Rethinking homeownership for Millennials (with real estate agent Silas Lindenstein) / 95

Buying a home can feel like one of those financial milestones we’re supposed to want — but is homeownership actually the right move for everyone? And if we do want to buy, how do we know when we’re financially (and emotionally) ready? In this episode, we’re talking with Silas Lindenstein, a Seattle-area real estate agent and podcast host to try to answer these questions. 

Whether buying a home is part of your five-year plan, you’re actively scrolling listings, or you’re perfectly happy renting, this conversation offers a much more grounded way to think about your housing situation. We’re getting practical about what being ready to buy actually looks like (and when you should feel confident continuing to rent), what deserves your attention (and what probably doesn’t), and how to prepare for a home purchase without putting your life on hold. 

Silas is hilarious and refreshingly candid, which makes a conversation about mortgages, inspections, interest rates, and home maintenance way more fun than it has any right to be. This is one of those episodes where we learned a lot, laughed a lot, and walked away thinking about homeownership a little differently.

✨ Episode Highlights ✨

• [02:30] Why buying a home looks different for millennials and Gen Z — and why homeownership may be more of a lifestyle choice than a wealth-building strategy
• [05:30] Renting vs. buying, why renting isn’t automatically “throwing money away,” and the opportunities that can come with homeownership
• [13:00] What first-time homebuyers tend to worry about too much — and the seemingly small home maintenance issues that can actually matter more
• [15:30] Why location, community, commute, and your future lifestyle can matter more than having the perfect kitchen
• [23:00] Not sure whether you’ll buy in one year or five? How to start “paying your mortgage” now to test your budget and build savings
• [26:00] The difference between qualifying for a mortgage and actually being financially ready for homeownership
• [28:30] The housing costs that can get overlooked, including taxes, insurance, PMI, maintenance, and repairs
• [32:00] How to think about housing costs as a percentage of your income, plus the role refinancing can play in your long-term cash flow
• [38:00] Simple, relatively inexpensive ways to maintain your home and protect its value over time
• [40:00] Why trying to perfectly time the housing market can be tricky — and how to think through buying when the timing is right for your life
• [45:30] How fear and past experiences can shape the way we think about homeownership, even when our current circumstances look completely different

✨ Resources ✨

Connect with Silas:

• Podcast: You’re Buying a Home with Silas Lindenstein 
• Website: https://silasgetsreal.com/ 

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https://www.thefinancegirlies.com/newsletter

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hello@thefinancegirlies.com

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hey girlies. Today we have a very special guest on the podcast. We are talking to Silas Lindenstein. He is a real estate agent in the Seattle area with over 10 years experience. He is also host of the podcast You're Buying a Home with Silas Lindenstein. And he specifically loves to work with first-time homebuyers or people who feel like they have a little or a lot of anxiety about the home buying process. And as someone, Cassidy speaking here, who has not ever bought a home, I feel like a lot of our questions felt a little bit soothing to my soul personally to be like, okay, if I ever actually did this, like here's what I need to think about and here's how to address my fears and all of that stuff. And even for Emily, as someone who's just purchased a home, to be like, here's what I can do moving forward to continue to believe that this was a good purchase for me, or just to continue to take care of the home that I do have. And so this was just as much of like us being able to ask a professional the questions that we have personally, as much as it was of us trying to think of what you wanted to hear. And so we think that you will get a lot out of this episode. I just love that his website is silasgetsreal.com. Because he is real.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Welcome to the Finance Girlies, a podcast for millennial and Gen Z women who are curious about money but have never quite felt at home in traditional finance spaces.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

We are Emily Batdorf and Cassidy Horton, podcast hosts, longtime friends, and finance writers for brands like AOL and Yahoo Finance.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Rather than giving you prescriptive advice, we talk about money the way friends actually do. With stories, questions, and a lot of figuring it out in real time. Silas, thank you so much for joining us on the Finance Girlies podcast today. I wanted to give a little bit of context for our listeners. So about six months ago, I started listening to your podcast, um, You're Buying a Home with Silas Lindenstein. My sister had recommended it to me because it was really helpful for her when she was buying her first house a little over a year ago. And shortly after starting to listen to your podcast, I reached out to you for an agent recommendation in my area because you're in Seattle, I'm in Michigan, and you connected me with a really amazing realtor. Her name is Heather Berger. And fast forward six months, my husband and I just moved into our first house two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Nice. Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

So this timing is is perfect. We can't wait to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

I am so excited to hear you tell me that you were recommended by someone else who I don't even know. That that is the biggest compliment. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

For even more context, we actually interviewed Emily's sister Sam on our podcast several, several months ago. And we were like, what made you finally decide to just go for it? Because she was also a first-time homebuyer. And she was like, Well, actually, I found this podcast. So we actually talked about your pod for real. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

For real. You don't even know it, but we've shouted out your podcast in our newsletter before. For real? For real.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 2:57

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

So this has been a long time coming.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh my gosh. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

And the reason why we want to get your episode out when we get it out is because our following episode will be about Emily's home buying journey. And so we thought the two would couple very nicely together. So we wanted to get you out into the wild on our show. And then Emily, next week, tune in. We'll be talking about her home buying journey.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

So our first question for you. Our audience is primarily millennials and Gen Z. What is different about buying your first home as someone from our generation? And what do you think we need to know that previous generations maybe didn't?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

You probably know that I think it's harder now than it used to be. I think there's a mindset that's a little harder for maybe Zennials to wrap around because my generation was so much preached looking at long term. Like, look at the long term, this is what's going to happen. And we did actually see the reward of long-term from our parents. I could be incorrect, but I feel like you are not getting to see the benefits as quickly as previous generations did. Things are just so much more expensive that it almost feels impossible. Like, how are you gonna get the equity to do something with this? I think your generation does have the benefit of understanding now that buying a home is more of a lifestyle choice. It's about how you want to live. Because when I was younger, the idea was you, oh, you buy a house and then you got equity real quick. You get some equity in there, do a few little things because nobody fixed up their home that much. And then, you know, the neighbor's house goes for sale and you just buy that to be a rental. And it was really simple. And now the way homes are sold now in that more are flipped or improved before selling than they used to be. Like I d I can't conceive of people doing that as much. Like you you have to have a lot of cash to get a rental that's not going to return as much as it was for older generations. It gets a harder investment. So I I think the instant wealth that it used to produce is a lot harder for you guys. So understand the owning a home is about how you want to live, not about just making yourself wealthy.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

I think you hit it right on the head, like the way that Casty and I have talked about homeownership on our podcasts and people we've talked to in our generation, like it's not been so much a financial decision as it has been like a life decision. I think for at least I can speak for me and my husband, it was only when we realized, oh, this is actually how we want to live our life that we started thinking, okay, how is this gonna work? Could we buy a house? What is that gonna look like? So I think you hit it spot on.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

And I want to be clear like, I do think lifestyle is an important reason. You make more money when you're happy. You just do. So if buying a home in the security that being able to just nail something into the wall and not knowing you're gonna get moved because somebody wants to move their kid into the house, if that kind of stuff makes you happy, I think you will do better financially. So that is a good reason to buy in in lifestyle. But if you're somebody you really want to move around a lot, like you don't want to be tied down, I don't think it's necessarily the best financial choice for you, unless if you have a lot of ducks, like you're okay being a landlord, maybe, or you can move people in to help offset the cost, which I think is brilliant and more people should do. Whatever's gonna make you happy, because happiness will equate your financial wealth down the road. Like there can be some financial successes by going for a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Yeah, that's such a good point. I think for me, it's actually the opposite. I still rent, have always rented, plan to rent for the indefinite future. And I think that's because when I think about myself as a homeowner, I feel like very weighed down and stressed, like even just thinking about it. And I'm like, homeownership is not right for me, at least in this point of my life. And I do think a large part of that was that I did live in the Seattle area for six and a half years total, and homeownership just feels like such a far-fetched dream there. Whenever you think of like, I mean, renting really was cheaper, you know. And then now that I now that I live in more of the Midwest, I'm like, I kind of avoid looking at the numbers because I do think my rent currently is actually more like my money would go further if I did decide to buy something, but I still like I'm not ready for that decision at all. But I still think about like the older people in my family specifically, and I'm gonna use my mom as an example. My mom is in her mid-50s and she has been renting for several years, and she just bought a home. And we had another family member being like, thank God she's no longer throwing money away anymore. Like, you just you really she needs a house that is like hers. She's just been throwing money, and then that makes me bristle because I'm like, I know that that is the adage of like, if you rent, you're throwing money away. So we specifically want to ask you what people kind of get wrong about the rent versus buy debate, and just what are your thoughts on people who love renting or consider it the best option for them?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I I do think it's a funny saying, though you're throwing money away. It's a macro answer because it depends on where you live. Because like a few years ago, I ended up selling a condo to this couple that what made them end up deciding to buy, because they were kind of anti-buying a bit, but they started realizing that the mortgage on a condo was gonna be cheaper than what they paid on a rent, even with HOA. And so I think when when that is the case, you are kind of throwing money away. Kind of. Again, because with condos, there's an element of risk that they don't suddenly charge you some extra, hey, we're gonna paint all the homes, and now there's a a $20,000 assessment. So there's a risk on there. I think there's so many little costs that come with owning a home. Granted, I'm in Seattle where there are a lot of landlords who will not do the job they're supposed to do of taking care of the home. And I've known people who will just end up paying for repairs because, okay, I was one of those. I paid for repairs in my house because I was afraid to tell the landlord because their rent was below market value. I wanted as little contact with my landlord as possible because I didn't want them to have a reason to raise the rent. And I was afraid every time I submitted a bill, that's a potential, well, I gotta raise the rent. This place costs money. So I'll just take care of it. I'll just take care. It's no big deal. But that happens, then you're in a house and I'm doing the same thing, except now I'm fully responsible. First off, your mom's is almost the same age as me. So I'm like, well, I don't even mean those old people. I think there becomes an ego thing at some point when you get old enough that you feel like I should have been a homeowner. Or I should have been. Because throwing money away, if she did, it's gone. That money's gone. It's more like right now, I'm like, well, okay, you have a mortgage for 30 years now. Just assume. Is this putting you a better situation for retirement? Like, does this mean you have to work longer? Right. Like, what are you saving? And what are you saving money for? I hope that this is somehow saving you money by buying this. Because what I tell people is I don't think that they're throwing money away, but they are maybe throwing opportunity away by renting because there's different opportunities that can open up for you when renting. I'm gonna use a bad example because I don't suggest this really to much. But sometimes times are desperate. The home equity that you do build on it. If you had to, you could borrow on that to pay off some debt, to consolidate some debt. I think it's very dangerous because whenever you're consolidating debt, there's a chance that you're just gonna add more to the debt. You're not gonna really fix it. So that and that's a whole other problem. But sometimes maybe there's a dream that you want to pursue, and you could use the money from the equity, you could unlock it to pursue that dream. You know, it's all your risk management. I'm really risk. I will take a lot of risk. That's why I'm a bad example for some of that. But I think my risks tend to pay off. What I don't want people to do is tap in to buy a boat. Yeah. Don't buy a boat. Don't buy something that's gonna cost more money with that equity. You should be buying something like I was gonna use it to buy, I was gonna buy a home out in the Midwest. And then my family got a medical thing happened, and it was like, well, we're not doing that now. But I have the possibility. And if things went right, I could have done that. So I think that's what you're missing out on is the opportunity. And there's the opportunity of selling at the right time when that comes around. You don't have that thing to sell. Again, you could rent it out, you could put other roommates in there and lower your costs. But I don't, when you have to pay a thousand or more to buy in an area instead of renting, I'd put that money into stocks if I could, if I had the discipline. If I had the discipline, I would put it into a 401k because you're gonna have a higher rate of return on that thousand dollars than if you bought a home. But the reason why some people, I think, think it is throwing it away is because most people won't do it. They won't put away that extra that they're saving. So you can't ever get that money kind of back. You can get it kind of back. I mean, my $500,000 home I bought at the end of the mortgage is a million dollars, right? So people could say I'm throwing that away, but I'll get some of it back at least. Right. My house is valued at like $900,000, $800,000, $900 now. Like I would I'd make money. I'd make money if I sold now, even at less than I should. But you know, one day maybe I'll pay it'll be worth more than I'll end up paying.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

So for context for those listening, you're saying that you purchased or your mortgage is like $500,000. By the time you end up paying it off over 30 years, you will have paid around a million dollars in interest and all that other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Yeah, and that's at a low interest rate. That's at a low interest rate. That's not even the 7.1 they were yesterday. I've refinanced, I refinanced a month before they started going up. Like low.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Okay. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

And I almost didn't, but it was so I bought, I had to buy a higher rate than I should have because of life situations. But then once we got that cleared up and I had an opportunity, my mortgage person was like, I just run the numbers for you. And then when I refinanced, I was saving a thousand dollars a month because of the way values went and everything. So and then that I oh my gosh, I just can't even imagine because I would I would still be paying a thousand dollars more a month for the last two years. Yeah. So refinancing is such a critical thing when you've bought at a higher interest rate. Like take the opportunity. Like my neighbor I have neighbors that did not do that. And that's when you're throwing money away.

SPEAKER_04 13:50

Right. Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Yeah. I was still living in Seattle when interest rates dropped to like 2%, and my landlord was refinancing the property I was renting. And so, you know, people had to come over and do assessments and stuff. But I was like, get that bag, save that money, sir. Good job.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

Uh yeah, I I look forward to that day for me, for myself. I know you've done an episode on this, but for people who haven't listened to your show, what are some things that especially first-time home buyers worry about way too much? And then on the flip side of that, you can also tell us maybe what people don't worry about enough, like what they are allowed to worry about.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Sometimes I need to like go listen to these episodes I did to see if I still feel that way about what they worry, because it probably changes on based on what recently happened. But I still overall, a lot of home buyers tend to think that if something goes wrong with your house, it's all gonna collapse.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

The doom or gloom.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, the way they read inspection reports. Because even the worst thing I think that can happen to your house is probably a foundation issue. Because they're the more expensive and there's not really a DIY fix to it. I mean, you probably can. But then if you actually like get the cost of it, they're not as high, I think, as most people think it is. I'm not an inspector and I'm not a But I've seen I've seen the foundation fixes that were just a few thousand dollars. The roof is way more expensive than that, generally. And there you have choices, you can get different kinds. But people tend to think that things are gonna fall completely apart when they hear a bad thing about it. I think inspections are great. I think you should be well informed and well educated about your house. But I think people need to look more into what these things cost to do because they don't worry about the things that are gonna cost them more money, really. It is the things that are so far from your mind. In Seattle, it's water, right? I'd rather hear that my insulation is full of rat feces than hear that the drains on the outside are not the proper six feet away from the house. Because I can patch a hole and replace all of that, but the water has to get away from the house. Otherwise, you could accumulate foundational problems. Creating a sinkhole into your house. You don't want, you don't want that. You can get mold from that. There's so many different things. The most important thing is to help get the water away from your house, which is like a five dollar piece of of hardware, right? Just to move it away. Those little things are what save your house more than anything. Little caulking around how much caulking can save you so much money or a little fan up in your attic. That's wonderful. That's gonna save you tons of money. And they're all like five, ten dollar items.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

I think that yeah, they overworry about these things that they're supposed to think are gonna fall apart. What they do not worry enough about is I think being realistic of their future, on what it's gonna look like. Like whether you have kids now, if you plan to have kids, whenever you're buying this house, you gotta think about the forks that might happen in your road, right? Of what you want to happen. Like, that's where I think you should plan for the future. So many clients that you end up having are because they realize they made a wrong choice later and like, oh, lifestyle changed, so now I gotta go, gotta go somewhere else. Like, okay, we could have planned that. That was planable. Your location is the most important thing ever. It is always the most important thing. There's nothing more important than your location. And you want to buy with all those other factors, whether you're gonna have kids, if you feel need to be close to your family, because you need you need support for that. Or if you're single and you need support because you because you need support. Everyone needs people, right? Be somewhere where you know you can have community for one. Because you can work around everything else about your house if the location's fine. If the location is good, if the location is great, you will make absolutely anything work. And that is way more important than whether the kitchen is remodeled. Does it have the right appliances? I had somebody, it wasn't my client, but I had a friend who was talking, they were not gonna buy a house because it didn't have the right appliances. They weren't they weren't good enough. And I'm like, are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_04 18:03

Just wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Just replace them if it's that important.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

That's the most fixable thing.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

Yeah. You know, if you watch House Hunters, which I'm a big fan of, it's like exactly what you're saying. They kind of breeze over the location of the homes they're comparing, but they'll really fixate on the like grain of the quartz countertops. You know, they're like, I can't, I can't live with that.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

I can't live with that. Oh my gosh, I can't live with that. I think I mentioned on my podcast a lot the avocado green bathtub. That's what people will not buy a house because of. And I'm like, are you nuts? I love the avocado green bathtub. Not just because of aesthetics, but like you could just replace a tub. A tub is easy. A tub you can YouTube yourself, but you can't move this to a different school district.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

You know? Yeah. Also those house hunter shows where they they'll be like, well, the commute's an extra 45 minutes. Not too thrilled with that, but it can. I'm like, no, marriages end over 45-minute commutes. Yeah. I will tell you to rent before I tell you to add 45 minutes to your commute. Somebody's gonna be unhappy. If you can't get to your friends, I mean, I had friends that did that, they they they didn't divorce because of it. They divorced later, but they they moved far from all of their friends to get a house. And everybody came the first the first Christmas party they had away. Everybody went there, and they're like, Yeah, all our friends are always gonna come here. Nope. Didn't happen again. People stop going because it's too far. And so then, like three, four years later, they're like, we gotta move. We gotta move because this is miserable. Nobody wants to come visit us. I don't know how this is different where you guys are, but like in Seattle, people sometimes have a hard time making friends, especially as adults, and your friends become your kids' friends, parents, right? In some areas of the country, you can just make friends with your neighbors and get really lucky with that, and it's great. But here it feels generally really hard to make new friends unless you have kids the same age or around that will play together. I got lucky that I was the second family to move into my neighborhood. We got surrounded now by families. Last night there were probably 20 kids outside of my house playing in our cul-de-sac area, and all the neighbors are out there talking and stuff. I will I can guarantee that does not happen anywhere else in my city in Shoreline. Like there's not this many kids and this many people who just get along talking to each other. So I will not move from here. It's impossible.

SPEAKER_03 20:37

I have another friend who lives in a suburb of Minneapolis and they are great friends with all of their neighbors. Also have like a little cul-de-sac community situation going on. And some of their neighbors are like, we will literally never move because we will not be able to find this community anywhere else. Like this community that we built here means so much to us that I don't think moving would ever be an option. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

So I mean, and I've told my wife, we'll see what happens when our kids are older and not hanging out anymore. Yeah. Then we'll see how how much this place is or if we all still stay connected. But you just you see so many people that are lonely in their neighborhoods that I know, you know, it's great to just be able to feel like you could step out and count on your neighbors. Those are so rare.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Yeah. I feel that too. We just spoke with another guest about the importance of like having community. I feel like also just the country that we live in, it's so easy to be like so individualistic and to be like, well, I'm just gonna use my money to solve my problems. Like, I'm not gonna ask my neighbor to borrow their snow shovel if it's randomly snowing. I'll just buy one on Amazon. It'll be here in four hours. It's fine. But she was talking about like how important it is to have those relationships in your community. And like not only are they benefiting you emotionally and mentally, but they're also benefiting you financially. And so that was actually one of the kind of like minor Factors that resulted in me leaving the Seattle area to come to here is that I was really struggling to find friends.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Oh, yeah, in Kig Harbor stuff.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Yeah. Well, even in West Seattle, like I knew my neighbors and we were friendly with each other, but we weren't like hanging out at each other's houses or going out to dinner or doing anything other than being like, hey, I got this package. Like, could you go grab it so it's not soaked by the time I get home? Like that kind of thing. But I specifically chose to live in an apartment building, which this is my first time living in an apartment building. I lived in a town home in Seattle and then like an actual standalone house in Gig Harbor. But I I love my neighbors. Like my big focus for the past year has been really getting to know my neighbors because I want them to come and ask me for a cup of flour if they're making an apple crisp and realize they don't have a cup of flour. Or I want them to ask me to water their plants while they're out of town. I want us to go grab lunch across the street. And so that felt very, very important to me and played a big role in me choosing where to live ultimately.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

I think there's a sense here that people don't want to bother other folks with their problems or whatever with whatever. And I think something I've probably learned over the last five to ten years, probably, has been the importance in giving people the opportunity to help you. You needing a favor from somebody is also an opportunity for them to get to feel good for themselves. Like it it's because you feel good when you get to help somebody, but we forget that that helps other people feel good and it's not as much of a bother as we think it is. Like it's yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

Yeah, this is the same, like you almost said verbatim what Laura told us in this podcast episode. And I used the example, and because you are in a different generation than us, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it. But I feel like, especially as someone who's like millennial teetering the line of Gen Z, I I do feel like this immense guilt for needing to ask someone for something. Like I am being a really big bother when I could just like go buy whatever at the store. And I I don't know if this is just growing up in an age where it is so easy to just order something online and it's here in two hours or to do whatever. But I'm trying to practice in the smallest of ways asking my neighbors for things. And my one example that I gave in our episode with with Laura was that on Thanksgiving last year, I realized I didn't have paprika. And I was like, all the grocery stores are closed. I don't know what I'm gonna do. And then finally I was like, Cassidy, you know so many people in your building. Just send out a text and ask someone for paprika is not a big deal. But it was like this full conversation I had to have with myself. Do you feel like that's generational, or what has been your experience with that?

SPEAKER_00 24:39

I'm like, we have a chat to do, we have a paprika chat as well. What what you started me, what you got me thinking about was the airport. I grew up in a time where if you wanted to get it, it's I didn't grow up in a time, like my life until about 2013 when Uber and Lyfts started being for everybody, was if you need to get to the airport, you had to have a friend, or you're gonna pay a week's salary to have your car sitting somewhere and hope it doesn't get broken into. I think about that often, how much we don't ask people for a ride to the airport now. And if you did ask them, they have to be a sibling, like really close. Like, is this airport friend? Like I think that was always there. Like, well, whether it was like a are they a friend I'd asked to help me move or a friend to take me to the airport? That was always kind of there.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

But now I feel like even close friends, like I have close friends that are like, Oh yeah, I had to Uber to the airport this morning. I'm like, why? I was around. I could have taken you. Didn't want, oh, I don't want to bother you. Because you know, I don't mind taking you to the airport. Why should you pay $100? I'll just take you. Yes. Like there are there are times that I go, like, look, the smartphone saved my life practically. Like it came out at the perfect time for me financially. I needed it. But it's also in to degrees, it's been the worst thing to happen to our communities because this ability to get a ride anywhere, to order paprika real fast has ruined our our our need to go out to the community and ask a favor of somebody and to get them to yeah, just to get little help. There's there's so much that I get mad at this at the smartphone, even though it's helped me immensely. But I'm trying to think like I I had a different situation growing up, so I'm not sure like I was the bad, but people definitely would borrow things. I remember people borrowing. You had to remember who is borrowing what. And now I like I have like two people that borrow things from me. And that's it, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 26:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

If it does, like you're right. I hadn't really thought about the people buying the snowblower, but I think that does happen a lot more. I do it a bunch. I do that a bunch because I'm like, mine's out of anxiety because I'm going, I'm afraid I'm gonna break it because I've because I have broken things, because of these things. So I feel like I don't want to break it, so I'm gonna buy one so I don't have to deal with the stress if you break it and go, well, what I think it was already broken. So you want you you want me to buy it for you? No, but then I don't have one either.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

So I get I get stress, I get anxiety about whether, especially I don't know if you've had the situation where you get it from someone and then hey, it wasn't working. And they're like, Well, it was working. I'm like, yeah, I swear it was not working when I got it. It's why I I when I have to watch somebody's pet, like I have to go feed their cat for a week. Oh, I am so scared that animal's gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Like just and I'm like, you want me to watch your 20-year-old cat? Okay, great. This will be fun. Yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

Okay, before we get back into the I know we have some like actual homebuying questions, I have to say, your smartphone reference made me think of where I chose to buy. And Cassidy knows this. We moved from the city to the country a year ago. And it wasn't a big city at all, but we still moved. It's a it's drastically different, like 25 minutes away. And for us, it was kind of the the opposite of what I may have initially expected. Like as soon as we moved out here, we started meeting people so much faster. There was much more of a sense of, you know, neighbors and community and that kind of thing. And a lot of the people we've met out here are of different generations. There are not a ton of people our age. And so as a result of that, there are a lot of people who we have become friends with who don't have smartphones. And so we have been getting used to, we had a friend email the other day, hey, I my garden is overflowing in basil, come pick some. So last night we went over there and picked some basil and I made pesto today. Or actually picking up the phone and like calling somebody about watering my plants. It's been so different, but I'm actually for us, it's like, this actually feels great. We love this.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

So I don't, I don't think I know anyone who doesn't have a smartphone.

SPEAKER_04 29:04

Oh, I know several.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

So I know it's just such a foreign, like, because even the even the old ladies who don't know how to work anything have one here. Like it's that's just amazing and kind of like that's wonderful how you've escaped that.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

Okay, that was a beautiful tangent. I loved that. So getting back to home buying, if you think that you may want to buy something someday, and I'm gonna use myself as an example, but I'm like, I don't know if I would want to buy next year when my lease ran up. I don't know if I would want to keep renting for five more years. What do you recommend someone do in my situation to prepare just in case I do end up buying something in a year or it ends up being five years?

SPEAKER_00 29:44

I I would start paying your mortgage now. So if you think it would cost you if you're paying if you let's say just to keep the numbers easy, let's say your rent's a thousand dollars. If your mortgage was two, you start paying every month, you start putting a thousand dollars into your special savings account. Right, not your regular one, a special one, ideally at a different bank than you normally need to access, right? And start doing that and see if your lifestyle can live on that, if that's gonna change. Because, you know, the house poor idea is you don't want it to alter your lifestyle too much. And to know that you can do it without stressing out is the best thing. Plus, whether it's in a year or five, that's automatically you're paying, you can use all of that to pay down on how much you were gonna pay, and then maybe you even have less of a payment than you would have. And having the savings gives you the opportunity to jump on an opportunity, whether it's uh a home that called probate that was on probate because somebody who owned it had passed or or a many, many other different reasons, to give you the opportunity to get the best deal possible, have that money a good chunk ready for it is what is what I would say. Because I don't like people to get caught up in like imagining what will my kitchen look like. Like what would I do? Because you'll end up disappointed that you can't get that or you'll fixate on it. So it's for me, it's more about lifestyle, making sure your lifestyle is an easier transition into it and that it's almost a no-brainer when you do decide.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Yeah, that's a great idea. We eventually did that, but I wish I wish we had heard that advice sooner. I think that is such a great idea. Cause like for us, I guess, we when when we did that and started paying a mortgage before we actually had one, it just gives you so much more confidence when buying a house for the first time and like talking about that mortgage payment, even if it's similar to what your rent was, it just there's something psychological about it that feels really scary.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah, because there was a there was a there was some sage advice for a long time that kind of got nixed in 2018 where it used to, because of tax deductions, you used to be able to calculate your rent plus 20% was the same basically mortgage payment as a rent. So like because of at the end of the year you would get money back from your tax deduction that so a thousand dollar rent was basically the same as a twelve hundred dollar mortgage. At the end of the year, you're not gonna feel anything. However, in 2018, when they redid the taxes, they they raising the standard deduction kind of killed that. So a majority of people, it didn't end up mattering as much because you couldn't deduct enough in interest to lower it past the standard deduction, which was why it was great before. So that made it even a little bit harder in planning, too. Because I would used to be able to tell people, just wait, once you're done with that year, it's gonna feel fine, it's gonna hurt a little. But once you're a year, you're gonna be like, wait, I have more money now. Because it's it was the same. And so people may have heard that. Sometimes those old things that have been around for like 40 years, people still say, but that one is gone now. It might change, you know, next time a tax plan goes up, it could change. Whether that's good or not, I don't know. It just doesn't help real estate agents in selling homes now. That's what I can't give one of those awesome tips.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

Kind of going off of that question, what does being ready to buy a house actually mean to you? And I know we've talked about kind of like the lifestyle side of things, but maybe now we can focus on like being financially ready. And to piggyback off that, how is being financially ready different from just being able to qualify for a mortgage?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Well, you can qualify so much easier than you think. Like people that tend to be ready to buy a home, they're usually surprised how much they're qualified for. But they don't know, the bank does not know your magic the gathering habit. They don't know that you spend 10% of your income as a tribute to Magic the Gathering. So I mean, that's so that's partly financial, partly lifestyle. I think you need to make sure you're in a place where you have $200 of discretionary money to be used on your home every month. Because I figured a while ago, I figured that's about how much I ended up spending every month on something for my house. Sometimes, you know, I need a new fence door. I don't have to fix that. That's a little like $200 to have it fixed. Or then I would go like seven months with no bills, nothing. Oh, and then you discover there's a mouse had gotten into your crawl space area, and now you have to replace the a thousand dollar item. So it's just always something that I always felt like you need to plan that you have $200 in repairs, capital funds every month that you're gonna end up spending on and just save that. So I think it's more than just knowing that you can make that mortgage comfortably. It's really knowing that you have extra money for little repairs and how much you tend to use discretionary. Anyone who could see the video of my background knows I like to collect things. So it might mean I I can't buy as many bobbleheads as I wanted to, but I've got to make that choice.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

But it also sounds like there is kind of the hidden advice of like look at your budget, look at your actual spending habits, and then do some backwards math to be like, okay, if I can comfortably afford to spend $2,500 on all of my housing costs, but two or three hundred dollars of that is gonna be this thing, and maybe X amount of money is gonna be home insurance. Like, I need to actually be looking for a mortgage that's this much, and maybe it's like $2,000 or something.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Well, well, that's a good that's actually a good point. When you talk to the lender, you have to make sure that the number they're giving you is like an all-inclusive number. Because sometimes they will. Like a lot of times, if you go to like the calculators like on Zillow, it'll say this is the mortgage. If you look at the total, like go into the breakdown, it'll mention insurance and yeah, insurance if if PMI is included, depending on how much you're putting a down payment on. Sometimes it includes that. Some places, I'm not gonna say a name, but there are some national lenders that might just give you the base amount that you're gonna qualify for. And then you'll get surprised about the insurance as you're getting closer to actually buying. So you want to make sure your lender is giving you the all-inclusive price of this. They they can't tell you what the insurance is gonna be, but exactly, but they can give you an estimate based off of their experience. They're putting like, well, here's your mortgage and here's an estimated for insurance. Because you when you have a mortgage, you have you you nearly always have to pay your insurance as part of that mortgage payment. And taxes. And taxes. Yeah, that's the other thing that sometimes will get hidden by some national lenders uh that you want to make sure. That's why that's why I say it's the importance of using a local lender, um a mortgage company instead of a a bank, uh, especially the big banks, credit unions. I say always say, Great to refinance, but locally, I do not want one when I'm trying to buy. When I'm trying to buy it the first time, I'm gonna use a mortgage lender that just does that.

SPEAKER_04 36:57

Okay. Yeah, that's a good tip. I I don't think I had heard that explicitly. That's what we ended up doing. But yeah, we were very aware the entire time of insurance estimates and tax estimates, and our home insurance ended up being like half of what they had estimated, which was a lovely surprise.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

That's the best.

SPEAKER_04 37:16

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Because something I just learned about insurance recently, that when an event happens at your house, that carries with the house, right? Like if a pipe bursts and they have to go to claim, so you're gonna have higher insurance moving in there even if you didn't have that before. And on the other end, the person who claimed it, they're gonna carry that to their next house. The risk gets double-dipped to both to everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

Huh.

unknown 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:42

It doesn't seem fair.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

No.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

I know. Yeah, I have written quite a bit on home insurance specifically for different like big websites, and that's one of the things that shocked me. It's like you could have a perfectly spotless home insurance record, but if your house has a poor claims record for whatever reason, you could experience higher premiums just because you're moving into a house that has noted issues in the past, even if those issues were outside of your house's control.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah. I personally just don't it would take a big event for me to put a claim on my house for something because I know they're gonna hit me with a premium hike. So they're they're not just giving the money. And and I know and I know that I'm tagged then for many, many years. If I go to another place, I'm gonna get hit. So if I can pay for it without going broke, I'm probably gonna just do it myself because you're a little trapped with it, similar to car insurance.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Do you have any other tips? Like I know there's the general advice of keep all of your housing cost, including mortgage, taxes, et cetera, to like 30% of your gross income. But I feel like if you live in a high cost of living area, maybe you're naturally gonna have to spend more than that and you just cut everything else to where it still makes sense for your situation. But do you have any rules like that that you generally recommend to clients?

SPEAKER_00 39:02

My my goal in life is to have my mortgage or rent covered in one week of of salary with my spouse, would be my goal. I think the banks put it at like 39% or 40%, like depending that your expense. I think if you want a real safe, secure future, it should be 25% should go of your housing cost. I know plenty of people who their mortgage is easily 50% of their costs. Because once you've qualified, things change and then you lower your job or whatever. Like, so people definitely live with that there. But I think that should be your target at some point, whether that's from refinancing down the road. People get caught up on interest rates, and especially because of what just happened over the last five years of them jumping, right? But prior to that, what people used to do is people would refinance their house like every five years. They would just refinance it. And not even necessarily because it's lower, but because it spreads out your monthly payment again. So I talk about this once in my podcast about how these are just made-up numbers, right? But like their mortgage was a thousand a month. And so after five years, they they refinanced and and now it became suddenly they owe it over 30 years again instead of 25. And so now it's like 800 a month. And they just kept doing that until eventually their mortgage is about 500 a month. Now they would still be paying a thousand dollars a month because they're trying to pay it down that original timeline. However, if they became unemployed, instead of needing $1,000 a month, you only need $500 a month. And so that's how you have these people who could lose their job for so long. And you're like, how does that person still have their house? It's because when they were prosperous, they spent 20 years refinancing their house.

SPEAKER_02 40:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

So they hardly owe anything on their house. And so people did that regardless of what the interest, yeah. I'm sure if it was up a whole point, they might not buy it. But like, yeah, it goes down a little point, uh, a quarter noun. Sure. It's down. We don't think it's going. And so that's why a lot of people are trapped now, is they can't do that. Or they will eventually, but instead of five years, it's gonna take like 15 years and it'll be at like 5% interest rate, right? But if they refinance, it will still lower their monthly payment. And really, it's gonna be about your philosophy on life and who you listen to for financial advice on whether cash flow matters more than what your interest rate is. Because there's some people that will say cash flow is far more superior in that, and they will tell you take that money and put it in stocks instead, because you'll make more money if you do that. But it's gonna take a long time to people to get to that point that it will lower enough. Yeah. That's that's the trap that people have, and that's what's causing the current housing problem.

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Well, let me ask you personally whenever you saved a thousand dollars a month on your mortgage from refinancing, what did you do with that thousand dollars a month?

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Well, uh I did have to pay I did have to pay off some debts. I'll say that for a bit. Okay. What it gave us was breathing room for a bit.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

And I'm trying to think of the year that it actually happened that I did that because I believe I was like, so, and then there was a pandemic. And so I was for a while, I was just sitting waiting for this to like I didn't have to go out as much as I I had a wife in healthcare, so I was not I was like, I can't go anywhere right now because I can spread this or whatever. She worked in oncology, so people had no immune system. So we had to be really careful. So it it gave me some freedom for that time. Would have been a great time to pay that down. Look, I got great advice. Do I follow my advice like I should? Bobbleheads behind me answered that.

SPEAKER_03 42:53

Well, the thing is, I think even just affording yourself breathing room is an incredible thing to do with your extra money. Like that's it's not a matter of, oh, do I keep paying a thousand dollars on my mortgage or do I put this entire thousand dollars in the stock market? I think just the fact that you were able to work less because your mortgage was less, that's you know what I did do though?

SPEAKER_00 43:12

I did set up an automatic funding, not a thousand dollars, but like $500 a month that goes to my financial advisor. It goes to him to put into mutual funds or whatever retirement thing. Like that's automated now so that I don't have to think about it. Like that's one thing that we did do. So that way when I do need to get extra funds, I always have stuff sitting there that I'm not again, like I mentioned, putting it in a different bank when you're saving up for it. It's in my Edward Jones account. I never look at that until I look at my other account and go, I gotta do something.

unknown 43:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

What much is over there? Okay. Then I'm like, oh, okay. All right.

SPEAKER_04 43:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Okay. We're okay until the next house sells. All right.

SPEAKER_04 43:49

You also mentioned at the very beginning of the episode. If you're happier, you're like more successful and you tend to like make more money. I feel like it's the same thing with what we're talking about here with like The less stressed you are, the more breathing room you have. Same thing. The more successful you are, at least in my experience.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

There's also something about you'll have some financial gurus that will talk about giving as a means of financial success. Because for some reason the the money finds its way back to you magically. Like we don't know why. And so I do use that expression now that you can't get money with a closed fist, right? You have to have your hand open. So you do need to be able to be generous to get it back. And so when you're stressed out, it's really hard to feel like you could be generous. Because then if you're able to pay somebody for something, the ideas like that that it will come back to you in some way.

SPEAKER_04 44:40

Right. Yeah. Okay. This next question is just kind of something I'm personally wondering. So for existing homeowners and especially new homeowners, what are some of the best ways to maintain or improve your home's value? And I'm talking you don't have a bunch of money to throw into some big renovation.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Keep keep it painted, touch up the paint. It seems minor. But it if you can do that yourself as it goes, like get that color of paint and just have some around and be able to go replace it. Because the paint saves so much of your house. It does. It protects it more than anything else.

SPEAKER_04 45:20

Do you mean exterior?

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Exterior. Well, I do mean exterior. Yes. Exterior there. That will that protect your house. It also gives it a fresh look when you I mean, one of the first things we tell people when we go up to the house is like, well, it needs a new paint job. You need to paint it. Like, so if it doesn't need to be painted, that's a great savings right there. There's some silly things to look at online about like you can find tons of articles on the seven fall maintenance tips that you should do. If you would actually just do those, that's gonna be a huge savings. Because your house may not have the most impressive kitchen or bathroom, but as long as you can get that, it's got good bones. You will find people that will see that because there's little things you can do with staging and light. You can make stuff without having to fully replace a kitchen. Paint is wonderful. Like you can paint an ugly kitchen with white, just put some white cabinets on it, and suddenly you've upped the value of it more than the paint's worth without having to replace anything. So yeah, I would just say maintenance and records, if you can keep the records. I have I have ADHD, it's horrible. But I have a filing cabinet where I've at least shoved in the maintenance from the furnace that it's come in and it's been done. I can just take these certain home documents and just stick them in there. Like, okay, I uh put them in that drawer. You can sort it out later when it when you need to. But if you have those documents, you can show people. Because I think the biggest thing that makes it hard to sell a house is uncertainty. People don't like to buy things that there's questions about or they have questions on, which is why if you know your house needs a new roof, you can take the chance of them not noticing or the inspector missing it. You can do that. That's an option. That's I think that might be the worst. The second would be you say, Hey, yeah, it needs a new roof. That that that that might be tied with that. Or you can go get go get three quotes on roof replacement and have those ready. So when people come in, you say, Yes, it needs a new roof. Here are three bids that we got for it. This is how much it's gonna cost you. Because that gives the buyer the confidence to know it's gonna cost me this much. Because what they're gonna think, as soon as you tell them they need a new roof, they think that's gonna cost $40,000. When in reality, it could be a $7,000 repair. And we can work it into closing, you know, you can get it back at closing. You're a lot of fun stuff you can do, but you'll get way more confidence just disclosing how much it's gonna cost because then there's no questions. It's always about the questions. That's what people worry about. That's what inspectors ask when they come in and they go, Well, I see this little thing here. And that makes me wonder, is it causing this? And that's where people start getting anxiety. But when they have the answers, if somehow you've got the information to inspector, like, hey, we had a leak, we fixed it, it's right there, and this is what it was causing, then they're able to diagnose, like, okay, this is what caused that. But now there appears to be no further issue. You want to kill questions when you're going to sell the house.

SPEAKER_04 48:15

There was one house we walked away from, we didn't make an offer even, but that we were interested in because the sellers were so tight-fisted with history information. We were like, this is just this doesn't feel good. We don't know what you're hiding.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Yeah. And even sometimes there's this weird phrasing from people like, why'd you say it like that? Now I think you're hiding something.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

And if you're hiding that, what else are you hiding? Because you're hiding more though. It just makes people nervous. They don't want, they don't want questions. It's the same reason why you stage a house to answer the questions, is my bed gonna fit in here? What can I do with this room? Some people have no idea what to do with any room. So you stage it to give them an idea of what they could do.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

I feel like I fall into that camp. I'm like, I buy a tiny jar, you tell me it's for salt, my brain goes, This tiny jar is only for salt. My brain doesn't go, but wait, we could put it in the bathroom for hair ties. The same thing would be with an empty room. I'd be like, oh, office space? What else do you do with this? I don't know. I feel like you gave some really underrated tips. And because I I do think all of the questions point back to this would be my biggest fear as someone who's never owned a home, is I would be so afraid of ending up with a money pit, which I feel like is everyone's worst fear whenever it comes to buying a home. Like you don't want to be one of those stories. And so I feel like the more questions you have, the more likely you are to be like, I'm probably a money pit. I'm just gonna move on to a different place. But I do think being overly transparent just kind of hushes all of that anxiety that someone could be experiencing.

SPEAKER_04 49:50

Yeah. What I'm taking away is I need to improve my record keeping.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

And I'm not saying that that is the right advice for everybody because sometimes, yes, what you tell people and disclose may scare people off. But in my opinion, the people I have worked with, they feel much more at ease putting in offers when they when they already know the answers to that. It'll definitely some things you disclose, it'll definitely scare some people off. What you're trying to always hedge your bets on is what's going to increase your number of offers that you're gonna get on. I personally think that's transparency, and I just think that's good kind of for life and karma. And yeah, I think you I think people will sometimes get what they deserve when they try to hide things and it bites them.

SPEAKER_04 50:35

How much should you be paying attention to the housing market and economy before deciding you want to buy a house? So, like assuming it's a good time for you personally, should you be thinking about the market or should you just kind of go off your personal situation when you feel ready?

SPEAKER_00 50:53

It's a funny time to be asking me that because this is the most reality time of it being a sluggish market. Will it get worse? I don't know. Will it get better? Probably. In the history of home buying, it always ends up improving. In the history of the stock market, it has always increased eventually. There will be a dip. Are you in the dip? You might buy at the this might be the top of the dip, and it's gonna go lower, and then it's gonna come back up. If it does not come all the way back up and past it in the next 10 years, we are in a lot more trouble than your house. I mean, we are talking savage devastation. If your house can't rebound in 10 years, we have a serious number of problems happening in our country that are way beyond anyone's scope on this call. So, because of that, and I can't, I stick by the idea that the best time to buy a home is when it's the best time for you to buy a home. You cannot predict the market. You cannot, you cannot time the market, but you can have good timing. I just want to really be careful that I know I am not going, and I can't say no, but I need to have a reasonable certainty that there's no way that I need to leave this area for the next five years. If you can answer that, I feel comfortable with you buying a house. Because five years is traditionally how long it took for a mark uh the market to recover so you didn't lose money. That's traditionally. Plenty of people have been buying so that it took them, it took a year and they suddenly could make money, right? But that's not going to be the story and it shouldn't be the story. The low interest rates were the worst thing to happen to the housing market. Good for me, horrible for the market. If you have time, just buy if it's the time for you. Try to get a deal. And if you can do as much as you can DIY, I think the better. I don't know if this answers a previous question or not, but I talk about the difference between my generation and now is when I was buying a house, people put a for sale sign up on their house and you were lucky if they painted it. And now everyone thinks they can remodel a home. So everybody remodels the home before they leave to try to make the most money. And that's just made starter homes impossible to buy. Like you had to buy a home and you had to figure out what you wanted to fix. That's what it used to be. But nobody remodeled everything and tried to flip a house they'd been living in before they put on the market. And now everyone wants that they're they have a I can make an extra $30,000. So I'm gonna do this. And maybe they do, but it's hard to find untouched homes now that are just available. Usually those go to those 800 numbers you see on signs saying we buy homes cash. That's who gets those. And they don't really, it's kind of fake.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

But it reminds me one thing I kept hearing as interest rates started to climb back up was like date the rate, marry the mortgage. Like you can always change your rate, but just try to focus on you're smiling, you're smiling.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

There's so many people that are angry at their agent and lender from telling them that.

SPEAKER_03 53:55

Really?

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Because they're they're like, you're buying at five, it's not gonna get higher. Date the rate, marry the mortgage. You'll you'll refinance later. We're at 7.1 yesterday. Those people that were dating the rate and expecting to refinance in two years are not refinancing because it is far too high, and even refinancing won't get them below what they're paying now. Like it is biting them so hard. Okay. Because that was an expression you could use as they were going down. But what happens if they go up and they don't come down? Personally, I don't think we're gonna get to like a 9% or 10%. I don't think that could happen. I don't think. But what I mean is if it's right for you and it'll budget it, you can you can live off of it, you can be fine, then make that work. Because it'd be like saying you're getting a job, right? And the assumption is if I get a job, that's how much money I'm gonna make. And I will continue to make that much money forever, or I will make more every year. But what if in seven years you decide to leave corporate America because you want to be a teacher? You're dropping in salary a lot. You won't be able to live that same lifestyle. So you got to set yourself up early to be able to do that. Or like I have a friend made a lot of money, lots of money, got laid off from his job right before the economy actually tanked, has not been able to find work in like seven months. And he was under the assumption, oh, I'll all have a new job in like a month. But the more specialized you are, the harder it is. So, like, there's so many things that can happen that are unpredictable. I will put date the rate is one of those, it's a salesman tactic that you gotta be careful of. You gotta what you gotta watch for things and think about is this a salesperson talking or a human? And most agents are salespeople. It's why I do so much work trying to find agents to recommend to people. And if I don't know somebody, like Emily's agent, I I I hadn't known prior in that area, but I knew someone else in Michigan who I trusted. I would send any client to her. And I'm like, ah, they're too far. I said, Hey, do you have an agent up there that's one of our people? That's us. She understands what I mean. She's like, I got someone for you. And then I interview them. And then I go, okay, I like them. They're gonna do well. And then I connect them with the client.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

Okay. We're gonna end on a mindset question of sorts because I need you to give me specifically some good advice. And my scenario for you is I feel like there is a difference between you are technically ready to buy a house, but you're scared to buy a house, therefore you don't think you're ready. Or maybe you actually aren't ready, you know. And I feel like the second part of that is very easy to figure out. So I want you to talk to me as someone who could actually be ready but doesn't think they're ready because they're scared. And I'm just gonna give you a little bit of my mindset history, uh, to give you some scenario. I've never owned a home. I feel like every example I have of someone in my life who has owned a home in the past, it has been overwhelmingly really, really hard for them to sell that home whenever they've been ready to sell that home. They've taken a loss on that home because it's been so hard to sell. It's sat on the market for years. And this could just be a location thing. But I feel like all of those examples have me particularly having the mindset of buying a home is a trap. It's not really ever gonna make you money. Renting gives you far more freedom. And I feel like I'm now in a situation where if I did the math and looked at homes in my area, it probably is much cheaper to own a home versus continuing to pay for downtown rent in an apartment building that's like kind of semi-luxury, whatever. But renting feels safe. But I also could see myself living here for five or more years. So if I'm someone who's on the fence out of fear, what would you say to me?

SPEAKER_00 57:33

This is people will find examples that this does not work. But I have found usually when I'm afraid of something, it's probably because it's the right choice. It's something I need to step into. What I hear is people who are thinking about having a baby. It's like, I don't know, but they're afraid. Is it the right time to have a baby? No, it's never the right time to have a baby. You are never ready. You are never ready for a baby, but you do it anyway.

SPEAKER_03 58:02

And it never makes financial sense either.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

It never makes financial sense until you're 80 and you need someone to take care of you a little bit. Much like a house that ends up taking care of you because you can sell it and move somewhere cheaper when you're 80. Like, I acknowledge your fear. I think that's uh I think it's totally valid. I do start when you start looking at the numbers and going like, I think you gotta start thinking about what you're missing out on if it's cheaper. Like, you're Zenial, so like so. So you're like you're downtown now? Does that mean you'd have to move out of downtown?

SPEAKER_03 58:35

Yeah, that's something.

SPEAKER_00 58:36

Do you want to be in downtown?

SPEAKER_03 58:38

I love being walking distance to a lot of things. I can see the grocery store through my window.

SPEAKER_00 58:42

Yeah. Is that a daily? Do you shop daily?

SPEAKER_03 58:45

No. Once a week.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

I own a home and I shop daily because I like to I like fresh stuff. I like fresh because I hoard and then I everything goes bad if I buy too much at once. So I I do think if you think that it's cheaper, you do need to seriously look at whether you are making a a good decision by doing that. Well, what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of happening? Like, what's the worst thing that would that would happen on this? There is a low well, well, you did struck me. I've always I've said this on my podcast. If I lived, if I lived in a if I was in a rural town in Montana, I would think real hard about whether I want to buy or not.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

Because I had a cousin who did what happened, what you mentioned. She bought a home in Montana and it took a couple years for that thing to sell because the mill closed, right? Like if your town is centered around a mill, I wouldn't buy unless you're never leaving that because of other reasons. But if you're in a city, you're in a city.

SPEAKER_03 59:41

I'm in Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_00 59:42

You're really uh Minneapolis isn't closing.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

So there's not one thing that's gonna shut down and cause you to that thing will never sell.

SPEAKER_03 59:53

To your point, I think this is where my logic has to come in to kind of address my lived experience because I did grow up in rural South Georgia where like I that was just the thing. Like, I don't know, your house is gonna stay on the market for a while. And so like that's what I saw of my family go through. Even now I have a family member, they put their house on the market for a year, they just took it off because they're like, well, it's been a year and nothing's happened. So like we'll just keep living in it. But I have to remind myself that I don't, I don't live in a rural area. Like I'm, you know, I'm in a city where people are snatching up homes left and right within reason, you know. But like it's there's more of a market here. So I don't know how realistic that fear is. It's just based on my experience, I'm like, but this is what happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:35

It used to be that a home was supposed to sit on the market for six months. That in a normal market, there's six months worth of inventory. We don't have six months of inventory right now. Technically, this is still a seller's market, technically. But people don't think that because the real seller's market was feeling when you put it up on Wednesday and the house was pending on Monday, or put it up Wednesday, house is pending by Saturday, right? That's what we've gotten so accustomed to. And that's been a majority of my real estate career, has been an insane market. But even myself knowing this, there's a house down the street that had gone up for sale in July. Foolish time to sell. Don't try to sell in July. And it sat there and we kept going, why is it not selling? It's not selling. It's a great area. So great area sometimes can overcome some of these things like July, don't sell, but it's not selling. It just got off the market now. It just went pending. So we're recording this in September. August, September. I, as an agent, was freaking out because this house took two months to sell. That's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

That's such a short amount of time.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

It is really short. But we think the things should go fast because of what we got used to. But in the economics of real estate, six months inventory is what they consider an even market. Honestly, if they put it up in September, it probably would have sold end of September. I don't understand people, Cassidy. It's the hard thing about me being an agent. I'd sell a lot more if I wasn't so dang honest with people. People are not looking for homes, full-on homes, like four-bedroom homes. They're not looking in July. If you're moving into a house that's gonna probably suit a family, by July, they already know where they want to go to school. Most people have moved. They don't want to move their kid in the middle of a year necessarily. Because if you put the house up in July, it can't close till August. And what if something happens? There's too much uncertainty. I'm not gonna move in August with my whole family. So you have to put your market up. They say by July 4th. I would really say by May if you have a family family home. If it's a if it's a betweener, that's probably fine. Otherwise, you should wait till after Labor Day to put it up on the market. Between 4th of July and Labor Day, I would not put a home for a family on the market. I would not suggest it. Why did this person put it up? Maybe they needed to, they felt they needed to, they needed to give it a shot. Maybe the agent didn't tell them. Like, you know, common sense says don't do this. Because you might lose the sale. When you tell people the truth, sometimes you lose the sale to the person who comes in next and tells you what you want to hear. But the truth is, whether they put it up in July or September, it's probably selling at the same time because that's who's looking at those times. So did you change did I change your mind?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:17

You know what I'm tempted to do after we hop off this call with you is to look up real estate in my area, to go down the longest rabbit hole for hours and to be like, let's look at this more realistically. So who knows? I did just re-sign my lease, so Well, so you have time. Well I'll be here until July. You can always break the lease.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

And sometimes it depends on you. You know, in Washington state at least, if you cannot hold someone to a lease just because you've left it, like they can't just not try to rent the place. Like you owe as much money until they can fill the lease. I'm not a lawyer, let me say that. However, that's my disclaimer, but they can't just like leave it empty till July and then you owe all that money.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:00

Okay, my mom actually went through something like this. They she's in Tennessee, but they told her, like, you'll have to keep paying your rent until we find someone to fill it. But the second we find someone to fill it, like you no longer have to pay your rent. And that's what ended up happening. They ended up renting out her apartment within days, so like she didn't have to pay really anything extra.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

So yeah, there may be some little fee on that, but yeah, so most leases aren't trapping you as much as people think.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

And also, and good point, you just you technically you trapped yourself till July with your lease. People keep saying, I don't want to be trapped anywhere, and then they sign leases. Like, well, they don't sign a lease. Do you have a roommate somewhere? Like, people do it themselves anyway. They people behave so differently when they think they're renting a place versus buying, even though they they're like, I'm not gonna buy a place and live with roommates. I'm gonna rent a place and live with roommates. Like, well, okay, you're living the same lifestyle. You can live the same lifestyle, but own it and have a choice, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

I know. Yeah, it all it also reminds me, this is my experience too. Whenever I lived in West Seattle, I lived in the same townhouse for five and a half years. And because you're signing a lease typically year by year, I'm like, well, I'm not really gonna decorate this place or like kind of make it my own. Because what if I don't live here at the end of next year? And then you zoom out and you've lived there five and a half years and you're like, I should and you have no paintings up. Right. And I'm like, what why? So Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:26

Yeah. I have felt trapped by leases before. It's not a good feeling.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:31

Yeah. But I'm just saying, like, people feel people don't think they can go buy a home after they looked at it. I mean, they've had to change their mind, but like people like freak out like, but I only went to the house once and we're gonna buy it? Like, how many times do you look at that house you rented for seven years before you rented it?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

Like, you actually have better intuition than you believe.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

I think you can yeah. That's I think I think that's the that's a nutshell. You have more intuition than you probably believe. I like that. Yeah. Where can our listeners find you?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

They can go listen to the podcast. You're buying a home with Silas Sundenstein, that's available on Apple or Spotify, and my website is Silas Getsreal.com, uh which that has links to my various things and projects.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:17

And I just gotta plug your realtor matchmaking service. Service. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you are looking for an agent, email Silas. He might go to the city. Anywhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

I've even connected people in Canada. Wow. It's been wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:34

Okay. Well, if I decide to explore this home buying journey and I get serious enough to need a realtor, I will email you. Okay. You'll be my first stop. I I'll be like, I don't even need to research anyone. I'm taking Silas's recommendation.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:47

That's right.