As we welcome the New Year, we have lots of questions in mind. Should I sell now? Should I buy it now? Today, we are grateful to have Dan Guenther, a real estate advisor, as he shares the best time to buy and sell properties!
Dan Guenther, a realtor from The FI Team shares his insights for the year 2023 and why it is the best time to start your investing journey!
Listen as we also discover the importance of getting advisors in buying your first property!
Key Takeaways:
[1:54] Should I sell now? Should I buy it now?
[7:52] Dan made a walkthrough on the stats he had in his real estate business.
[12:45] Dan's take on the perfect months to buy properties.
[17:03] The importance of real estate advisors for people who want to buy property.
[19:06] A lot of people lack education on the importance of owning a home.
[22:47] Dan's success story in finding real estate investment partners.
[31:03] Dan shares his insights and plans for 2023.
[37:08] Transitioning from a career in teaching to becoming a full-time realtor.
[41:50] Visit Dan Guenther’s social media accounts!
Resources:
Stay in touch with Ian Jimeno and Dan Guenther’s social media handles and follow them for
more real estate with a dash of lifestyle goodness!
Dan Guenther
The FI Team
Ian Jimeno
As we welcome the New Year, we have lots of questions in mind. Should I sell now? Should I buy it now? Today, we are grateful to have Dan Guenther, a real estate advisor, as he shares the best time to buy and sell properties!
Dan Guenther, a realtor from The FI Team shares his insights for the year 2023 and why it is the best time to start your investing journey!
Listen as we also discover the importance of getting advisors in buying your first property!
Key Takeaways:
[1:54] Should I sell now? Should I buy it now?
[7:52] Dan made a walkthrough on the stats he had in his real estate business.
[12:45] Dan's take on the perfect months to buy properties.
[17:03] The importance of real estate advisors for people who want to buy property.
[19:06] A lot of people lack education on the importance of owning a home.
[22:47] Dan's success story in finding real estate investment partners.
[31:03] Dan shares his insights and plans for 2023.
[37:08] Transitioning from a career in teaching to becoming a full-time realtor.
[41:50] Visit Dan Guenther’s social media accounts!
Resources:
Stay in touch with Ian Jimeno and Dan Guenther’s social media handles and follow them for
more real estate with a dash of lifestyle goodness!
Dan Guenther
The FI Team
Ian Jimeno
Dan: What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Invest in Denver Podcast. We got a big update here. This is going to be the Denver stats, the end of the year. We're going to bring you guys some knowledge from the last month of the year 2022 and also talk to you guys a little bit about our predictions for coming 2023.
Ian: Yeah, oh my gosh.
Dan: What's up, buddy?
Ian: What a time to be alive, dude. We've seen so many things happen this past year of 2022 from like — I don't know. I was just putting in so many offers earlier this year. I was just being beaten out with 50k, 100k over asking, no inspection contingencies, and things like that in the offers. Here we are now. Sellers are willing to give their first-born child to sell their property. You know what I mean? What a time to be alive. So, there's a lot to update you guys on.
I guess, first things first, I do want to mention that I'm really excited for this year. There's a lot going on, even in January. There's a lot of uncertainties here. I will say that I don't have any crystal ball. I don't have anything related to fortune telling. We can only speculate and just hypothesize based on the information and stats that we're given. Because we're in the trenches, I feel like we have a better understanding of what the market is like these days. But nonetheless, don't hold that with too much or too big of a grain of salt.
What say you, Dan? Like I said, we don't have any crystal balls or anything like that. Maybe titanium balls not crystal balls. But I do want to say that we are at the forefront of what we see for our buyers. People are always curious. "Should I sell now? Should I buy now?" What do you think?
Dan: Yeah, man, it's such a crazy question that we get every single day.
Ian: And debate.
Dan: What do we say? What do we say to that? What do I say? It depends on who it is. Should I buy or sell? Obviously, pretty much every single agent will say, "Oh, yes, you should buy or sell no matter what." But maybe it doesn't make sense for a lot of people. Right now, since we work with investors, honestly, now is the time to buy. We're seeing so many different things shift in the advantage of buyers. That's something to me that I'm personally looking at and super excited about coming into this year.
A lot of the predictions are coming in saying this is going to be a big year for investors, whereas I hope the market crashes. I don't mean to scare people out there. But if the market crashes, that's great for us. I don't think it will, to be honest. That's just me being silly. But honestly, things are looking great. It's still very typical. Things are still going. Deals are still happening.
Ian: 100%. Yeah, honestly, I'm working with more active buyers right now just because they are not convinced of the doom and gloom of what media is saying these days. What they are convinced of is, "Hey, I'm getting a gnarly deal with the lower price point, under asking price. I'm competing against maybe one other offer. It's in a place that I want to live in, and I'm able to ask for so many concessions at the closing table or the negotiations even before that."
If they're able to get all these things at the upfront, and they can change the interest rate later on, all the permanent things, they're able to get a discount on or get added rewards or benefits from it, concessions. But as long as they hold on long enough — going into let's say, 2023. Let's say, interest rates decrease — they have a home. If things decrease, they can refinance and maybe even buy another home. It all depends on what your goals are and what it all figures out.
But I will say that like there's a story. I just recorded an episode of another Invest in Denver Podcast with another gentleman, Matt Doolin of GetRight's Bakery. He was asking me. His Wheat Ridge property is about a 700-square-foot home, a two-bed, one-bath place. It looks amazing. He did all the work himself. He didn't hire out the contractors, but it's an amazing looking place. I guess, what he was curious about is his family is growing. It's him, his wife, and his little kid. With a 700-square-foot place, a two-bed and one-bath, that is definitely small. No basement, nothing like that. It's just a crawlspace.
Dan: That's tight.
Ian: Yeah, dude. No joke. I was asking him, like, "Hey, how long have you lived in there?" Because there's tax advantages to living in there for two plus years. Especially when you're a married couple, you can save up to $500,000 in the proceeds of the sale of your home. He said, "We've been living in there for three years." I was telling him that. As of right now, I tell my buyers they can almost get away with murder on their offers. I don't want him to have all these upgrades to his Wheat Ridge place, and sell it in such a market where the sellers are not seeing the huge benefit as we did earlier in 2022.
What I was recommending to him is like, hey, hold off for six more months. I don't know what things are going to be in the middle of 2023, or maybe even late 2023, or even earlier than that. But what I will say is that, if you have the ability to hold on to your assets until there's a better time to sell your home, I would say hold on to it. That way, you can get it for top dollar. When the demand peaks up again, you're able to just get the most bang for your buck. I think that's also our responsibility as realtors. Sure, we want people to buy and sell their real estate strategically, right?
Dan: Right.
Ian: That strategy also includes what the market is like right now. Especially being on the buyer's side, we understand what we can get out of certain transactions. Be honest with them and being like, "Hey, Matt, I don't think this might be the best time. I would say wait six months. Then we can have that conversation again and see how things are like." I know you do that too, Dan, with your buyers and sellers. It's just like, "Maybe this isn't the best time. Maybe we wait it out a little bit." It just builds that trust as a realtor as well.
Dan: It's situational. For some of those people, maybe they have way more equity in the place than it's actually worth right now. Then they could actually flip that into something that is actually going to make them more money. For them, it seems like it could be a good point to just hold. But also, that's why it comes down to actually running down those numbers and making sure that you are making a good decision based on where you and your family are at, and what you need to get out of this next thing.
Ian: Yeah, 100%, man. It's so good.
Dan: So many options.
Ian: So many, man. I think that's also another big thing. It's like getting creative with the stuff, seeking a creative. Owning a home just opens up so many possibilities for you. But nonetheless, I do want to get into the stats first. I feel like this is the bread and butter of our podcast. Every month, we go through these things and just sort of give our two cents on the market, what we saw on December, how things were on our business side, and anecdotally speaking, what the offers were like, closing and all that good stuff. Dan, I'll have you just walk-through certain stats already. Then we'll sort of pick apart the numbers as we go.
Dan: Yeah, so, we'll just start with some of the basics. This is all based on the DMAR. Thanks to Nicole Rueth and the team out there for providing these stats every month.
Ian: Big shout out.
Dan: Shout out. Hello. Active inventories at 4,757 houses this month. That's down 23%. Closed homes, we're at 2,720 down 11% from last month. Lots of closed homes down. Average close price, we're sitting at $637,000 about. Keep in mind, that's including all those properties up in the million-price range down to the $200,000 condo. We don't really actually look at that one too much. But the median close price is the one that we're really looking at. We're sitting at about $554,000. It's down 1.42% over last month.
Ian: I think a big stat here that is not normally something that we talk about, but the number of closed homes throughout December compared to November. November of 2022, we had 3,065 closed homes. December 2,720. That was a decrease of 11%, as Dan said. But the biggest thing here is, people are just not wanting to buy at this point in time or sell at this point in time. Those that are wanting to sell in this market, it seems like they just want to hold. I guess, they're more motivated than the typical buyer or seller. With the decrease in closed homes this past month, decrease in active listings at month's end, that's 24% decrease of active listings. Really significant.
It's just a massive stalemate, at least from what I'm understanding. From the numbers and how I'm interpreting it is, sellers don't want to sell if they don't have to. Buyers don't want to buy because they just want a better interest rate, or whatever that situation might be. Of course, again, based on what Dan said, Just caveating this is that, this is the winter season, this is the holiday season. I'd say, two weeks out of the four-ish that are in December is pretty slow. I did have a couple of showings but no offers during that holiday season time in my personal realtor experience. Pretty interesting numbers these days. I don't know if you wanted to expand on that too, Dan. The other stats as well sort of push that in that same direction.
Dan: Yeah, I think the other key stat right now is the average days on MLS is we're up to 43 days, which is up 26%. Houses are sitting — they're sitting there a lot longer. A quick stat from the report as well: 52% of active listings reduced their asking price, which is down 54% from last month. So, that's a lot of listings. Half of the listings are having to reduce their price just to continue to get some activity and some showings in there. Lots of signs pointing towards more of a buyer's market here for us.
Ian: Yeah, and that same feel too with the close price over list price, where we're still under that 100% threshold. I've mentioned this before in other podcasts. But for those of you who are just tuning in, and maybe you just don't understand that ratio, if the close price is $500,000 and the list price is $500,000, that's a one-to-one ratio. That's 100%. As of right now, we are sitting at 98.38%, which means that the close price is under the list price. So, people are putting in offers under asking price. This is psychologically a buyer's market. There's just not that much inventory still. But we're still seeing that buyers are able to capitalize on this motivated seller market at this point in time.
I'm really curious to see how January plays out, and even February. Sure, it is still the winter months, but the holidays are winding down. It's not going to be this slow constantly. There's got to be some sort of uptick as we continue on through the years. When that happens, I don't know. But all I know is that the past three or four months, it has been this kind of feel to it. What do you think? Do you think this is going to continue on? What's that breaking point to you, Dan? Is it a certain number? Is it interest rate? Is it just the summer months? What do you think?
Dan: I think everybody needs to buy by February 10, or else—
Ian: That is when.
Dan: That's when. Either you're in, or you're done. But honestly, I think that, obviously, the winter months — I think March, we're going to start seeing a lot of uptick. Once the snow starts going away and the weather gets better, we're going to see a lot more retail buyers out there, especially comparing investors versus retail buyers. Nobody wants to really move in the cold. But as far as investor clients that we work with, "That doesn't matter to me. Let's get a good property for a good deal with some good concessions." I think that's something that I'm looking at and saying, let's go now before we have to compete with the new families that are trying to buy a nice home for themselves.
Ian: Yeah, 100%. Having that investor mindset, it definitely puts things into perspective of what you can buy, what's affordable, and how can you capitalize on this specific market. I know a lot of people out there on Instagram or YouTube or whatever, they say that a lot of the biggest companies are built in recessions, including Apple or Nike. I don't know. Some other stats. I don't fact check them; I just take it at face value. But they say that a lot of these things happen during recessions. Then if their business is able to work in a recession, imagine what it's like in opposite of recession. What is that? It's like a better market, right? Something that's a little bit more profitable than usual.
Dan: Yes, nice.
Ian: 100%. Thanks to our good friend, Sterling Coldani over at Bank of England. He has a really nice principle or not so principle. Save the trees. Don't print it out. Just go look at the PDF. That's fine. We'll send it out to you if you reach out to Dan or myself. It's ian@thefiteam.com or dan@thefiteam.com. One letter difference makes all the difference. Maybe you can CC both of us. It doesn't even matter.
I will say that Sterling came in clutch here and brought us these market statistics for the Denver County area. So, I will say, just caveating this real estate report card that Sterling sent us, it is not the 11 counties that the Rueth Team compiles for this information. This is specifically to Denver County. It's, I guess, I should say a much smaller area than the 11 counties that we usually include in the statistics that we just mentioned.
Is there anything on this real estate report card, Dan, that really shouted out to you? I know we've briefly looked over this before we hit record. But is there anything that really pops out to you initially that we can start the conversation on?
Dan: Yeah, like Ian said, this is a general report card for Denver County which covers 700,000 people. I think some of the biggest stats and key points that Ian and I took out of this were, out of the 700,000 people that live in Denver, 322,000 are renters. So, we're almost talking about half the people in Denver, rent versus own. Of those people, there's 82,000 that can afford to rent — which we don't exactly have the stats on exactly what that means. But we know that that means in general that there's about a third of the people that are renting in Denver could actually afford to buy, which is something that we are always pushing and talking about. Like, hey, what's the difference between renting versus owning? Obviously, we could talk for hours on top of this. Like, what actually does it mean versus rent to buy?
We're talking loan pay down. We're talking tax advantages. We're talking cash flow, hopefully. There are so many things on top of that that we could talk about. But there are essentially 100,000 people out here in Denver — hopefully, you guys are listening — that are actually in the renter category, but they could afford to buy. That was a big stat that came out that I did not really realize how many people are out there sitting on the sidelines, potentially thinking, "I can't afford it. I can't do it. It doesn't make sense." That's why you need to talk to people like us. We can show you exactly how to make this work so that the money is working for you, and you're not paying that money to other people.
Ian: Yeah, huge. Massive. Like Dan said, we don't know what that means. The specific lingo or the language that they use in this graphic is that 82,000 people are renters who can "afford to purchase." Almost anyone can afford a $250,000 condo. Then what is that interest rate? There's a lot of questions behind it. But nonetheless, we're going to assume that they're able to afford, let's say, a median-priced home in the Denver County. We're also going to assume that it's going to be like a single-family home, or maybe even a condo, or a townhome that is median-priced as well.
Even with all that, having this equity built in and, let's say, you rent out one room. Renting out one room, let's say, in a $500,000 property, you're saving so much like $800, and you're generating the income, and you're learning how to run a business at the same time. I find that astounding too. That's a lot more people than what I thought. Maybe those renters who can afford to purchase — I'm interested to hear what you think with those renters who can afford to purchase. Do you think they want to purchase, or do you think they're simply ignorant of how they can make it work?
Dan: Yeah, I think there's a lot of a lack of education. Honestly, I think that a lot of people, they don't understand what you can do and what the benefits of owning your home versus renting. Especially for me, from a lot of conversations that I've had, it's like, "Well, I don't want to deal with maintenance, toilets, this and that. I want to rent and not worry about anything. I can just go out skiing every weekend, and go to my job and be done."
They don't think about the fact that Denver has appreciated 30% in the last two years. There's a lot of things that are hard to explain, hard to pitch as well. I think it's a lack of people just understanding exactly, especially the people that are qualified. This 82,000 people that we're talking about, if they actually understood — if you think about it, this percentage of people should be educated smart people that understand money, finances, business. They should be actually thinking about the long-term benefits of something like this, especially in a market like Denver where I'm bullish on it. I don't think anything's going to go anywhere here. People are going to continue here unless the mountains somehow just go away.
Ian: Yeah, just big old tractors plow the mountains. I don't know.
Dan: Just take them out. I don't know. I guess we'll see.
Ian: I agree. Maybe it is a function of how best can we get the information out there as educators in the real estate space. Maybe that's something that we can talk about as well but not bore you guys on recording. How do we get our message out there as best as possible, especially within the demographics? That's something that I want to talk about as well. With the certain demographics that are looking to purchase a home, or I guess not even that, but the demographics of the people that are living in Denver County. For example, based on this infographic, the age range of 18 to 26-year-olds is 81,000. For 27 to 35-year-olds, that's the biggest portion of the demographics that were accounted for here. It's 172,000.
Ian: Millennials, let's go.
Dan: That's right, man. That's us. So, we're in that category as well. People that are aged 18 all the way up to 35, it accommodates for almost 250,000 people in the Denver County area. That's not even including all the other counties that we usually do statistics on. With those people, how many of those are renters who can afford to purchase?
I would likely to believe that this number, the 82,000 that we keep bringing up, it might even be bigger than that assuming that the people is like a one to one ratio for a single person to make a certain amount of money, to afford a median-priced home. That is one person. That's a one renter who can afford to purchase.
We don't take into account the amount of people that can partner up together to consolidate debt or bring in both of their incomes to purchase a property for both of themselves. They can live the lifestyle that they were where they — let's say, they were renting a room in a bigger house. But now they own the property. Now they know how to run leases. They can work with CPAs to better have tax advantages for things like that. I know you have specific experience with that too, Dan. I'm curious to expand on that a little bit more. I know we talked about it a little bit off recording, but you had a success story on the same exact thing. What did that look like?
Dan: Yes, 100%. I think this is something that a lot of people overlook as well. When you think of partnering up, you think, I have to be very close business relationship with this person. But also, you can look into relationships you had for a very long time and people that you trust.
A couple of months ago — shout out to Robin and Harrison, some good friends of mine now. They've been friends for 15 years. They decided, "Hey, let's partner up." They went in together on a loan. They're house hacking in Sherwood area. Harrison had a rent of 1,500. Robin had a rent of 800 or something like that. Boom. So, they went together on a loan. They combined their incomes to actually bring up their DTI and the loan qualifications. They were able to lock down a property in Sherwood for around $500,000. On top of that, they have a six-bed, two-bath house. They're going to be house hacking that now. Once we get the numbers running perfectly, they're looking at around $200 a month each maybe while living there. Keep in mind, both of them are living there, and each paying $200 a month. So, they just dropped their expenses down a lot.
Ian: My gosh.
Dan: That's how you get that snowball rolling. They started this process for the first one by combining. Because they thought, "Well, hey, I can't do it on my own." So, look out. Connect with your homies. Connect with your friends. If you are close enough with somebody that you trust them to do something like this and the numbers make sense, there's no limitations on what you can put on a loan for who you're actually signing up with.
Ian: Dude, it's so good, especially when you bring in the rent amounts that they were previously paying for. You said one was 1,500 and one was 1,800, right?
Dan: Yes. Something like that, yeah.
Ian: Let's assume that's 1,500 and 1,800. So, a combined total rent amount of about $2,300. They would have been paying someone else's mortgage. Instead of that happening, they were able to combine their finances, their income. They didn't have any debts. They don't own any other home. Maybe other car payments, but that's like small potatoes compared to a mortgage or something like that.
But nonetheless, running through the numbers with you, they were able to project paying about $200 a month. If you were to split — let's say, the person that had the $1,500 rent per month and now saving $1,300 per month, and you own a freaking property, oh my God, dude. It makes so much sense to me. It chaps my hide knowing that there's people that see this information and still don't take action on it. You're saving so much money on this crap.
Dan: It's just so easy too, especially when you see people that have already done it. Obviously, it's scary if you just hear this on a podcast like ours or whatever. But if you actually connect with us, then we can literally show you the hundreds of people that have done this. Then it's like I'm doing it. You're doing it. Everybody else is doing it. This is almost — I guess you shouldn't say guaranteed, but it's pretty secure. That's why we always play multiple different strategies. Worst case scenario, you're renting by the room which is — there's always people looking for rooms here. It's good.
Ian: Yeah, dude, 100%. I know we're preaching to the choir here. Between you and I, it makes so much sense to you. Maybe this is something that — maybe we can get a guest on here that wants to rent. That'd be kind of cool. Just like a straight up debate.
Dan: Why do you do that?
Ian: Stop it. Stop it right now. But what I'm thinking, too, is that there's a lot of people out there that do rent "a lot." I don't know what a lot means. But there are some people out there that do rent.
Dan: 86,000 people.
Ian: There are some people out there that do rent, but they invest in other places. They put 20% down and all that good stuff. But I'm not a strong advocate for that, just because so much of your equity is going into this new property. Putting in $100,000 versus $25,000 in a $500,000 home, it's massive. That way, you can purchase so many more properties over the course of five years versus all of your capital being tied up into one property.
I would like to hear it out there. For those of you that are watching this on YouTube, put it in the comments below. I want to hear your arguments for renting and seeing what that's all about.
Dan: Yeah, bring it to us. We'll bring you on live. Let's go.
Ian: Let's go. That's right, baby. What else? Is there anything else on here that you wanted to piece apart, Dan? Is there anything that jumps out at you?
Dan: I think the biggest part right now is we're just in this limbo right now just waiting to see. I was talking to Sterling a couple days ago. The consumer price index has actually shown the relationship with that and the interest rates. It's actually projecting that rates are going to go down. So, I'm not going to quote anything. Don't quote me on that, but it's actually looking like things are going to mellow out. Rates should be staying where they're at or lower depending on what happens. So, we'll see.
Ian: January 10th, 3PM. You heard it here first, guys. Dan Guenther just signed off on his prediction for 2023. So, make sure you know his address to light it on fire if anything goes awry. Let me know in the comments below if you're planning on doing that.
Dan: Make sure I'm not there.
Ian: I got insurance. Thanks.
Dan: Yes.
Ian: Another thing that I thought was really interesting, Denver County is sort of this — I don't want to say it's an anomaly, but it definitely has higher-priced homes in the Denver County area. In the real estate report card, the very first thing that I see here is the median home price is $618,000. The price per square foot is just under $600 per square foot.
Compared to what we were seeing on the Rueth Team's market trends updates, it is significantly higher than what we were seeing there. What is it? The median close price is about $550,000 versus the Denver County area of $620,000. So, there's a 70k difference between the two. Again, as a caveat, make sure that you're knowledgeable that this is just specific to Denver County. Anything you want to say, Dan?
Dan: For the sake of this report, if we were including Boulder County like in Boulder City proper, obviously, the numbers are going to be very, very different. But in general, we're seeing the exact same trends pretty much all around.
Ian: Yeah, 100%, man. I don't have too much more about the statistics, the reports that I wanted to talk about. But I did want to talk about, let's say, your goals personally as a realtor. Here we are. It's going to be released — what is it? January 13th, freaky Friday. Friday the 13th. Spooky, scary, I know. Is there anything you wanted to touch on with the stats, with DMAR, and all that good stuff? If not, I do want to hear about what you have planned for 2023.
Dan: I think we've covered the stats a lot. I've sent this out to everybody that knows me. So, hopefully, you guys got that. Thank you. But I, honestly, am very bullish on this year. I'm feeling super good about it. I think that coming into this year, obviously, with things slowing down — interest rates have scared everybody, recession, blah, blah, blah, all the big media headlines. But just based on everybody that I've talked to, people that are way more informed than me, this is going to be a huge year for investors.
I'm geared up. I'm ready to go. I'm on the ground. For all my clients, I think they'd vouch as well that I'm here. I'm ready to go, and I'm always ready to go.
Ian: Nice.
Dan: This is going to be a big year, honestly. I think prices are going to continue to slowly match up with the rates and everything that happened in the COVID era, which hopefully we're through. But honestly, it's going to be a big year. I'm pumped about it.
Ian: 100%, man. I'm right there with you. Here we are as realtors, and I'm bullish on that. As an investor and buyer myself, I'm bullish on that, too. Let me say this. It's going to have to take another pandemic for me to be weary on buying again. You know what I mean? There were so many things that happened and things that we couldn't predict, let's say, back in 2020 when everything stopped. Like the first two weeks, "Hey, flatten the curve." Two weeks turned into two years. Here we are, still worried about COVID.
I guess, the point I'm trying to draw is that, even during that pandemic, houses appreciated significantly. Well, I guess, one last statistic that I saw on the Rueth Team's insights is that Denver saw a 44.6% increase in appreciation from January 2020 through its peak in May 2022. 44.6% increase in appreciation over the course of two-ish years, two and a half years. Oh, my God. How was this not like—
Dan: That's crazy. Keep in mind, we're not banking on that, though. That's a bonus thing. But also, that's not going anywhere, I don't think. At the worst case, I think that we will standardly — at least 3% appreciation is normal, which obviously doesn't keep up with inflation. But if Denver got to that point, then I think we'd be worried. But I'm pretty confident that we're going to be way above that.
Ian: Yeah, 100%, man. I keep on saying 100%. I got to think of a better affirmation, a catchphrase or something like that. But most def, dude. When I look at the market going forward, as an investor, I know that eventually real estate interest rates are going to decrease eventually. I don't know when. But all I do know right now and what I can work on and what I can underwrite on is the current present. What can I get for the market right now or what the market as it is right now? Under asking price, gnarly concessions, the name of the seller's first born. I mean, there's a lot that we can negotiate here.
Then as a realtor, educating a lot of people in the space, knowing that, "Hey, this is what I'm looking forward to as an investor. Even for my residential buyers, those that wanted to sell during the holiday season, seeing these statistics that were like, hey, a lot of people are leaving their homes on the market for like 40-ish days on average. I mean, it scares a lot of sellers.
But I think with interest rates going down, inventory is still trying to catch up to where the buyer's demand is. Eventually, things will be evening out. What that means exactly, I don't know. But it's not going to stay in this type of market for a long period of time. This is heavily swayed in a weird limbo of buyers versus seller’s situation. Either way, I'm bullish on both just because interest rates can change. We can always refinance as an investor and as a realtor guiding our previous clients and current clients that might see that change in interest rates later on this year possibly.
Dan: Yes, sir.
Ian: Nice. Thanks for the commentary. Just kidding. What about you, Dan? You, personally as a realtor, I don't know if you wanted to talk certain numbers, but you don't have to. What I was thinking is, I myself — I'll set the standard here. I matched my salary when I was W2 last year in 2022. I sold my first house in March, and I got about 65k in gross commission income for this past 2022 year. I'm looking to double it. I'm looking to get to 130.
The best way to do that personally as a realtor, it's just a matter of getting the word out there. Because those 84,000, or 82,000, or whatever renters that can afford to buy, if they don't know it — knowledge is the bottleneck here — then it's on me to educate these people. It's just a matter of, how do I double it? I think it's just educating the masses and working with more people that understanding that the average middle-class American sees the most wealth through owning real estate. So, that's the plan for me. That's the big umbrella goal for me.
Dan: Honestly, huge goals for me as well this year. As you know, I'm transitioning from a career in teaching, which was not that hard to replace the income. But honestly, I was part time for most of this year. I went full time about, I think, eight months ago now. I do a lot of things that most realtors don't do, which is uncomfortable cold calls and just putting myself out there in very, very uncomfortable situations. I look forward to pushing myself to do that this year, and just continuing to network, and making as many calls as I can, talking to as many people as I can.
Because, like you said, a lot of people just don't know what's out there. If I can make that connection with people that trust me enough — literally, I am a good person. I am just trying to help people. So, that's my biggest goal coming into the year. Whatever happens with that, then either way I got my house hack so I'll be able to sleep nicely.
Ian: Yeah, that's the biggest point of it where you're not completely reliant on the commissions. The house hacking just gives you another set of income, that you're like, "Okay, it's not going to be as bad. I got something to fall back on." It's always really nice that way. So, clutch.
Dan: And the wife is helping me out quite a bit.
Ian: Nice. Yeah, same with my wife, dude. Shout out to the girls out there.
Dan: Shout out to the wives. Thank you.
Ian: Thank you. My God. Saving us men from just doing stupid shit.
Dan: Just terrible things.
Ian: Nice, man. Anything you want to touch on before we wrap things up?
Dan: No, I think next month, honestly, it could be interesting in February. I'm excited about what's going to happen in January. Like we said, it's a bit of a lull between December to January. So, I think next month, we're going to bring in some stats that could potentially be projecting towards what we really are looking at for the next few months coming up, especially for the investors out there.
Ian: Hundo P.
Dan: Hundo P, baby.
Ian: It changes things up. Another thing, too. Maybe this is something that we should bring up every episode between you and I is that Blake Street Tavern. Every first Wednesday of the month, right?
Dan: First Wednesday of the month, yep, for the house hacking meetup.
Ian: Yeah, February 1, everyone will show up there. 6 to 9PM, or 6 to 8, or whatever that number is. That's a big meetup. A lot of the Fi Team agents are on there. Get around those investors. Through osmosis, you can absorb this information, especially if it's going to be your first deal and you haven't done your first deal yet. There's a lot of people out here that have so much information for you to get started. Whatever woes and stressors you have, I'm sure they can at least be talked about with an understanding mind through all the realtors and investors there.
Definitely, we want to see you guys there over at Blake Street Tavern, February 1. Go check that meetup or eventbrite.com if anything changes. But yeah, stoked on it. I feel like it's a really good resource for us to promote.
Dan: Also, check out my meet up here. I got one up here in Longmont for the people up north. This will be on the 26th of January. I'm going to go for the last Thursday of the month just based on other meetups that we have going on. Anybody north of Denver that can't make it down there, come here. I got a very nice local — it's a local meetup here in Longmont, at Oskar Blues Brewing. So, hit me up about that one. It's intimate, smaller. You can ask any questions to me. I got contractors there. Sterling will be there, lender.
Ian: Love it. Absolutely love it. I, myself, I got mine every second Thursday over at Comrade Brewing, 6 to 9PM as well. Great beers. Superpower IPA and Great American Beer Festival winner.
Dan: Yeah, freaking love it.
Ian: With that being said, thanks for hanging out, Dan. Always a pleasure, dude. Chilling hard.
Dan: I'm pumped about this.
Ian: Nice. Well, thanks so much for hanging out, guys. I'm Ian Jimeno. How can people find you, Dan? What if people want to start working with you?
Dan: You can hit me up at dan@thefiteam. That's my email. You can also hit me up on Instagram @dan.guentherrei and then also Facebook, Daniel Guenther.
Ian: Nice. I myself, I'm very active on social media. Monday through Friday, I post something educational or meme-worthy on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube shorts — ian.realestateagent on all those platforms. I also have weekly YouTube videos. As of the time of this recording, I got a really cool one with Solongo, another FI Team agent. So, we do a little house hack tour on that one, too.
With that being said, come for the meme, stay for the education. Dan and I, we'll always be here for the monthly stats and all that good stuff. With that being said, this is Ian Jimeno. Invest in Denver Podcast, a FI Team production. Thanks so much for hanging out. I'll see you guys next week. Deuces.
Dan: See you guys.