EP #34 Market Update, Hometown Hero Update

Today we talk about what is going on in the market right now and also a new program that the State of Florida Housing is rolling out.  Listen in and find out about the webinar we are having that can help you navigate Hometown Heros help.



To learn more:
https://barefootbungalowrealty.com/

Barefoot Bungalow Homes
9200 Bonita Beach Rd SE, Suite 100
Bonita Springs, FL 34135
(239) 350-5535

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to the live your best life barefoot podcast with your host Mary Morrison and the team at barefoot bungalow Realty.

Speaker 2 0:09

Good morning.

Speaker 3 0:10

Good morning.

Speaker 2 0:10

Welcome to live your best life barefoot. Our next episode is Ruth and I yay. Welcome. We wanted to first cover our market, cuz that is an interesting time right now, right? That's

Speaker 3 0:24

Very interesting.

Speaker 2 0:25

Yes, everything's a little bit, um, shifting let's that's probably a good word. It's a really good word. Yeah, it's shifting a little bit. And one, one of the best, uh, positives about this new market is it's turning into a buyer's market a little bit, a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 3 0:44

I see a lot more change going where buyers are getting things at a lot less than what sellers are being a little more flexible with people.

Speaker 2 0:51

Right? Um, for example, last week we closed on a great income producing condo, um, and that we were able to secure for 30,000 under asking. So

Speaker 3 1:06

That that's a great deal. That

Speaker 2 1:07

Was a great deal. And, and those are, are really good. We're actually looking at more for her. Yeah. So she's really excited about the possibilities. So those are still awesome. Anybody, any investors it's a really good time. It is. And we also went under contract last week for another house.

Speaker 3 1:27

It was a great deal. Great

Speaker 2 1:28

Deal. Two

Speaker 3 1:29

OU two, 200,000,

Speaker 2 1:30

200,000 under asking we, we secured a contract.

Speaker 3 1:34

Yeah. So it was a great deal and it's a beautiful house. It's like almost new,

Speaker 2 1:39

Almost new. Yeah. In 2019. Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:41

Yeah. So it was a great deal.

Speaker 2 1:43

So it's a good, still a good time to move. And in our market, you know, it's easy to hear the news and listen to the nation as a whole. And that's good. I mean, keep up on the, the world news, but really tuning into our market. We have a really in, in my crystal ball when I was looking at it,<laugh> we haven't when I

Speaker 3 2:07

Shook my magic gate ball.

Speaker 2 2:09

Right. We, we have a really narrow window in our market right now that, um, we have what we call season. Right, right, right. And so now we're, it's kind of a little quieter. It's a lot quieter and this is more typical. Right. Um, you know, pre BC before COVID we were, you know, these months were a little slower. Right. Typically. So I think we're moving back into that a little bit. So come October, November, we'll see everything pick back up again. I agree. So we have a really great window now to move into, um, getting whatever the, any thoughts you've had, um, about buying nervous investing. Yeah. Yeah. Nervousness. Um, obviously the elephant in the room is the market. Um, I mean the interest

Speaker 3 3:04

Interest

Speaker 2 3:04

Rates. Yeah. And we heard a really good quote. So you're marrying the house and dating the mortgage. Yeah. Think of it that way. Um, nobody keeps their mortgage for more than two or three

Speaker 3 3:18

Years. No. Yeah. Usually people refinance or get a lower to get a lower rate. So even if your rates are going up right now, mm-hmm<affirmative>, you can refinance that house and with the market going up, you're not, you're gonna make money off it still and you can get a lower interest rate.

Speaker 2 3:32

The other thing I really loved is I saw one of our lenders, which we're gonna talk about a little bit, uh, one of our lenders talked about, he put post on Facebook and he said, tell me the first house you bought and what your interest rate was.

Speaker 3 3:47

Oh, mine was like 18% for my first house. Right?

Speaker 2 3:51

Yes. It was really eyeopening that we've, we've been spoiled. Yeah. Like this interest rate is unheard of like nobody

Speaker 3 3:59

Single digit interest rate. Yeah. Which

Speaker 2 4:01

Still everybody was like, all, all of I, I scrolled through, they had several comments and I scrolled through all of them and they were, um, as high and higher. Yeah. As where we're at now. So we're as, as painful as it is because of where we've been. Um, we really are in more of a normal cycle.

Speaker 3 4:23

That's what I think too,

Speaker 2 4:24

A normal market. So it's, it's kind of disappointing because it's pretty fun to say you have a 1.7, five mortgage on your house.<laugh> yeah. But, um, moving past that and, and accomplishing whatever your goals are in life is more crucial. It

Speaker 3 4:42

Is. Yeah. I agree. Totally agree with that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 4:45

So, so we also have some great news. Right,

Speaker 3 4:48

Right, right. We are now certified. Yes. For the home new program, it's called hometown heroes. And we're gonna talk about that today. So it's through the Florida housing and, um, it's, it's for people, different people can qualify, but the heroes, aren't just the police officers and the, uh, nurses and, you know, the doctors, there's a lot more pro profession professions. That's weird, um, that are able to get this program. And it's a lot. So they have, I mean like a dentist, a dentist can get it, um, a

Speaker 2 5:24

Dental assistant.

Speaker 3 5:25

Yes. A classroom teacher or a librarian there's different, uh, people that actually qualify for this loan. There's

Speaker 2 5:34

90 professions listed on this, um, this piece of information like, uh

Speaker 3 5:46

<laugh> that's it? That was the technical term. It was a technical term. Very nice.

Speaker 2 5:51

I'll

Speaker 3 5:51

Have to remember that one,

Speaker 2 5:53

A chiropractor, acupuncture, massage therapist, um,

Speaker 3 5:59

Uh, work. It was a daycare daycare provider. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so it's pretty much anybody who, um, who had to get a, a specific license to do their job. That is not a trade. Correct. So if you had to, you know, like the dental hygienist, they have to get a license to do their job. And those are the people. They have a list on our web, the website that we're gonna put on here that you can look up and see if your profession is actually on this list. Yes.

Speaker 2 6:25

We will put a link and you can call us. Yeah. We're happy to help you. Um, we want it to go over a little bit about what it means, because it's huge.

Speaker 3 6:35

It is, it's a big, it's a really good program that the, the housing it's Florida housing, um, put it out.

Speaker 2 6:42

Right. Our, our, uh, great governor, um, hospice. Yes. Yes. And, um, it, one of the best things about it is it's fully funded. Um, it, it they're anticipating that anybody who wants it can get it,

Speaker 3 6:59

If they, they do have to qualify. Yes, yes. Yes.

Speaker 2 7:02

So let's talk a little bit about what that means to qualify. Okay. So first of all, you have to be one of those professions.

Speaker 3 7:08

You have to be one of those professions. You have a salary that, um, you have to be in, uh, the limit of, right. So your salary, if it is in Lee county, you can't make over 120, a thousands or 120$600,000. Right. Right. 20,000. Yeah. And then for Collier, it's a hundred and forty one, four fifty. So as long as you're under that money salary, then you, that would, you would qualify that part of it. Then of course, there's a couple other things like credit score. Um, but those things we can get into with you, if you wanted to reach out to us were actually gonna have also, um, talk about what it, what it means. So once you get this, what it means to you, you get the 5% of the loan for down payment on your first home, but only up to

Speaker 2 8:03

25,000,

Speaker 3 8:04

$25,000. So

Speaker 2 8:06

Up to$25,000 down payment assistance,

Speaker 3 8:09

That's

Speaker 2 8:10

Really good. That is really good. So the other, um, fabulous thing back to the interest rate is that you also qualify for a lower interest rate and that's huge.

Speaker 3 8:23

That's huge. That's cause that's the biggest concern right now is the interest rate, right?

Speaker 2 8:28

So as part of qualifying for this, you get a lower interest rate. You're, you're going to have reduced closing costs. You don't have to pay stamper and tangible taxes. Um, so we are going to, um, be able to help you find the perfect lender to help you answer some of these questions.

Speaker 3 8:49

Yeah. And the hometown heroes actually has have lenders who have also gone through the certification to offer this program to people.

Speaker 2 8:58

Right. And for those of you that are just listening and didn't watch the video, we held up our certifications. So the, that is the, the number one place to start is in. Or if, if you wanna find out, if you qualify, um, there, you know, we can help you look that up, but also make sure you have to have a lender that's qualified and you have to have a realtor that's gone through the, the training. Yeah. So we had to, we had to do training and get certified through the state in order to do, be able to, um, help assist, uh, hometown heroes with their home purchase. So those two things are very important, um, in being able to complete that process. Um, and my experiences, I, cuz I we've been talking to all of our lenders that we refer to and they're all great, don't get me wrong. But those that don't have it, um, are offering other things in lieu of it, but they're not as good.

Speaker 3 10:00

Well, they're not gonna offer the assistance with the down payment. Right. Which the hometown heroes does. Right.

Speaker 2 10:06

So if you qualify, all those lenders are great. Don't get me wrong. They are they're, they're great. Um, but you do have to be qualified by the state to be able to, um, help people get the funding. So we wanna make sure we connect you with the right people, um, that can help you do that.

Speaker 3 10:26

Yeah. I think it's a great program though.

Speaker 2 10:28

Yes. Um, what we are gonna cover something else right here. Oh, you do let, we're gonna reiterate that you do have to qualify for it still. Um, all of the normal,

Speaker 3 10:43

It's a, it's the same kind of qualifications, but your income, I think is the biggest one.

Speaker 2 10:49

Your, and, and that's something to point out too, that a lot of people who've maybe gone through some of the, um, housing assistance programs in the past that, uh, dollar amount, your yearly income amount is high. Yeah. Yeah. So that's

Speaker 3 11:06

It's this is higher. Well, the hometown heroes is higher than most of'em cuz the other programs, I think when they were going over with us, some of them were only like 80, 80,000 was your high salary. Mm-hmm<affirmative> where this for, especially for Lee county is a hundred, it's gone up to 120,000, right? So that's a big jump for people that are looking, especially first time home buyers, you know, where their income is lower. This is a great program for them.

Speaker 2 11:28

That's a really good program. So if it's something that you're interested in, if you know, somebody that falls into these categories, um, send'em our way, we're happy to answer questions. And we're also excited to announce that on, um, July 27th, 27th, we'll be doing a webinar. It'll be live with one of our lenders. That's really good at all of these ins and outs. He's, he's actually been work working with Florida down payment assistance programs for a while. So it was, you know, easy for him to roll this out. Um, and get, they still have to get qualified on each of these programs. Right. They have to go through like months yeah. Of training to be able to be qualified. So, um, we're going to have him come on our webinar, he'll be live and answer questions. Um, and

Speaker 3 12:20

So we'd love to have you guys come. So if you wanna get ahold of us and we can get send you the link for the webinar, mm-hmm,<affirmative>, it's good for you for an informational and also for participation. Because if you are struggling with some questions you might wanna ask on there, everybody wants to know, you know, everybody's gonna have different questions, so you might learn something from it. Right. And

Speaker 2 12:40

Find out. And, and so this will just be one component of that too. I should point out he's gonna, he's gonna cover the market in general and what it, the landscape of our market looks like and how you can take advantage of it. Um, he's really good at understanding that, you know, we need to not get freaked out when the news makes us nervous. Yeah. And um, that every market has potential for you to make good investment decisions with your housing. So he's gonna cover some

Speaker 3 13:11

Of that. I'm excited for that.

Speaker 2 13:13

Yeah. It'll be awesome. So

Speaker 3 13:14

We'll put, we'll post something about it and a reminder on our

Speaker 2 13:17

Facebook, on our Facebook and Instagram,

Speaker 3 13:20

And then we'll be excited for you guys to join us. Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:23

So thanks for joining us here today. It was

Speaker 3 13:26

Fun. It was fun. Yeah. It's nice for us to get a little chit chat in. Yes,

Speaker 2 13:29

Exactly. And we love, um, helping all of you. Um, this is our passion. We, we actually literally eat, sleep and breathe real estate some days, some

Speaker 3 13:40

Days<laugh>

Speaker 2 13:41

And we would love to help you and answer any of your questions. So reach out, we can, uh, call us at(239) 350-5535. Or you can go to our Facebook page, uh, which is barefoot bungalow homes, um, or online barefoot bungalow homes.com. Um, and we'd love also, if you have questions that you'd like us to bring on to our podcast, we'd love to hear those too. So we want to remind you one last thing,

Speaker 3 14:12

Live your, your best life barefoot.

Speaker 1 14:14

Thank you for listening to the live, your best life barefoot podcast. Sponsored buy barefoot bungalow Realty to learn more about barefoot bungalow Realty, go to www.barefootbungalowrealty.com or call 2 3 9 3 5 0 5 5 3 5.