The Brad Weisman Show
Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! #TheBradWeisman #Show #RealEstateRealLife
The Brad Weisman Show
Winter Market Can Be the BEST Market!
Hi This is Brad Weisman - Click Here to Send Me a Text Message
What if the winter chill is your ticket to a sizzling real estate deal? Pete Heim is back to chat about the hidden perks of buying or selling a home during the colder months. With fewer listings and beautifully decorated homes capturing attention, January and February might just be the "winter sweet spot" you’ve been waiting for. We share stories and strategies to help you navigate the snowy challenges and make the most of this unique market opportunity.
Rising interest rates, inflation, and unemployment are on the table as we explore their potential influence on the housing market. Whether you're considering refinancing or holding onto higher rates, we offer insights into current market stability compared to the 2008 crisis. Maintaining a strong credit score is more crucial than ever, and we bring you tips to stay ahead of the curve.
Lastly, we dive into the innovative world of commercial real estate, with a spotlight on repurposing malls into vibrant residential areas. Co-buying properties emerges as a fresh trend to combat affordability issues, and we discuss the legal ins and outs to keep in mind. With a bit of humor sprinkled throughout, we reflect on economic trends and the evolving real estate landscape. Join us for an informative and entertaining journey through the complex world of real estate, all while keeping a smile on your face.
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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show (formerly known as Real Estate and YOU), where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife #realestateandyou
Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.
All right, here we go From real estate to real life and everything in between the Brad Wiseman Show and now your host Brad Wiseman.
Speaker 2:All right, we're back. We're back and we had a lot of stuff going on before we started this show. Yeah, we had issues with the oh, you got the pliers out. Look, see, look at that. We got pliers out. We had tools out. We were looking for things you might notice. If you're watching the show, you might notice that there's, there was tools involved and there's a new mic stand here. This is not going to be like this forever, because it's driving me crazy already. Right, hugo? That's right. We're going to find something that we like. Right, and Hugo doesn't have a microphone now, because now I'm using his stand. So things are just messed up. It's just the way it is. I don't know what else to tell you. So at least it's not a guest that's going to deal with this terrible mic stand problem, that it's Pete Heim. So that's good. If it was somebody else, we'd really care, you know. But we don't really give a rip because it's just Pete Heim, that's right, I didn't break it I mean, look at these pieces, man.
Speaker 1:That's. Oh yeah, I don't know what happened, I don't know that's where we're in here, but we'll get a new one, so that's right, all right.
Speaker 2:China yeah, exactly all right.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about real estate yeah, that's that's what we do um, I think we should ask hugo to yell if he has something to say. Just you know, just kind of yeah, you can yell, or you know, I have your microphone on, just so you know so.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to turn it off until you plug it in oh, he's got the stand-up. It's really bad. I have to sneeze. That's the first time for that. Really Never sneezed on here before 208 shows 209 shows. Never sneezed Must be allergic to pee. It must be you, alright. So, hugo, you can just use that there you go. He's like a star. Now I have a real estate question already. Oh, you do have one. Okay, good for you. Do we want to start with your question or do you want to? Do you want to?
Speaker 3:um, yeah, I have a question, then let's start it. What you know winter tips? There are some. You know the landscape might not be, you know us as looking as nice, but what are some benefits of actually buying or selling in winter?
Speaker 1:in winter, yeah, oh man, I stole my thunder oh, okay, well, look he he already has.
Speaker 2:Just kidding, did you, did he?
Speaker 1:I do know, I do have I did have something about selling in that. Um, that sweet spot, the winter sweet spot they call it. Yeah, did you see that? I saw that, yeah yep you want to talk about that?
Speaker 3:or you just gotta leave us hanging.
Speaker 2:Well, he's like I was gonna talk about it, but now that hugo brought it up, I'm not to talk about that, or are you just going to leave us hanging? Well, you know what he's like. I was going to talk about it, but now that.
Speaker 1:Hugo brought it up. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm not going to talk about it now. You know, when I got the KCM thing that said about its slides like early November, I started doing our own research. You know what. It even happened during COVID, Does it?
Speaker 2:look something like that, Is it yeah?
Speaker 1:it's just like those little circles yeah there's a little spot there, hugo.
Speaker 2:That happens every once in a while. You see, it's all the way down at the bottom, so it's a little small. But, what happens is that during the winter, there is a time where I think there's less listings, right. So what happens is, if you are a listing that's on the market, then you would be one that actually is going to get more attention because there's less listings and typically same amount of buyers. Now that has been kind of not the case as much over the past three, four years.
Speaker 1:You know, Brad, I looked at it.
Speaker 2:Is it the case?
Speaker 1:It is the case, but on a more gradual basis from 2020 through 23,. It was more gradual, but it's becoming more pronounced, I notice now.
Speaker 2:Well, what's funny about that is back in the day we always talk about back in the day when there was a lot of listings in the market, it would fluctuate, sometimes 300 to 400 homes less in January and February. So when there was a market that, when it was a seller's, no, when it was a buyer's market, we would tell the sellers look, don't take your home off the market during January and February, because everybody else is taking it off the market. So what ends up happening is you're actually putting it back on the market when everybody else is putting it back on the market, which is spring. So when do you want to have your house on the market? When do you want to sell anything? When there's less of them or more of them? You want to sell when there's less of them because you're going to get a higher price, that's right.
Speaker 1:And here's another perk Don't houses look amazing when they're decorated for Christmas? Absolutely.
Speaker 3:For pictures. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:And so they really really look nice yeah.
Speaker 2:The only thing about years ago, too, is that when it would snow, you would have snow in the pictures, and it would be July.
Speaker 1:So that was always we'd be like. That was how you knew an agent was not really keeping up on his listing or her listing. Days on market were nine months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, days on market were nine months, but you would see a house that's listed in July and there's still snow in the picture.
Speaker 3:We're like you've got to redo the pictures. So if you know that you're going to sell, you're going to put your house on the market in winter, then should you then take the pictures?
Speaker 2:I do that all the time Right now. Do that all the time right now. I have about four ohms. Good point that I took the pictures of the outside already, okay, and they're not listing until february or march, and I did that because there was still color in their landscaping, there were still some things there and I didn't want to put it on the market in march when it's, or february when it's just gray, and also you could have a foot of snow on the ground in march or febru or February. Hopefully we won't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Imagine taking pictures up in Erie. Yeah, yeah, we're going to take a picture of six foot of snow in front of your house.
Speaker 3:It's crazy.
Speaker 2:I know Crazy, crazy. So yeah, so there is that sweet spot, but what else do you have there?
Speaker 1:How many homes are on the market this month? Okay, all right, man, that's a good question.
Speaker 2:But here's to wrap that all up, I did a video.
Speaker 1:I'm going to do a video on this now, I think.
Speaker 2:I'm going to. There you go, Do a video. Pete does a video. When do you do your video? We'll push that. Friday at three o'clock. Friday at three o'clock. He does a video on your own Facebook right yeah, peter Heim. Realt, I don't Okay.
Speaker 1:Awesome If I see a topic that I want to just get it recorded and do it. I'll just do it.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times, on our show he does the abridged version. That's right. And then when you see him on his show, he does the big time details.
Speaker 1:You really break it down. I will take one of our topics that we talk about and break it down a bit Awesome.
Speaker 2:So go to Pete's page. You can see the details of that also because it's always cool.
Speaker 2:But just to wrap up what we were saying about that too. The other thing is, once again, don't try to time the market. The only market we know we have is the market we have right now. If you're looking forward, you think, oh, I'm going to take it off in January or February or whatever. Don't try to do that. If you're ready to sell, sell. If you're ready to buy, buy, Get in the market, get in the game. And when the right thing is there, when the right home is there, then you make a move.
Speaker 1:That's it, Don't try to time it. No, don't try to time it. So let's talk about timing. Yeah, you want to talk about timing we should talk about timing, but how he's freaking late for the show every week. It was four minutes.
Speaker 2:I'm very proud of myself, whatever.
Speaker 1:Anyway, so, hey, dude. So I mean there was a couple of KCMs over the last, I don't know a few weeks. I just thought we should probably talk about, and then what I do is I like to get their information, and then I usually go a little deeper. Yeah, interest rates on the rise during election years. During the actual election year, which is 2024 for us, they went up.
Speaker 2:The rates went up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the rates went up and that's pretty much characteristic of what happens now. Okay, the other two things to watch about with mortgage rate volatility is inflation and unemployment. Okay, and I think this new now that the election's over and-.
Speaker 2:Thank God. Yeah, yeah, I know you guys, but I'm sick of seeing it. Yeah, I don't care who approved whose message.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but inflation and unemployment I I'm thinking are going to be addressed. Um right, so unemployment is still pretty good, it's like 4.1 or something.
Speaker 2:It's still not bad at all.
Speaker 1:Historically, it's amazing. Historically, it's good yeah. So mortgage rate of volatility is probably going to affect us in 2025. Pretty good.
Speaker 2:Yep, it's good. Yeah, so mortgage rate of volatility is probably going to affect us in 2025 pretty good, yeah, yep, and I think what's going to happen is, if it does go down more than what we think, yeah, the market's going to go crazy, oh, it'll be, but I also think you're gonna see a lot of refis then too, that's right, you'll see a lot of refi, because we're really low on refis as far as, uh, historically, we're low right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:well, obviously there's these people that got secured six and a half or seven right now. Yeah, they're going to be jumping If it goes to five. They're going to do it and they should.
Speaker 2:And remember, some people got seven, three quarters and 8%. That's right, that was only several months ago.
Speaker 3:I mean.
Speaker 2:I know we want to forget about that, but it happened. It did bump, you know percentage rate. They're going to be refining out.
Speaker 1:Right, but then let's just talk about, too, the elephant in the room, about the big headline with mortgage. Debt is at an all-time high.
Speaker 2:I thought he was calling me an elephant. I'm like I know I gained weight, but geez, it's amazing. After Thanksgiving feeling it myself. Yes, exactly, they're talking about the amount of mortgage debt Talk about that.
Speaker 1:Do we have a graphic on that, then I have one here which is black and white.
Speaker 2:I wanted to do this in color and I cheaped out. No, actually, I just I forgot. But what it's basically saying and you can see it says that everybody's crying to blue, saying, oh my gosh, we have $48.2 trillion in housing debt, right, as opposed to the housing crisis, there were $17.9 trillion of housing debt. So everybody thinks, oh my God, this is going to be 50 times worse when this thing crashes. That is not true. Big differences $17.9 trillion. In the crash, there was nine points. This is what's amazing about this 9.7 million was the mortgage debt.
Speaker 2:8.2 million was the home equity back in 2008. That's a trillion, that's a trillion, yeah, 8.2, yeah, trillion Trillion yeah, so there was a lot more mortgage debt than there was value.
Speaker 1:There was more debt than value.
Speaker 2:And now what was?
Speaker 1:that date Brad.
Speaker 2:That was some 2000,. It said 2008,. I think is what it is oh, wait, so now today? Yeah, would you have the numbers for today?
Speaker 1:it's pretty amazing well, the average equity of the average person person's equity yeah, average is 315 315 000. Right, that's the average. So and um, back in march of 2020, it was 129 000 wow, that's crazy four years ago it jumped. Do you have almost triple? So the total amount of housing debt well, yeah, the housing debt right now is 13.2 trillion. Our equity is $35.1 trillion.
Speaker 2:So it's almost three times the amount. So that's what tells us that there's not going to—.
Speaker 1:And hold up that graph, because that's—look at that difference. The difference in the equity there is incredible To see that graphic. It's huge.
Speaker 2:It's amazing the sky's not falling man. So we're still in good shape, we're not crashing. It's amazing, it's huge, it's amazing. The sky's not falling man.
Speaker 3:So we're still in good shape, we're not crashing, we are great no-transcript, and that's a good question.
Speaker 2:And that's a challenge.
Speaker 1:Be careful with something you said about being more difficult.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess that's what I mean. Be careful about that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you've got that affordability thing's, got those three factors right. Educate me here, Pete but just the price? You're just talking about the price now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Right.
Speaker 1:And you still got the other two right you got interest rates and you got your employment status basically yeah. So be careful when you say it's going to be more difficult. It's never been easier to buy a home right now. It hasn't.
Speaker 3:It's never been easy and an inventory. To imagine that the role the inventory plays exactly the inventory does.
Speaker 2:That will make it more difficult. That's the challenge.
Speaker 1:That's the challenge but if there's going to be a thousand or fifteen hundred homes in the market in berks county, the prices are going to drop probably yeah probably, and it's going to, and if their interest rates stay the way they are and your job stays the way it is, it's going to, it's going to be okay, yeah, so I think, as a as a parent, they should save money, yeah. And and and get. Get a good credit score yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true and work on everything Actually credit score is a good point. I mean because everything's based on that today. You know your actual interest rate is going to be based on. You know the credit score, basically, I mean, everything's based on that today. The thing that you have to think about, though, too, and everything starts to equal itself out too, hugo. What happens is that, if the rates do go up, okay, that will tend to make the housing prices come down okay.
Speaker 2:If we start losing jobs, prices come down. Okay, if, if we start losing jobs, that will make housing prices come down and also interest rates will come down because of inflation. So they all kind of they kind of do this, you know, back and forth. There are some times when one moves faster than the other. Two can keep up with that. It becomes more difficult to buy a property or whatever. That's right and that's what we're saying. If the rates would go down to 4.5%, then it would be a huge challenge to buy a property. Exactly, huge challenge, because it would soak up inventory so darn fast. The prices would go up quicker than we can even imagine and we would be in a situation where we were two years ago, a year ago.
Speaker 1:And also remember about home prices over the last 50 years 50, 2009, 2010, and 2011 were negative. Every other year was positive. Now, recently, the positives have been double digits. Right, but Brad and I always talk about that 3% or 4% appreciation is like the sweet spot of slow, nice, natural growth. Yeah, and we enjoyed that for many, many years before that lending crisis of 2008. Right, so that affected 9%, 10% and 11%. I can remember 9% was 9%, 10% was 10%, 11% was 11%. That's why I remember it. Yeah, because it was the same.
Speaker 2:The year it was, it was the same same percentage. Yeah, that's how much it dropped. You probably remember when boston, boston it was.
Speaker 1:It was I wanted to say boston, boston, but it was like it was in the mid or late I think it was late 80s because I was in the business. I remember when it happened they went up. They went up like 30 one year and the following year they went down 40%. No way. It was in the late 80s era. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't remember that one, but then it leveled out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I remember that clean as day because my dad was spewing about it and all that I can remember. We didn't have that in Berks County. We tend to be in this little, we didn't have it.
Speaker 2:We kind of do this. You're going to do these very sharp up and down kind of movements where we kind of we kind of do these little rides in between. And I think that's pretty much how most of middle America is like the, the middle parts, the, the parts that are away from the cities. The cities tend to be this drastic, you know, and Florida, florida's huge for that, and that's how, as a state, florida is now getting much more inventory, the builders. But see the thing in Florida, how they fix it is build they build.
Speaker 2:Because, they have the land they have the area, they have the area to build. So around here we don't have that feature. We can't just go, oh, let's just start building. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3:See, that's what I was wondering. Do we not have the resource in terms of land, or do we have too much red taping in terms of? You know, both, both, yeah, I think we have land.
Speaker 2:If you go up on a plane in Berks County, we have land and a plane in Lancaster and anything around here, we have the land to do it. It's just what's happening right now. There's smaller pieces of land and years ago, when there was a piece of land like Werner Farm, where I live, where you could do 248 homes, the expense could be spread out over 248 homes. But right now, hugo, what's happening is a lot of these pieces of land are only good for maybe 15 or 25 homes. They help inventory, but the problem is you can't break up that expense over enough homes for it to be affordable. And a lot of that reason for the affordability is the red tape. Red tape.
Speaker 2:It's regulations from mostly not from federal government as much, but state government, local government are. Are there are the big things, yeah, and what happens is, you know, if it takes two years to go from from, that's a lot of money, that's attorney's fees, engineering fees, that's dealing with the DEP, all these different things. So it costs money.
Speaker 1:That's what happened down here. That's going to happen on broadcasting and 222 there. It's going to be approved though they need 18 million before they broke ground.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah, that's why they had to sell out to a developer Right in that lot across from Target.
Speaker 1:Yeah, had to, they had to. Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine having to drop 18 mil before you can even no, even start working on the place yeah, there's, yeah, that makes you want to vomit a lot. Yeah, that's, that's all regulation, dude. Yeah, it's regulation. Yeah, that's all the different three-digit companies you have to deal with, like the ep and eia, epa and yep pen dot the dot oh yeah, there's.
Speaker 2:There's a ton, they're all three letters, they're all F-B-I-C-I-A and they're all P-I-T-A, they're all PETA. But no, it's good questions, though. Good questions. Speaking of the building thing, which I thought was interesting is a lot of people also think right now that there's a lot of stories out there that we're overbuilding, we're building too much in certain areas Obviously not our area, but across the nation.
Speaker 3:It's Florida Saying too much Florida, things like that.
Speaker 2:They're not overbuilding, they're catching up. Yeah right, I mean we are in a deficit. We are still in a deficit for at about 3 million or 4 million nationwide of homes to people. It's like 3.1.
Speaker 1:I saw the other day. Yeah, so we're just trying to catch up, but there's a lot of areas that could use new construction.
Speaker 2:Like ours Right.
Speaker 1:I just read, you know, in the commercial world I just you know, I get the CoStar stuff, as you know, and it was the repurposing of malls and things like that is a real thing. It's happening, it's going to be. They should do that. Here locally we have our own mall. Gotta get rid of the sinkholes first. Yeah, jeez, it's amazing. But after that, but talk about that we have our own mall.
Speaker 2:That's been there for what? 1970s, yeah, okay. So we have a mall that's been there for 1970s. It was a very successful mall, did very, very well for very many years. All of a sudden, the mall thing just wasn't going well. They dropped the prices of the rent so low that it brought in shops that were not really appealing to the masses. And when you do that, then you actually it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse, you got to hand it to Boscovs man.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what they keep killing it. Yeah, and they're a department store. Yeah, you got to hand it to them right Now it's called the Sinkhole Mall. The Sinkhole Mall.
Speaker 2:It used to be called the Berkshire Mall Sinking Spring Mall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, yeah it's crazy, right it is, but no the article said that the repurposing of those areas are going to be I forget the word they use, but it's just going to be like take that land, either you level it or you redo it, repurpose it into apartments or condos.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it'd be great.
Speaker 1:And you've got area to build other buildings around it. It's awesome. It's awesome and I think we should do that.
Speaker 2:So that's what we have too, hugo, is we have the land. We have the land that's maybe not being used correctly or it's not the highest we call as an appraiser. They call highest and best use. It's not the highest and best use of that piece of land. And I think that's going to start changing.
Speaker 3:It's going to take rezoning maybe Could take rezoning or variances, and that's where your red tape comes in. Now, the red tape comes in.
Speaker 2:Hugo, this is just a circle of it's all intertwined.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:It's like a Three St on first.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, that's not three stooges, but that's all right. He's on third.
Speaker 2:So what else you got there, buddy?
Speaker 1:What else we got here, oh okay, oh, I saw something about co-buying and helping the affordability thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, co-ownership or cohabitating, cohabitating, co-ownership, co-ownership, cohabitating is not a good word, means you're doing something bad right exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a little sin. Yeah, sorry about that but so far in 2024, 15 of the buyers were were gotten into those co-buyer relationships with a family member or somebody like that other. The benefits are cost sharing. Yep right, you can buy a better home. Probably you can. It's an investment opportunity and you share responsibilities.
Speaker 2:and guess what's gonna have to change if that starts happening? More Codes, codes. Because a lot of your local municipalities do not allow another kitchen, another sink or another kitchen, another living area within the home. They consider that that can be construed as a two unit.
Speaker 1:It could, but that did not redress that part. It was just two people coming together by the house the way it is and living the way it is, the way it is Gotcha. But you were right about that, yes.
Speaker 2:Because we dealt with that when we were doing new construction, we used to have to in order to do a separate living area like an in-law quarters, whatever you want to call it we would have to. Actually, we could go so far as to put in a sink and some cabinets, but we were not allowed to put a stove in. That's where they stopped us, yeah right. They would come put a stove in. You could do a fridge, and then what you could call it then is that you could call it a bar.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, but as soon as people would move in, they'd end up putting a stove in. Sure, of course, whatever, but there's ways around that renting that space Exactly.
Speaker 1:But if you do co-buy with somebody, you got to make sure. The one issue you got to think about is the type of ownership, and you're going to probably go tenants in common, which means you each get a percentage of the building or the property versus you both own the whole thing. So those are little things you got to watch.
Speaker 2:If you go to do that, I would definitely talk to an advisor about absolutely talk where you go, do that attorney, uh, have a will driven, have a will written up or something, so that everybody's in a very open agreement of what happens if somebody passes.
Speaker 1:And the percentage of ownership.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Because emotions can get involved, the feelings can get hurt. You just got to make sure all that gets spelled out first.
Speaker 3:So true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 1:Delinquency rates, let's talk about that quick, and then I guess we're going to probably have to wind it up, right? Yeah, absolutely, um, the delinquency rates are 90 days late, right, yeah, if you're delinquent on your mortgage, uh, in third quarter of 2024, it was 0.8. And when was this? This was this year, this year, okay, and third quarter, amazing. In 2010 it was. It was the peak.
Speaker 3:I can't imagine what it was then it was nine.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Almost 10% of every mortgage out there was in default 90 days.
Speaker 2:We're not talking you missed your mortgage for a month. We're talking 90 days, 90 days late, which usually when you go 90 days you're not getting back from it.
Speaker 1:You're done, you're not coming back. The keys are going on the counter and you're finished. Yep, the keys are going on the counter and you're finished. Yep, but no, I just thought that was interesting. Wow, that's incredible. Delinquency rates, yeah.
Speaker 2:No wonder we had inventory back then.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, and around that same time the unemployment was 8.3. Wow, that's incredible. We're at 4.1 today, so between 08 and 12, it was 8.3. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy, yeah, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, Is that all you got?
Speaker 2:man. I hope that's helpful. No, that's very helpful, Very good. Hugo was helpful today. I'll tell you what's not he had. You know what I think he's it's the mic. It must be. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3:This mic stand sucks, that I have I.
Speaker 2:Hugo gets the crappy stand. It's unbelievable. You see who got the good stand for the show. Yeah, yeah, you think he would have offered that up right. You think he would have said hey, brad, why don't you use mine? Unbelievable, selfish, unbelievable. All right, there you go. Pete was here. We all know that I got to get a new mic stand. We know that because this one stinks. That's about it. 7 pm and we got all kinds of good guests coming up every single week. And don't forget about our sponsors. We got First Response Contracting and Comfort Pro. They sponsor the show and we really appreciate them. All right, that's about it.
