A Wiser Retirement®

267. The 2025 Housing Market: Trends, Changes, and What to Expect

• Wiser Wealth Management • Episode 267

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 44:42

Curious about where mortgage rates and home prices are headed in 2025? Tune in to this episode of A Wiser Retirement® Podcast as Tom Townsend, Realtor at Townsend Realty Group, recaps the 2024 housing market and shares predictions and trends for 2025. We also discuss the state of the local market, inventory shortages, the cost of new construction, and tips for anyone planning to buy or sell a home this year.

Related Podcast Episodes:
- Ep 133: What Financial Planners Wish You Knew About Buying Your First Home

Related YouTube Videos:
-  Should I pay off my mortgage before retirement or invest?
-  REITs vs Direct Real Estate Investment

Learn More:
- About Wiser Wealth Management
- Schedule a Complimentary Consultation: Discover how we can help you achieve financial freedom.
- Access Our Free Guides: Gain valuable insights on building a financial legacy, the importance of a financial advisor for business owners, post-divorce financial planning, and more!

Stay Connected:
- Social Media: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter
- A Wiser Retirement® YouTube Channel

This podcast was produced by Wiser Wealth Management. Thanks for listening!

Housing Inventory Shortage and Market Outlook

Speaker 1

we're still in major short supply, so we need to have an increase of 80% of inventory to be at a quote unquote balanced market. What we refer to as a balanced market where buyers and sellers have equal leverage against each other.

Speaker 2

Welcome to the Wiser Retirement Podcast. Are you curious about whether mortgage rates and home prices will go down this year? I'm Casey Smith and today I'm joined with Tom Townsend from Townsend Realty Group. Each week, we bring you practical advice on retirement, investing and planning for your financial future. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. So let's get started, hey, tom.

Speaker 1

Hi, how are you Doing good Good Thanks for having me on again, I know, I think.

Speaker 2

I was told I'm the number one guest. I think you are. You'd have to be. We've been doing this at least. This is probably like your fifth time, or something.

Speaker 1

We have to go back and look yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

So yeah, it's been a while.

Speaker 1

Yes it has been.

Speaker 2

But whenever we have housing questions, I call Tom. There you go, I appreciate that. So what's happening in your world? Or maybe we should start with 24. Sure, we can talk a little bit about 24. Looking back and see how 24 went, without looking at any numbers or any data, my sense is that inventory is not moving much because people don't want to take on a six and a quarter percent mortgage. They're locked in and they're probably just improving their home as opposed to moving Correct, they're going to love it instead of listing it.

Speaker 1

That's right. Yeah, you said you didn't want to get into the numbers, but 55% of the existing mortgages out there are below 4%. Oh, 25, or about 26% are below 3%. So we call that the locked-in effect. So people are locked into their existing homes because, what you said, they're not willing to trade that 3% mortgage for 6.7%.

Speaker 2

Where are they willing to trade it for?

Speaker 1

Well, it depends on their motivation, right? I mean, there are some circumstances that people find themselves in that they have to move. You know jobs and transfers and family changes that are occurring, so there are reasons. But, yeah, the motivation has got to be pretty high for them to trade out that low rate for a higher rate. Are you seeing cash purchases because of this? Yes, Cash is king, more so than ever. A lot of the clients that we're working with are either 100% cash buyers or they're putting a tremendous amount of money down on the new home that they're purchasing. We're seeing a lot of cash purchases or very large down payments.

Speaker 2

Mort mortgage rates came down a little bit over the last year, correct.

Speaker 1

Through 24? Well, they've been kind of bouncing around. I checked this morning. They're at 6.7%. That's a 30-year fixed.

Speaker 2

Okay, with no points or anything like that.

Speaker 1

yeah that's no points right? Uh, I think last summer they came down a little bit. They were hitting right around that 6.2 if I'm not mistaken and we did see a little bit of a an increase in buyers coming out right, coming off the fence and starting to move a little bit. But then they jumped right back up and that kind of cooled down and then interesting, we haven't figured this piece out, or at least I haven't December was all of a sudden off the charts high, so one of the best December recordings that we've had in quite a few years, and I haven't really figured out why that was. Maybe it was the end of the election and people were waiting for something to happen, but all of a sudden they just kind of jumped back in. So December was very strong from a sales standpoint.

Speaker 2

What about overall for last year? Were sales up or down versus 23? We were up here locally, yeah, real estate's local.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's all local right. So we're talking about local demand, supply, demand and everything. We were up about 2.3% of overall sales from 2023. Okay, 2023 was down from previous years, so we always use like 2022 as a benchmark, because that was the height of craziness if you remember, correct Low interest rates and people moving away from the city Post-pandemic.

Speaker 1

Everybody was shifting and moving and finally getting out and the world had kind of changed Right. So that was the highest number of sales year that we had seen in, I think, ever. Yeah, so we always compare to 2022. So, compared to 2022, the market last year was down 17 or 18%, so sales volume was way down. However, from 23 to 24 24, we were up 2.3. So a little bit of an uptick, yeah what is last year.

Speaker 1

And what about inventory? Well, inventory is creeping up, uh, but actually increased. Uh. What do I have here? 21, so we saw a 21% increase in inventory from 23 to 24. However, we are still everybody's like, oh sweet, we're still in major short supply. Yeah, so we need to have an increase of 80% of inventory to be at a quote unquote balanced market what we refer to as a balanced market, where buyers and sellers have equal leverage yeah, against each other. So we're a long ways from being at a balanced market, but we did see an increase, you know metro, metro, atlanta, you know, has these um very wealthy pockets, obviously yeah and you know my, my litmus test a lot of times is just what I see.

Speaker 2

So I have this drive up to the airport, which is I have a plane up in Cartersville and I used to love that drive because it's pretty much after you get off the interstate, you pass a Lakewood, the baseball fields, and then after that it's kind of the country you know, yeah, it's gorgeous.

Speaker 2

Well, I've noticed some of those big fields. I know about crop rotation, obviously, but some of those big fields were not replanted and the old farmhouse looks very empty, yeah. And then when you take off now and you look down to the right excuse me further out, you see big bulldozers. Yeah, so I'm guessing that new home construction out in these more rural areas we're buying up land and we're going to start just putting out homes to help solve all this. Unfortunately, that's a really far away and there's no industry out there, so those people will be commuting in. We don't have the infrastructure to handle that many more cars on the road.

Speaker 1

Well, it's interesting. Yeah, no, exactly. So you can imagine what the municipalities and the counties are going through.

Speaker 2

Yeah right, this is strenuous, yeah they made a two lane into a four lane. They're doing that now, but still, is that the solution?

Speaker 1

Is that Well, we're in a major housing shortage. We need housing.

Speaker 2

We need housing.

Speaker 1

We need housing and the urban sprawl is real. Since 2020, more and more people are working out of their homes. Now we're going to have to see there's some. Obviously a lot of corporations are calling their people back, so we may see a reverse migration.

Speaker 2

People moving back into town.

Speaker 1

Yes, it's way too, early to determine that, but that is something that we are watching, to see exactly how many people have to go back and start commuting again. But for the last five years a lot of people have been working out of their homes, so it allowed them to go out into those rural areas and still be able to work, as long as they got internet connection.

Speaker 2

So if all the people are coming here, they have to be leaving somewhere. Yeah, right, yes. Yeah, so they all come in from somewhere has to be really cheap real estate. I just don't know where that somewhere is.

Speaker 1

The cheap real estate. Yeah Well, the further away you get from Atlanta, from the city, obviously yeah.

Speaker 2

But still, these new homes up in Cartersville are 400 plus. That's a starter home.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Welcome to the real. That's a starter home. Yeah, Welcome to the real world. Yeah, that's it. I don't see a whole lot of new apartment buildings. Maybe I just haven't noticed it. Yes, there are. Are there A lot of?

Speaker 1

new apartment buildings going in townhouses because it's low density, correct, it's more economical and that's the demand that people are trying to fill. It's that affordability, that housing affordability where the mass of people are at. Yeah, those are. And also think about this, casey. I mean you've got like a very fluent area, you know. Let's take Alpharetta, where the average price point's like $850,000. Right, you know, that's the medium price point. Well, we still have, we still have corporations that have service people there. They can't afford eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, so they're commuting from, from these other locations. They're commuting an hour to go be a server at a restaurant. Right, that's just not sustainable, right so they've got to have somewhere to go.

Speaker 1

They have to have some place to live there locally. So so apartment complexes. Now some municipalities are pushing back on that because they don't want that type of housing there. But there's a lot of friction that is occurring on the whole North side, the North Atlanta side, that we're seeing in the market because of that. But when we look at the East Cobb area, there's not a lot of land available any longer. It's pretty well developed. So townhouses are what you're starting to see, all these townhouse complex starting to be built, One house taking down.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean just down the street from the office there were two ranch-style homes on probably, I'd say, three acres each and those are now million-dollar homes about 20 feet from each other. Okay, and there's a I don't know. The two houses went down. I'd probably say 30 houses went in.

Speaker 1

Yeah, there you go. No, that's it, that's just more dense population.

Speaker 2

A lot more density, again, not the infrastructure to handle at all?

Speaker 1

Well, of course not. And then that's the other issue that comes along with that. But just think about the tax base that just increased, oh, absolutely six acres that you were just talking about absolutely, you know.

Speaker 2

So you, you would think, uh, we have a friend of the podcast here that uh has, um, uh, purchased uh, I don't know there's probably like 15 acres behind his house and and built a barn or is trying to build a barn for, uh, his wife's horses, and okay, you know they're, they're, uh, living their best lives right and and, uh, the the cop county has has really stuck it to him.

Speaker 2

It's been a really hard road because they were supposed to be condos or townhouses, right, and now they're. It's not going to get any revenue, now it's agriculture, yeah, wow, and they've given him a really hard time. Wow, you think they'd be like the neighbors love it. Obviously sure, but you would think that the county would have been like oh yeah, more green space, that's really good.

Speaker 3

No, lost revenue. This is bad.

Speaker 2

This is bad exactly uh, cobb county is not your. Uh, the people that run the what is it? The permits and all that stuff, these are not nice people. Yeah, these are very difficult people.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and it's county by county. Every county is different, you know, as far as that's concerned, and but yeah, no, that's, that's it.

Speaker 2

So what I've noticed, home values when we do client review meetings aren't changing much. Are you seeing that you think home prices kind of plateaued?

Speaker 1

where we are right now. No, the opposite, I think it's the opposite. They're still increasing. So so maybe it's just Zillow, that's a little off.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you know, we use Zillow or Redfin, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah, people are always yeah, I mean, I understand that, I get that. But no, you know, once again, when you listen to the national news, you get a total. It's so diluted. You know when real estate is local, so we're still seeing, I mean from 23 to 24, if you look at the 13 county metro area we're up seven and a half percent. Oh wow, that's from 23 to 24.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And then if you dive further I know Cherokee County was almost 11% increase. So, there's your double digit again. Now. This is after years of back-to-back. Now, 23 was our lowest year. Growth year, growth year, and it was like three or 4%, I can't remember exactly what it was you told me a long time ago.

Speaker 2

after COVID, we had this huge increase in home values. Yes, so you said, if you went back to the financial crisis in 08 and you drew a line to that period of time so 21, 22, that it was really just an average of a 4% per year. Yep, you still see that yes, so it's still an average around 4% per year, or is that it could be increasing a little bit.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we just looked at those stats this last week and we had that exact same graph and it is right on that 4% line since 2005. So we're still just catching up. I mean, it is right on it. We're still catching up. Yeah, we picked up a little bit and then in 2023, which we didn't see that much of an appreciation it was down to, like I said, about 2% or 3% it came right back back down and we are sitting right on top of that line right now.

Speaker 2

So you have people that want to buy a rental real estate. It seems to me that's a tough market because the rent that you can gather has a top. You just can't charge unlimited amount of rent at some point.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Just like any other market, people have other choices. Right, correct? So if you're buying a rental in Metro Atlanta now, are you just basically betting that we keep increasing at these high single double digit rates and value to make your money?

Speaker 1

It's very speculative. That's the speculative part of investing in real estate.

Speaker 2

I feel like.

Speaker 1

Yeah, probably a little more risk now. Yeah, so you can look in the rear view mirror and anybody that bought real estate five, six, seven years ago, they're loving it because their appreciation has just gone through the roof. Yeah, so is it going to continue? Yeah, who knows Right? Yeah, who knows?

Speaker 2

I mean, I don't I don't think there's any catalyst for a real estate crash. I don't think the house if you're looking at a house right now I don't think that, oh, I need to wait for home values to come down. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't either, especially in Metro Atlanta there's some people moving here.

Speaker 1

Correct, we have so much demand and, like I said, we're so far behind on the supply that we need Correct, there's no quick fix for that. What about? What about building new? New construction is there, but yeah, it's expensive. It's expensive, it takes a long time. It does you know the red tape to actually get approved by these counties and get those developments and the infrastructure that has to be there. There's no quick. You can't add another third shift and all of a sudden produce three million houses correct up in highlands, north carolina.

Speaker 2

Um, I've noticed that the really the floor, the minimum cost per square foot for buildings, and now has crept up to 750 a square foot.

Speaker 2

Wow, and there's like two, three, maybe three builders in town that do these big homes that they build up there. Yeah, obviously, these are very, these are very high in finishing. Sure, these are not, you know, kb and all those other. Yeah, yeah, polty. No, that's, that's basic compared to these houses, yes, but the point is, is that, um, even down here, some of the builders I've known are that, that I know it, they're charging not 750, but they're probably around 400, 450 a square foot for a custom home.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it depends on you know if you're wrapping land costs into that or just pure cost to build a property or not.

Speaker 1

It gets a little convoluted. But yeah, I mean the new construction. I mean you're starting at four 50, you can go up into a daresville and some of those Northern cities and you can still find something in the three 50 as a starter home. They are starting. You know, you can still find those and I we actually found those for some buyers but you're going up into a daresville. That's a long commute. That's a long commute commute if you're, especially if you're working in atlanta right, wow your life is on the road.

Speaker 1

Yeah, um so, but that's where you have to go to get those types of types of homes interesting, and that's why, up that 75 corridor, you're seeing all of those developments pop up. Right, that's exactly what they are their affordability, that people can afford them, the mass of people can afford.

Speaker 2

Yeah, in that particular area but yeah, I'm not really one for mass rail, necessarily. But oh, we're starting to make a case for it yes, we keep going that far north and the interstate keeps being packed as much I mean I don't have. I live four miles from my office, so actually it's 3.1 yes, uh, so so and sometimes I'm like man, that took me 15 minutes to get here today.

Speaker 2

Dad, come on, I run up here on a Saturday morning. It's eight minutes, but yeah, these people that have to go and sit and all that, it's crazy.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it is, it is, so it's interesting. It'll be interesting because a lot of people moved out during the pandemic when they could work out of their homes. Yeah, like homes, yeah. And now let's see how this changes, if corporations and companies and governments are actually going to hold these people to coming into the office now so it's hard.

Speaker 2

It's hard to make predictions. People ask me all the time about the stock market. What's the stock market gonna do this year? It's like I don't know. I mean, don't be short-term investor, right right, but what are your predictions for 2025 in real estate?

Speaker 1

I think that there's going to be continued demand. We don't see anything outside of a catastrophe or black swan, if you will Outside of that occurring. It's going to continue on. The demand is there, people are moving here. So that demand for housing is going to continue, which is only going to increase properties and the demand for properties and for values. Yeah Right, so we're not really predicting anything. We're not predicting a pullback, that's for sure.

Speaker 2

Do you think it's a buyer's market or a seller's market? Oh, it's definitely a seller's market.

Speaker 1

It's been a seller's market since 2012. Are you still getting multiple bids In certain pockets and in certain price points?

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And the property's got to be in good condition. So things have changed a little bit. Once again, I'll use 2022 as the benchmark year where it was crazy, where all you had to do is whisper to your neighbor that you were selling your house and you had five offers. Those days are gone. So a property still has to be in good condition, more so now than we've ever we've seen in quite a few years. So you can't just throw up a trashy house any longer and expect to get multiple offers. Um, but in certain price points. As long as the house is in good condition and priced right, then yeah, you can expect multiple offers, but it's not like it was in 2022 yeah, okay.

Speaker 2

Um, what advice would you have for people looking to buy a home this year?

Speaker 1

to buy a house. Yeah, um, I would say that you need to be content to understand that you still.

Speaker 2

it is still a seller's market, so you're going to be competing, and it really depends on um depends on the price point too, um, the other thing that I would recommend, maybe the difference between a $500,000 home, which is a starter home now, versus like 1.5.

Agent Compensation and Buyer Representation

Speaker 1

Yeah, exactly, well, we're seeing, you know, the higher price points is more of a balanced market. Okay, all right. So as you start segregating the different price points, I mean you're gonna you're gonna have different demand for it. So what, the houses that are priced depending on your area? Right, you get into the Buckhead area and 1.5 is basically the median price home. But if you get into the outer, outside the perimeter areas, the one and a half percent, I mean you're more in a balanced market. Yeah, so, um, but you asked the question. You know, if you were a buyer, what will you do?

Speaker 1

I wrote a couple of notes down. The first thing is I would hire an agent that has a hunter's mentality. We are still in short supply, meaning that you need an agent that's going to go out there and find a house and be aggressively looking for you. Yeah, um, do not rely on just looking at Zillow on your own, right again, depending on your price point and what location you're looking at, but I would definitely look at an agent that has that, that hunter's mentality. Um, also, be aware of the new buyer compensation. We haven't really touched on that, but we've had some changes in the rules. Yeah, uh, about compensation. Oh yeah, yes, so all we've really done from like a national level right, yeah, yeah, this was a national lawsuit.

Speaker 1

Well, there was a national lawsuit that was filed and any agent who is a realtor meaning they are a member of the national association of realtors have to abide by these new rules. I guess the the rules are laws. They will. So they basically took the compensation that we used to negotiate with a seller and they've decoupled it. So how it used to work in the past was if I was an agent, you were a seller, I would sit down and say hey, listen, my brokerage charges X percent to sell your house from that X percent. I'm going to give a portion of that to whoever brings you a buyer.

Speaker 2

Oh, so like 6% commission, three goes to you, three goes to them.

Speaker 1

Yep, exactly, thanks for throwing those percentages out Since you've set that now I can talk and I can use those numbers, but I can't say that.

Speaker 1

But yes, for your example, I'd go in and say, hey, it's going to cost 6%, that's the fee. I'm going to take half of that and I'm going to share it with every buyer. Or every agent brings you a buyer, boom. That was how it worked. Now they've decoupled it. So now I'm going to sit down with you and say you and I are just going to negotiate on my compensation only. So let's say your example, 3%. The buyer and the buyer's agent will negotiate their compensation separately. So that's all they've done is they decoupled it. So if you're a buyer going so how has this changed?

Speaker 2

conversations.

Speaker 1

Well, when I go into a listing appointment, I'm only talking about what it's going to cost you to hire me to sell the house. Now is the seller still paying the full Depends on the offer?

Speaker 1

So the other part of that conversation is there's an anticipation that when you receive an offer, most likely the buyer is going to ask you to cover their portion of the compensation. We'll see how that, or as a seller, if you would like to, for us to market that as an incentive. Yes, in the marketplace we can do that as well. We'll cover buyers. Yeah, yep, and we can use that as a marketing okay in our marketing right that you're willing to be able to provide.

Speaker 2

What was everyone so upset about?

Speaker 1

I don't think anybody's upset about it. It's just a little bit of a shift or a change. Okay, so here's what's changing for the buyers. This gets back to what to anticipate as a buyer in this new world is now. In the past you'd find a house on Zillow one, two, three main. You'd call up your agent and you'd say, hey, I want to go see the house, Sweet, I'll meet you out there and I'll open it up for you and we'll go through it Boop. End of discussion. No conversation about compensation. Right Now, before I open that door for you, I have to have a conversation about compensation and I have to have you sign this agreement.

Speaker 2

That makes sense. I was looking at houses over in Starkville where my son goes to school, and the lady was really insistent that I sign this piece of paper before he went in and looked at the house. There you go. That would explain that.

Speaker 1

That's it. So all we do is we really just explain it to buyers, unless it's a listing that we, that we are listing ourselves, I, I can do that without a conversation, because I'm representing the seller right and I'm just I'm just marketing the property. What happens when you're on both sides of the deal? Well, that's called dual agency and you can still do that. But all parties, two different yeah, two different documents basically, yeah, yeah, you're gonna have a buyer agreement for the buyer and you have a listing agreement for the seller.

Speaker 2

I mean it sounds like it's more transparent than maybe in the past. It is more transparent so.

Speaker 1

I think it's a good thing.

Speaker 1

It's a change and anytime you have a change, people get a little wiggy and wigged out. I think it's great it added at least one more layer of negotiating, if not two layers of negotiating, depending on how you look at it. Yeah, that allows everybody to have that conversation around, right? And from an agent standpoint, I think my value just went up. Sure, because now I've got one or two other negotiating points that I get to be able to shine and provide value to my clients over. Yeah, that's a good point. That's how I look at it. So, from a buyer standpoint, understand, you're going to be having that conversation. If you're a buyer and you're used to being able to call any random agent up and have them open up a door for you, those days are gone.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you're going to have to have your person.

Speaker 1

Yes, you're going to have to have your person. Yeah, you're going to have to have your person, yes, you're going to have to have your person. Or we're getting a lot of calls directly now from buyers on our listings. Whereas before they would call up any random agent, now they're calling us directly off of our sign or the advertising that we're doing Right, and they're saying hey, we want to see your house that you have listed. Can you, can you meet us out there? And I'm saying, hey, we want to see your house that you have listed. Can you meet us out there? And I'm like, absolutely.

Speaker 4

Are you curious why annuities keep coming up as a potential investment option? People are often told that annuities can effectively mitigate investment risks and help secure their financial future. However, annuities often benefit the salesperson and might not be the best choice for you as a consumer. To learn more about the various types of annuities, the negatives of owning them and better investment alternatives, we have a free ebook on our website just for you To download our ebook. Buyer, beware, why Do they Keep Trying to Sell you that Annuity? Simply click the link in the episode notes or visit wiserinvestorcom slash guides. Now let's get back to the episode.

Speaker 2

There's really no incentive for other people to show that I don't guess yeah.

Speaker 1

I mean, if you just want to go look at a house and you're not, you know you're shopping, right right, I just want to go look at a house, right right. Um, it's easier just to call the listing agent, that's on the sign.

Speaker 2

Yeah, we used, but you would sign a document with them.

Speaker 1

No, I don't need to. Oh, that's right, because I'm represent and I make it very clear, just understand. I'm representing the seller here, correct? If you would like to engage into a further conversation or in a further agreement and hire me, um, to be a client, then absolutely I'd love that so someone comes in with no agent and they just find out and they don't.

Speaker 2

They don't have an agent, does? You're not getting your six percent anymore, you're getting the three. That's probably why people are rubbed wrong way, right?

Speaker 1

well, that's one of the things. So now you're negotiating, now with a buyer right.

Speaker 2

To say hey, I'll represent you, or you may choose to go with the representation.

Speaker 1

Well, exactly. However, most agents will still charge a fee because you're doing the work for both sides.

Speaker 2

Right, exactly.

Real Estate Transaction Management and Marketing

Speaker 1

Right. So, regardless, I understand you found that we didn't go through the pain and suffering of going and looking at 20 houses, correct, so that's off the table. I'm really a transaction manager at this point, right. How we deal with it is that I still represent the seller as a client.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

And I represent the buyer as a customer, meaning that we're just working through the transaction for them. If they want to be a client and have further depth of representation in the transaction, we'll find another agent to represent them. But it is a big conflict of interest, my opinion, to be a dual agent. Those are very, very special circumstances that you can comfortably and ethically be a dual agent, in my opinion, and they exist out there. You know, people all know each other and you know, maybe it's an investment transaction where everybody's very knowledgeable about the industry. You can do that. But if you have two separate parties that don't do real estate every day, every single day, every day, every single day, dual agency is just a conflict to me. So we'll either do a client on the listing side and customer on the buy side, or we'll find another agent to represent the buyer.

Speaker 2

I asked you about buying. Let's just selling. So I'm selling my house. What suggestions do you have?

Speaker 1

for me, yeah, sellers, a couple different things. Condition matters more than we've seen in quite a few years, so maybe remodel the kitchen, yes, if you are looking for top dollar and you're looking to get as much money out of the property as you can which is most sellers trying to get as much money as you can in a timeframe that works for them.

Speaker 2

But what I always ask in this situation is if the kitchen costs $50,000, am I going to get at least $50,000 more for the house?

Speaker 1

Here's the difference If you don't renovate, no one's coming. I shouldn't say no one, that's an absolute yeah. Your buyer pool shrinks way down, oh yeah.

Speaker 2

I mean, I look at houses all the time. There's a couple of houses not too far from me now that are really cool locations, yes, and the inside has not been touched since 1972 and it pains me to think about gutting that place and rebuilding that place.

Speaker 1

and so then you, you, keep scrolling but if it had already been done I will give you a case in point. This is a great example. I had a buyer this last two weeks ago. Yeah, we went into a marietta um subdivision and there was two houses. One of them looked like I was walking into 1999. The other one had been updated. The price different wasn't all that much different. Obviously, the one that had been updated was more expensive. We're talking about $750,000 homes. Okay, and it was a no-brainer for them, not from a cost standpoint, but from a. She was like no way am I dealing with the old house? Yeah, I want the new house. So the buyer pool is much larger. You, you're marketing towards a buyer pool and you're trying to market towards as many possible buyers, as you're not saying it's about more and more money you get.

Speaker 2

It's about actually selling the house or not selling the house yes, yeah.

Speaker 1

So it's not a return on investment decision. I get that, I understand that, but it's a it's you got to make it a marketable product, right? You know, try and sell a car with no wheels. Are you kidding me? Right? I mean, you can find someone, but you know, um, but yeah, you put brand new tires on that and nice new wheels and bam, there's a lot more interest in that prop that that car.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I don't know if that analogy I would just say I would always tell people just just maintain your home. It's so funny. But we got a new driveway a few years it's been many years ago now and we painted the house at the same time and then, I think later that year, I ended up having to replace the roof yeah and someone came walking by the house.

Speaker 2

They said are you guys moving? Like, no, I'm not moving, I'm just taking care of my property. But why does everyone think that? You know you can do driveway, you put some paint out. Oh, they must be moving yeah why would you want your house to be the nicest ever right before you sell it? Yeah, well, it's a cost thing. I've never understood that. But but yeah, cost aside, I'm just saying yes, yeah. So sellers, you know sellers, yeah have a well-maintained house.

Speaker 1

Do the updates to attract the largest pool of buyers right? Um, buyers are very cash poor, so you want to. You don't want to have a home in which someone is looking at and says, wow, I'm gonna have to throw another 50 grand into this thing immediately when I buy it. Right, those that'll scare them away. So, once again, you're marketing towards that largest pool of of buyers. So that's number one. Number two is make sure an agent that you are hiring is up to speed with all the cool new digital marketing avenues. This market is changing. The way that we market properties is drastically changing.

Speaker 2

It's not flyers in a box anymore. It's not flyers in a box. No one cares about flyers in a box.

Speaker 1

Or on the kitchen table or anything like that. No one picks them up any longer. It's all digital Social media YouTube walkthrough videos, all the lights and cameras and all the cool stuff. That's what you got to do. So if you're hiring an agent to sell your home, make sure they are up to speed and can show you what they are doing online. It's all. It's very much. It's very digital based marketing nowadays.

Speaker 2

Speaking of pools, yes, you, you've added a pool to your place and, uh, I understand your grilling videos have gone viral.

Speaker 4

yeah, yeah, blackstone who would?

Speaker 2

who would have thought uh, you're craziest.

Speaker 1

So here's the aha. Here's the thing my daughter did that right and I thought I was making fun of her. Right, I'm a, I'm a content guy, you know, I'm obviously very number driven, right, exactly right appraiser turn real estate agent very very drip more driven than some.

Speaker 1

Yes, yes very much so. So I'm always like I want to bring value, I want to, I want to share my updates and this and that and what's going on the market and that right. And my daughter was like dad, people don't you know when you're doing social media stuff. They just want to know who you are and what you're doing. I'm like whatever exactly so we got a new black.

Speaker 1

You know, yes, we have a pool. Yeah, blackstone, we got all these grills, so yeah, she goes. Let me do a video of you doing this grilling. And I was like whatever. And she put some cool music to it and yeah, did the social media things. Yeah, that thing like took off. I think it's. I can't immediately. It was like 35,000 views or something on Instagram, the highest, the most highest rated.

Speaker 2

The realtor guy that does yeah Phones started ringing off the hook.

Speaker 1

Now is anybody calling me to list their house off of that video? Probably not, probably not. But listen, you don't know that. You know exactly. It's an indirect marketing thing. People get to know who you are and they see you every single day on their phone.

Speaker 2

So um have you seen the increase in um raw land purchases?

Speaker 1

uh, depending on where you're at. Uh, uh, not. Not in the Metro.

Speaker 2

There's no land, and if there, is land I know I'll look for it. Crazy, expensive, Like yeah, I touched on that earlier about.

Speaker 1

let's look at Cobb County Right.

Speaker 2

You remember that um, out in powder Springs, I asked you to show me this, a little mini farm. Yes, cause we my daughter rides horses. We have to five horses now, wow, and now two are not ours. They lease a stall from us, right, but I leased the land that all the stuff is on, and I did the lease long enough to get her through high school. Because boarding at these barns, because the barns are going away, because people can sell the land for a lot more than you're getting a horse, horse boarding is not a exactly so. So they're, they're. You know they're charging uh 13, the, the 1500 a month for horse board. Yeah, and I'm like it's cheaper if you could find it, which I was lucky and I did so, but I'm still looking for, like that, five or ten acres.

Speaker 2

But anyway, you took me out to see that house, yeah, well, uh, one of our um electricians. So we were in an old office building in downtown Marietta and we have little things happen all the time. So we have an electrician that comes by here rather frequently and fixes things. And anyway, long story short, I was looking at his social media. Remember that big, beautiful field? Yes, he just built a house on top of it, did he really? They ended up subdividing all that out and, uh, he built a house on on top of that hill and I told him. I said that, I said I came really close to making that a mini farm, but I said I knew that as soon as I did it my daughter would go to university kentucky, never come home. I was like I was, I was too scared to to pull it off in the end. And you know the other little minor things that we were concerned about.

Speaker 1

Well, is the original home still there? The original home is still there, ok.

Speaker 2

But they just subdivided it out to different plots. And so you bought a plot and built a house. Well, there you go. I mean, are you seeing? A lot of the stuff you're doing is up in North Cherokee County, right yeah.

Speaker 1

Cherokee Well, yeah, uh, cherokee county, right, yeah, a lot of cherokee. Well, yeah, are my, there's still some land up there?

Speaker 2

yeah, there is.

Speaker 1

It's expensive, yeah, it is you know, there's no cheap land any longer, unless you get way out to go up to white rome uh jackson you know you can still find some deals up in the rome area, but that we're going to rome going around like literally a different city.

Speaker 2

Yes, I can't. I can't imagine. Well, you got four 11 runs up there. I'd be interesting to see early in the morning how many cars are coming South. Probably not that man, probably not.

Speaker 1

I can't imagine. However, if you go up like five 75 corridor right through the heart of Cherokee, I mean it's busy, it is busy, it is it is.

Speaker 2

It's essentially, at some point it's going to be wall-to-wall all the way to Ellijay.

Speaker 1

It will be.

Speaker 2

We'll be.

Speaker 1

And the same thing up 75 corridor same exact thing. So you've got those two big corridors that are just booming.

Speaker 2

So you're seeing that in that area you're seeing land purchases and homes being built.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean they're developers, depending on what county we're talking about. I've actually got an agent in our office that uh is a developer and they just uh, he's got two 1.5 million dollar spec houses that are going into a plot of land that he bought. He subdivided it out, put a single single road subdivision in and he's plopping them in.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but but those aren't individual.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah. So you're seeing that kind of development, but from a individual standpoint. Hey, I want to go find five acres and build a house on it and have it. That's hard. It's hard because you're competing. You're competing with some of the developers. You're competing against a lot, right? You have so many roadblocks in front of you. Unless you go way out, land purchases are are hard. You get into cop county and good luck yeah no, very you need to know somebody. You know you need to go knock on someone's door. There are some areas.

Speaker 2

I'll just say there are some areas that have more higher crime that I've seen land that's fairly cheap. I don't know why you would do that to yourself yeah, yeah, so there's some opportunity if you think there's upside, probably in some areas, but you have to deal with some stuff, yeah, before, before it turns around, if it ever does. Um, last question I guess, if we're staying in our homes because we don't want to interest rate, what are some of the biggest things we can do to increase our home value?

Speaker 1

Maintenance yeah, just maintaining it. So yeah, maintaining it. Here's your, here's the direct effect that you have on it is maintain your home, continue to update it, get it to you know, modernize it yeah, you know, we have a lot of subdivisions that were built in the 90s and the early 2000s.

Speaker 2

Some weird layouts and designs, yeah.

Speaker 1

And understand that open concept is a thing now and some of those floor plans just are not going to be open concept, but overall condition of your property is going to be key. And then outside of that is really get involved with your HOA.

Speaker 3

Find out what's going on.

Speaker 1

I know, I know a lot of people don't. However, we haven't talked about rents and rentals and institutional buyers. Yet and we are seeing more and more institutional buyers as a real thing. They are capturing market share here.

Speaker 2

So maybe you need to pressure HOa to have a no rental, correct, yeah?

Speaker 1

yeah, you know, because it brings down the value overall in the neighborhood. Yeah, it just does stats. Those are stats. Yeah, um, so what about airbnbs? Same thing, depending on what pocket you're in I know jasper at one time was pushing back on that. And then the business owners, the restaurant owners, were like we like tourists and we like this weekend traffic.

Speaker 1

Please don't do that. But yeah, you've got kind of the same concept with the Airbnbs in certain areas. We see a lot of Airbnbs in Woodstock because people like to go down and enjoy themselves, or like a Roswell or Alpharetta area, they like to go on the weekends.

Speaker 2

I just figured it'd be a family, a family coming into town, that kind of thing. Don't want to stay at a hotel, but but yeah, that made me that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1

The other thing we're seeing are midterm rentals, those people that are in transition. They sold the house and their new house that they're building Cause I can't find a resale isn't going to be finished for another three months, so they need a three-month rental.

Speaker 3

So that midterm rental.

Speaker 1

That's gotten to be pretty popular as well.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but you don't want that in your neighborhood. That's what you're saying.

Speaker 1

You don't want that in your neighborhood. Getting back to, what can you do as a seller is get involved locally to find out what's going on specifically in your neighborhood and if you are seeing a lot of rentals and you're concerned with that, then get involved. And you're going to have to pass some new rules and regulations that put limits on those.

Speaker 2

If that is a concern. If you start seeing that trend in your neighborhood, would that be a good time to sell? Yeah, if you don't want to deal with it. I mean, that's very local and very specific to individual people. But if that that's the case because we have there's a lot of near I mean, especially marietta, there's a lot of neighborhoods that don't have hoas, right, sure, so you're. Just if someone's paint their house pink with, you know bright blue shutters, they can do it yeah right yeah absolutely so.

Speaker 1

I think that's where, um uh, you just have to be aware yeah, you have to be aware, be aware, and some people don't like HOAs. Because of that reason, they don't want to be told what to do with their property, and I get that. That's a personal decision that you have to make, but I would continue to watch and see how institutional buyers are affecting your local market. I guess that's the best way that I can put it.

Speaker 2

Is there a website that would easily easily tell you? I wish there were you literally just have to go to the county uh. Deed records one by house by house.

Speaker 1

Call your local real estate agent that knows what's going on in the local area yeah, that might be a good idea. They'll be more than happy to talk to you about that?

Speaker 2

do you know anybody?

Speaker 3

how do we do how?

Speaker 2

do we find you?

Speaker 1

tom, oh, um, listen, I'm all over the place. You can go to my website, which is town, rgcom, and then from there you can get to all my different social media sites. Um, but yeah, or just google tom townsend, real estate agent atlanta, georgia, you'll, I'll pop up all over the place. So that's the easiest way to get in contact with me is just either Google my name or go to our website, okay, townrgcom. Thank you, tom, absolutely. Thanks for having me. It was great.

Speaker 2

Uh, thanks for listening to today's episode. Do you have any other questions or questions or want to meet with one of our uh future financial advisors? You can go to wiser investorcom or you can Google Tom Townsend if you have real estate questions or maybe want to sell or buy a home in this area. Thanks for listening and we'll see you guys again next week.

Speaker 3

Thanks for listening to a Wiser Retirement Podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening. That way you don't miss any new episodes. We'd also appreciate if you could leave a rating and review. If you have any questions about anything that was discussed today, head to wiserinvestorcom and reach out.

Speaker 3

This episode was produced by Rachel Dotson. This podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and is not to be considered as investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell any financial products, securities, digital assets or any other investment vehicles or a basis to make any financial decisions. Wiser Wealth Management Incorporated is a registered investor advisor with the SEC. The host and or guests may personally own securities, digital assets or other investment vehicles mentioned on this podcast. Neither the host nor guests of the show are compensated for their participation and no referral fees are paid to or received by any host or guest for clients, listeners or similar interests. Investments involve risk and, unless otherwise stated, are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor, tax professional, insurance professional and or legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.