Unwrapping 2024's Real Estate Market w/ Pete Heim

It's Pete Week Again!! The episode explores the local and national real estate market dynamics as they transition into 2025. Key topics include year-over-year comparisons, the significance of accurate home valuations, and diverse predictions for price trends.

• Reflections on the Holiday Season and its impact
• Analysis of Berks County and National Real Estate Statistics for 2024
• Comparison of Local Market trends to National Figures
• Discussion on listing volume and pricing trends
• The importance of professional home valuations
• Predictions for the 2025 real estate market
• Humorous commentary on resolutions and expectations for the new year.

"Pete and I talk about the many predictions that are being made for 2025... the reality is NO ONE knows what will happen.  Our advice is listen to your local real estate professional to get a feel for the market when you're ready to buy or sell real estate!" - Brad Weisman

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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real people, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealPeopleRealLife 

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller. 

Transcript

Real Estate Market Trends 2024-2025

Speaker 2 0:29

Record You're recording from real estate to real life and everything in between, the Brad Wiseman show and now your host, brad.

Speaker 1 0:41

Wiseman. All right, this is the first Pete show for twenty twenty five. What do you think, hugo? I'm excited, you're excited. Can you believe we allowed him in here this long? New beginnings. It's just like how many years is this now that we have this guy here? Three, four Feels like 30. Hey feelings are mutual. No so but it's 2025. Dude, it's here. We survived another year. Yeah, man Amazing. It just went, but it's 2025. Dude, it's here. We survived another year. Yeah, man Amazing.

Speaker 2 1:15

It just went. Was it me or was it just like it goes quick? It seemed like even more so this time it goes quick. I mean, it just seemed like it was a lot faster this time.

Speaker 1 1:25

Get your mic over towards your mouth there. Just a little. There you go. You're good there. There you go, there you go. Just make sure you don't sound like you're echoing down a hallway or in a bathroom or something. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, exactly, did, did, did, did, did. So did you have a good holiday? Oh my God, he's still going, did you have?

Speaker 2 1:39

a good holiday. Oh, it was great man, Good, good, All the kids except Mary Kate we had six out of seven with us Awesome.

Speaker 1 1:49

Yes, he's out of his mind. No, but six out of seven, which is incredible.

Speaker 2 1:54

Yeah, because Mary-Kate and her husband have three kids and they're in Arizona. That's the one that's on the back of the Christmas card.

Speaker 1 2:00

Yes, they're on the back of the Christmas card. We figured that out because I was like, did he get rid of a kid? I mean, when you have seven, I think sometimes it's okay, You're allowed to just get rid of one there.

Speaker 2 2:09

Look at the at the table.

Speaker 1 2:10

Say who are you again you know it's like unbelievable wait till they all have kids.

Speaker 2 2:14

I know we can't wait dude, it's unbelievable, mary kate's the only one that stepped up and is getting it done. Yeah, exactly, I'm on my kids about it. Let's go, let's go, yeah that's amazing, hugo.

Speaker 1 2:24

Good good christmas, yes, yes, good good holiday, new year, all that stuff.

Speaker 2 2:28

I was as excited and not surprised, as the kids were opening the presents.

Speaker 1 2:33

You know, Hugo, it's the same way for me Wait what did you get?

Speaker 2 2:37

I got that for you. Well, I love them because my wife shops.

Speaker 1 2:41

She shops for my parents. And I'll be like, hey, where'd you get that? And they're like you got it for us. You idiot, yeah, and people wouldn't get anything if it was up to me.

Speaker 2 2:52

Oh yeah, Well, that's good. We all had good holidays. You did too. Yeah, it was great. We had a good time. You had a great show, A lot of kids over, and we had the show here.

Speaker 1 2:58

The kids didn't talk. So next year I'm going to have to maybe put a little shock collar or something on them, get them, shock them when they have to talk, or I don't know. It's weird, but here we are now in 2025 and I'm excited. I'm excited for the real estate market.

Speaker 1 3:21

I'm excited for the podcast here, and I'm excited just because it's a new year, it's a new era, it's awesome. We have new politics coming into play, so that'll be interesting to see how that plays out this year. I think it's going to go well, I think it's going to go very well. So, yeah, let's start with that and just go. Let's talk about what we had last year a little bit, let's go back a little bit and talk about 2024, and then we'll look ahead, see where 2025 is taking us.

Speaker 2 3:44

That's great, all right. Yeah, since I'm the numbers guy, you are the numbers guy. I did the numbers.

Speaker 1 3:49

The only thing that we wish you would do is you would keep on the number for your watch, because he's always a little late it's all right, it's fine. It's fine, let's just move on. We'll give you some magic mind later on you'll be fine so what do you got for numbers?

Speaker 2 4:05

so okay, it's. It's interesting because you know all this inventory thing being low and all that. I mean brad and the number of units that were listed in 2024 were at four thousand. This is now. This is all berks county. Okay, I ran stats, okay, so maybe I should preface it yeah, do that yeah but I ran stats for 2024, all berks.

Speaker 2 4:25

I took the city out just to see what it looked like and I compared it to 2023, same time frame got it okay, so we have a whole year to compare from the previous Good, which is which I thought was a really good way to look to see, maybe, which direction this thing's going Absolutely. We listed 4,670 homes in Berks County. Took out the city, it's 3895.

Speaker 1 4:45

Okay.

Speaker 2 4:46

Okay, so that's what? 800 or so more homes in the city. Just do the averages Right A little about there more homes in the city.

Speaker 1 4:50

Just do the averages or less right A little about there, yeah, right yeah.

Speaker 2 4:53

In 2023, it was 4569. Wow, it's about the same. It didn't change much. It was an increase of 2.163%.

Speaker 1 5:02

Yeah, see, and that's interesting, Pete, because if you look at the national it's a lot different.

Speaker 2 5:07

Oh my God, it's a lot different, a lot different.

Speaker 1 5:08

They've gone up a lot. It's gone up a lot on a national level. On a national level, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 5:13

It is basically the same. We're flatlining. Yeah, our volume, though list volume was $1,483,000,000. Last year it was $1,358,000,000, and it's 8.41% increase.

Speaker 1 5:29

Wow, so the volume went up. Okay, listing volume, not sales, right. Wow so volume. So the volume went up eight. Okay, listing volume, not sales right, that's list.

Speaker 2 5:36

So what? Okay, so what do we do? Sales then? Units sold was 4100, okay, the previous year 4114.

Speaker 1 5:42

It's unbelievable dude it was only 14 less but, but that's it. But we're not going, so that's no percentage change exactly the same.

Speaker 2 5:49

I mean it's, it's point zero, zero. I don't know what that is.

Speaker 1 5:52

Yeah, and this is why it's important to, if you're buying locally here in berks county, if you're buying somewhere else in the nation, figure out what's going on in that state, that county, that local area you're in. Yeah, but it just shows you the huge differences between what we're hearing on the national level as opposed to what's happening here. It was not flat line last year sales wise, yeah, or listings wise, but not yeah.

Speaker 2 6:12

Or listings-wise. But here's the kicker, though the sold volume. Yeah, this is the indicator of how much we appreciate it. Yeah, Right, yeah. Last year it was $1,167,000,000, blah, blah, blah. This year it was $1,235,000,000.

Speaker 1 6:39

The increase is 5.55 percent. Wow, five point, which is pretty much, I think you know. I think that's what we said. We kind of predicted between five and seven. We did, I think, right.

Speaker 2 6:43

No, we said we thought, we thought we said.

Speaker 1 6:45

We said it was probably gonna, you know, kind of get into that four to five range, but I think we said five we talked about the fives, yeah, in that one show.

Speaker 2 6:53

Everything's five percent interest, five, everything was. Remember. We talked about the fives, yeah, in that one show.

Speaker 1 6:54

Everything's pretty much five 5% interest. Everything was fives. Yeah, we just landed at five 5%. There it is, yeah, which is amazing, but it's still telling of a market with lack of inventory. That's pretty much what it is.

Speaker 2 7:05

But the thing that goes hand in hand with that is the average sold price, because in 23, it was $283,743. Right, this past year it was $301. That's 5.865%.

Speaker 1 7:19

Right there, there's the reason that we're up 5%.

Speaker 2 7:21

So, even though the volume was a little higher, the pricing was a tad higher. Yeah, yeah, but it's very close to the same. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, it's really cool. Isn't that good stuff to know? Good, that's amazing.

Speaker 1 7:30

Yeah, it's really cool, isn't that good?

Speaker 2 7:31

stuff to know Good stuff to know Now.

Speaker 1 7:32

it'll be interesting to see what happens in 2025, because now we've kind of all I think we've all kind of settled into the interest rates. Yeah, I think we are. You know, I think buyers and sellers are realizing that if you were going to wait this thing out, you're probably not. It's not a good idea because we pretty much are leveling right at that 7%, I think. We keep hearing yet that it's going to level around 6%, hopefully.

Speaker 1 7:57

Yeah, but we've been holding around 7% for a while now it's been around 7%, yeah, so that'll be interesting to see where that goes, dude, if that goes down like we talked about before, it's going to be crazy. The.

Speaker 2 8:11

It was from 20 to 22.

Speaker 1 8:13

That's interesting because when you look at the national average, this is since 2021, the median days on the market was well it's 58 is what they're saying for 2024.

Speaker 2 8:24

Well, that takes into account, right Florida?

Speaker 1 8:25

and all that Exactly and that's what we're saying is that we're not even close to that.

Speaker 2 8:29

No, not even close.

Speaker 1 8:29

I mean that's getting closer to a balanced market. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 8:36

As far as that, those numbers there. And absorption listen how close the absorption was the same. In 23 it was 1.09 months. Yeah, this past year it was 1.06 wow, that really jumped.

Speaker 1 8:45

Huh, that really went down. Yeah, it really doesn't.

Speaker 2 8:48

It didn't change, it didn't change no, it's a month's worth of inventory on the market, so we've been pretty much 2023 to 2024.

Speaker 1 8:56

This is it's dude. It's, yeah, it's so flatline.

Speaker 2 8:59

Except for that, the volume yeah the volume's up which would? And the average price makes sense. Why? Because there's plenty of people out there wanting to buy a house and there's not many listings on the market. So that's amazing. Today was, what'd you say?

Speaker 1 9:11

365 or something uh, there's today was 360. When I checked a a little bit ago, before we went on here, it was 365 listings, which is pretty good, because I think that's going to start climbing right away, right? Oh yeah, typically people wait till that, you know, the big red guy comes down the chimney or whatever, and after that guy's done, usually then people start moving.

Speaker 1 9:32

And also you got to wait for the pork, then You've got to eat the other guy. Oh yeah, you eat the other fat guy and you see the other fat guy come down the chimney. Yep, did you have sauerkraut?

Speaker 2 9:42

You've got to pull it out of the ground.

Speaker 1 9:43

Did you have sauerkraut?

Speaker 2 9:44

Going straight Every year. Man, Do you eat?

Speaker 1 9:46

sauerkraut.

Speaker 2 9:50

No, no, I haven't. If I knew that, oh my dad makes it homemade.

Speaker 1 9:53

Oh, does he really? We might have to talk to him. Oh, dude, we might have to. I mean, it's really sour. How about pork? Do you have pork?

Speaker 2 10:00

Yeah, pork, pork yes, okay, yes, pork Mashed potatoes. Yes, that I did. All right, all right.

Speaker 1 10:09

I wore my stretchy pants that day. Yeah, I had to upgrade my stretchy pants. That's a bad thing, isn't it? Yeah, when the Velcro starts going, that's a problem. That's a problem. Oh my gosh, where the buttons go? Yeah, they go bing bing, bing, bing, bing.

Real Estate Market Forecast Discussion

Speaker 2 10:26

Yep, exactly so um and I took out the city and I took out new construction on that number and it's two 44 pre-announcements in Berks.

Speaker 1 10:37

We were up close to 500 before the end of the year. And then all of a sudden, holidays hit and that's your typical, that's your seasonal drop. I think we're going to see seasonal hike.

Speaker 2 10:48

I would love to see it go over 500. Let's have a conversation around early July and see what the first half looks like. Sounds good to me Incredible.

Speaker 1 10:54

It'll be warm then again.

Speaker 2 10:56

Yes, it will. Oh gosh, thank goodness, yeah, man.

Speaker 1 10:58

All righty. So one of the other things, too, numbers-wise, that I saw is pending home sales. This is national. Pending home sales were at their highest level in two years right now, yeah, which is amazing for this time of year In two years. For this time of year In two years, the highest level in two years. Oh yeah, pending sales, that's pretty good yeah. That's going to bring inventory down again nationally.

Speaker 2 11:19

Yeah, Now was that statistic for just December.

Speaker 1 11:22

I just picked it up on Keeping.

Speaker 2 11:24

Current Matters. I had it on there.

Speaker 1 11:26

It said that it was the highest level in two years.

Speaker 2 11:28

Okay, for 24. For 24, yes, okay, got it.

Speaker 1 11:31

Good stuff. Also, inventory has risen since 2021. This was interesting. An active listing account October of each year 2021 was 565,000. 2022 is 752,000. 23, 738. 2024, 953,000 listing count for October of each of those years. That's incredible. Not here, that's what I was going to say. Look at that jump from 738 to 953.

Speaker 2 11:58

Not, it isn't happening. Now I know, and I have friends in florida it's in florida, florida, it's happening.

Speaker 1 12:03

Florida is gluttony, stuff is sitting, it is the difference, I think, in florida than it is anywhere around here is they can drill for oil is the only way I can explain it. You know, we, we around here, we can, we don't, we can't build. There's nowhere to build right right down there they can build when they have a problem with inventory.

Speaker 2 12:21

All the builders start they just go they start drilling for, and that's what's going, and then that's.

Speaker 1 12:26

That's the analogy I'm making, is it? They go down here and they just start. They say we're okay, but what happens is, think about it. Every builder goes into, go, go, plan. They go into the, go yeah, and they're like okay, now we're going to start building. Now, all of a sudden, it saturates the market, right and now things start to level off in that micro location.

Speaker 2 12:44

Yeah, because we are still under built. I saw that. Where was that? Did it? Was that something I wrote down? No, no, we were. We were since 2008.

Speaker 1 12:53

We were still down.

Speaker 2 12:54

We have not recovered from. We're still under building For as a nation as a nation as a nation.

Speaker 1 12:59

This is national yeah, I would think for a nation definitely. But I would think Florida has already come back and I would think they're replenished.

Speaker 2 13:07

You drive through Florida any metropolitan it's everywhere, not just highways.

Speaker 1 13:12

They build like complete highways every time a development goes in. Oh yeah, absolutely. And their developments aren't like around here where it's like 200 people, 200 houses.

Speaker 2 13:19

Oh yeah, thousands and thousands, like 10,000 homes, like the Villages is a town. Now it's crazy, it's like Absolutely crazy.

Speaker 1 13:25

Yeah, there's some wild stuff that goes on down there. Oh, the Villages, the Villages, yeah exactly Home price forecast.

Speaker 2 13:32

Dude, you got to make fun of that one. Come on, you got to get that graph out.

Speaker 1 13:35

Oh, I don't think I have it. I don't. What is the home price? Tell me what it is. Oh yeah, yeah, I do have it. Well, we can just talk about it. So it says 2025 home price forecast. This is the weirdest forecast. It's so weird because everybody's all over the place.

Speaker 2 13:50

Oh, they're all minus 0.4. Yeah, now what do they throw darts to figure out that's darts, yeah, it's it's crazy, I'm a monkey doing it, so I just can't believe it.

Speaker 1 14:05

So wells fargo says 4.9, yeah, percent out. Okay. Moody's, moody's analytics says minus 0.4. The interesting ones here, though, actually that are that are, that are is nar says 2.2 percent, and it says 2% okay, and obviously the average is 3%.

Speaker 2 14:23

Well, nar National Association 2% nationally. I get that. I would think 2, 3, something there and it's saying 3 is the average right.

Speaker 1 14:34

Yeah, 3 is the average out of all the forecasts. And remember these are the people that said that their rates wouldn't go above 5%, I think in the next year and I think it happened in 60 days or something like that. It jumped from like three and a half to like seven in like two months. Yeah, exactly, yeah, you use the red ball. It always works, but yeah, so I thought that was pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 14:57

But let's pick on these people for a minute. Yeah, but yeah. So I thought that was pretty interesting. But let's pick on these people for a minute. Yeah, because it's important when they put these forecasts out. What industry or what? Okay, so let's say FHA. Fha has a vested interest to say what? That's what you have to ask yourself what does Moody's have a vested interest to say? Yeah, right, they're stock people. Yeah, they have a vested interest to make sure the real estate market goes down so people can invest in the financial market instead.

Speaker 1 15:27

So who has what at stake? Yeah, absolutely I swear.

Speaker 2 15:30

That's part of it. It's got to be part of it because this is raw data, this is data. Yeah, right, and we have to go off trends and data, right, we have to. And, and so I always take the ever since the whole 5% thing, and that you know the one, what was it say? The one said that was never going to go above 3% for the year, or something, and it went.

Speaker 2 15:50

I mean skyrocket. Yeah, we we've been doing this for a couple of years now, and every prediction that we get seems to be we get seems to be, yeah, especially lately.

Speaker 1 16:01

I think it's just because it's, I think because the um, uh, which I say, that all the factors are different than they've ever been, yeah, like in our 30 some years, you know, to doing this, we never had an inventory issue. That I remember. No, we never did, never did. So that we did it was the other way.

Speaker 2 16:17

Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, we never did, never did. So that did. It was the other way.

Speaker 1 16:19

That's what I'm saying, yeah.

Speaker 2 16:20

We never had a lack of inventory.

Speaker 1 16:22

We've never looked at ourselves and went, whoa, we have, you know, 20 offers coming in on one property Right, and it's still happening. I'm still writing offers and not getting it. Sure, you know so it is. I think that's the one thing. Is that the input that's coming in to make these predictions, there's nothing to use as history.

Speaker 2 16:42

There's no history behind it. There's no history right Now we have it.

Speaker 1 16:45

So now we're going to have history, now we're going to start having history, but this is going to go down in history as being a very weird time, but I'm a strong believer that these surveys or these polls are I don't want to say a bad word like skewed or anything like that.

Speaker 2 17:03

But it's like what do they want the public to think? What do they want them to?

Speaker 1 17:07

know Absolutely, that's what. Anything, and they have a vested interest in that yes.

Speaker 2 17:10

You know, and what was the highest one? It was five.

Speaker 1 17:13

It was 5.5% is by AEI Housing Center. That doesn't. That makes sense. Make sense If you're a housing center you're going to want. I'm just saying right.

Speaker 2 17:25

The. National Egg Farmers Association which I don't even know.

Speaker 1 17:28

There is one they're telling everybody that eggs are the most amazing thing in the world. It's the bomb.

Speaker 2 17:34

The people that are against eggs are saying they're terrible for you.

Speaker 1 17:37

It's the way it is Exactly.

Speaker 2 17:41

If there is a.

Speaker 1 17:41

National Egg Farmers Association. I apologize for anything I've said that was no.

Speaker 2 17:44

You said absolutely, perfectly fine, you just promoted it. I wonder if there is. We're going to have to look that up, hugo, we've got to find out.

Speaker 2 17:53

if there's a National Egg Farmers Association, we Anything else you have the accuracy of pricing your home right now, and I just want to mention about these online vehicles that they're inaccurate. You've got to be careful with relying on an online evaluator for the price of your home. That online evaluator has never been in your home. They don't know the aspects of your home and the uniqueness of it. They're not giving you good, solid, comparable sales data like a professional, a real estate professional would do that. It might give you a very, extremely brutally rough idea, but you got to have a professional into your house if you're going to price your home, because this is not for wimps you really got to know what you're doing before you price it.

Speaker 1 18:41

Well, the computer goes back to cookie cutter.

Speaker 2 18:43

It really just goes back to cookie cutter.

Speaker 1 18:45

It goes back to you. Have a question here? No.

Speaker 2 18:47

I didn't know that was a thing that there's such a thing as a home valuation.

Speaker 1 18:51

They're called the Zestimates, the. Zestimate, if you want Zillow, but that's because you have a good realtor. You didn't need that.

Speaker 2 18:58

You didn't need that, that's right. You didn't need these things.

Speaker 1 19:01

Well, I didn't tell him. I didn't tell him about it. I'm not going to tell Hugo. Hey, Hugo, if you want to know the value of your house, go to this computer.

Speaker 2 19:06

Full disclosure right yeah.

Speaker 1 19:11

But no, so you know, and those things are just, they is not accurate.

Speaker 2 19:17

Come on, yeah, really, yeah, and realtor websites are pretty much what they're pulling from. Yeah, exactly. And guys, I mean, if you haven't had a sale on a home in 50 years, what kind of information are they going to tack on to the value of that property?

Speaker 1 19:30

It's only from Basement could be finished since then. Exactly, it could have another bedroom since then. There's so many factors factors.

Speaker 2 19:41

Yeah, exactly, I mean, I had one that was as low as 200, some thousand. It was 650 in my, in my off of my estimate, and then I've had it go the other way. Yeah, you know, I said 400 and you know, and then the z the z thing said five something. Yeah, it's like you really, it's really just an inaccurate thing typically they're overpriced.

Casual Chat About New Year Resolutions

Speaker 1 19:53

Typically it's over overpriced. Typically it's over by about 10 sometimes, yeah, there's like an average there it's like 10. Yeah, exactly, so you have to be careful with that, especially coming into this 2025 here. Yeah, you know, get, get a real estate professional out there to look exactly, we're coming into that.

Speaker 2 20:09

We're coming into that season where people want to get their houses priced. Yep, absolutely.

Speaker 1 20:13

Just rely on the professional absolutely it's a good good stuff. Good stuff. Anything else you got there, buddy?

Speaker 2 20:18

I think that is all I have today.

Speaker 1 20:20

No resolutions. I want to hear the resolutions.

Speaker 2 20:22

Oh yeah, he wanted to hear the resolutions. Okay, so what's your resolution?

Speaker 1 20:25

He went to the gym today he went to the gym. Did he go to the gym today?

Speaker 2 20:28

You know today's the busiest day at the gym. It looked like it.

Speaker 1 20:32

I mean not that I. I have friends named Jim. That's good. Do you hang out with them more after the holidays? Not usually, Screw Jim.

Speaker 2 20:48

I remember to get in shape. That round is a shape too.

Speaker 1 20:52

Oh, I love you, Hugo. Don't let them fool you, Pete. By the way, I don't have a dad bod, I have a father figure.

Speaker 2 21:01

That's funny.

Speaker 1 21:03

The kid's got me a mug with that on it, that's a lot right? Oh my God. All right, buddy, what about you? Do you have a resolution? No, I don't do those anymore.

Speaker 2 21:12

You don't no, because every time the next day it was over. I'm like yeah okay, whatever.

Speaker 1 21:21

Why set myself up for failure? You know what I mean? Oh my goodness, all right, that's about it. We got to go. We got to go. All right, thanks for stopping by today. Thursday Every Thursday, 7 pm. We will be here in 2025. Pete will be here once a month. I think it's always the third Thursday, if I'm not mistaken, and that's about it. Or is it the second Thursday, I can't remember. Second, second Thursday. Thank you, hugo. At some point I'll know. Don't forget our sponsors too. First Response Contracting John Sellers 484-256-7136. And Comfort Pro 610-477-5512. They've got HVAC, all kinds of stuff, duck cleaning and residential commercial work. All right, that's about it.