a house to put on the market coming in to take a house off the market and that is gonna continue to push prices up. It just can't not. We have about I'd say about having another math on it, but just quick back in the napkin math. We've got about 60% more new home permits and starts than we had this time last year, but it's still woefully low for the amount of people that we have coming into the market. So new home construction is not gonna go to keep up with that demand. It'll keep. It won't fall back quite as quickly, but it will still continue to move backwards relative to demand.

Speaker 1: 43:34

So those are my predictions and the why's Right exactly, man, you threw a lot in there and I'd say ditto to basically all of it.

Speaker 2: 43:46

We almost said it all at the same time. We almost jinxed each other.

Speaker 1: 43:48

Yeah, I'm gonna, yeah, basically I'm gonna say ditto to all of it and then I will just add specificity to the competitiveness.

Speaker 1: 43:57

I feel like what we're gonna see because you said inevitability of going sub six is inevitable and when we do, I think that's when we're gonna start seeing, because we're already seeing on certain properties again, the whole waving the inspection creep back in there and, like you said, fewer and fewer concessions and we're gonna start seeing.

Speaker 1: 44:28

It hasn't been as crazy or as normal, but they're still out there right now the escalation clauses and the multiple offers, but we're gonna see this be the norm again when we're sub six and we might even this is a might because, like, I have no clue because honestly, it was a first time for me of being a road tourer for a decade and it was a first for my team owners, for this is the first time they've ever seen in the road series careers and one of my team owners have been doing it for over 35 years but the whole additional down payment form and waving the appraisal, that may or may not happen, possibly in some areas, especially maybe on the East side or in some more competitive markets where people maybe some of the tech areas where people have more of the money to possibly start throwing those back in their offers. If there are multiple offer situations, we might see some of that again as we go sub six into the mid to low fives. Who?

Speaker 2: 45:39

knows.

Speaker 1: 45:40

I mean, we'll see what happens. Is it going to be this year? We'll, we'll see, um, but I've never seen it happen before. And now that it's gone again, I'm like Whoa, wasn't that crazy Like I. I feel like I, man, I wish I prepped it. But that whole meme from anchor man where he's like whoa, that escalated quickly. That's how the whole Covid or that's how the whole pandemic market felt. I was like it's just got nuts out of nowhere. Where did this all come from? You know, yeah, everybody shut down everybody's scared.

Speaker 2: 46:14

To Money is so cheap, to everybody's buying houses and refinancing, to inflation's out of control, to like extremes of everything and getting back to some normalcy that we've had which this is the extreme, with how fast rates went up post inflation Like getting back to any sort of normalcy is going to make requires to deregulate or to Reregulate. Excuse me, our nervous system of like okay, we're fine here, but I don't think that that's going to happen yet. I think we have nothing to sell people and people are so pent up With this housing demand of waiting for rates to fall down. Um, and as they start to crest downward, people are going to start moving in and moving in and moving in. I think it's going to be just like what you said.

Speaker 1: 46:55

Yep exactly. So hey, again one more time, if any of you uh qr codes up there. Wait this way. Yeah, this way.

Speaker 1: 47:03

There is screens mirrored right up there qr code. If you want to reach out or comment section below you can reach out to brian or I. We'd love to chat with you, especially if you're looking to buy locally anywhere in washington. But again, hey, you know what if you're not here and you just need to strategize and you want us to connect you with the right folks? We have a nationwide network of people that we know like and trust that have done great job, um, anywhere in the united states. So we would love to make a good referral.

Speaker 1: 47:35

Uh, I call it the homey hookup, but you know, uh, basically anyone can. We can connect you nationwide and make sure that we are your biggest cheerleaders and we will keep tabs to make sure that um, who we're referring is doing a great job for you. And you know that, uh, we see you get into home ownership because it's important to us. So please reach out to us again. Um, air maro, greater seattle roater. I work primarily with locally. Personally, I work with clients king pierce, noamish counties, buyers and sellers. Brian doesn't really work with sellers all that much because he's a.

Speaker 2: 48:12

Yeah, we help. We help sellers when they're trying to negotiate or trying to uh in the broader picture, but it's mostly buyers. Call anything.

Speaker 1: 48:19

Yes, you know what here's the cool thing, though, about brian he works with the sellers because he's been working with the sellers before they became sellers, because he's been working with them as home owners Throughout their whole journey of home ownership before they became a seller, you know. So that's the cool thing about brian. But anyways, brian laflame, movement, mortgage, awesome, the lender, the mortgage guy I keep throwing out just these Random titles for him, but he's a lender, he's a cool lender here in washington and in, or again, yeah, washingtonian and oragonian, or oragonian, just got licensed there too, because he had enough demand clients sending him that one.

Speaker 1: 49:06

Yeah, that's good. So, anyways, thanks again for joining our live stream. I'll remind you one more time, everyone who's. We're multi streaming on all platforms. So we're on tick Uh. Well, you're seeing this on uh, either youtube, which is primarily where it's streamed from, but then it's simulcasted to facebook, linkedin, instagram, twitter and clapper, which all of you are probably like. What is that? Even tick tock? I forgot. Sorry, tick tock people.

Speaker 2: 49:36

Um, so that's that's right. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1: 49:40

That's where probably my biggest follower count is. Anyways, uh, that's where we are at. So again, if you have any questions, please reach out to us. We will be again in live next friday. We stay tuned. We don't even know what we're talking about yet, but you'll, you'll see, you'll see, I'm gonna see to us at all.

Speaker 2: 49:56

You know we never know what we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 49:58

Yeah, and usually, usually we'll be talking about like five minutes about what we were talking about and then we kind of go off. But you know what? Everything we're talking about is super helpful information. So just join us, just be along for the journey. You know what I mean? Um, but yeah, and then 11 30 ish, pacific Uh standard time, because we're not in daylight savings time yet, and then, when that happens, will be in pdt time. You know when we go in pdt, but right now we're in psd, right? Yeah, yeah, brine's like never knew that the more you know. All right, guys. Well, thanks so much for joining. Again, we work with clients all the time, so reach out to us and we would love to help you out. All right, see you guys.