Brian and Nait discuss fall 2023 Real Estate conditions and finding ways to win in this market.
San Diego’s Real Estate Market Conditions, helpful information for our VA homebuyers, sellers and Military community.
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Join Brian Britton and Nait Schirmer, San Diego’s most trusted Veteran and Military Realtors, as we embark on a thrilling journey into the complex world of real estate, where we uncover hidden truths about current market conditions and the age-old debate of renting vs buying. We’re flipping the script on traditional wisdom, revealing how homeowners who refinanced between 2020 and 2022 are impacting the market’s stability, and why property prices remain high even with increased interest rates. Get ready to deep-dive into the intricacies of managing a high-value mortgage and the unexpected hike in payments homeowners are facing in this challenging landscape, discussing Fall 2023 Real Estate market conditions.
We won’t stop there! We’re peeling back the layers on some of the most intriguing strategies shaping the market right now. Discover how you, as a buyer, could emerge as the real winner in this climate of low competition, and how sellers covering interest rate buydowns could save you a pretty penny. For those with an eye for real estate investment, we’ll share insights into leveraging your home equity to invest in additional properties in San Diego and beyond. And, of course, we’re setting the record straight on the importance of timing in real estate purchases – hint, it’s all about your readiness, not the market’s.
As Military Veterans, we value genuine relationships. As we navigate these turbulent waters together, we promise to guide you honestly and transparently, never pushing you into a decision that doesn’t feel right. Our clients are not transactions; they become part of our extended family, our military brothers and sisters. Join us as we provide the knowledge and support you need to conquer your real estate goals, whether you’re buying with the VA home loan, selling, renting or relocating to San Diego. So strap yourselves in, and let’s get started on this enlightening adventure as we chat about Fall 2023 Real Estate Market Conditions!
Prefer to read the transcript to this podcast? Here you go!
Fall 2023 Real Estate market conditions
0:01:26 – Brian
You, guys, you miss us, yeah, yeah.
0:01:32 – Nait
So we are back, and we are back with a purpose. The market is strange right now, but we’re still fighting, we’re still finding ways. So I don’t know if you want to touch base on that, on some of the new stuff we’re doing, or if you want to just go on touch base on market conditions and then later on we’ll talk about renting versus buying.
0:01:53 – Brian
Yeah, I mean we can go however we want to do this. We got a lot of stuff to talk about, we got a lot of things we can cover and, yeah, let’s just get right into it.
0:02:05 – Nait
As we should. Yeah, all right. So yeah, do you want to talk about current market conditions?
0:02:11 – Brian
Yeah, yeah, because that seems to be the big elephant in the room with everybody, right. Right, that the market’s just been it’s been for lack of a better phrase freaking terrible lately for buyers, for sellers, for everybody. I mean, there’s a lot of issues that we have right now. The biggest thing that everybody’s aware of is interest rates are super high, right. So obviously I mean super high is, I would say, that’s a debatable thing to say, because if you’re looking at 100-deer averages, no, it’s not. But if you’re looking at what they were two years ago, when it was insanely low, then yeah, of course we’re higher than we were two years ago, right, but at the same time, usually we’re in kind of a weird market right now. Right, because usually when interest rates go up, prices fall. Right, because people can only afford. If you’re, people can only afford so much, right, if your budget is $3,000 a month on housing, that with a low interest rate, $3,000 gets you a lot more, gets you a lot higher of a price than with what our interest rates are right now, obviously. So that means that your price, the price of what you can buy, goes down right, or the budget gets a lot lower. So I think that’s kind of been the big issue right now. The reason for, like I said, usually when rates go up, prices go down.
The problem that we’re having right now is that prices haven’t really gone down, and the big issue there is that number one there’s not a lot of properties on the market, right. There are people that are looking to sell right now. The big hold up for most people is that during the big refinance boom 2020, 2021, into 22, a lot of people at own houses refinanced during those times, right, so they had four or five 6% interest rates and all of a sudden you’re down, like with VA shit. We got our interest rate down to two and a quarter. So I heard a statistic somewhere and I don’t know if it’s accurate, but I’m going to throw it out there anyway, so don’t quote me on it, but somebody had mentioned at some mastermind that we’re at that, like something like 80% of all mortgages are below 4% right now and like 90% of those are below 3%, which is great for people that aren’t looking to sell their house, right, but for people that bought their house as a first time purchase or you know, within the last few years, or people that are looking to make a move or that want to move or whatever that want to sell their house and do something else. A lot of them can’t right now. You know what I mean, because they have such low interest rates. That means their payment’s so low, right, or wherever they can afford, or whatever they agreed to when they bought their place. Let’s say they go to sell it, to buy something bigger, or even just buy something that’s the same price as what they had before. Now they’re at current interest rates. Right Now they’re buying something at the current interest rates, which means their payments are freaking, in some cases thousands of dollars higher, you know. Take my house, for example, right now.
We bought our place for $615,000 back in 2018, right, we financed $100 because we had sold our house and we had some equity from. You know, we had some money from the sale of our old house to buy this one. So we financed $515,000, right, our interest rate was at 4% and I think our payment was like $3200 a month. Right, that was in 2018 and 2019, we refinanced down to 3.38 because we were like, holy sh*t, dude, we’re in the threes, let’s go. You know what I mean. And that brought us down to about $3,000 a month and then the next year rates went down to two and a quarter and we’re like what the what, okay, send. So we did it and now our payments at one point were down to like $2650 a month or something like that Tax adjuster came and done, f**ked that up for us, which was super cool so, but we’re right out about $2,800 a month right On a $515,000 loan.
If I were to sell my house right now and buy it from myself at the exact same amount that I bought it for finance the exact same amount, that $515,000, our payment would be probably in the high 4,000. So we’re pushing probably close to 5,000. And for the lenders out there I mean tell me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s pretty accurate based on where rates are right now, which I mean sucks. You know, if I was looking to move, I probably would have to do something like downsize by a place way smaller or try to figure something out so that I can get you know, so that I can get my payment down to a manageable, manageable level. Now the good thing is the market boomed since we bought our house right, so I have a decent amount of equity in our house. So if we were to sell, I would have a big chunk of change that I’d be able to throw at the next purchase, which, of course, is going to bring things. You know, bring my costs down right, bring my mortgage or my mortgage down quite a bit, right If we have a couple hundred thousand dollars to throw at something.
But still a lot of people aren’t looking to do that. You know a lot of people that are that want to sell or either, you know, want to sell their place to upgrade to a bigger, better house or something, maybe a better area, different location or whatever the case may be, or they’re, you know, people that are looking at downsize. Like a lot of times you see people that are looking at downsize that are, you know, empty nesters. You know that it’s husband and wife done, raising their kids. Kids are out lighting their own fires in the world, and now they’re. You know they’re like, hey, we don’t need all this house, let’s get something smaller. Well, they’re kind of in the same boat as the rest of us too, and that if they were to sell their place and buy something else now, they have a smaller house at a higher price, with a way higher interest rate, and it just doesn’t make a lot of sense for a lot of people. You know what I mean. So that’s that’s kind of the situation that we’re in right now.
We’ve been dealing with.
We’ve been dealing with this high, high inflated market for, I want to say, pretty much this whole year, right, I think.
I think, and I think May of last year, may of 2022, was when the market kind of shifted and we started seeing gradual decline in prices, because that was about when rates started. I think they were up in like the 6% range somewhere like that but we started seeing, from May until December, you know, we started seeing prices start to go down, which is what we would expect with higher interest rates. You know, prices it’s a market correction prices crack, they start going down. That’s what happens normally. Now, like I said, because a lot of people are stuck with, you know, these low interest market or these low interest loans that they have, come January we started seeing the market shift again. Now we’re starting to see an upswing in sales prices again, and I think that the big idea with why rates are going up is it’s there’s an attempt to curve inflation or something like that. Obviously, it’s not working because of the fact that we’re still in a really low interest or in the low. It’s a big problem.
0:09:19 – Nait
Low inventory. Yeah, thank you. Sorry I swear, I speak English sometimes.
0:09:23 – Brian
We’re still in a low inventory market because of what we already talked about, right, because what I said. So, so, where something has to break right, something has to change either Rates need to go back down, which will bring more inventory to the market, which will bring more buyers to the market, which will make it so that people you know people can afford to buy their house now and buy, to sell their house and buy something new. People that want to buy that are just priced all the way the fuck out are now able to buy again. So that’s the option one. Option two is a major price correction right Price we start. If we start seeing housing prices go down, that will also solve that problem. It because of the fact that a lot more, you know, prices start going down. That means that people that own their houses that can’t sell right now, even though rates are higher, prices are lower, bless you. Even though rates are higher, prices are lower. So that kind of correlates to them having more, you know, a little bit more leeway when it comes to their, to their payments, right? So that’s a that’s solved number two solved. Number three is people just start selling their shit, which I don’t think is Probably going to be something that we see. You know a lot of.
When the market crashed in 08-09, we started seeing a big spike in inventory back then because a lot of people are losing their houses because of predatory lending. That’s not the situation we’re in right now. So If we see I mean for a lot of I’ve heard a lot of people you know fire and brimstone speakers that are saying like hey, the market’s gonna crash. The market’s gonna crash. Well, I’ve been in real estate for almost eight years now and those same people have been saying that this whole time and we’ve gone through several different markets. You know what I mean, right? So Is it gonna crash? I don’t have a crystal ball. Nobody does. I don’t think it will. I think that we’re gonna see a. I hope that we see a correction in prices, where we start seeing prices actually start going down. I think that’s the only solve to this problem, because I don’t know that.
You know rates are gonna go down anytime soon, and that’s that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong, I could be right, who knows? There’s a million different experts out there that have a million different opinions, and there’s a lot of people that know a lot more than me about all that stuff, that some of them are fire and brimstone. You know rates are gonna skyrocket. We’re gonna see 16% next year. That might be an exaggeration, but whatever. And then there’s other people that are like, yeah, we’re gonna start seeing rates are gonna start dropping, we’ll be back to the races, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, nobody’s got a crystal ball.
You know this is a. This is a weird time in in the real estate market. It’s not something that we’ve seen in a really long time. We haven’t seen rates this high in like 20 years, you know. Prices this high? I don’t think ever. You know what I mean. So, and with with inventory as low as it is, it’s kind of the same. And it has been a really long time since we’ve had so little houses on the market, you know. So that’s kind of the situation we’re in right now.
0:12:14 – Nait
Okay, so I wanted to touch on that a little bit too. I mean, because, even though you weren’t all Grim and brimstone and all that, I Think you know you talked about, typically, when the interest rates are high, the prices go low. Yeah, that’s true, but the one. So there’s always an inverse to Any kind of action, reaction in the market, right? Sure, I want to talk about what. What I’ve seen is, even though the interest rates, or the interest rates are high, right, so what is going low? What is going low is buyers by our and and competition. So that can be good, totally, you know. So I know when, when their interest rates were in the twos and the threes, every house had 40, 50 offers on it.
0:13:08 – Brian
Yeah, you know, oh yeah, and lines are on the box. So you want to see 20-21 was a friggin shit show market, that’s for sure. I don’t see that. I mean now?
0:13:16 – Nait
I mean, we had clients and we had to prep our clients right. We say, hey, you’re gonna have to write 30, 40 offers before you get one accepted.
0:13:23 – Brian
Yeah, you know, and basically give away your firstborn child and your life over to get a house.
0:13:28 – Nait
Yeah, and pay Pay up to like 10% more, and in San Diego that can be 100 grand. Yeah, more, absolutely Now you’re not paying the 100 grand more. You have less competition and you can, you can get in. You can get in, of course, at a higher rate, but you can get in, and then that rates locked Mm-hmm until you can. You know, refinance absolutely there’s always a silver lining right Totally always away.
0:13:54 – Brian
There’s always a way to make it work and that’s that’s a good point that you bring up, because they’re I mean, we do have people that are looking to buy right now. Right, there’s, there’s always people. There’s always gonna be a need, so it’s gonna be somebody that needs to sell their house. There’s always gonna be a need, somebody that needs to buy a house, regardless of market conditions. So there’s, even though, even though prices are higher right now because you know the market, everything we just talked about, just like you said, competition is low there’s not a lot of people looking to buy right now because everybody’s just believing the fire and brimstone like, oh my god, I, the market’s terrible, we can’t blah, blah, blah. Well, the people that are Looking to buy right now are the ones that are winning right, and there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of stuff that you know people in the and the private sector have tried to do to make it so that properties are live or that, you know, buying a house is actually a feasible thing, like One thing that a lot of lenders are offering is, you know, interest rate buy downs, like short-term interest rate buy downs to one buy downs, that kind of thing.
Right with it. Basically, what that means is if you know, if you end up buying, you want to buy a house, right, interest rates are too high for you. You get a two one buy down type loan and basically you’re, for your first year that you own that place, your interest rates two percent lower. Right, then then what your actual rate will be right. For the second full year it’s one percent lower and then from year three on, it’s whatever. The interest rate is that you got locked in at right. The the cool thing is that it saves you several hundred dollars a month for you know, for the first couple of years, right, which is great because it makes it so that you know buying a house short-term is affordable, is more affordable for people. The reason that they’re doing this is that they’re betting that in the next two years that rates will start relaxing and then people can refinance their houses into a lower rate once that actually comes right. So that’s kind of the hope, that’s kind of the bet with doing these interest rate buy downs. With that, the buyer cannot With with V like VA buyers specifically, because that’s our market, that’s our, that’s our whole world. Right, with people that are buying houses With the VA loans, active duty, veterans, all that kind of stuff. You can’t pay for the two one buy down yourself, right, that has to be on somebody else. So typically, what we’re seeing a lot of lately is the sellers are actually offering to pay to two one buy downs.
We just did, we just closed escrow on a property that was For, you know, for a client of ours. We were representing the buyer and we were able to get the. We’re able to get the. I think the price was about what? Maybe Ten thousand dollars above the listing price, but we also got, I think, $19,000 in their closing costs and the rate buy down paid for them. You know what I mean, right?
So even though they’re, you know, even though in two years they’re going to be at whatever interest rate they were locked in at, that’s still two years down the line, right? Number one, they’re going to be. You know, most of the time people make more money over time, right? So hopefully that will ease that burden a little bit. But number two, you know, let’s say, in a year or two years, when rates kind of finally start relaxing, you know you just refinance your loan at a lower rate and then your payments either, you know, locked in somewhere close to where you’re at already or hopefully even gone down based, you know, based on what your 30-year interest rate actually is without that two-and-buy down.
So there’s all kinds of different ways to make it happen. You know, just like you had mentioned back in 2020, 2021, where there was, you know, 200 buyers for one seller or whatever the ratio was, it was something crazy. We’re not seeing that as much anymore. You know, we’ll see. You know where houses, we’ll see a property, go on the market. Now you know, back then it was you put the house on the market and as soon as you’re active as an agent, our phones are just ringing off the hook. You get freaking 200 showings over a weekend. You get 20, 30 offers, boom, boom, boom. You know everything’s super fast. You basically hit the active button and then get out the way because you’re going to have offers come flying in.
0:18:04 – Nait
Yeah, and if a house was listed as 700, you’re going to sell it for 770. Now, if you see a house for 700, it’s not well. It’s common to have it sell for 700. Right, so 10% on the Grandmore.
0:18:20 – Brian
Exactly so too. A lot of what we’re seeing is, you know, properties are sitting on the market a little bit longer than they were before. You know what I mean See two, three weeks versus like 10 minutes. You know what I mean Two, three days.
Yeah, so we’re seeing properties sitting on the market a little bit longer. What that does for people that are looking to buy is that gives them a little bit more time, so that it’s not just a mad rush to try to buy, to try to get into something before somebody else swoops on it, right, and it also gives you the ability to negotiate a little bit more, right. If you write an offer on a house and you’re the only show in town, you’re negotiating directly with the seller, right, you’re not negotiating, you’re not competing with a whole bunch of other buyers like what we’ve seen in the last market that we were in. Nowadays it’s you know, hey, we’re gonna compete or we’re gonna negotiate with the seller to make a deal that makes everybody happy, right, makes a buyer happy, makes the seller happy, whatever. But that gives us a little bit more leverage on the buyer side. It gives us a little bit more leverage to help people, you know, get a little bit of a better deal or a little bit of a more fair deal, where you could arguably say a couple years ago that that just wasn’t the case.
It’s buyers or people were selling houses and it was no contingencies, freaking 10-day, 10-day close of escrow, six-month rent back for free. You know, zero contingencies allowed, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. Nowadays it’s like, yeah, that’s okay, if you can shorten contingency periods down a little bit, that’d be great, but if not, that’s okay too. You know, just please bring me an offer. You know what I mean.
0:19:56 – Nait
Before I remember, you could not get ahold of a realtor. I mean because I get it now because their phones are ringing off the hook, they’re getting text messages, they’re getting emails. You could not, so you almost had to throw in a blind offer. I mean granted, you saw, you went and showed the home and all that.
0:20:17 – Brian
Well, too, even just trying to schedule appointments to go show houses was difficult because exactly that, and agents should be answering their phones. That’s kind of their responsibility for their sellers. Right to answer the phone to try to get their household. But at the same time, if your phone, you know, there was a couple of points during that last market where we had, you know, several properties, several listings for sale and, man, I could not get my phone off of my ear the whole time, phones just ringing off the hook. Hey, my client’s really interested in your property. Okay, which one, one, two, three, whatever street? Okay, cool, what questions can I answer you? I can’t believe you answered your phone. You know what I mean that people were just blown away, that we were actually talking to folks and stuff. And yeah, nowadays it’s the exact opposite, where you know a listing agent will be like hi, are you trying to buy this property? Please buy it, please buy it, please buy it. You know what I mean. What can I do? I’ll give you anything.
0:21:14 – Nait
Yeah, so I wrote and submitted an offer yesterday and the listing agent texted me today. Hey, did you have time for a call?
0:21:23 – Brian
Yes, indeed, I do. You’re calling me. Okay, my how the turn tables. Yeah, I’m like that’s cool.
0:21:31 – Nait
That’s a change. I’m with it. Yeah, you know.
0:21:34 – Brian
Yeah, it feels good. It’s a little bit more of a normalcy with communications with agents now, which is good, because I know I had heard that there were some realtors that just straight up stopped working with buyers during that market too, like somebody would call them and say there was a couple of clients that we had, a couple of buyers that we had that we helped in the homes during that time. That we’re like dude, you’re like the fourth agent that we called and every single one, but you were like we’re not working with buyers right now. You know what I mean, and that’s just that blows my mind.
0:22:05 – Nait
I don’t get that. Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. So that’s a little bit of the current fall 2023 market conditions. Do you have anything else you want to touch on that?
0:22:16 – Brian
I don’t know man, what do you want to talk about.
0:22:18 – Nait
I was going to talk about renting versus buying a little bit. One thing that came to mind we’re talking about interest rates and comparing, and there’s a lot of articles out there right now at least for this market in San Diego that say it’s right now it’s cheaper to rent than it is to own. But is it Right?
0:22:41 – Brian
Yeah.
0:22:44 – Nait
I mean it’s like many things, it’s situation dependent, right, but it’s also how far out you look. I mean, if you do the math like in San Diego, for instance, a two bedroom in San Diego is like three grand right now, and in San Diego they can raise the rent every year 10%. So that three grand for the two bed, two bath in San Diego right now is three grand.
0:23:07 – Brian
Next year it’s 33, 36.
0:23:10 – Nait
Three years down the line it’s four grand. So can you get a two bedroom house with your monthly mortgage payment under four grand? Yeah, you can do it, yeah.
0:23:24 – Brian
House, maybe condo? Absolutely Right, absolutely. There’s plenty of options. That’s another thing too. I think a lot of people nowadays are just shooting straight for the moon immediately. I want to buy my first house. I want it to be a five bedroom McMansion on freaking acres right now, and I want to spend 300 grand. You’re like, ah, I don’t want that Wrong state.
You know that’s not really California, but you know what I think a good message to send is to let people know like, hey, get into the real estate game, get into the market right, buy what you can afford right now and deal with what you can swing for now. Right, because when you buy a house, it’s not just a home, it’s also an investment for your future. You know what I mean. Yeah, renting, you’re paying somebody else’s investment, which I mean I get it in the short term, it’s cheaper. You know, if you’re saying like you know, for six months or a year, say, a lot of our clients are, you know, are military folks and people PCS very often, you know. And if somebody hits us up and says, hey, I’m going to be in San Diego for a year, I want to buy a house and then sell it when I’m out, well, okay, I understand that we need to have a conversation about that, because buy a house right now and wait a year, if the market does correct, you might be upside down on that place. You know what I mean. Versus if you want to buy it and hold it. You know, buy it, live in it while you’re here, pcs or EAS or move, whatever you’re going to do and then use it as a rental property. Okay, cool, let’s make sure that we can. You know, let’s make sure that we can make your money, you know, make however much your mortgage payment is in rent, and then, yeah, let’s do it. But also, if somebody is like no man, I’m just here for a year and then I’m out of here and I don’t want anything to do with that, well then, for people like that it’s probably a better option to rent, you know, because your short term, you know, if you’re only going to be here for a year, you can’t really have your, your payments raised on you. You know, after one single, one, whole single year, and then you don’t have to deal with, you know, going through the rigmarole of buying, going through the rigmarole of selling, hopefully you make your money back. Maybe you know what I mean. So I don’t know.
I know there’s a lot of people that are in the military. That retires millionaires because they PCS to a duty station, buy a property, live there, pcs to their next duty station, buy another property, live there. And you know, rinse and repeat as they go through their six or seven PCS’s or whatever, and each property they have either becomes a rental or becomes, you know they sell it. And now they have, you know they take their equity and they move it into their next, next property, their next investment right, and just that’s. That is the way that people get rich while they’re in the military, because you know sure as shit the pain going to get you there. You know what I mean, right?
0:26:09 – Nait
So and it’s not just while they’re in the military, but after you get out as well. Oh, totally so. Of course, you can’t always go by by averages, but typically the magic number seems to be three. If you’re gonna be here for more than three years, you’re gonna be good, you’re gonna be fine, you’re gonna make your money back.
0:26:28 – Brian
Maybe, depending on what the market does. It’s a lot dependent on that, of course, but I mean for me personally, I know I’m I’m looking for, I’m looking to buy an investment property right now. You know, and I know people are gonna be like, oh my god, you’re crazy. Well, yeah, you’re not wrong.
0:26:43 – Nait
But also, you got to be crazy to be in this industry.
0:26:45 – Brian
Well, you got it. I mean, you think like a Lot. How many people have Just became super wealthy or been able to retire early or whatever Because of the fact that they just own property, right? So I get something. You know, I’ve got a. I’ve got a decent amount of equity in my house. You know, now, because of bought several years ago, I’m gonna take some of that money that’s available to me just because I bought a house. I’m gonna take some of the cash that I have an equity in that place out. I’m gonna use that as a down payment for an investment property. Right, be that, whether it’s in California or not, we’ll see. Probably not. Probably gonna buy somewhere else. But you know, buy a play, buy another place, have a renter in there, as long as your you know, as long as your rents are Are more, as long as you can take in more rent than what your payments are to me.
I mean I’m not a freaking super savvy investor or anything like that. I know people talk about cap rates and this and that, blah, blah, blah. I’m at the point where I just want to get into the investment market. You know, I didn’t mean so now because I’ve, because I own my home because I’ve owned it for several years. I have money that’s just sitting.
Let’s just sit in there on my property and that’s where a lot of our you know, our clients that we’ve worked with in the past several years are in the same boat, where they bought their place Just just for living there. They’ve paid their mortgage down, you know tens of thousands of dollars. They’ve gained equity, hundreds of thousands of dollars that they have now, you know this, this Giant pile of cash that’s that they can tap into and just go buy the next place. And that’s what I’m working on right now. So, even though rates are up, even though prices are up, even though this, even though that blah, blah, blah, whatever it’s all details, there’s always money in real estate. Yeah, you know, I mean Absolutely. It’s gonna make sure the numbers make sense to you and freakin, get her done. Very true.
0:28:39 – Nait
I read an article that that discussed best time to buy a house. Yeah, I know your thoughts on it. I know your thoughts. Well, I mean, of course we’re gonna hear him.
0:28:50 – Brian
Yeah, let’s hear.
0:28:51 – Nait
The article had to say the article actually had to say the best time is in the fall. Typically it’s like first week of October, but in the fall is when the articles were we’re saying it’s the best time. Okay, and currently I would say I mean, yeah, I’m not gonna steal your thunder, but yeah, the article said first week of fall it’s the best time. You know, typically the Interest rates are a little bit lower. Of course, that’s not the case right now. There is less competition in the fall and and we’re definitely seeing that now. But yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s see what your thoughts are on Best time to buy house.
0:29:42 – Brian
So we’ve I mean, we watch market stats a lot. That’s something that we do weekly. At least once a week. Go look up stats, see what, you know, the market’s currently doing, look for trends, look for what it’s done in the past, all that kind of stuff. And what we see is, most years between October and about February, that you’ll see a little dip in prices with the market, right. And I think that the big, the big thought process there is because nobody wants to fucking move during the holidays, right, nobody wants to spend Christmas packing or unpacking or spend frickin Thanksgiving, you know, have their family over and their whole house is a giant pile of boxes. You know, and I understand that. I mean that’s that’s usually why there’s, you know, a smaller buyer pool in a normal market. That’s usually why there’s less listings available, and you know, in a normal market. As for the first week of October, I Don’t understand that and I don’t agree with it. I think that that’s when we start to see a seasonal dip in prices, but that’s not at the bottom.
You know what I mean right the bottom is usually like December, january, and then we start seeing things pop back up January, february. By April, may, you’re like off to the races again. You know so. But I mean, I’ve said this a thousand times before, I’ll say it a thousand times again the best time to buy is when you’re ready to buy. You know people that.
0:31:08 – Nait
I knew that was gonna be your answer. Yeah, people that try to make an yeah, 100% dude.
0:31:12 – Brian
People that try to time the market out always end up losing. You can’t time the market. You figure out when it works for you, when it’s time for you to make that move and pull the damn trigger. You know what I mean. It’s I know I’ve talked to so many people. Even I first got my license in 2016 so what’s that? Seven years ago and people that I was talking to back then they’re like, yeah, I’d love to buy a house, but I’m gonna wait. I’m gonna wait until the market drops because you know we got a crash coming back in 2016 here, like 2016 to 2022, where prices fucking doubled. We’re like, where’s that crash? You were waiting for bud. You know what I mean, but it’s.
It’s a thing man like the longer people wait, the Recent history, the longer that people have waited, the more priced out they’ve become. You know what I mean. Because, even though you’re, you know you’re trying to wait to. I’m gonna wait till the right time. I’m gonna wait till interest rates are right. I’m gonna wait till prices drop. I’m gonna wait for this, wait for that. Blah, blah, blah, blah. But a lot of those people that I was talking to back then about that saying those things still aren’t homeowners right. Had they bought back in 2016, when you could buy a house in San Diego for $500,000, and then Lived there until now, when that same house is worth fucking $900,000.
0:32:29 – Nait
I mean that’s 400,000 in equity that they would have right that they can pose to 300,000 that they lost.
0:32:37 – Brian
Just paying someone else’s yeah, paying the landlord exactly, and that’s, I mean, that’s a good point.
0:32:42 – Nait
How much that’s, that’s the difference of, that’s the difference of $700,000 Mm-hmm is it yeah? Cuz they would have gained 400, but instead they lost 300. The difference is $700,000.
0:32:55 – Brian
I failed math a lot. I failed math for Marines.
So I’m gonna say but nonetheless, nonetheless, they could have gained 400 totally instead of losing their three, sure, yeah, no, I see, you’re absolutely right, and that’s a thing like people say well, rents cheaper, right, and buy a house and spend 38, or buy a condo, buy whatever, and spend $3,800 a month in mortgage. Or I can just rent a place for $3,000 a month, okay, well, that $3,000 a month in a year is $36,000. So you live there for three years. What’s that? What’s 36 times 3? 90, $108,000, something like that.
I could be off. I don’t think I am. Maybe I am anyway, but you just spent then three years. You spent a hundred grand renting somebody else’s house out, or Even though you put, you know if, let’s say, your payments $4,000 a month. I’m not saying like, hey, everybody can just pull an extra thousand dollars out of their ass to pay for a house, but Whatever reasonable number 3,300, 3,500, right, rather than you spending a hundred thousand dollars making somebody else rich, you spend a hundred, twenty hundred and thirty thousand dollars putting money into your own pocket, into your own investment.
Yeah rather than paying somebody else’s, you know. So, as just to full circle this for when is the best time to buy? Dude, buy when you’re ready, you know. If you can swing it right now and you want to buy a house, don’t fucking wait. Forget about the naysayers. That naysayers gonna naysay, that’s what they do, you know. Do your research. Talk to a real estate agent, give us a call. Man like it, either I mean.
How many times have you had a conversation with somebody where they’re like I’m thinking about buying. Okay, tell me your situation and then they’ll tell you what they got going on and we go over options with them. You know it’s. It’s not.
We’re not always going to try to talk to talk somebody into buying a house. Do I think it’s a good investment? Apps of f***ing Lutely. I Proof positive that that’s the case, you know. But you know certain situations don’t f***ing call for it and that just is what it is. So if somebody’s depending on what your goals are, you know we’ll sit and talk to you. We’ll sit and have that conversation with you about. You know, hey, here’s where you’re at right now, here’s where you want to be right now. What do we got to do to get you there Is right. Can we swing it right now and and you’re stoked and we can get you into something that you’re gonna be happy with? Cool, let’s do it. If not, hey man, let’s freakin make a game plan to make it so that we can get you to that goal of home ownership.
0:35:27 – Nait
Right, you know what I mean. That’s what. That’s. One of the reasons I like our team as well, is We’ll educate and we’ll tell them all their options, but we’re never pushing Mm-hmm. If they’re not ready, if they don’t want to buy, we’ll say, oh, you gotta buy, you gotta buy now.
0:35:42 – Brian
Yeah, it’s what’s right for them totally well and to like are we sales people, like are we in? We’re technically, yes, we’re kind of in a sales market, in a sales world, but I mean this is we’re running a business, so sure we’re in sales, but we’re also in every other part of running a business, every other piece of running a business. You know frickin accounting, you know the sales world, of course, you know marketing, advertising. Every bit of running a business is what we’re actually in, because I mean sales, sales is a part of it, of course, yeah, but also we have a lot of. I think that we have a lot of High expectations for ourselves and we hold ourselves to a little bit of a higher standard than most. I don’t ever want to receive a call from one of my past clients and have them say I should not have bought this house. Why did you talk me into that?
0:36:38 – Nait
Yeah.
0:36:39 – Brian
I do. I know that is my fucking nightmare, right, what I do. The conversations that I do like getting from my clients are I am so fucking stoked on my house. That’s the conversations we usually have with our past clients, because we don’t. It’s. It’s exactly that we’re not pushing them into. You should buy this, you should buy this, you should buy this. It’s freaking, you know. Here’s the pros, here’s the cons. What do you want to do? Oh, I like this. Let’s go for it. All right, cool, we’ll make it happen. I’m not a big fan. Let’s keep looking. Fucking send it. We’re gonna keep looking. You know what I mean? It’s ultimately and I think that a lot of realtors miss the mark on this they’re not. We’re not just sales. We’re not just in sales, we’re in business, right? So? And if your business is Highly highly focused on just turning numbers over, you’re gonna be busting your ass every day for the rest of your fucking life.
0:37:30 – Nait
I’d say, the biggest part of business for us is relationship management. It’s like they’re not just clients, they’re military brothers and sisters. Yep, and we do. We develop a relationship. I mean now we, we go to games, we go to other countries with our, with our clients, yeah, with our buds.
0:37:51 – Brian
Now we go drink and eat and where you have Francisco, let’s go to TJ, you know yeah.
0:37:58 – Nait
Yeah, it’s a relationship.
0:38:00 – Brian
Yeah, you know yeah we know their kids.
0:38:03 – Nait
Their kids know us. We know their moms and their families.
0:38:06 – Brian
Yeah, you know it’s.
0:38:08 – Nait
It’s pretty awesome. I’m proud of it.
0:38:10 – Brian
Yeah, same man, same. And you know, I don’t. I don’t think that every real estate agent has that relationship with their clients and I’m stoked that I do. I mean, it’s not everybody that we’re like best buds with, but I would say, for the most part, most of our clients. I mean, I think that’s the cool part about working with military folks, with veterans and stuff like that. That’s us dude, we are our clients, we both served, we both did our time and stuff Working somebody with similar mentality, that similar idea, similar thought process and stuff.
My favorite thing is I can drop fucking F bombs like every other fucking second that nobody even bats an eye. But like you get a civilian client and you start doing that as if it’s somebody that’s not in like law enforcement or EMS or fire or something like that. You start dropping F bombs every other word in front of a non military, non veteran client and they’re like oh, you potty mouth. Versus, like you know, meet a new client. You’re like, hey man, nice, f***ing meet you. Yeah, f***ing nice to meet you too. You know what I mean. Like I love it, it’s, it’s. You don’t have to sugarcoat anything around people you know, and they I know.
For military folks. There’s an expectation with anybody that they work with that. You know that person’s looking out for them, not looking out for their own fucking wallet Right now, and that’s that’s something that not a lot of people have. Not a lot of agents out there have not a lot of agents out there. See it’s turn numbers, turn numbers, turn numbers. Get it sold, sell, sell, sell. Well, okay, or you know, help people with what they’re trying to do. You know what I mean. I’m not going to call somebody and try to talk them into buying or selling a house, but if they, fucking you know, have some interest in buying or selling a house, absolutely going to help them out with it. You know what I mean.
0:39:55 – Nait
Yeah, and it’s funny too is like we can show up like you today. Show up in a Kawasaki shirt and riding boots. You know how my Indian and our clients like oh cool. You ride on right too. This is what I got. Yeah, you know other agents are like are you the client? I get that a lot.
0:40:16 – Brian
That’s so funny I had. I showed up to this property I was doing a virtual showing for some clients that were that were stationed out on the East Coast and were PCSing here to San Diego. And I pulled up to this house and it was in like a really nice ritzy area. You know, it was a little bit of a higher price point type you know situation. So it was really nice, really ritzy area, really I mean big bitch in houses, real beautiful. Everything was immaculate, well maintained, high end stuff, right. And I come pulling up to this thing and my fucking I think it was at the time I think I had my Ram was a 2018 Ram 2500 with a f***ing Cummins diesel. The thing was loud as f**k, just a big old monster truck, right, and it was a virtual showing.
Well, a lot of times those you know, those higher end listings a lot of times the seller wants the seller’s agent to be there, right, and that was the case here. So I pull up to this thing and this agent was an older lady, right, I mean dressed to the f***ing nines dude like she was ready to go to the goddamn Marine Corp ball or something you know. And I’m here in shorts and flip flops and a t-shirt that says Tip of the Spear Real Estate Team on it. And I come walking up and I knock on the door and she opens it and she’s like hi, can I help you? I was like, yeah, I’m Brian, here’s my card. I have an appointment to show this property right now. She’s like, oh, she’s like you’re a real estate agent. I said, yeah, she goes. Oh well, you don’t look. And then she caught herself. She’s like you don’t look. Oh, okay, yeah, that’s okay. I was like, yeah, you’re right, I don’t look like you. F**k, come to find out. I sell three times as many houses as she does. So f**king, flop that d**k on the table.
I thought it was pretty funny. But yeah, you see, that shit dude Cracks me up. People dressed to the nines, because that’s what driving f**king white Mercedes Benz is, and shit Right, whatever, teach their own. But I don’t know. I like my truck. I drive a 2,500 Chevy now and it tows my toy hauler up and down the mountain. So that’s what I drive, you know.
0:42:21 – Nait
Very cool, yeah, all right. Well, I think we’ll probably wrap this up, unless you have any more to add in the other thoughts.
0:42:31 – Brian
I mean, look, you all know how to get ahold of us. All of our information is pasted pretty much everywhere All our social medias. You know all our podcast links everywhere. You can listen to this podcast anywhere you can find us or you can Google us, man, and you know I’m both of us, I mean our whole team is this way where, if you’ve got thoughts about, you know about the real estate world, if you think about buying, if you’re thinking about selling, if you’re thinking about, if you’re just genuinely interested and have questions about it, give us a call. You know, hit us up. That’s what we’re here for, man.
We want to help people out. We want to make sure people are educated and, you know, making the best, most well informed decisions for themselves that they can, rather than, you know, listen into the f***ing peanut gallery, try to tell them what’s what. So, you know, hit us up, man. That’s what we’re here for. You know what Call text you know for you guys out of you know, out of the country. We’re on WhatsApp too. So you know, reach out, man, and questions, comments, thoughts, believe in a few on a call and just bitch at us for something. I don’t care, whatever, give me a call, listen, crack a beard frickin. Listen to what you have to say. Heck, yeah.
0:43:33 – Nait
So yeah, that’s it All right, Nice. So yeah, once again. www.TipoftheSpearRealtors.com. Do you know our website?
0:43:40 – Brian
Yeah, yeah. Tipofthespearrealtors.com. We’re just f***ing Google us, like most people do, and that’s how I mean. We’re f***ing right there, you’ll find us.
0:43:49 – Nait
There we go. All right, cheers guys. Have a great day and good night.
RealVets Fall 2023 Market Conditions
Transcribed by https://podium.page