As January comes to a close, we’re taking a look at the highs and lows of the first year of the month. Join us as our resident expert Dan Guenther shares all you need to know about buying or selling homes in Denver this season!
In this week’s episode, Ian and Dan talk about the current market conditions, the exponential benefits of creative financing, and why this is a great time to close some deals!
Tune in to get your weekly dose of real estate news and tips from the most updated advisors in town.
Key Takeaways:
[2:45] The Highs and Lows of January 2023
[5:05] On Dan’s Fourth House Hack
[6:55] Looking Back on January and Predictions for February
[15:10] Dan Shares a Crash Course on Creative Financing
[21:20] How Setting Terms Can Be So Important (And Profitable)
[28:18] How You Can Save Thousands of Dollars On Interest
[34:10] The Secret to Being an Exceptional Realtor
[37:10] Why Now Is the Best Time to Buy or Sell Your Home
[40:50] How to Stay Updated on Real Estate News Every Week -- In Just Four Minutes!
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 January comes to a close, we’re taking a look at the highs and lows of the first year of the month. Join us as our resident expert Dan Guenther shares all you need to know about buying or selling homes in Denver this season!
In this week’s episode, Ian and Dan talk about the current market conditions, the exponential benefits of creative financing, and why this is a great time to close some deals!
Tune in to get your weekly dose of real estate news and tips from the most updated advisors in town.
Key Takeaways:
[2:45] The Highs and Lows of January 2023
[5:05] On Dan’s Fourth House Hack
[6:55] Looking Back on January and Predictions for February
[15:10] Dan Shares a Crash Course on Creative Financing
[21:20] How Setting Terms Can Be So Important (And Profitable)
[28:18] How You Can Save Thousands of Dollars On Interest
[34:10] The Secret to Being an Exceptional Realtor
[37:10] Why Now Is the Best Time to Buy or Sell Your Home
[40:50] How to Stay Updated on Real Estate News Every Week -- In Just Four Minutes!
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 is up, everybody? Welcome to the Invest in Denver Podcast. We are coming at you guys live again. We got the January market update for you. We're going to touch on some stats, talk about what's happening in the market again and, hopefully, drop some knowledge on you guys. Ian, what's up, buddy?
Ian: Yeah, dude. Man, the buyers are back in town, baby. This has got to be the theme going forward. We're all seeing it — the real estate agents on the FI Team, Dan is seeing it, I am seeing it. Everyone's talking about it, not just within the Denver community but nationally. This is kind of a weird time to be alive in today. Not too much has changed as far as like what people are qualified for. People have been seeing that interest rate stay. Sorry. I'm going straight into the statistics here. But this is what's been going on in my head.
Dan: Go on. This is shower thoughts for you.
Ian: This is what's been going on in my head. Yeah, I'm just going and shot gunning all my thoughts right here, right now. I mean, it's been on my mind for the past week or two or maybe even the past month, where interest rates have just been pretty steady ever since Q4 and Q3 of 2022. Nothing else has changed. But all of a sudden, buyers are just on the market now. It's pretty insane. That's just what I've been working with. I'm trying to reconnect with a lot of my buyers with like, "Hey, what's been going on?" If we are to go and check on a property, we have to go today. That's my life right now.
Dan: I think you're foreshadowing into the entire podcast right now, because this is exactly what we're seeing. We're like, "What the hell happened?" This last month, not anything that was expected. I think on our last market update, we were talking about, "It's the winter month, things are slow." Now it's like, no. We're seeing spring weather before spring weather is happening, as far as the real estate market happens. So, let's get into it.
Ian: Yeah, man. As far as inventory goes — we'll get more into this later on in the episode — we're definitely having a little bit more inventory than what it was last year, in January. Last year, in January, we were seeing like 50k to 100k over asking price consistently. Here we are now, where we're not there yet. Well, like I said, we'll talk about it a little bit more. But competition is there. The competition this year, at this time of month in January, is about the same from what I saw last year. If not, a little bit less. Nonetheless, let's get into the stats. Then we can actually talk about all that stuff in depth.
Speaking of active listings, we're seeing in January of 2023, 4,120 at month's end in January. Then at month's end in December, it was 4,757. Month over month, it has decreased pretty significantly. But year over year, as I was mentioning earlier, it's that inventory has significantly increased from last year. It's up about 200, almost 250% year over year. Super crazy. Is that something that you're seeing too, Dan?
Dan: This time last year, I think we had like 1,200 active listings, which is absolutely nuts. Yeah, that's not a lot of houses.
Ian: No joke. This is something that I would like to listen for as well, where active inventory needs to be a certain supply, like a monthly supply. I don't know if you've heard that before or listened to it on another podcast. But real estate rock stars, they talk about that all the time where like a good "healthy market" is having three months of inventory active at one time. If we're selling or if we're getting closings within—
I don't even think the amount of listings that we're seeing right now, just over 4,000, is enough for one month. I think we're seeing enough closings happen where even 4,000 is just not even enough.
Dan: It's still ridiculously low. There's not enough houses. People are still scared to sell. There's lots of different things happening. But yeah, I think if we were around 15,000 active listings, we'd be close to normal. Right now, we're at 4000. So, obviously, we're always off on that. It is what it is. You can't do anything about it.
As we've already touched on, this market changes. Within a week, everything changes. Strategies change. Especially, if you're an investor-based realtor, your strategy is changing every single week. We're like, "Okay. Let's pivot. Let's make something happen."
Ian: Especially, sticking on that same strategy, mindset and mentality behind it. Kat and I are looking for a fourth house hack.
Dan: Let's go.
Ian: Let's go, baby. I don't know, man. It's honestly the best way. I am a living, breathing proof of this stuff. So, anywho, I'm looking for a fourth house hack in the next coming months. With the competition as it is right now and where prices are right now, it's a little bit tough. So, we're going to have to partner for capital or get a little bit creative.
Maybe that's something we could touch on today as far as like creative financing too, what you've been seeing and what you've been trying out too, Dan. Because I know me, Mike McClearn, you, Chad, we're all pretty interested in trying to get financing on certain deals. Especially, when people have closed that 3.5%, we want that interest rate. How do you get that without it being marketable right now?
Anywho, the fourth house hack, we're just discussing like, how do we navigate this, and where do we want to purchase knowing like, "Hey, I feel like we're pretty good at short-term rentals now. Where is it allowable, especially as an investor and not just the house hacker?" It all does depend on that strategy, going forward, who you work with, the partnership behind it, and all that good stuff. Yeah, man, it's all part of that equation.
Dan: I think we have so much fuel to this fire right now. We can just skip the stats potentially and just go off into creative finance. We can talk about different areas for short-term rental. What do you think?
Ian: Yeah, let's make the stats real quick. We won't delve too deep on these stats. I think we should get to the juicy stuff, the creative financing portion of it. Then we'll get into the market insights after that. Anywho, do you want to talk about some closed homes in January, December, Dan?
Dan: Yeah, anybody that gets my newsletter, you probably already saw this. But we got, active inventory is down 13.39% month over month. We already talked about that a little bit. Closed homes down at 30%, almost 2,000 closed homes. That's not a lot. Average close price, we're sitting at 626,000. That's down 1.49%. Keep in mind, that's all homes. That's the $10 million down to the $100,000 range. Median home price down to 3.33%. Median close price $536,500. I mean, that is actually coming down quite a bit. What were we at? Like $600,000 just two months ago. That's coming down, and it's kind of leveling up. Then average days on MLS, 46 days, up 7% month over month.
I think I can touch on this a little bit, Ian, as well. I know we see a lot of homes. We go in, and do showings. Again, the homes that people — they took the extra $5,000 to touch it up with paint, make it look pretty and stage it. Those are going quick. The ones that still have the 1970's wood paneling and stuff like that, those are the ones that are sitting for the 46 plus days. Those are the ones that are also priced a bit high.
Ian: Yeah, a lot of my buyers are still of that first-home buyer category. It's an immediate turnoff, to be honest. They don't even know how to tackle a project like that. Even if it's just cosmetic, even if it's just like painting the walls or redoing the floorings or taking off wood paneling, they're like, "Is this glued on, or is this cemented on?" To be honest, I don't even know myself. Who knows what happened back in the day of when they first installed it and all that good stuff? It is such a turn off for people that are looking to buy their first home.
Dan: To me, I have ripped out full kitchens, full sinks, full bathrooms. When I go into a home and I see a green sink and a pink toilet bathtub, I'm like, "Are you serious?" Literally, this is a $5,000 thing that you could do yourself. The average buyer and seller is going to be like, "What is this? I have no idea. This looks really expensive." I was just like, okay, that is really easy to change, the pink 1970's toilet, which is like one foot off the ground.
Ian: No joke. Yeah, man.
Dan: Those are the ones that are sitting there. It makes it look like there's something wrong with the place, but it's probably not. Because those people lived there for 40 years and took care of it like no other.
Ian: That's the thing, too. They might not have done things that were cosmetic just because they might have just got used to it.
Dan: They liked it.
Ian: Like, "Hey, yeah, this is our home. I don't really want to do anything with this place." Let's say, if the sewer gets clogged, yeah, they're fixing that thing, or the roof or whatever that might be. So, it feels lived in. The bigger issues might be taken care of, but the cosmetic stuff. Put in a lower offer, then you can fix it yourself. You can go on. I know you're stopping on the average days on MLS where like — oh, yeah, that's what you're talking about, average days on the MLS. Those that are sitting are just not putting the extra effort to make it show well, right?
Dan: Yeah, I know. I've been out shopping the last three weekends. We got outbid on multiple properties, which we have not seen in three or four months. That wasn't a thing. This is at asking price. We're back to competitiveness. Do you love the home? Did the numbers work, especially on our investor side? If they do, then let's go. We're not stressing over $5,000 to $10,000. Let's not worry about that because we're going to see that return within the first year or two.
Ian: 100% man. A lot of people are — maybe some people are curious. My brother was selling his home, too. He recently got his offer accepted as well. Dude, huge, huge.
Dan: That's good for him. I know.
Ian: Dude, for real. When he first listed it, it could have been a number of different things. I think it was like mid-January, mid-to-late January, when he first listed it. Every weekend since he listed it, it was averaging in the teens for weather. So, people might not have wanted to go out. That might have been a big issue. Then also, people coming back from the holidays and wanting to just chill, get to work, and then get back into the motion of things. Then if they really wanted to buy, that's late January, mid to late January. That's when we started to see things pick up real quick. Insane.
Dan: 100%, because I don't know about you. But post-holidays, I was just trying to get by and get back into the swing just like everybody else. The last thing people want to think about is moving.
Ian: Yeah, especially in the winter when you're seeing temperatures in the teens. You're like, eff that. One last statistic that I wanted to bring up too is the close price over list price. As a reminder to people who haven't listened to this before, a one-to-one ratio where close price equals list price is 100%, which means $500,000 list price. You're putting an offer at $500,000.
In January, we saw that ratio be 98.15%. The closed price is about 1.85% less than what the list price wanted for the sale of the property. We're still seeing some offers being accepted under asking price. But then again, this is for the entirety of January. Like I said before, and maybe Dan has seen this as well, the beginning of January, holidays were happening. It was really cold, I think. I mean, on a separate tangent, we were getting significant snow. I want to say, on certain news channels that, locally, we were getting like 150% more snow than the average. In January, it's pretty insane. Anywho, not much was happening in the beginning or mid-January. But at the end of January, I think February statistics are going to be pretty significant going forward.
Dan: Yeah, I'm counting big time on this February. We're going to see a very good projection of what's going to happen in the coming months. January is just a weird thing. I mean, I got an all-wheel-drive vehicle finally. Thank God, because I definitely drove through some ditches.
Ian: What did you get?
Dan: A Hyundai Tucson? Don't judge.
Ian: Oh, baby. Why not a Subie, dude?
Dan: No, it just didn't work out.
Ian: Just a straight up no. The whole Subaru thing, Hyundai, the whole four-wheel-drive thing. My Ford Ranger is a 2008 Ford Ranger, only rear-wheel. It's such a light truck. I can't drive it in the wintertime unless it's like 60 degrees outside at least. It's pretty bad.
Dan: My first vehicle was a Chevy S-10 rear-wheel drive in Minnesota. I don't know why my parents allowed that. You can't do anything with that.
Ian: I don't even know what the resale value is of that at that point.
Dan: Alright. Anyway, let's stay on here.
Ian: Yeah, the topic at hand. This is something we haven't really practiced beforehand, or didn't even know we wanted to talk about until actually we press record — creative financing. I feel like it is such a hot topic, at least within the real estate investing world. Fireworks are going off. Neon signs are going off. Like, whoa, creative financing. Especially, with Pace Morby, Robuilt, Ryan Pineda all talking about this stuff, where they're able to put zero down and acquire these homes within a gnarly, low interest rate of sub 4% depending on the property and depending on the terms and things like that.
How are they able to do this, and where are they finding these properties? Before we get to that, Dan, do you mind explaining what the heck is creative financing? What's so creative about it?
Dan: The creative part about it is that anything is possible. The key thing about this kind of strategy that we're working with is that we remove the banks, which is just a third-party. You're removing that barrier that a lot of people have as far as your credit score, like your income, blah, blah, blah, all the things that hold most people back from getting into deals. The thing with creative finance is that it's between you and the other party. One person has a problem, and you have a solution. That's something that I personally have been just going all in on trying to learn this, trying to figure it out how I can help other people out and make some situations happen.
Actually, as we talk about it, I've been working through three different deals here now in Longmont on creative financing. Nothing gone through yet. But it's an education process, and it's obviously a very different strategy. It's a way for investors and sellers as well to win-win.
Ian: You're pretty new to the space as well, so I'm not going to hold you too much to it. But there's still a lot of things about it that a lot of people just don't make sense of it. For example, why the heck would someone want to give up their home for someone to acquire at a super low interest rate? What kind of problems would they even have to let go of a property like that?
Dan: There's a lot of things that can come up when it comes to properties. Most people don't want things to happen this way. But if you have to relocate for a job, especially in this market where it could take three to six months to sell your house, this could make sense. Because it's a way for you to actually make more money versus just taking a loss. It's mostly situations where sellers have to sell and/or tired landlords that just don't want to deal with it but also want to continue to get that cash flow.
The best part about this is, it's called creative for a reason because there's no limits to the way that you can actually structure these types of deals. It can be a deal that would spread out over 100 years. It can be going towards your grandchildren or future like that.
Ian: When you start talking about the very traditional way of — let's say, you're the seller, I'm the buyer. We hire our own real estate agents. We have to factor in commissions. We have to factor in banks, getting debt-to-income ratio sorted out, the proper financing. It's pretty gnarly. We're subject to a lot of different things other than what we want to buy, right? We're sort of pigeon-holed in this very common and transactional relationship here. Here we are going into the creative finance game where I hear the stories of people being — let's say, they want to buy a $500,000 property. Let's say, for you, Dan. I'm sort of spit balling this. I'm creating a story out of it so that I myself can understand and other people can understand.
Let's say, you're a distressed seller. You need to get rid of this place because you're buying a brand-new build in North Carolina. Screw Colorado. It is way too expensive to live here now. So, you need the proceeds with — maybe you don't need all of it, but you're looking to just get something out of the sale of the property. You don't want to pay real estate agents because they're stupid. They don't know what they're doing, right?
Dan: Yes.
Ian: Yes, 100%. No, I was just kidding. In order for you to get rid of this place, you're looking for someone to get a little bit creative with you. You, as a seller, can be the bank. This was a little bit of a switch for me of like, how the heck is the seller the bank? How does this transaction even work between me, the buyer, and you, the seller? Why is this so unique than your typical transaction on the MLS?
Dan: Honestly, I think about this as well before we even started our own businesses. We never really thought what does it mean to own a business. What does it mean to be a bank? What does it mean to lend money to people? When you buy a car and you take out a loan on it, they're not a bank in general. This is something that you are literally just signing the exact same legal contract through a lawyer, draft out exactly the same way. Everything's in stone the exact same way that it would be if you went through a bank. But you're taking out that bank, which reduces the fees and money like crazy. Why wouldn't people do that? If you have one educated person, and then you have a lawyer in between that, and then you also have a seller who's educated by you, then why not? This is a way for everybody to make money, save money, and solve problems. Does that make sense?
Ian: I think so. When this transaction have — I'm just digging deeper on this story. Let's say, if you're wanting to get rid of this place and I come at you saying, "Hey, Dan, I know you're trying to get rid of this place at $500,000." Although, terms are just as important as the purchase price. Because if the purchase price is a certain amount, how soon do you have to pay that off? What interest rate is this? Is there a balloon payment? I know we're getting to terms here or specific terms here. But there is some definitive reason why terms are just as important as price. So, do you mind giving an example of what that might look like, and how you would like it structured as the seller?
Dan: If I was the seller?
Ian: If you were the seller, yeah.
Dan: Using a $500,000 property, for example. This is exactly what I was just doing here in Longmont, so this is perfect. If these sellers were to put this property on the market, assuming it's sold, they have about $280,000 in equity — sorry. If you guys are listening, this is probably going to be confusing. Assuming they have about $280,000 in equity, they're going to be paying between 6% in commissions, which is about $30,000. Then they're going to be also paying closing cost of $3,000 to $6,000 depending on how you structure the deal. When that all comes down to it, they're going to net probably about $150,000, if this goes through. Depending on the situation as well, they might be paying taxes on that if they have not lived there through the last five years.
Whereas through creative finance, if we structure this, they are going to be collecting interest every month from the said buyer. That's completely up to your guys’ deal. You could put it at 5% interest on a one-year balloon, five-year balloon, 15-year balloon, which we should probably explain. A balloon payment just means you set this up on a typical 30-year mortgage. But within five years, if you're doing a five-year balloon payment, that means you either need to refinance that, or you need to reconsider terms at that point.
That's where it comes to. It's up to you guys if you are doing this type of creative deals, which I think everybody should be going after this if you're an investor or a seller that needs some help. Because for this deal specifically, with the 500k, when I was running the numbers, not only are the sellers off the hook for taxes, insurance — which is about $400 on this specific deal that I'm talking about. I'm covering that $400. I'm responsible for anything that comes up. If water heater goes out, boom, that's mine. That's not theirs. They're no longer paying property management.
Also, I'm responsible for the house. If I don't make the payments, these sellers get that back. They get the house back. They get everything that I've done to the house back, which I know to a lot of sellers is like, "Well, what if you trash my house? Why would any investor do this and then trash your house when they know that they're potentially losing their down payment, the loan paydown, and all the money that they're putting into it?" This deal specifically, it comes out to be about $540,000 total that they would net or that they would get for purchase price, including interests. They would net about $300,000 after the loan payoff on a five-year balloon.
Ian: Not bad.
Dan: I could talk about this all day because I get really excited about it, just because it helps both sides so much, and it just takes people like us that are trying to educate and constantly learn. I don't know about you, but I love learning. This is a new strategy that I can just see a lot of potential that'll help other people.
Ian: With this specific loan, I know that it's not a fully paid-off home, right?
Dan: Correct.
Ian: If it's not a fully paid-off home, that means they have a mortgage on it. Are you going to be assuming that mortgage? How does this work out as far as title, mortgage, and who's on the loan?
Dan: Very different terms there, as far as assuming versus subject to. In this situation, you could either assume their loan, which would be you need to qualify. Just like a typical lender, you would need to go through a qualification. Then you would assume that loan. It would come into your name.
Subject to, which is what we're talking about, is the loan stays in the seller's name. You take over payments. You take over title of the house, and you are responsible for everything on that. The only thing in the seller's name is the loan, which happens quite often. It's not that different of a thing.
Ian: Dan, from my understanding, let's say, you are paying off that loan, which is the mortgage itself. And you're also paying the seller as well. Is that right?
Dan: Mm-hmm.
Ian: Whatever that amount is — let's say, you're giving them an extra $400 or whatever that interest rate that you agree with with the seller. How does that work?
Dan: It all depends on the situation of the seller. This seller — we'll just use a hypothetical — they owe about 280. The property price that we offer him is 500. So, the difference between what they owe on that 280 and then the other part is the part that we would finance through the seller. In this example, we would use a percentage of what they actually have in an equity. Then that's the part that we would finance.
That's the part where it gets crazy, because you can do whatever you want. For example, what would it be? 240 probably in equity. 240, something like that. The seller has $240,000 in equity. You can make up whatever terms you want. Let's say, 2%. So, that would put them at getting around $400 to $600 a month just on interest only payments on that equity until you pay off this loan. So, the seller is not only — they're off the hook on maintenance, insurance, taxes. Plus, they're getting $400 a month in interest.
Ian: Who holds this money that you're giving to the seller? Is there like an escrow account in between, or are you paying them directly? How does that work out?
Dan: Yeah, it'd be the same as the mortgage insurance company. A third-party company would take your money in, and they would send it off just like you had a typical mortgage.
Ian: I feel like the reason why it's so popular these days — you've alluded to this, and I've alluded to this — with a lot of our properties, mine included, we got some significantly low interest rates. For example, like on my San Diego property, I have 3.5% on an investor loan. Here at my parent's place, they got 3.75%. In Raritan, my current house hack, I'm looking at like 4.25%. That's a pretty significant difference. Not that many people know that, where it's like 6.5% where we're hovering out right now versus at 4.5%. That's hundreds. If not, $1,000 per month that you're saving if you have that 4.5% versus that 6.5%. It's so significant. And so, if you're able to find these sellers that are willing to work with you on this and looking for that extra bit of cash as a multi-payment going forward, while they move on with their lives knowing that you're going to be taking care of the place, it's a win-win, like you said. It's crazy.
Dan: Even for our buyers, being able to assume a mortgage. I'm still working on my two years of being a full-time agent. That's why these deals work great for me. But if you're a qualified buyer and you can still work with the banks, hell yeah. Assume a mortgage at 3.2, let's make a good deal on that. Because that's also a real thing. Personally, the deals I'm looking for is because I can't qualify through the bank because I don't have two years proof for my business, which actually I just file my taxes. So, boom. Let's go. You guys better watch out for me because I'm coming for all the deals.
Ian: So, does that mean you're able to — when did you start? Was it '21?
Dan: Yeah, April 2021.
Ian: Now that when your taxes are coming back, you're able to verify your 1099 income going forward then.
Dan: Yeah.
Ian: It's awesome.
Dan: It's going to be such a good feeling because it's like, wow. It looks like I made no money. But at least, the banks will at least look at it instead of saying, no, you don't have a real job.
Ian: No joke.
Dan: #Sterling, let's go. You better be ready for my stuff coming in.
Ian: Dude, for real. Dude, I'm really excited for you, man. I feel like I'm almost at that point. I think I have to wait till 2024. I got my license in '21, October. But I didn't get my first closing until March of '22. Is that the case? Like I need to have a full year first before I can verify that income? Is that the case? I know you're not a CPA.
Dan: Why would you quote me on that? I'm literally not a CPA, but from what I know — I'll probably be using bank statement loans just because I have two years of consistent bank statements coming in. I've heard all kinds of different things. Let's not get into our personal agent business dilemma.
Ian: Right. Going back to the whole creative financing. I am just touching it, like dipping my toes in the water, making sure that the water can be whatever temperature, I don't know, for this metaphorical pool that I'm thinking about right now. Because, all in all, the deals don't really happen unless you actually work for it. If you look for an MLS property, it's going to be at asking price, or you're going to have so much competition. You're at the mercy of interest rates right then and there, your debt-to-income ratio.
The reason why we're looking into this so much is because we look at how can we make this happen, not can we afford it. Because if we look at it in a traditional sense, we cannot afford this stuff because banks won't even look at our income, going forward. That's another reason why we're so into it, too. Because, as real estate agents, we have access to the MLS. We just go forward with that and know how to work certain transactions, negotiations and things like that for our own purposes and not just for our clients. Definitely, a useful tool going forward, man. Awesome. Where are you learning this stuff, man?
Dan: YouTube, for sure. Anybody can learn this stuff. I spent a lot of time on YouTube, lots of different webinars, constantly just consuming content podcasts. If you're not doing that, then definitely reach out to us. Because we can connect a lot of different channels. The best way to honestly make this stuff happen is connecting with other people that are trying to learn it too. Because I know you and I, and Mike McClearn and stuff like that, we've connected and we started a little bit of a mastermind, I guess, you could call it. The best way to do it is to not actually know what you're doing. But also, that builds quickly when you don't know what you're doing, and then you start doing it with other people. Then you start having conversations with sellers and other people that are already doing it.
Ian: You got to be bad at it first, man. You got to be bad at it first.
Dan: Just like anything. I'm super excited about this side of things. The bigger my network gets, the more deals that are coming my way. All the more reason to work with a realtor that actually is out there making calls, out there connecting with people, not afraid to say they don't actually know what they're doing for certain things, and continuing to grow. That's been my biggest thing thus far this year. It's just not being afraid to admit like, "Hey, I got a lot to learn. Let's learn this new thing."
Ian: Speaking of that, too, a little bit of a tangent but staying on that same path of I might not know everything, but I'll walk it through with you is, I have a client who's looking at mobile homes. With a lot of these banks, they don't want to have a loan that small. It's just the juice is not worth the squeeze to them. With a price point of like 80 grand, you might as well buy it all cash because you're not going to find many lenders that can finance that for you.
I told my client I have no idea what this realm is like. However, I'm interested in helping you out, number one. Number two, how does this whole thing work? If there are certain lenders in the mobile home space that I'm not aware of, there's probably certain lenders for, let's say, land or certain lenders for, I don't know, more commercial space which is obviously a commercial broker. But nonetheless, this is all a learning experience. I just asked for her patients along with it. She was like, "Yeah, cool. We're all learning this together."
I think having that curiosity aspect to it and the willingness to help out the next person, or your next client, or whatever that might be, it just makes you a much more formidable force going forward. And you know what to do going forward. Let's say, for some reason, you need to help your aunt get into a mobile home or something like that. You know that process going forward. It's honestly just, in your skill set, you're building up that knowledge base. You're just becoming a more dangerous agent out there.
Dan: Nobody knows everything. If they say they can, then I wouldn't work with them. Because that's a lie. You know what I'm saying?
Ian: Yeah, for sure.
Dan: I humble myself, and I take pride in people that can actually tell me, like, "Hey, let's learn this together. I trust you, because you're a good person in general," which is what I take pride in being a good person in general. Then on top of that, if I don't know something, I'm going to figure it out. I'll tell you that much. Whether it's connecting with you or other people in the team, I'll figure it out. I'll make sure it happens the right away. That's where it should be, I think. You know what I'm saying?
Ian: Yeah. On a more personal development level too, a lot of people can change jobs, change LLCs, or build a new company and things like that. But your reputation stays with your name. You only have one name. If people are just not trusting of you or very much do trust you—
Dan: I've changed my name twice, actually.
Ian: For real?
Dan: No, just kidding. There's only one Dan Guenther.
Ian: Yeah, Daniel Guenther. I mean, your reputation does come with a name. You only have one name. How are you going to build it? No matter what you start, it's always going to be tied to your name, and whether people will trust that brand that you build going forward. Anything else you want to talk about creative finance before we wrap this up with the last part of the market these days, what January looked like, and then what do we expect going forward, Dan?
Dan: I think we definitely went on a tangent. I really like that, because that's something I'm super into right now. But no. I think February is going to be interesting. Let's sum it up that way. We are already seeing spring market type of activity right now, which is pretty crazy. If you like a property, let's go for it. Let's make something happen. Talk to your agent. Talk to your lenders. Get some things locked in right now.
Honestly, I have no idea what's going to happen. But just the way that things are progressing right now, I'm already seeing a super-hot market coming for spring. So, if you're an investor, let's talk now. If you're trying to sell your property, let's talk now and make sure that we are ready to go for spring so that we get you the best possible price. There are just so many things that are changing every week that is really hard to predict. It's hard to actually give solid advice on what's going to happen.
Ian: 100% agree, man. Going into this coming month, going into February, the one last stat that I did check before we hit record was the seven-day market watch on the Denver Metro Association of Realtors. Seeing how many new listings hit the market, how many price decreases that were pending and closed, I just wanted to just wrap that up with statistics on that and just give people a perspective of what's going on right now, like literally within the past seven days.
As of February 1, all the way to the day of this recording, February 7, we had 762 new listings, 802 price decreases, 1,440 pending listings and 916 closed. There have been way more pending. There's more under contract right now than there are active listings at this point in time. With those amount of active listings that have been sitting November, December, maybe even mid-January, and even late January — because this is from February 1 to 7 for this statistic — more are under contract now than there are active listings. It's insane right now what's going on.
Dan: If that's any indicator of what's going to happen in spring, please, everybody out there — we don't know exactly what's going to happen. But please, listen to these stats. These aren't just us bullshitting. This is a sign that we are not heading for any sort of crash or anything crazy like that. There are so many people out there that still want to buy.
Ian: Yeah, dude.
Dan: Just within the FI Team alone, I think we've had our own competitions between listings where we can't even tell each other what we're looking at, because we're all looking for the same thing. So, it's like, "Hey, can you help me on a showing?" No, I can't because I'm trying to buy that one as well.
Ian: Competition even within ours. Yeah, dude. I've seen that, too. It's pretty insane. Like you said, if this is what it's like in early February, imagine what's going to happen when things literally start to warm up. Things are going to start to heat up. It's crazy. This is just the smoldering, the tinder to the fire that's about to spark, in my opinion. It's crazy.
Dan: Let's not start any hype. But I know we got a big following out there. All these thousands and thousands of YouTube followers, please listen to us. Hit us up. Hit me up mostly, dan.guenther.rei on Instagram, Facebook at Daniel Guenther. Let's go.
Ian: And sign up for Dan's Market Minute. It's a really quick newsletter, but it's everything that you need condensed into like 1000-character email. It's everything that you can literally read in four minutes. All these statistics, everything about it, definitely, go hit him up and sign up for his newsletter just so that you're at least knowledgeable. Even if you're not buying and selling right now in this market, at least, stay knowledgeable so that you know what it's like going forward and you can compare that market to this market that we're living in right now.
As for me, I'm ian.realestateagent on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. I post weekly videos. This will be on YouTube as well. So, you can see our smiling faces and know what we look like if you run into us. Please come say hi if you do run into us. With that being said, Dan, anything else you want to say before we check out?
Dan: Come to our meetup tomorrow. I mean, it'll be over by then. But yeah, definitely, come to my meetup.
Ian: Oh, yeah. When is your meetup?
Dan: My meetup is the last Thursday of the month. This month, it'll be the 23rd.
Ian: Nice. Over in the Longmont area, right?
Dan: Yeah, Oskar Blues Brewery. Come up there. If you're a northern Colorado person, come meet some people.
Ian: Dope. Nice.
Dan: Isn't that the best way, Ian, to meet people? It's just come to meetups casually. You don't have to drink. You don't have to do anything. Just get a water. Come say, what's up. Everybody is super welcoming.
Ian: Easily the best way, man. I can't tell you how many times I've grown my network and my net worth significantly thanks to these meetups, dude. I can't say enough about them. Because you can only read and hear so much from podcasts, books, and things like that. Go meet people because they will tell you the struggles, the lessons learned over time. That's the real stuff, the real gold that you don't want to — sorry. If it's gold, then that's something you do want to run into. The real poison, I don't know if you want to call it, whatever. But nonetheless, go to your networks, people. Go to your local networks, a networking real estate agent, real estate meetups. Anywho, with that being said, man, thanks for hanging out, Dan. I'll see you guys next month for the next state of the market. Cheers.
Dan: Yeah, see you guys soon.