Hangin' With Gannon Episode 6 - Realtor Bill Oosterink

Pat Gannon is at it again/podcasting :)  This time, his chat is with Bill Oosterink.  A realtor with a lot of information.  In this episode, Pat and Bill discuss interest rates...what is Bill telling clients and why rates shouldn't be the decider.  How Bill and Pat have increased their business no matter the market and how Bill became a real estate agent.  This, and more...in Episode 6 of Hangin' With Gannon :)

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to episode six of the Hanging with Gannon Podcast. I'm Pat Gannon, your host and lender for life with over 26 years of helping families secure their dream home through intelligent financing. And by now you must know we're on all platforms wherever you get your podcasts. And subscribing to our podcast helps us out and gets you the new episodes as soon as they post. The full podcast, along with our social media clips, can also be found on our YouTube channel. As well, if you fully subscribe, that will put you in the hangin' with Ganon inner circle. And Bill, and who wouldn't want to be in that inner circle? I'm there. I'd like to introduce today Bill Oostering. Welcome to the podcast, Bill. Thank you. Bill's a real estate agent with Century 21 New Millennium. Bill's been recognized by Washingtonian Magazine as a top agent in the DMV. And although Bill is not wearing his crown today, I affectionately call him the King of Southern Maryland real estate. His legacy in the real estate industry is built on integrity, dedication, and commitment to exceeding his clients' expectations. Bill, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Really glad to have you here. And I I thought I'd maybe start a little bit about how you and I met. I think we were talking a little bit about this before we jumped on this podcast. I think it was about four years ago, as I recall it, you were working with a seller. Of course, I was doing the mortgage for the buyer, and it was an out-of-town lender who wasn't uh, you know, it was pretty far for them to go down to Southern Maryland. So I feel like you and I were mostly responsible for getting the deal to the finish line.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

If I remember correctly, the agent called me and said, Hey, would you mind showing this house for me? Right. So I think I actually showed his buyer the house. And it it happened to be uh that it was a it was one of the more challenging listings I've had in my life. Um and uh so I was like, Yeah, I'll show it. I mean, don't make a habit of that, but you know, but but yeah, I was like, yeah, I'll show it, and we made it work.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Yeah, and that's uh from there we kind of had uh similar mindsets, I think, and that's why we've uh worked together since then. Um but I I always like to start these podcasts by kind of starting on the background. I think uh the listeners can learn a little bit more about you. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background, where you're from, how you started your work career, but then how you got into this wonderful world of real estate.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

So I'm not your typical real estate agent. I have not been a real estate agent for life, um, just about the last 10 years. Um prior to that I worked with the uh U.S. Navy as a government civilian, a cybersecurity professional, um, long way from real estate. Um, you know, I'm I'm all about the wire fraud. Yeah, I can tell you about it. Um, but then uh um prior to that I was uh in the Navy uh as a uh journalist, a broadcast journalist, and uh um did that for 10 years. Um but so the Navy took me from you know the early 80s, which is when I went, I'm giving away my age here. Um, but the early 80s went into the Navy, you know, went on board an aircraft carrier for a few years, went to some schooling, went to Cuba for a few years, then to Norfolk, then up to DC. Um, and during that time is when I met my wife, um, and she was a local Southern Maryland girl who was convinced that I was going to take her out of Southern Maryland. She was uh surprised she was wrong. She was wrong. Yeah. Um, but that's because I found something about Southern Maryland that just kind of drew me in. And now I could tell you just about I mean, as you say, I'm the king. I don't know that I would call myself the king, but I know a lot about Southern Maryland. So um, but yeah, so uh real estate. Um I actually had an experience, a personal experience with real estate several years ago, and um I wanted to know a little bit more about how things worked. So I went and took my the realtor class just as a curiosity, right? Just you know, you know, uh, information is knowledge, right? Or knowledge is power, I guess is what they call it. Um, you know, it cost me like you know, I don't know, 80 bucks to take the class. Um and while I was sitting in the class, um another agent that I've known for quite a while, uh, who happened to work at that brokerage, said, You're gonna be a realtor?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

And I went, No, no, I had no interest in being a realtor.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

I was just curious. And he said, You should be. You know a lot of people, and that's kind of the key to this business. And I went, the more he said it, and it seemed like he was always hanging outside the door every night I was taking that class. And next thing you know, I got my license, was a part of his team as a dual career agent.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Okay. Um Yeah, so still still doing your government job.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Still doing the government job. Um, and I was I was very um adamant about I didn't want to work with people that I worked with during the day. So I could work with anybody else, but I just I didn't want that conflict. It was to me, it was a conflict. I mean, it really isn't a conflict of interest, but but to me it was. Um, so I then moved on to uh um uh looking at, you know, yeah, my first couple years were not busy, you know, just you know, a few deals here and there, and you know, um learning the business. Um and then COVID hit. And when COVID hit, I found myself sitting at my home office with my government laptop on this side and my personal laptop on this side, and all of a sudden I became a very busy realtor. Right. Yeah, because I was able to, you know, during the day on my government job, I was in a secure area, so I wasn't allowed to, you know, do you know have my phone or anything. So um, but here I had it on both sides. Um and then the government gave me the opportunity to retire uh a little early um because of you know downsizing and everything else that goes on at that point. Um and the real estate business looked like it was working for me. So I um said, yeah, let's give it a shot. If not, I always you know, I always had my background in cybersecurity. You could get back into that. Yeah, I could get into that. Um and that was six years ago, and yeah, it's been a been a little bit of a ride since then.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

So um well, I think I think we can all agree there that that was a great choice by you um to to do to get in there. Um when when you're um going back to your military background, uh how would you say your military training uh in the Navy shows up in your real estate practice today?

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Uh there's a term that they beat into you, not literally. Well, I I went to boot camp in the 80s, so maybe they did beat it, maybe they did beat it into us a little bit, but um um it's called attention to detail. Um I mean, down to you know stenciling everything you put on your body. Yeah. Um and that's just kind of how I do things, right? It's not, you know, I'm not gonna say it's ingrained in me, but you know, but I'm very adamant about making sure everything, all the I's are dotted, the T's are crossed. Um, and I'm big about people knowing what they're getting into, understanding the process. And I I kind of pass that on to people I work with, right? And that kind of is what led me to you a little bit, right? Is that you were very um you communicated extremely well with me. And as the person that represented the buyer, you didn't really have to do that. That's not a requirement.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Um, but you made it, you made it a point to talk to me. Um, and I kind of thought that you were working with my client versus but you were actually just working to get the deal done. Yeah, I mean, because that's what that's what our goal is, right? We're all trying to get the deal done.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah, if if if if I always felt like on the lending side, if I if we don't communicate, we can cause problems where there really aren't problems. If you're not hearing things, you may think that there's an issue. Right, right. And if we just it doesn't have to be a dissertation and tell you everything that's going on, but yeah, we're approved or appraisal came in, we're fine, whatever that looks like, the the communication I think is a is a paramount part of the process.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

So I but but but to you know summise what you said, I think the the key point to what did the military and or the government it's it's all about process. You know, the government's very process driven, and I it's what I bring to my business. Um I don't know that all realtors do that.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Um, but I do. And I and I kind of demand it of the people that I work with.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

I think it yeah, I think it it shows up too and with with the clients. If if you're sending emails that are a little bit off that shows that you're you know you're missing the mark just a little bit, I think the clients see that. And and you know, I I know in our business it's really important, you know, we're issuing pre-approvals that you're going out and showing people's houses. And if we don't have attention to detail and we miss, you know, we're not infallible, but if we you know we need to be right more times than we're not, right? And the attention to detail is really, really important in what we do. And I think I I agree that that's I think why um we've been such a good team.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Well, and I think I I I kind of put that on the buyers that we've worked with together, um, or any buyer that I work with, um, I'm very pointed in saying don't not tell us anything because it will come out. Yes, it always comes out.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

I'm on your team. So yeah, I'm not working against you.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

I mean, I don't I'm not going to judge you for anything. Um, you know, I'm sorry that you had a bad medical collection debt. You know, because we've we've all had that, right? We've all had a problem where there's something on our credit port that we just didn't know was there, right? Because who knows why it's there. Yeah, sure. So um, but you know, it's gonna come out. So just tell us now and we'll fix it so that we can get you into the property you want.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Exactly. Um sticking with sticking with the military part of it, I think uh maybe we want to talk a little bit about active duty, uh working with active duty clients, because obviously you were um active duty in the in the Navy and understanding that. So maybe um maybe it's like two parts to the question. Um how does understanding military benefits help your clients? And then also what's different about PCS moves versus civilian relocations?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

So I think the the big thing is is um PCS and civilian are it's night and day. I mean, uh the civilians have unlimited earning potential, you know, they can change jobs and make more money. Um if you're in the military, you know, again, very process driven, very regiment, you know, you pick up rank, you know, in certain cycles. Um, so it's very defined how much you know income you have. Um so I think it's important that when I have a military buyer come to me, um, I understand. I mean, I'll ask, are you enlisted? Are you an officer? What rank are you? You know, um, and I know roughly what their um their basic allowance for housing will be, um, which will contribute help them pay for their you know mortgage or whatever. Um and I think a lot of times uh you have to kind of wheel people in a little bit because you know they won't they have to understand that you know you're only gonna be here for three or four years, right? And in three or four years, um over the last five years, we've had pretty good, you know, appreciation on homes. But but you have to understand that we don't control that. Yeah. Realtors, lenders, we don't control that. We we know what we believe and we see what the projections are, and if we're doing our jobs correctly, we you know we know that you know you should expect X percentage every year or whatever. But at the same time, when you buy that house as let's say an enlisted E5, so a mid-level uh uh pay grade. Um maybe, maybe your septic dies, and you now have a thirty thousand dollar bill that you have to probably take out a loan to get. Um so now you have even more debt. And when the time comes for you to s move on, does it make sense for you to rent that house? Yeah. Does it make sense for you to um to sell that house?

SPEAKER_02 11:45

What makes so you ask that, so you ask up front once you come to the end of your when you're gonna PCS somewhere else. Um do you think you want to sell? Do you want to keep? Is that I'm assuming that's some some of the stuff you kind of get into. I mean, things can change, of course.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Well, so I so I look at buying a house as an investment, regardless of who the buyer is. I mean, that's an investment. Sure. Um, um, and it I a lot of people are like, well, you know, I'm buying this house, I'm never moving. I'm like, you're gonna move. Okay, you're gonna move. You know, I don't know when, yeah, but we all move. Um, people just don't stay in houses for 30 years. They just don't. Um but I always, as I'm showing houses, I'm always telling people about what I think their resale opportunities are. You know, what does it make sense? Will you be able to sell this in the world?

SPEAKER_02 12:29

This neighborhood has tends to have better resale value than this one. So even though maybe it's a little bit more expensive, potentially uh you think in three years, four years, you you you should be in a better position if you wanted to sell.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Right. And and then I ask them, do you think you're ever coming back here? You know, is there put the potential that you could be stationed here again? Um, and where we are at Pax River, it happens a lot. Right. Okay, we have people that you know come in here for you know three years and then they go away for three years and then they're right back. Um it's a it's a huge area for um uh naval officer advancement, right? They come here, you know, for uh come here for like a squadron tour, and then they go out to the fleet for a while, and then they come back here and they do an acquisition tour. And then the next thing you know, they're in, they'll go up to the Pentagon for a few years, and then they'll come right back here and work in a program office. So it's not uncommon for people at Pax River to come back and forth several times just with different commands, right? Different jobs. Um, so it's important that they that they know that. And I try to, you know, make sure that they understand what the the rental possibility is, what uh, you know, what that means to them. Um, I encourage them if they're going to Japan, don't try and manage this from Japan. It's going to be really hard. Management could get a management. Yeah, and I, you know, I don't do that. I don't, I don't, I, I'm not interested in that, but I do align myself with um property management companies that I trust, you know. Um, and that's that's something I should say. I I don't align myself with people I don't trust. Yeah. Okay. Anybody anybody that I'm recommending to you, I would use or have used. Um, so um, but I try to align them with that so that they understand what's coming next. Um, crossing over to the civilian side, um the civilian sector is completely different. Okay. Um, first of all, they tend to make more money and they have more potential to make more money. Um, and chances are if they're coming here, they're coming into a pretty high-paying job that's going to keep them here for a while. And it's a very specialized um the majority of the people that come to Southern Maryland come here to work with the government in some fashion, not necessarily the military, but you know, if you're moving up into like Calvert or Charles County, maybe sometimes you're gonna go into DC. You just don't want to live in DC or you don't want to live in Northern Virginia. So um cost living in Southern Maryland is a little less uh generally. Um, so um again, same advice. You know, what what do you how long do you think you're gonna be here? Yeah, um, stuff like that. So it's just um so the difference between the two is it's levels of you know income and stability, how long are you gonna be here, you know, and what do you want to do next? I think it's important to try and understand. And you know, with the caveat, you don't have to do that next. Yeah, right. You don't have to do it, but let's talk about um let's talk about what your options are. And oh, by the way, when you get to be you know six, twelve months out, call me, we'll go get a cup of coffee and talk about it so that we can make a plan. And we're ready, you know, and I'm gonna be I'm not going anywhere. So yeah, um I've lived here for over 40 years, so I mean I'm not I'm not going anywhere. Um not that I'm not not that I'm planning on going to my my wife might you know have a different opinion of that.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Well that you know we talked a little bit about this before the call uh uh on this program with with veterans and VA, and I think it kind of dovetails with the conversations that I'm having as well. Is if it's someone that doesn't think they're gonna be here more than five years, you know, maybe through a PCS or whatever their their thing, that might also kind of dictate the type of mortgage product I'm talking to them about. We talked about the VA has got, we've got this really amazing five-year adjustable rate mortgage when what that means is the rate's fixed for five years and then it can adjust. And it's been running about three-quarters or percent lower than the fixed rate. So it's one of those things where we're looking at it. If you're saying, I have no intention of being a landlord, I'm gonna PCS out in three years or whatever that looks like, it why would you take a three-quarters higher rate for with no downside? So that you know that sometimes, you know, we work in concert, I guess is what I'm saying with that, and that's and that can really uh that can really help asking those questions and and uh giving my own.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Well, and I think I think another thing that we see a lot with the military is is the next I mean uh and specifically I work with the Navy, right? What does the Navy do? They deploy onto boats out in the middle of somewhere. Right. Um can't take your family there um yet. I mean it may come someday. Um but uh um but but what do you do with your family? You know, if you relocate to say Norfolk or Jacksonville or San Diego or where wherever the name is taken, right? Um do you do you drop your family in the middle of an area that they don't know when you get ready to jump on a boat? And you're not there anymore. Do you get to jump on a boat for six months? No, you leave them here in Southern Maryland where the kids are in school and they're in their sports, and your wife has a friend group and a support group here. And um, so it's important, you know, it's okay. I mean, you as the as the uh Navy member are gonna be out at sea. So um, and I and I and I guess I shouldn't say your wife because I see a I see a lot of husbands that are staying home. Yeah, right, right. Um so um I think uh I I think I think it's important to show them what their options are, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:49

I think it's important to have an a real estate agent that understands that. And really, you know, the things that you were just talking about, I've been doing a long time, but those are things that I don't really think about the idea of yeah, being on, you know, I I I see I just see oh you're here. I don't think about that, yeah, you could be deployed on a boat and and yeah, why wouldn't for the most part yeah, why would why would the family move to to to where that base you're not even there, correct? Stay in a spot until correct, you know, you you kind of figure out you know where you're gonna belong to.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Yeah, I think people you know often associate the bigger areas, you know, the Virginia beaches, the Norfolks of the world, um, as that where that happens. But but it happens, it it happens everywhere, and it should. I mean it should happen everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Um well we we are um already kind of touched on this a little bit in in as we talked about I want to talk to the king of Southern Maryland Real Estate about what makes Southern Maryland special. Um for people that are unfamiliar with the area, what is Southern Maryland?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Um generally, I mean I could go I could talk for hours about it, but um it's it's a growing area ever since the uh the naval air station has you know started to grow. I mean the air station has been there for since the 40s. It's been there. Um but it's grown over the last you know just last 20 years, it's grown significantly. Um the Naval Air Systems Command relocated from Crystal City down there. Um they had the the BRAC moves where they did some realignment within the Navy. Um we had several bases that closed, moved to Pax River. So it it really kicked up the um you know the the number of bodies working on that base, and therefore um the people that work on that base are um you know very highly paid people. Um the people on that base make our median income over$85,000 a year, which is huge. That's a lot of money. Um it's it's not the norm.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Um so that really helps shape the real estate market there.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

It absolutely does. And and you know, I I have people go, well, so wire houses what why do they cost what they cost here? Well, because we're kind of you get paid when you're on that base, you get paid as if you were working downtown DC.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Um, so therefore, the you know, the economy that's what drives the economy. Um, but I think um Southern Maryland um is considered the technological capital of Maryland. Okay people find that to be ironic, but but it makes sense then. Go drive by the base and watch the planes flying off the base. And and if you get on the base and get to see, you know, which you can't just drive on the base, I make that clear. You have to be able to get on the base. Um, but um, I mean there's a test pilot school, there's only two in the country. There's one of them's at Pax River, one of them's in California. Um, we have people from all over the world that come to that base to go to that test pilot school. It's a very intense year-long program. Um and Pax River is a a uh uh RDT and e base, it's not an operational base. So, in other words, we're not uh loading up things and sending them to war. What we're doing is we're testing systems, testing weapons, testing aircraft um to provide to the warfighter, right? To give to that, you know, the fleet so that they can do their job. Um and with Nav Air there, um it's become a big acquisition standpoint, right? Where how the Navy buys things and how they spend their money, how they spend your money. Yeah, right. So um so with that said, um along with that influx of people, um, kind of changed the demographic of the area a little bit. Um, because you know, these people are coming from more robust areas where, you know, any way you turn, there's a mall or a movie theater or a shopping center or whatever. Um Southern Maryland's always been more of like like an outdoor place, right? You know, you've got a lot of water, we've got a lot of open land. Um, so um we've had to incorporate a lot of that.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

So a lot of so it's some changing, it still has the the the feel of you would traditionally think of Southern Maryland, but now with the the wants and needs of kind of a a a new group of people that are coming in there, you're starting to see some bigger shopping centers and look, I mean one of the

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Um, one of the things I always found interesting is that there's only so many ways in and out of Southern Maryland. It's not like you have roads coming like a spider, right? You only have three or four that come right from anywhere. I mean Route Four here, Route 235 here, you know, come back on 301, you know. So there's only so many ways to get in and out of Southern Maryland. And because of that, um, I mean, they had to the infrastructure of the of the area had to change, right? We had to make our what were like two and maybe four lane or now four and maybe six-lane highways, right? Um, and along with that, you have to, you know, you know, build the you know, more gas stations so that they can support it, right? You have to um uh have more places for these people to eat. Um we you know in St. Mary's County, they built a you know a really nice theater a few years ago and it was like a Mecca. It was like because we had this little six-screen, not so great theater, which now doesn't exist, but um, but um it just it just was something that we didn't have. Right. Okay. Um but the invlux of people that came in changed that. Um and it you know changed not only the way that um we live as people that have lived there as long as we have, but it also changed gave the people that were coming in some uh comfort that were more comfortable, right? Yeah, they it was what they were used to. Um but at the same time, our crime rate is you know better. Yeah, um our schools are good, yeah. Um, our uh infrastructure is good. Um, yeah, of course you're gonna have the naysayers that are like, oh, why don't we have this? You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:31

And I'm sure that's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Lord, if I could if I could put a trader jose in the middle of Saint St. Mary's County, I'd be, you know, I I could I could do nothing else in my life and I would, you know, but and you know, I'm sure you have some old um never not old people, but old people that have lived there a long time that are that are probably pushing back against you.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

They want I want I want I want the way that I grew up in the area. And that's common. That's that's everywhere. I mean, everywhere you're gonna have those pushes and pulls and exactly.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

I think you know, people don't like some of the the growth and wonder um why we have this. Um, but they're also the people that aren't looking at what the benefits they're getting, you know, that that piece of land that they've owned for their family has owned is now worth 10 times what it used to be because of this growth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:17

So what are the um you know, I I know the the answer, so maybe I'll ask you. Calvert County, St. Mary's County, and Charles County are considered the counties in Southern Maryland. Is that correct? Okay. So maybe just a quick insider's guide on each of these three counties, the def you know, similarities, differences.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

You know, so so Charles County was kind of the first that grew, right? Um, Waldorf, that area, La Plata. Um, and I think it's because of location. You know, it's the one that's probably the closest to the district. Um that's where I lived. I lived in Charles County when I first moved to the area, apartment complex down there. Um the mall wasn't there when I first moved in. They they were building the mall. Matter of fact, um the uh the agent at the um at the apartment complex that I lived in, because I I was coming from Virginia Beach, I'm like, where's the closest mall? And she goes, Well, you know, when you go to a mall, it's kind of a day trip, yeah, right, because you had to go somewhere else, right? And I was like, Oh, you know, because in Virginia Beach, I can go five miles either way, and I was at a mall, right? You didn't have that. Um, so um, but now St. Charles Town Center's been there for you know 30 years, 35 years. Um we don't have that in St. Mary's County. We don't have a mall in Calvert County. That's kind of our mall, right? Um as if malls are even a thing anymore. Right. I was gonna say they're not as not as prevalent as they once were, but um, but I think uh um so Charles County is kind of the bigger, busier, busier, more developed, more congestion, yeah, more houses, more people, yeah, um, um, higher prices, higher taxes. Yeah. Um Calvert is on the, you know, basically, I mean, kind of like in a triangle, right? Yeah. Um Calvert is closer to still relatively close to DC when you get up to around Huntingtown, Dunkirk, that area. Um, but also very close to St. Mary's County, you know, kind of borders St. Mary's and Charles. Um, and um, you can also get to Annapolis or Baltimore as easy, you know, pretty easily from there as well. Um, Calvert County, I found, is um they're a little bit more growth resistant. They're not big into corporations coming in and building stuff there. Um housing is fine, they have more requirements as far as like lot size and things like that. Um you can't just say I'm gonna build a hundred unit subdivision. That that takes a lot. There's a lot of things that have to go along with that. Um St. Mary's County, um, which is where the base is located, is probably the more rural of the bunch. Um, Calvert has its, you know, its area, so does Charles. But um I think that St. Mary's definitely is where you're gonna see we've seen the biggest population boost because of the base. Sure. Um I think that, you know, I mean there's if you if you Google it, it'll tell you that you know, that there's like 22,000 people that work on the base at PACS server. The reality is there's probably closer to 40,000 people that that go through that base daily. Wow. Um just because of, you know, it's because uh just because you don't work on the base doesn't mean you don't work with the base. And and right outside the gate is surrounded by office buildings and you know, no more than four stories, that's one of the rules. Um that you know are full of government contractors and you know, and the big boys, right? The Boeings, the Northrops, the you know, the Raytheons, I mean, you know, and then a bunch of the little ones too, right? That you know, um, so they have a lot of opportunity. It's also a lot of opportunity in Southern Maryland because of that base, and it's not just that base, because if you go down into Charles County and you go right over the bridge into like King George, um, you you have other, you know, another base down there. And then if you go up just on the other side of, you know, right into PG, Andrews is there. So it's so it's a very attractive area for a government contractor. Or if we see a lot of uh retired military people will start their own contractor, they'll start as a consultant and then they'll kind of mold into a more of a formal contractor. And they get special treatment, you know, like you know, status, if you will, eight-day status, because they're small business, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

So uh and they can and they're yeah, they're close to whichever wherever they whichever base ends up matching with the contract that they're that they're going for, they easily they wouldn't need to change where they live.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Right there, right, because and you know, I mean their kids don't have to change schools when after they retire and et cetera. So I mean it makes it makes it very attractive to uh to people. Um so I mean no matter what county, I mean I've lived in I've lived in all three in the last 30 years. Um I raised my family in St. Mary's, and then after my kids grew up and and moved on to their adult lives, my wife and I moved over to um to Calvert County, closer to the water, um, you know, downsized a little bit. And uh, but I think um, you know, I I find myself on a daily basis, I'll say a weekly basis, I touch all three counties at least several times a week, um, just because that's that's the job, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Yeah. Well, uh staying on Southern Maryland, and I think this is probably anyone that's probably looking to sell or buy this year would love to hear the answer to this. What's happening right now in Southern Maryland, in the Southern Maryland market? Let's talk about inventory levels, price trends, competition. What are what are we seeing right now?

SPEAKER_01 29:42

So it's funny that you said that because um um obviously when when we had those really great 2%, 3% interest rates, um, we sold all our houses. Okay. I mean, there just wasn't there was nothing left to sell. Um, and now we've run into a point where the people that have those rates aren't really interested in selling because they have these great rates. Um, but we're starting to see that rebound a little bit. Um in a normal in a normal day, uh, and I look daily, I look this morning, um, you know, in St. Mary's County we have right around 200 houses available. And that's all houses, okay? That's single family condos, townhomes, that's everything.

SPEAKER_02 30:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Um either active on the market or coming soon. Um Calvert County, the numbers are very comparable to St. Mary's. Um, and Charles County, they're closer to 400. Again, because it's a bigger area. Um, pricing it kind of fluctuates based on, you know, like um I found it interesting that in January St. Mary's houses were considered a little bit more expensive, about 430,000, 440, somewhere in that area. Whereas Calvert was just under 400 and Charles, which actually surprised me a little bit. And these are these are from, you know, the Southern Maryland Association Realtor provides these numbers to us, um, was actually um just slightly over 400,000, which which I found to be a little interesting.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

And is that because those are just the the is the is that just happens because those are the the price points that are selling right now in those areas, or generally speaking, it is like I would have thought of my mind that Charles County home prices in general would be the highest of those being closer to DC, but maybe it's because just the higher end homes right now in Charles County aren't being listed or aren't selling as fast as the like the first time home buyers.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

To be honest with you, I find this with a lot of my buyers, it's affordability, it's what people want to afford. Yeah. Um when they were when they got three percent interest rates, and I and I for some reason this graphic stands in my head. I saw a graphic somewhere um a couple years ago when interest rates started to climb up that said that you know, last year's$500,000 buyer is now this year's$350,000 buyer. And when you look at it from that perspective, very impactful. Uh, you know, um, and you know, I look at it again in my area, a lot of VA buyers. We have a ton of them. Yeah, um, what's a VA? It's a 100% loan. So a hundred percent loan on a six hundred thousand dollar house is a four thousand dollar a month mortgage payment.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

If I'm enlisted and in the Navy, how do I afford that? Because I know your BAH isn't covering that, so yeah, that's out of pocket. So, you know, um, and and in good conscience, I have trouble, you know, trying to tell a an enlisted, you know, a mid-level enlisted person.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

You should go above your BAH, right.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Because, you know, because you know, they really don't have opportunities to make more money when they're in the military. I mean, unless the spouse is supplied, you know, right. Um, or or they're you know, doing Uber, you know, Uber Eats at night or whatever, you know, something like that. So um, I mean, but that's you know, uh again, not my job to worry about your quality of life, but I still do. Yeah, you agree, you know.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Well, you don't want the phone call. You know, we talk a lot about this with clients, is the purchase power versus um comfort level, right? Like what I can approve you for is great to know, and it'll help you as you're if you're seeing stuff you don't love and if you you might want to go a little bit higher. But comfort level is what it's all about. Like, are you gonna be comfortable with the monthly payment? And I always say, Bill and I are not making your mortgage payment. You are right. So you you need to be comfortable and yeah, you don't want to get that call six months later and and saying buyer's remorse, right? That that that I that I push it higher.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

And well, I always tell folks that um um number one, I don't want to come see you, you know, bring you your Thanksgiving pie or whatever, and you to look at me and go, yeah, I bought a house I can't afford, it's your fault. I don't ever want that. Okay, I don't ever want that. Um second, I always tell buyers, look, every lender out there is probably gonna tell you you can afford more than you want to spend because you that's what you've asked them to do. You've asked them to give you a number of what can I afford. Right. Um and with that, keeping in uh that in mind, when um I set up you know searches for for clients, um they tell me what they can afford, and I always bump it up 10%. And the reason I do that is because I believe I can negotiate that for them.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Okay. I don't want you to see only up to, I want you to see the 10% above that because in certain circumstances, you go from a say a$370,000 house to you know maybe uh$425,000. That's a big difference. It could be a whole different neighborhood list of things, yeah. Yeah. Um, and and sometimes that this the price of the house isn't necessarily doesn't necessarily include other things like your HOA fee, your front foot fee. I mean, there's things that might be packed in there that you don't see when you search for the price of a house.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Yeah. So yeah, the lower price home may have those other things that the higher one doesn't. And when you put the when you actually get the payment together, they're they're a lot more comparable than you.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

But we were talking about condos. Yeah we were talking about condos, and people are like, oh, the condo is really cheap until you pay the$600 a month condo for me that goes on top of it. So so people, you know, but that's our job, right? That we're we're educators to some degree, right? Sure. So we're I mean, because we see it daily, and and your consumer doesn't. Um some think they do, but they really don't see the the into the dirt part, right? Which we see every day.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Absolutely. Let's go to um some of my favorite properties when we talk about is waterfront properties. Um I know that you've sold some beautiful properties on the Potomac and Patuxent. Um, why don't you tell me a little bit about that market and how it's a little bit different than maybe non-waterfront?

SPEAKER_01 35:33

So I think the the first thing I would so Southern Maryland is essentially a peninsula, okay? Because you gotta, you know, you gotta come up to go down into Southern Maryland, okay? Um, and you know, the Potomac on one side, the Patuxin on the other, um, surrounded by water. And so we have a lot of coastline. Um, and we have a lot of people that, you know, you go there you go across one body of water and you're in Virginia, you go one across the other side, you're over on the eastern shore. So I mean it's it's you know, it's you know, uh we're we're not landlocked at all. Um, and I think that uh we have a lot of people that come to Southern Maryland to retire on the water. We have a lot of people that come to buy property that you know maybe they just want to come to on the weekend. Um the one thing I always uh cautious people because waterfront prices are higher, they're just higher. Um and maybe sometimes people think, wow, why is it so high? Um it's location, it's all about location. But they walk into a house and realize that you know there's not there's maybe not, you know, the bathrooms haven't been updated and the kitchen's still old, blah blah blah. Um the reality is you're paying for the location. You're not paying that your the house is secondary. Um but that's where my job becomes okay, well, let me you know hook you up with some contractors that can help you tell you what it's gonna cost to you know bring this up to this century or you know redo that kitchen. Um even more importantly, every waterfront property in Southern Maryland is in what they call a critical area, okay, and that's huge because if you have to replace a septic or a well or something like that, that critical area designation can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. So it's important to know upfront what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 37:15

The way you have to do it, uh environmental ways that those things need to be done.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Right. A lot of the um the critical areas have requirements along the lines of um you can no longer do like traditional septic systems. You have to do what's called a bat system, best available technology. And there's different types of those, right? Some of them have holding tanks, you know, and people want to know, okay, what's a holding tank versus a septic system and what does that mean to me? How does it affect the value of my property? So um I find it to be a requirement of mine as an agent to know these answers, right? To be able to advise these people. Um, and if not, if I don't have the answer, I'm not going to you know fabricate it. I'm going to, you know, try and put put them in contact with people that do have the answers. Um and um I've I've been known to contract contractors, you know, to come out and give us estimates on things. We want to know what it would cost to if we have to do this, or or even, you know, or the rip wrap on the side of the water. I mean, because otherwise erosion's a problem. Or you're, you know, how bad is your pier? Um, you know, oh, you have a sailboat, a deep water sailboat. Can I park it out there? Is the water deep enough? These are all important things to know. Yeah. And as you, you know, because generally, I'm gonna tell you, sometimes even the homeowners that we're buying from don't know these answers. Wow, and you'd be that that would be you know, they we just bought it because we want to be closer to the water, right? Yeah, yeah, we don't have a boat, right? Yeah, you're right. So I I mean you'd be surprised how you'd be surprised how many people have a pier that don't have a boat. Yeah. Um, um do you do you feel like you need a pier? Do you want a beach? You know, do you want, you know, just want the view? What do you want? Yeah. Um you can find it in Southern Maryland. I guarantee you you can find it, but it's not, it's gonna cost you. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Um, we you talked about this a little bit already. Uh interest rates, mortgage interest rates. Um, everyone's talking about them. I mean, I think they're always talking about them. But what are you telling buyers right now who are sitting on the fence who are waiting for mortgage rates to come down?

SPEAKER_01 39:16

I'm gonna tell most buyers that it's unpredictable and you really don't control it. So if you want to buy a house, buy a house and um make sure you're comfortable in the payment you're getting into. Because at the end of the day, people aren't looking at the price of the house or the rate they're paying to get the house. They're looking at how much it's gonna cost them to live there every month. That's what they're looking at. Um and you know, what are you comfortable with? And traditionally, I found that people are probably more comfortable with a higher payment than they think they are, um, because you know, especially if they're coming out of a 3% interest rate, right? They're coming out of a you know, a$2,000 a month payment now, whatever they're gonna get is gonna be a$3,500. Um, can I afford that? Well, only they can answer that. I can't answer that for them. But um I tell people, look, if you know you have to make the decision, and you know, do you want to live in a nicer house? Do you want to live in a nicer area? Do you want to live on the water? What do you want to do? And once you make that determination, we'll find, you know, see if we can get you in the price point and the monthly payment that you want. That's what that's where the relationship with the lender comes in, right? Making sure that that, you know, um, I uh no offense to any lenders out there, but I don't like working with lenders I don't know because I I don't know what they're saying to people.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Um, I'm all about us having three-way conference calls to have these discussions. Um, not that I and I I also tell all my clients, look, your credit, I don't care about your credits. Yeah, if your lender says you can afford it, I'm good. I don't need to know what your score is, I don't need to know what your debt is. I don't, it's not my business.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

But we need to be in lockstep and understanding what your what your goals are and what in there. Yeah, I mean I I I think you know, I I talk all the time about timing the market is a fool's errand. It's just like the stock market, right? You know, you're you're guessing, and you might be right. You might get you might make the right guess, more than likely you won't. Um, and mortgage rates shouldn't impact whether you're buying or not buying, high or low. Right. You know, like when rates were below three percent, if you weren't financially ready to buy a house, you shouldn't be buying a house then. Um but I try to get the idea of saying the projections, all the numbers we see, if you wait for mortgage rates to come down, you're likely to going to be paying a higher price for that home. So A, you missed out on the equity growth during that amount of time that would have been in your pocket. And then B, the mortgage payment's probably going to be higher than it would have been at the higher rate because the price went up. So you're you're you're not really doing yourself any favors. And you know, we're the the start of 2026 has been wild and crazy with mortgage refinances, meaning, you know, I had a lot of clients that bought around 7% in the you know high sixes that are now getting a reduced mortgage rate in the fives. Just because you got a higher rate doesn't mean you got to keep that interest rate. Right. So you know, all that goes into it to um, you know, it's a big part of it. Um, but you you know, even seeing now that there's there's the highest level of people who have above six percent mortgage rates than there's been in 15 years. Makes sense. I mean, the last three years, you know, that's where that's where we've been. But I think some of the thing that you were talking about, they call it the lock-in effect, right? That are below three percent below that just don't want to sell. Well, more and more and more and more of those people that have bought now recently have higher rates, and I think they're gonna be more mobile to to do things when they're they're the houses, you know, they outgrow the house with their family growth, or they want to downsize where people were just saying I I can't I can't justify getting rid of my three percent rate. A large segment of those people don't have that low rate.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

So um and and how many people would have predicted we'd have two and a half, three percent interest rates? I don't I don't I don't think there was not many, not many. There was no prediction. It just happened, right? It just happened. And then when it happened, people were not only people, but you know, people in this industry were all over it, right? About, you know, let's buy houses, let's give loans, let's do all this. Um, you know, and then and then we moved into what I call reality. Yeah. You know, my my first home loan was 12%, you know, and you know, that was like 95. And I thought I was getting a deal. So now, so now getting you know something that's in the fives or even the sixes is you know, it should be acceptable. When you stop and look at the amount of money you're borrowing, it should be acceptable. Um, um, but people don't look at it like that. You know, I I have um clients that are selling now that are you know, selling houses that they're in those low interest rates or they had refined into them or whatever, and they're like, Yeah, we're we're retiring and moving somewhere else, and it really hurt me to have to pay the five and a half percent. I'm like I'm like, yeah, but how long did you live? The interest rates aren't the problem, Pat. The pri the problem is the price of the house right now. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Um, and that's not gonna change, right? That's that's gonna be what it is. We don't see the price of houses. I mean, we did back in you know, when we had the problem, you know, with with unregulated lending, right? We had the problem then. But but now that we have the regulations in place, the price of the house is the price of the house. And and it's only gonna get higher as we move on.

SPEAKER_02 44:28

And the inventory difference, yeah. I mean, there are uh just the inventory levels now won't allow even we saw that, even with mortgage rates hit a 24-year high here a couple of years ago, when we were touching 8% on a on a home mortgage, yeah, homes didn't appreciate it 16-17 percent those years, but they went up every year. Highest rates in 24 years, and home prices still went up.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

That tells you all you need to know that if we're gonna have mortgage rates in the fives, what's this spring and summer gonna look like?

SPEAKER_01 45:01

I think I think we're gonna have a I so I have a client that's moving up here from uh from Florida right now. Um, and I was doing some research for her, you know, I had done a referral for her to sell her house down there, and um, I was doing some research for her. And in Miami, you know, the Broward Dade County area, there were 18,000 homes in their inventory. Think about that. 18,000. I believe it. In St. Mary's County, we had 200. Yeah, I believe it. So so it's you know, um, and again, I was honest, not my market. I I can't tell you what that market's gonna do. Yeah, but I think I found you an agent down there that can really help you.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Um, it's good for buyers down there now. I mean, I I think during that hot time, you know, when I say hot time, the COVID time frame, you know, I work in Florida as well. And as crazy as our market was here with home prices going up, Florida was even crazier. And they then they just built, built, built, built, built. And it's a different market, right? People are coming, you know, coming, retiring, moving there.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

There's a lot of other hurdles like you know, home insurance is it's hard down there, right? Because of natural disasters. Okay, so so it's never changing more. It's you know, don't don't compare something there to here because they you know what what the comparison is, they're both houses. Yeah, okay. And people live in those houses. That's the difference. Um, but as far as like what the market's doing, uh it's hard to do. Um, I have a lot of people will go, oh, well, it's it's a buyer's market, right? Well, I actually think it's pretty much a neutral market right now. I would say um, um, I mean, are is there are there certain areas of buyers and certain areas of sellers? Of course there are. Yeah, yeah, but you know, but overall it's it's neutral, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Um, I I know uh you know we've known each other a long time, and I I know your guiding principle, it's all about the customer, you know, you the customer. And you talk about with me in the past about attentive listening, um, where you're really listening. Give us an example where lit you listening to your client's needs change everything for the client.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Um, I think ultimately uh you have to uh uh help them understand what they want sometimes, um, especially first-time buyers. You know, some agents that don't want to deal with first-time buyers, they're they're harder typically. Um I I actually like I like being able to help educate them. Um so making them understand, you know, why you need earnest money and you know what it what it means for a down payment versus you know what is a funding fee and why maybe sometimes VA loan isn't your best option, you know, because you have to pay that funding fee, right? Right. Go in you go into a you go into a house upside down right off the bat because you know, so these are all things that I try to make sure I I help people understand prior to going, you know, going in and buying a house. Um specifically, uh I think I'm actually working a joint client we're working with right now. Um, first-time buyer, a little older, um, not your typical age group of a of a first-time buyer, but um was asking a lot of questions about well, um, does it make sense for me to do, you know, to buy a house that's new construction or buy a you know a pre-owned? And and my advice to him is, you know, you got to look beyond the house. You look at the neighborhood. Um, you know, is this the neighborhood you want your family to grow up in? I mean this house, this neighborhood here has 12 houses. That that neighborhood has 200. You know, so what do what's your preference? Look at the amenities of the neighborhood. Um help let's try and help you understand, you know, not just buying the house, get past the physical house and look at everything else that surrounds it, you know. Um I quick personal story. I bought a house that I loved. I built this house, um, it was uh about 60% done when I found it. Moved in there, loved the house, hated my street, hated living on the street I lived on because it was a real small community. I think almost everybody else on the street was related but me. Okay. Um, so um, you know, it just it just it it wasn't you know adversarial, but but it's just you know, never felt included on the street because we weren't a family, you weren't we were the outsiders, right? So so it's important that you know that a buyer understand those things, right? What do you what do you want, you know, when it's all said and done? Um do you want a pool? Okay. Is a community pool, okay? Or do you want to have to you want to be able to build your own pool someday? So these are all things that we you know we try to help understand before we you know open the first door.

SPEAKER_02 49:26

Yeah. Um well let's um let's dive into what I think is really, really important, of course, because I do mortgages, but uh let's talk about the the mortgage lender and realtor partnership. Why is that relationship so critical? And then a follow-up to that would be mortgage red flags. What makes you nervous when a buyer tells you about their pre-approval from another from a lender?

SPEAKER_01 49:54

So, first of all, um I have a small group of lenders I work with, and uh you know this about me. I don't work just with Pat Gannon and his group, I work with a very small group of lenders. I try to I try to pair my lenders with or my clients with the lenders I think are gonna speak the language to them the best. You know, um you got older people, you got younger people, you got middle road people, you got well-educated people, people maybe that not as educated, you know. So you try to put people that are gonna explain things to to them the best. Um and I give them options, right? You know, call these two people, call these three people, whatever. Um I always try to steer people away from the online lenders because we're never gonna get to talk to a person. I am so big into being able to talk to the lender. I call the lenders of the people that are buying the houses my clients are selling and try and get a vibe from them. Um, any good lender in the world, if you're representing a buyer after you know you've made you know your clients made an offer, you're calling the listing agent to find it, you know, hey, they're well qualified, blah, blah, blah. Um, that's great. But the reality, uh, there's certain questions I want to ask at that point. Yeah. Uh, you know, okay, well, you know, so they're fully qualified. Have you done any underwriting? You know, but so being able to ask the you know the the key questions.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

What is, yeah, and what what is the typical listing agent response if they can't, you know, there's multiple offers on the house. Buyer maybe a good offer, but they can't get a hold of the lender. How likely is that buyer get their offer accepted?

SPEAKER_01 51:30

Well, that's definitely an X rather than a checkpoint, right? Right, yeah. Because I think I think a lot of times is um the last thing any of us want is to get close to that the closing table and there would be a problem. Now, a lot of times those problems are consumer related, things we didn't know that they didn't share that just f we find out. Um I always one of my favorite ones in my, you know, with a lender I no longer affiliate myself with was we got to the table and they went, you know, they ran that last credit check and said, Oh, he's got a he's got an IRS debt that took his DTI to the wrong place. Why didn't you see that before? It's always been there. I know it's always been there. Why did you not catch that before? So I like to think I like to know that the lenders that I'm working with, not only you know, it's impossible for you to see every angle of every deal you do. Yeah. Um, because for every for every one buyer I have, you probably have five or ten buyers that you're working with, because that's the nature of the business, right? It's the way the business works. But you have a committed team of people that do that stuff for you that you trust. Um, and just like I have a committed, you know, uh team of administration people that I work with that are you know back checking all my stuff. Yeah. Because, you know, I'm not perfect, so I'm not even gonna pretend I'm perfect. Um, I'm transparent, but I'm not perfect. Um, so we want to make sure that um uh when we start and we get to the end that that we've we've made this as smooth as possible. The best compliment I can get from somebody is yeah, it was it this was so easy. That's that's yeah, that's where we're I so when I meet with people for the first time, I give them a stress ball. And you know, it's got my logo on it, of course. But yeah, it's a stress ball, and I was like, okay, it's gonna be stressful, so just take this now because you know this is gonna there's gonna be stress here. You just need to know that up front. Yeah. Um, my job is to try and help you understand it and get through most of it. Yeah, but but I there's certain things I I can't control you. I don't know, you know, and some people, yeah. On the flip side, you get that, you know, that one client that's like, yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 53:41

I trust you, do it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I almost want to say, yeah, don't don't do that. Don't trust me too much now. Pay a little bit more attention. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

No, I think it's attention to detail, uh, like we talked about earlier. Um, you know, that we focus in on. And we, you know, we talk about making our pre-approval, mortgage pre-approvals bulletproof. Right. That we don't want to waste your time, the client's time, our time, seller's time. I mean, there's a lot of people that that go into when we issue the mortgage pre-approval, and we said we take we got to take great care. And yeah, we're not infallible. Sometimes mistakes are made, but we you know we need to limit those. We can't have a lot of those. And when and when if there is ever is a mistake, we got to come up with okay, this is the mistake that's been made, but here's here's the plan of action on how to remedy that that that issue. So that's um really important.

SPEAKER_01 54:33

Yeah, I find that um one of the big challenges that I run into, especially with younger people, because uh generally people don't understand credit generally. Yeah, um I I and I'm there's trust me, I run into situations where I'm like, I don't understand. That doesn't make any sense, right? Um but people are like so if I get pre-approved, you know, are they pulling my credit? Well, probably.

SPEAKER_03 54:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:59

Is it a hard pool or a soft pool? Well, depends on the lender. Some of them will do soft, some of them do hard. It just depends, you know, well, that hard's gonna hurt me. I said, well, it's it's a mark. I said, but you know, I said, my understanding is a hard credit pool. If you do it with lender one and lender two and lender three, it's not, it doesn't hurt you because they you know it's seen what you're doing, right? You're applying.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

A mortgage inquiry doesn't have the nearly almost no impact, I'll be honest with you, because it's you know, the inquiries on a you could apply for 10 credit cards, and maybe you could get 10 credit cards. Right. So that's why 10 inquiries from a credit card, uh, different credit card companies would impact it. If you apply for 10 mortgages, it's unlikely that anyone's giving you 10 mortgages, so they don't have the inquiry. That's what we talk about. But but all that being said, we do the same now what most lenders have gone to, we do the soft credit pool up front, gives them uh gives us all the credit scores, all the credit history, but it's not, it doesn't show up at it's like it never happened. Right. But we can make a pre-approval decision on there. And I think at the end of the day, I I love that approach. I mean, we went to it a couple of years ago, and for me, it's it it's easier to first of all get over the hurdle that someone says I don't want to have the hard pull. Right, right. You know, like well, you know, and that's not it, but we to really truly advise you on your qualifications, we we we we have to, you know, we have to have something to base it off.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

Oh, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 56:21

Um okay, so Bill, we're entering into probably our biggest segment of the episode. It's it's the most popular segment that we have. You know, every podcast has to have some sort of rapid fire questions, crazy rapid fire questions that uh you're unprepared for, but we're gonna get some honest, awesome answers from. And this is no different. Um, are you ready to enter the Ganon Gauntlet? Bring it. Bring it. Okay. So what we're gonna do now, we it gets kind of crazy. There's a lot of lights shining everywhere from this, uh, lots of different directions. So we we put on our gauntlet sunglasses. Okay. Put your glasses on here.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

I like yours.

SPEAKER_02 57:06

My wife thought I was cool, look cool in me, so I'm that's what's important. That's important.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

What your wife thinks.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Um All right. So let's uh question one. Describe St. Mary's County in five words, but none of them can be quiet or water.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

Well, I'm gonna use six because prepositions are a thing.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

You're already breaking the rules, but go on.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Um it's a great it's a great place to raise your family.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

That and I think that's probably a lot of times what what you've said from the beginning on this whole thing, it kind of that was the the point we were getting to. All right, number two. Biggest red flag when you see a listing online, it says cozy, as is, or bring your vision. That's actually my favorite one.

SPEAKER_01 57:57

I believe that no house is perfect, therefore we inspect.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

There you go.

unknown 58:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Yeah, then you don't have to worry about any of those things on the other.

SPEAKER_01 58:05

Just because you think it's these things doesn't mean that my me or my client are going to think those things. So it's uh they're all words.

SPEAKER_02 58:12

All right. When you're driving, you you mentioned there's only a couple roads uh that lead into Southern Maryland. Um so best gas stations stop in Southern Maryland, Wawa, Sheets, or Royal Farms?

SPEAKER_01 58:28

So we have them all. Royal Farms is making a hard push into Southern Maryland. We've had like four of them built in the last year.

SPEAKER_02 58:34

They're taking over.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

Um I'd have to go with Wawa. And and the reason I have a very specific reason for it. My my wife is a Diet Green Tea fanatic. Diet green tea, okay. She has it's a that's her staple. Okay. She has to have it. She's always got several half gallons in my fridge. So and so Wawa has has the best she lives by it. Okay. No, no other diet green tea. Just that just the one, okay.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

All right. I'm gonna have to try that. Um Bill, are you a beach person, a river person, or are you the sit-on-the-dock and judge boats person?

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Well, I live on the Chesapeake Bay, so and we have a community beach. However, the kids run when I go out on the beach, but no, that's another story. Um, no, I I I believe I I I enjoy all those things. I I believe that um um I kind of live in the moment. Whatever I'm doing is what I'm it's what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 59:34

Great answer. Great answer. Um, I know you're a huge, huge Washington Capitals fan. Um what is your favorite caps moment? I know there's been a lot, but what what's what's your number one favorite moment?

SPEAKER_01 59:48

I would say it was the day that they raised the banner after they won the Stanley Cup. Okay. And the reason is because I have never seen that many grown people cry in a in one setting. Um, it was like it was just the thing. It was the thing that people thought would never happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:08

Yeah, I mean, that run, that run that season, I mean, we had been such a great team for so many years, but not being able to cut get past the second round, doing all that and then finally having that magical season, which I had actually said I figured that at some point would be it was the year we weren't supposed to do it. They, you know, kind of we weren't the top team in getting through there, and uh that was an exciting run.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

Um absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

And I still can't believe Ovechkin, Ovi's still getting it done. Um incredible. He is, he is. Uh, all right, back to uh real estate here. What's the most chaotic thing a seller has ever left can leave behind or has ever left behind at one of your closings?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Um people tend to leave personal items that they had put away, you know, out family albums, photo albums, things in the attic, things in the crawl space, things that you are are personal to them. Yeah. Um and you know, buyers they don't want to just discard them, they want to get them back to them. And that's where I usually come into play, right? I've been known to you know go pick them up and take them to the other agent or whatever. Um found a gun one day. Yeah, didn't know what to do with that. But uh that's the yeah, that's one that was the call that my broker went. Yeah, never had that one before.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:26

That's not in the real estate handbook uh on what to do when you find a gun. So um okay, and here's the last one. And this is my favorite question. If St. Mary's County had a reality show, what's the title of the show and what's episode one about?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

So I would I would say it's a combination. It could be either Chasing the Chesapeake or um Waterfront and Warfighters. How's that? Um and I think the the I think the uh first episode would kind of you know the big aerial shot showing that we're just this big peninsula and there's water all around us, but then you know, you have the F-18 fly by, you know, showing that, you know, um that you know in the Navy they have this, you know, because we so in Southern Maryland, and I find this interesting um because it's in no other jurisdiction that I'm aware of, we have what's called the right to farm addendum.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

Okay. And essentially what that says is these things happen here and you need to be aware of them. One of the things is that there's a naval air station there and you can't complain about the jet noise.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

Right. But if you ask anybody that's ever had any affiliation with Naval Air Station Pax River, they're gonna tell you that that's the sound of freedom.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

Yeah, love it. The sound of freedom. Yeah, well, you would be a huge, huge star, I think, on this reality show. I'm gonna um talk to some of my uh Hollywood uh producers and see if we can see if we can make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

Is that just because we're in the glasses?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Hollywood. I feel like we're Hollywood. There you go. There you go. All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:02

Well we have a Hollywood in Southern Maryland, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:06

Californian Hollywood, yeah. That that's yeah, I I love it. I love that. Um well, Bill, congratulations. You survived the Gannon Gauntlet.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Uh well, I I I'll be able to live another day.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

All right, we're gonna wrap up today's episode. But before we do, um, Bill, um I want you to, if you could just let our listeners know, um the best way to reach you. Um is I assume you're taking on you're you're still taking on clients.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

Uh yeah, I think I'll do this a couple more years anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:39

Uh so what's what's the best way to for uh folks to reach you?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:41

So I always tell people that my name is pretty unique. Okay. My last name is Oosterink. Okay. If you put O-O-S-T-E-R-I-N-K in any search engine with Maryland, you're gonna find me. Right. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but it's a thing. Um but my website is uh SOMDdreamhome.com. Okay, where you can find me. Just search any Century 21 database, you'll find me. Um, or better yet, just drive up and down the street and ask them if they know me. I guarantee you somebody in the case.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

Sake, you have you know how I can reach the king of Southern Maryland Real Estate. That's what they need to ask for.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

Is my crown outside, by the way? I get that all the way. It's getting shine right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:22

It's getting right, it's it's getting shine right now. Um, well, Bill, thank you so much for coming on the show. I had I had a great time. I think uh I think our listeners are really gonna enjoy it. Um hope you can come back here soon. Oh, sure. Um, when we're gonna wrap up here episode six of the podcast, episode seven will be coming soon. But thanks for listening. And as always, thanks for hanging with Gannon.