Well, the news just gets worse and worse.  We find out that interest rates have risen again, that gas prices have risen again, inflation is the worst in 40 years, food prices are through the roof, and now, if we can get the things we need, they will have experienced ‘shrink-flation’.  Have you heard that term?

It means that bread slices will be so small they’ll be like crackers…or so it will seem.  They’ve already shrunk way below what they once were, so we’ll see.  Packages of dried beans will look like a bag of M&Ms, a can of tuna will be teensy…you get the idea.  But you’ll PAY the same…or more.  

Lenders are laying off personnel because loan applications are down and real estate agents will see progress for buyers slow or even stop. Many new agents will not be able to make it in the biz at all.  And buyers will drop out of the purchases.  Sharp rises in rates make a huge difference in payment and ability to qualify for the loan in the FIRST place.  You know I’m already riled up about my first time buyers and first time move-up buyers, most of whom are pushed out of the market altogether.

Listen, I TRY to find positive in everything I can, and in this situation I realize that this will pass.  It has to.  Meanwhile the agenda to save the planet seems to be hurting everyone except the wealthy.   You know, the enemy of the state who don’t pay taxes, we’re told?   Who can afford an electric car?  Oh THOSE people.  And we pay for the electric charging stations they use for free.  Think about this stuff.  Solar panels, windmill farms, electric cars won’t matter if people are starving or done in by astronomical crime increases.  If I wanted to take over a population with my military might, this is how I would do it.  Just like what is happening.  But I digress.

I realize that the ‘news’ is sensational, that things are never as bad as the ‘news’ would have us believe, and at least for now, I’m okay.  Still there are some things hitting me in the face every time I open my refrigerator or go to the dreaded grocery store…or God forbid, fill up my car with gas.  Having said all of that, let me encourage you to consider these things:

1. Amazon is here, with all of the employees having bought or trying to buy homes.
2. Google is here, with all of the employees having bought or trying to buy homes.
3. Facebook, excuse me, META, is coming, with all of the employees trying to buy homes.
4. The aircraft manufacturing plant is coming, with some portion of 1800 planned employees, needing homes.
5. Interest rates be damned, people have to have homes.  
6. We could all stand to stop eating so much we are an obese society.  So maybe we cut back.
7. I wish I could get solar power, but I’m in a townhouse.  But I’m thinking about that little issue.  Right now, no dice.
8. Last year we had 70 people every DAY coming here to find a place to live….It’s gotta be more now.  
9. We are in holiday doldrums…that’s between Memorial Day and July 4.
10. My cats don’t seem to notice any of this stuff.
11. My interest rate was I THINK 17% when I bought my first home, and I had perfect credit.  BUT home prices were reasonable, too.

What I am saying is that homes will still be bought.  The problem for my first time buyers is that there is NO PRODUCT they can begin to afford.  What a travesty that a first-time home has a 4 in the first number on average and a THREE on the low end.  That’s just crazy.  

Try to think of a way to get into a home even WITH rising rates, and don’t lose hope.  That’s the worst thing to do.  I talked about creative problem solving once before; we’re going to have to do that.  And don’t swallow all of the panic that’s being pumped onto us right now.  That’s on purpose, and we don’t need that on top of everything else.

I got up early.  Thanks cats.  I have the most comfy throw I use to cover up with at night and my cats confiscate it during the night.  I wake up chilly and cramped into a small corner of the bed and my cats? Well they look INCREDIBLY comfy and snoozy on my little velvet throw.  Warms my heart.  You cat people know exactly what I mean.

But I’m up.  Up before 5 today, and cleaning out ONE THOUSAND emails from my iCloud account. Unsubscribe to one, ten more rush in.  It’s open borders even in the email world.  But you know, you can’t help but read the titles, no matter how hard you try not to, and that gets you thinking.  Oh, it gets about 15% of us thinking.  The rest are just mules on the cart path it seems.

OH HOW CAN I SAY THAT???  Wellllll, here’s how. (here I go again).  I heard a talking head (one of the 80 percent) on the ‘news’ hack hack hack cough cough, saying that “Americans are taking the economy in stride.”  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  If that’s true, the smooth brains have actually taken over completely.

I’m not taking any of this crap in stride.  I don’t use OTHER PEOPLES’ MONEY to make ends meet; I use my own.  It’s just me, what I EARN by working.  So no, there’s no taking anything in stride.  PARTICULARLY because this is senseless, deliberately inflicted pain on the middle class by a bunch of greedy entitled assholes.  They’re millionaires many times over, and nah, they don’t really know how we feel.  How could they?  Most of them have never hit a lick at real work in their entire 110 years in politics.  Don’t get me started on that. You know how it is when you see your bank account bump up…remember those days?  It’s a good feeling.  Imagine how you would feel when it bumps up by several hundred thousand a day because you have stock in the company (pharma, renewable energy) that you are forcing people to use.

Is there anybody else in the room here?  Does anybody out there look beyond the end of the nose and actually think about things?  At all?  Oh yeah, all of the smooth brains rushing to get into politics.  THOSE folks get it.  That’s the reason to get into “government” now.  Get elected, take your money.

The middle class are the backbone of America.  We are the workers, we are the consumers. And we’re as gullible as two year olds.  And the puppet masters love that about us.  Once we fall, America falls. That’s elementary.  Better start using that gray stuff inside your skull for something besides ballast.

I have had zero internet for a month now (way to go Centurylink), so I’m not watching TV, or at least contemporary TV.  You can get the oldies on antenna TV which is mostly what I can watch if I bother to turn on the thing.  And I was thinking…there I go again…that I don’t really need it.  Even for weather.  If I go out and my hair frizzes, the humidity is high.  If it gets wet, rain.  If not either of those, I go buy something to plant in my garden.  And I don’t have to hear the freaking idiots trying to either parrot what someone ELSE said, or talk the same worn out tired ‘party line’ crap…or try to get me worked up about something I can do nothing about.  When I fill up my car with gas, I know whom to vote for in the next election and whom to kick out.  When I buy food, same thing.  For those of you who are ‘taking it in stride’, those free food lines are going to dry up folks, and soon you won’t be able to buy gas to drive anywhere.  PAY AFREAKINGTENTION.  

I’m hearing it will take 5 years minimum for this crap to flush down the toilet.

And one more thing.  Stop having babies if you can’t afford the babies.  That’s Michael Jackson folks.  And that, my friends, is the reason for all of this crap.  Too many people. Think about that for a second.  Oh no!  I said it. hahaha.  Well that’s actually being talked about these days: Overpopulation.

You can’t make this crap up.  How many times do you think humanity has destroyed itself?  That’s your question for the day, and yeah, that’s two.

Okay three.  I’m using my personal hotspot for internet.  And wow, it’s great.  AND cheaper.  Imagine my surprise that I can live without the greedy big dogs.

 

I watch YouTube all the time; almost never watch cable TV or antenna TV.  So clearly I like to listen to the debates and opinions of all kinds of people.

I hear things like “he violated our rules”, “we viewed that as a threat”, “we viewed that as incitement”, “we could tell they were fake”, or “the algorithm may have caught it”, “I and my team” took it as incitement…and on it goes. “Our platform promotes speech unless people violate our rules.”

The problem with all of these statements is the we, I, our, the algorithm, words, because one person or two or ten, are deciding what is a violation, a threat, incitement, fake.  The folks are so comfortable with being the gods of communication, that they don’t see how they are violating free speech.  And listen, I think their hearts are in the right place!  But once the butts in the chairs around the figurative (or literal) conference room table are removed and replaced by another set of opinions, then the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins.  “Our rules” are just that, yours.  And they will change when YOU are changed out.  And therein lies the rub with regard to censorship.  It’s all fun and games until the power structure falls and is replaced by people who disagree with I, we, our.

Well what ABOUT the ‘algorithms’?  Well, they are derived by someONE, who has a set of someONES around that table, building a system to ‘throw out’, ‘cancel’, ‘suspend’ a particular line of thinking with which they disagree, or which they view as a threat, an incitement, dangerous.  That’s key: If “I” don’t agree (conform, bow down, serve), I’m ‘canceled’ by the butts around the table today.  And that’s dangerous.  And it will change “tomorrow”.

Listen, I HATE some of the things I see in print and hear online, but I value the rights of the ones saying them.  There needs to be a kind of filter to remove child predators, murderers, stalkers.  How do we do this?  I suggest that we just stop the name calling first…how about that?  Opinions don’t have to be put out there as bombs or missiles.  A well thought out position doesn’t need explosives; it can hold strength on its own merit.

One of the censors says people leave the ‘platform’ because of “how the speech is being used”:they don’t want to be harassed anymore, so the rules protect these people.  So the one who disagreed said, “People harass and abuse me all the time and you don’t do anything about that.”  The censor was left speechless at that statement.

I have always said that certain lines of thought (with which I might disagree…or not) come from a good place, a place where protecting people is in the heart, where taking ‘care’ of people is in their heart.  But not everyone agrees with what is protective, what is caring, what is good or a good solution.

This is complicated.  College professors and others have said that the winners write history.  To an extent this is true.  For example nobody can deny the atomic bomb hitting Japan.  But citing numbers of soldiers the winners versus losers lost in battle are ridiculous.  Unbelievable, and the winners always ‘kill’ less of their men.  But today, censorship has gotten way out of hand.  In order to make good choices and decisions, people need the data, good and bad.  The problem is: WHAT IS GOOD?  WHAT IS BAD?

Everyone needs to understand (that indicates actual thought) that different cultures have different ideas of what is good or bad.  In the age of globalism, getting the ‘truth’ out there is evermore complicated.  You canNOT make 8 billion people happy, all at once.  And shutting down completely one gender or political party, for example, is just wrong.

There’s a new product out there that looks like a little swing. A coffee cup sized seat is at the bottom.  You can put your coffee on that and carry it like a pendulum, thereby keeping you from spilling your coffee while you walk.  Isn’t that special.

If I ever see you using one, I’m going to have a deep discussion with you about birth control.  If you can’t walk and carry a cup without spilling it, you don’t need to reproduce yourself.  Or you’re two.

What does the current state of being have to do with real estate?  Well, everything.  I try to pay attention to world events without having a stroke, but I find that I have to mitigate the time I spend investigating, even listening, in order to not blow a gasket.  The reason is this: I don’t know what to believe anymore.  Therefore I don’t believe any of it.  That’s the danger of misinformation, which seems to have become ‘mainstream’.  Scientists, and I mean the real ones, not politicians, often have been bought and paid for so now, the place once set aside for the pursuit of truth, is now in pursuit of power and money.  This stuff is already effecting our finances.  Ukraine?  The stock market is quivering, quaking in their boots, stock prices are waggling all over, investors are perched to run and hide.  Yeah, this stuff effects real estate.

Interest rates are rising, and inflation is squeezing the life out of budgets.  This means people who could afford a house last year maybe cannot now, because a good portion of their once planned house payment is now being spent on gas and food.  And it’s going to get worse.  Politically, as well as in most things, you cannot do an instant adjustment and not expect things to go flying off of shelves and back seats and breaking. A long snow turn keeps things in place while accomplishing the desired changes, but the wheel has been jerked into a 45 degree turn, and things are breaking and flying off of shelves.  Like gas prices, like food prices, like peaceful existence.  However, we are resilient, and we have survived many such turns.  So there is hope.

People are still buying and selling homes; it’s just that my first time buyers have been shut out of the market for now, unless they have substantial funds set aside, or they have family who can gift substantial amounts of money to them.  I get a lot of phone calls from people, even ones who have bought and sold many times, about what to do in this market.  And I tell them EXACTLY what to expect.  And I tell them there IS a way to win the day.  But it takes having cash to put right on the table, right out of the gate.

So save.  If you want to buy a house, save your money so that you can afford the down payment, the up front costs like due diligence fee, earnest money, inspections, closing attorney fees.  Even if you qualify for 100% financing, you still have up front costs and you need to be prepared for that!  Even with 100% financing, you’re going to need several thousand dollars to pay your attorney and to do inspections.  And even with 100% financing, your offer may be set aside in favor of someone who can put 20% down, or pay cash.  Your best bet is to save.

These days, the market is all about COMPETITION.  If you are a buyer, you’re in a financial race.  If you cannot compete right now, save your money until you can. One of my clients moved in with her mom and dad so she could put rental funds into savings.  It worked.  She now lives in a brand new home that is beautiful.

Listen, I know everyone goes to google to get their info, but you have to remember that people enter false information there as well, or pay to have their ads spiffed up and placed in first position.  Doesn’t mean they know squat.  And just because you find a number doesn’t mean you know anything about the system it applies to.  Doing the ‘most’ of something (even if the number is true) doesn’t mean it represents the ‘best’.  You need to get face to face with people and talk to them.  I can write anything I want to write if I know you’re going to read it to make your decision. But unless you can look me in the eye and read my body language, you don’t know what the truth is.  And that applies to real estate, to finance, to healthcare, to politics, to babysitters, to pet sitters, to mail carriers, to handymen.  If you want a real good skill, try watching some body language videos on YouTube.

If you want to know about science, you’d better get if from someone who isn’t paid to tell you a story.  If you want to know finance, you’d better be able to do the math yourself.  If you want to buy a car, you’d better get it checked out by a mechanic you know and trust, and if you want to know about real estate, you’d better talk to an agent directly to find out if those big numbers are 1) true; and 2) didn’t come from underpricing homes to get quick sales.  There’s a strategy to real estate buying and selling and my strategy focuses on YOU, not me.  And like I’ve said before: If the agent you talk to doesn’t talk about strategy, end the call. And I know you’re CALLING because I just told you how important that is.

Misinformation is everywhere.  Question everything. Okay, go ahead and google, but then, TALK to someone and in fact, talk to SEVERAL someones.  Find out the truth, and make sure YOU are at the dead center of the strategy.

Where do I start? What is going on with the market today? Should I even try to buy a home?  Can I even afford to jump into this market?  Good questions, all.  

First, let’s address commissions.  I’ve said this thousands of times now, since I’ve had my real estate license for so long:  Commissions are 1) negotiable; 2) normally paid by sellers, unless otherwise negotiated; 3) sometimes paid by sellers who sell as ‘for sale by owner’. Buyers, under ordinary circumstances, don’t pay commissions.  There will be other fees, but USUALLY (for now) sellers pay commissions for both sides of the transactions.

With the advent of the real estate sites on internet, there are always “he said, she said” postings, and the real estate commissions have to respond.  So here’s a good idea: Don’t ask your friend at work what the rules are; ask your real estate agent.  We will tell you what you want to know.  We don’t want you to have any unnecessary stress. Buying your first home is an adventure, thrilling, but stressful in and of itself.  So for me, I want to keep my buyers informed so they can relax a bit about the money.  It helps to know what you are facing.  By the way, I and other agents always give you paperwork to show you.

Next: Interest rates.  They’re going up.  Sorry to say it, but it is true.  Now, I’m not a pushy sales person, but you do need to get an idea what a quarter point of interest rate added to you payment will look like.  Send some time learning how that process works.  So what is the first thing to do?  TALK TO YOUR LENDER.  I’ve said that a thousand times, too.  Until you have done that, you do NOT need to be looking at houses, because….you don’t even know what you can afford.  And, understand that it can take months to find a home, or to have  YOUR offer accepted when you find one.  Multiple offers are the norm these days so…your rate can go up while you shop.  So it makes sense, does it not, to get your lender to estimate your payment at several interest rates?  Yes, it does.

I know there are real estate agents who read my blog, and they will agree with me that it’s a bad idea to show homes to anyone who has not gotten pre-approved for a loan first.  Why?  1) Because that buyer doesn’t have an idea  what they can afford.  The internet is NOT the whole story.  The lender is; so you have to talk to one.  2) Credit pull by lenders digs up things you have NO idea are on your report.  That big credit pull is the real one, and that speaks volumes about what you can and cannot do.  3)  You have to include a pre-approval letter and/or proof of funds with any offer you make ANYWAY, and if you wait to speak to a lender after you find a house, someone else can swoop in and buy that dream home while you’re getting your ducks in a row.  Do that up front.

Can you afford to jump into the race?  Well, that depends.  It takes a fair amount of discretionary funds, in this market, to get under contract.  First, with the ‘due diligence’ Offer to Purchase and Contract, you have to write a big check directly to the seller(s), which they cash right away.  Due diligence checks can be several thousand to fifty thousand and more.  In a ‘bidding war’, those checks can be huge.  So you have to know what to expect, first; and then be able to do what you need to do.  Note that you can use gift funds from parents, for example, to help with that (lender approval on that).  Then, once you get under contract, you have lender fees and attorney fees, and you also have to pay for home inspections you choose to do.  Inspections can cost several thousand dollars, depending on what you choose to do: survey, well test, septic inspection, HVAC inspection, roof inspection, wood destroying inspection, structural inspection…you get the idea.  Keep in mind that here in NC, the seller is not required to do any repairs, although, again, most sellers will do some.   Not always, though.  If you ask for repairs, that’s completely negotiable.

What’s going on in the market?  Well here, there’s still a shortage of homes.  So there are often multiple offers and prices are high to start with.  So very often, a stick built home for a first time buyer has a 3 in the first number.  There are some existing homes and even some new ones in the 200’s, but they are not the average.  And you can find manufactured homes (double wides) at or just under 200 thousand.  Young professional first time buyers in my client base are normally buying in the high 200s to 300 thousand range, on AVERAGE.  And I will say that there are a lot of people wanting to buy in North Raleigh in the 400’s.  Folks, that one needs a 5 in the first number now, in most cases.

I’m still finding that my first time buyers and even first time move-up buyers are staying conservative, not maxing out what they CAN afford, but rather going with a payment amount that doesn’t make them ‘house poor’.  I think that’s so smart.

Now, let me say this: Once you decide to jump in and try to find a home, put in your running shoes.  You MUST be able to make quick decisions.  Not rushed, but quick.  Know what you want, where your line in the sand is, and get informed about what you need to look at when you shop for a home.  I mean, look in the crawl space, check out the foundation for cracker.  Mobile home?  Look for tie-downs and other things that are required by lenders in order to finance them.  And listen, cash changes everything.  If you are not getting a mortgage, your options are greater, and a conventional loan gets you out from under government loan requirements.  Talk to your lender, if you are shopping for a manufactured home.  FIND OUT what the lender requires in order to finance one.  Short lesson is this: Be prepared, be informed.

You’ll get tired of hearing information from any good agent.  It is our job to inform you, advise you, and protect your interests.  So we’re not ever going to leave you alone in the dark.

As for me, I’d love to chat with you to answer questions.  I’m Brenda, with Coldwell Banker Advantage, hoping I get to meet you.

Stay warm!

Brenda Briggs

Coldwell Banker Advantage 919-210-6113