The Brad Weisman Show

Recession Doesn't Mean Housing Crash

Brad Weisman, Realtor

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Our monthly Real Estate Guest, Pete Heim, joins Brad Weiman to chat about all things Real Estate!! 

The gap between local and national real estate trends is widening dramatically, creating confusion for homebuyers and sellers trying to navigate today's market. We cut through the noise to reveal what's really happening versus the headlines you're seeing in national media.

What's creating these regional disparities? We explore how states like Florida, Texas, and Louisiana face unique challenges with insurance costs and changing migration patterns that skew national averages. Meanwhile, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions continue to thrive, with areas like Alexandria absorbing a staggering 4,500 new listings due to pent-up demand.

Perhaps most illuminating is our deep dive into recessions and real estate. Contrary to popular belief, recessions historically don't mean falling home prices. Looking at data since 1980, only the 2008 financial crisis saw significant housing value declines—a unique situation caused by a lending crisis and over-inventory that doesn't exist today. Even better news? Every recession since 1980 has triggered lower mortgage rates, which could bring relief to today's buyers facing rates in the mid-6% range.

We also tackle local challenges around housing affordability and workforce availability, strategic pricing considerations for sellers in today's market, and predictions about interest rate fluctuations throughout 2025. Whether you're looking to buy, sell, or simply understand the real estate dynamics shaping our community, this episode offers the local perspective you won't find in national headlines.



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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! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.

Speaker 1:

You ready All right From real estate, the market as a whole, which then sometimes will affect the 10. Right. You know the real life. We all learn in different ways. If you think about it, Wayne Dyer might not attract everybody and everything in between. Mission was really to help people just to reach their full potential.

Speaker 2:

The Brad Wiseman Show. And now your host, Brad Wiseman.

Speaker 1:

All right, we are back. I can't believe it's Thursday again. It's unbelievable. It goes quick, Hugo, it goes quick. Yes, it does go really fast. So we're back here. This is our monthly. I should probably get my phone off the table, since it's like ringing away. I should probably get my phone off the table, since it's like ringing away. Monthly. We are here with Peaheim and we talk about, of course, real estate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, how are you doing, pete, except before the pre-show?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, he was snoring when we started to start the show. Like you need some sleep or what? No, it was a water buffalo, it was a water buffalo. Okay, more of that migration. It sounds very similar, the migration, yeah, yeah, oh, my gosh, all right, well, no, welcome back. How you doing, bro. A month went by. It's crazy, dude, we blinked.

Speaker 2:

Where does it go? Gosh, it went quick, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 1:

All right, so let's jump into it. We do some differences here between local and national, because there is a big difference, oh yeah, and I think that difference is actually starting to become even more noticeable. It is because of what we're seeing on the news and you hear these averages and things like that, and then we look around at our market and go that's not what we're seeing. So tell me what we have going on locally for the last month or whatever.

Speaker 2:

Well, I did the first, uh, january march. Actually it was the first four months. I'm sorry, okay, because you know, so I was able. I have the data for the first four months. Yeah, because we're in may. Now I can officially say that we're in may, right, yeah, we're in the first four months versus the last four months of 24. Yeah, and the inventory is up. Last last year at this time it was 326 listings on the market. Wow, and today, this morning, there was 380. Whoa, yeah, and it's been around.

Speaker 1:

I knew you'd be excited about that oh man Brad's going to post on that, just like in a minute, you know what's funny, I went to look it up and my ADHD kicked in and forgot Totally forgot you walked into that room and no, I just sat down like I got to do the inventory and then all of a sudden I was like, yeah, it's gone, it's gone. I saw a squirrel or something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah right squirrel.

Speaker 1:

So no, that's incredible.

Speaker 2:

So 380 today.

Speaker 1:

Wow Headed in the right direction Last year at this time it was 326. And I've been checking it it's been in 360s. It has been in the market for 90 days In Rosewood Hills. Yeah, 90 days, 90 days it's been on the market. That is long but it's overpriced.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, price point.

Speaker 1:

Overpriced. So you know, it just goes to show that you can overprice a house in any market.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I didn't mention the address, I just said Rosewood Hills. Of course there's only one house for sale, right?

Speaker 1:

now I think you know who you are. They're like it's me, it's me.

Speaker 2:

Oh, shoot.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know your house is overpriced.

Speaker 2:

I don't know what to tell you. Talk to your realtor. Yeah, exactly, but everything else is the same, it's 28.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Absorption rate. It was 1.1. Yeah, it was one last time. It was 1.1, this time. Well, obviously, with the inventory going up.

Speaker 1:

There's a reason. Yeah, that means some houses are staying on the market, right. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're actually getting more houses on the market. It could mean that we have less that are going off the market, right. Because that's what kind of it stacks it up, it starts to stack. Right, which is interesting because we're in May. You know it's like that's interesting, it is.

Speaker 1:

But, we'll see. And rates, and it is a little telling though too, because you know there, for a little bit the rates had jumped back up again. So now they're back down again and they're going to start it's going.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the rates are going to be like a heartbeat, I think. All year. I agree yeah, there's, it's just going to be that way, so get used to it.

Speaker 1:

But price price was up 5.7 percent yep, and, and that's pretty much what, um, what I was saying that's pretty much where it falls for burke's connie, for burke's connie exactly so's go into. We were talking before and I got some stats now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, cool. Do you want to go into your stats? No, no go. I want to talk about your stuff. Yours is nicer.

Speaker 1:

The stuff that was interesting is we keep saying how it's such a different market that we have between here and other states, and I wanted to really pinpoint which states are different and what is changing the average in the country Florida, texas and Louisiana and you guessed pretty much why right away when I said them before. We went on the air and it was insurance, because those places get hit by hurricanes. Texas gets a lot of that too, and Florida. So those are the things there.

Speaker 1:

The other thing is is people were moving to Florida for a while during the pandemic and a little bit after the pandemic, because it was easy to live there. There was no guide, there wasn't hardly any guidelines at all, and so that just people wanted to go there. It was considered the free state. There was more freedom there at that moment, so people were moving to Florida. Now that has leveled off because we're all back to freedom everywhere else. And the other thing which we keep talking about people typically move to Florida when they retire or when they're kind of just on that last quarter of their life or last third of their life, right, if they have a 3.5% interest rate what do you think?

Speaker 1:

Do you think they're going to?

Speaker 2:

move. I'll put up with the snow for a little bit longer.

Speaker 1:

You can buy a lot of snow blowers Actually, you can hire a lot of people for the difference in that payment.

Speaker 2:

You double it pretty much Exactly.

Speaker 1:

So I think that's something there and Texas obviously was inundated with a lot of people coming from California, different areas trying to get a different type of life, and louisiana, of course you know those, that one there, but the rest of the country and pretty much um, I brought this up at our last sales meeting the whole east coast except for florida is is actually still booming and northeast and mid-atlantic doing great unreal.

Speaker 2:

I think we still have major inventory. I think we're the highest, aren't we? Yeah, we are Highest, highest percentage, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That this area here is still really really hurting on inventory. Yeah Right, so yeah, so I just thought that was. It was interesting, so define mid Atlantic again.

Speaker 2:

That was mid. Atlantic.

Speaker 1:

I always thought we were Northeast and Pennsylvania. We're kind of on that in between mid Atlantic and Northeast Right. So anything from, I would say, new Jersey, pennsylvania on up, is Northeast, yeah, and then, like mid Atlantic, we Pennsylvania, new Jersey, maryland, delaware, virginia, those areas, yeah, absolutely yeah, it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 2:

I have a friend realtor in Alexandria and they are just killing it.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:

I was surprised because we talked about there was an inventory boost there with the government changeover, with the new president's regime coming in, and she said it hasn't affected it one bit. They absorbed 4,500 listings. Wow, wow, 4,500. 4,500, and it's back to wacky land. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I said, dude, are you serious she goes. Yeah, we absorbed it up. There was so much pent-up demand.

Speaker 1:

Really really serious she goes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we just we absorbed it up. There was so much demand really, really crazy. Yeah, that's how much the pent-up demand was down there.

Speaker 1:

It's kind of crazy, right. So nationwide, yeah, uh, houses, home prices are up year over year march. Okay, these numbers a little lagging because it takes a while till they get these numbers together, but it's 2.4 year over year march and that's so. That's still going up. Our area is that national?

Speaker 2:

that's national.

Speaker 1:

Our area is in the oh where was that at? Again, it was in like the four or five to six range, yep. So it just shows you, in this area you definitely want to jump in if you can, but it's hard because some people can't get the house they want.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's based on that last one I just told you about, with the first four months of the year, and from last year at this time it was 5.7, 5.7% increase. Wow, from that same price. I mean that timeframe. Yeah, same timeframe. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, that's average, that's average sale price yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I think pretty much that's what they're saying. That's going to happen. So it said here for Berks County it remains a seller's market. Obviously. There are more buyers, obviously, than there are homes. There's limited inventory, which we have an issue with or a challenge here in Berks County. They are working on that on a chamber level. I know even Habitat for Humanity is working on the inventory issues. There's a lot of things that they're trying to do to get inventory to come back. But we need builders, we need developers, yeah, and then we need common sense growth on a township level.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we do Right, that mall needs to be repurposed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that mall needs to go. They got to fill in the hole and repurpose that pit. They got rid of the fence though the fence is gone.

Speaker 2:

The fence is gone, right, Hugo. I think they got rid of the fence that was around the mall. Did they fix the sinkholes?

Speaker 1:

No, they just let people go in. Oh okay.

Speaker 2:

It helps thehole People pets cars. Well then, you don't need as many houses.

Speaker 1:

It helps the inventory issue the more sinkholes, the better.

Speaker 2:

It was the strangest thing. If you really took a look at that, it was like sinking over here sinking over there and sinking around there. It's like what the If you're not?

Speaker 1:

from this area. We have a mall called the Berkshire Mall and that mall has been around since the 1970s. It's kind of depressed, yeah, and at one point and we're just kind of explaining at one point they found sinkholes and they were big, big ones big ones, yeah, truck size, just you know and we are called sinking spring around here.

Speaker 1:

That's the name of the town, but you know, this was a proof of it. You know the mall. So they had a fence the whole part of most of the parking lot, which really didn't help the business at the mall, because now people thought the place was like gated up. Yeah right, yeah, I thought that.

Speaker 2:

I thought that too, and I even knew what happened but boy, I'll tell you what that middle ponton would be an amazing two-story condo. You could do all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 1:

So repurposing is a big thing for for um growth, uh, or for for getting the inventory back to where it needs to be. You know, everybody says well, I'm. I get happy now when I see apartment buildings going up and they're like why you don't get anything from that? Yes, I do, because the people that move into there are probably selling their house Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Because a lot of times it's older or they're going to buy eventually. Or they're going to buy eventually, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But it helps the housing issue Because that $4.5 million doesn't mean it has to be homeownership.

Speaker 2:

Right Housing period.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

We've got a couple of big old mills and buildings around here that have been repurposed.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and they're beautiful.

Speaker 2:

The Catherine Street with the old Dolphin factory and a narrow fabric of the outlets and stuff like that Metropolitan Metropolitan is done. Yeah, there's a lot like that. It's just we need more of it. Yeah, exactly, Absolutely we do.

Speaker 1:

And then the other thing obviously is the mortgage rate impact. That's really that has really that's been the steroid to the problem of housing, of inventory, Because we had an inventory problem before, but then all of a sudden rates went up which made sellers not sell Before we just had an inventory problem because of whatever. Yeah, but now it's people just don't want to move because they don't want to get away from their rate.

Speaker 2:

If the interest rates were still in the three to four range, we'd be fine. People would be upgrading. They'd be moving up. They'd be doing more of that right.

Speaker 1:

But do you think prices would be even higher? Yeah, probably would.

Speaker 2:

I do. Yeah, I think it would be absolute chaos If the rates go to three and a half.

Speaker 1:

It's the end of the world.

Speaker 2:

We're just going to say it right here, so we cannot, as you know it. Oh yeah, that's a song, isn't it? We should make a song, what do you think? Yeah?

Speaker 1:

I think it's been done already. Yeah, so um, but the the other things too. There's here race and trends and conditions that talk about the interest rates, home price, growth, pricing itself there. There's another situation where you have a group of people that can't afford rent or a house. That's right, that's a situation, that's a problem. Where you have a group of people that can't afford rent or a house. That's right, that's a situation, that's a problem, man. It is a problem Because it's not like you don't want to be somewhere. It's that the prices have gone up faster than income, and you know. The other problem with that is I had Habitat for Humanity and NHS were in here, workforce issues, I saw that yeah, workforce issues I saw that yeah.

Speaker 1:

Workforce issues, because what's happening is, if you don't have blue collar or whatever you want to call it, people making $26, $30 an hour, whatever it is, if you don't have a place for them to live, they're going to the next county, that's it. So this county has a challenge on workforce. That's right, because all of a sudden you have companies now going. We have nobody to hire Right, it's a problem. That's a real problem, yeah. So guess what happens then? Wages have to go up. Wages have to go up. Yeah, because if people are going to travel from one county to the next to work here, they got to pay for gas.

Speaker 2:

Might as well, just come here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we got the answers for everything right here. This show hey.

Speaker 2:

I hope you commissioners are watching this show, Michael.

Speaker 1:

Christian. I saw them last night actually.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I saw them. I saw them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I see them all the time.

Speaker 1:

They're all over the place. Yeah, yeah, it's always good, they're always all over the place. So, let's, let's talk about this whole. Um, we're going to try something new here. I actually have an ability now to show a graphic and I'm hoping it works. So can you show the graphic, hugo, that we have now for people there? It is there. It is so for people that are listening to this in their car or on the walk or whatever they're doing. The recession, uh, recessing, does not mean falling prices. Right, we wanted to separate the two. We talked about this in our sales meeting. Is that everybody thinks that when you have a recession and now we're not saying that we want a recession, we're not saying that at all. Let's premise it with that. But on the graph here, what's interesting is it shows when there was a recession, many times the house prices went up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and I think people always think oh, recession, that's going to be a bottom out of the market. The houses are going to plummet. The only time that was the case was in 2008, where it went down 19% in value. Yeah, okay. The rest of the recessions actually did pretty well. Yeah, 91 went down a little bit, like a little bit, and also, if you remember, unfortunately, I remember these Sorry, yeah, hence the gray hair.

Speaker 2:

Why did I just go there? Yeah, the severity of those recessions were something also. Yeah, the four that they, without the real estate market, survived with were they were mild, they were recessions were something also. Four that the real estate market survived with were they were mild, they were recessions. But eight was a big one, yeah, and I want to keep reminding people that that was not a real estate recession, that was a lending crisis.

Speaker 1:

And that was over-inventoried.

Speaker 2:

That was over-inventoried and that thing Opposite, it took 10 years to take bite.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely no-transcript everybody moves seven to 10 years. That's like an average.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So the reason it took 10 years is because the amount of people that bought in that 10 years, uh, at a 105%, 110% value of a mortgage. That's why it caught up. It caught up, so all of a sudden, in 10 years, the majority of the people that were living in their homes were underwater. Underwater, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly it. Yeah, that's boom.

Speaker 1:

And all of a sudden, when there was just a little bit of a recession, the housing market took it down like an anchor which onto a whatever like an inner tube. Yep, just took it down to the bottom, took it down to the bottom and do you know why?

Speaker 2:

that's impossible to happen? Now I'm going to say the word. I'm going to say it's impossible. Yeah, Two reasons. One the lending regulation.

Speaker 1:

Good thing he said it, I'm saying you can mark it.

Speaker 2:

You can mark it down. Yeah, the lending, the lending requirements have changed to the better. Yep, so they're not doing that crap anymore. Right, right, yep. And the other thing is, since, over the last five years, 57% it was your gain in value over the last five years yeah, so, you are so equity rich. If you get into trouble, sell your house and you're going to be fine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, that's you didn't have enough cash to live in a hotel for a little bit until you could find a rental or something. My record in 2010, I think it was either 9 or 10, these poor people came to the settlement table. This is a seller.

Speaker 1:

It came with a $60,000 check. I remember those times.

Speaker 2:

A $60,000 check just to get out of it.

Speaker 1:

I saw 10, 15, 20. Yeah, I saw those.

Speaker 2:

I was like dude, just throw the keys on the camera. I was like dude, just throw the keys on the camera.

Speaker 1:

Let the process take it and now buyers are giving $10,000, $15,000, $30,000.

Speaker 2:

And that's the other swing.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing You've heard $60,000. It's amazing you heard $100,000 over asking yes, it's crazy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's the difference.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we got another graph here.

Speaker 1:

And the only similarity use the eight balls what we should do and we'll have everything solved. So the next one here recession means falling mortgage rates too, yes, sir. So, like I said, we're not cheering on a recession, we're not. I'm just. I'm trying to ease any concerns or anything that's doom and gloom about the real estate market, because typically when there's a recession I shouldn't say typically always every recession since 1980, it shows on this graph rates have gone down during the recession. It's every one. We don't want a recession, but that's the effect that there's good things that happen if, by chance, we do go into a recession.

Speaker 2:

Wait, but do people understand why that happens? Why do interest rates?

Speaker 1:

go down during a recession, it's inflation, inflation, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's the hedge against inflation. You got that right, so that's why it goes down. It makes common sense.

Speaker 1:

It all balances out.

Speaker 2:

It brings the recession back to nothing again yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1:

So that's the thing you know. Don't be, don't be crazy about um you know the recession stuff and um, because I don't think it's going to, it's not going to happen. I don't think, and it's not really a bad thing in real estate. So you know, if it does recede a little bit, don't think you're going to lose your house, you're going to be. All these things are going to happen. It shouldn't. It should be okay.

Speaker 2:

Go back to that a second Hugo. So I'm going to tell you guys, 1980, I just graduated high school and 81, I was a freshman in college getting my degree in real estate and my dad was in real estate, and that that 81 was the year it went from like 20% to 15. There's that five, there's that 5% drop. Right, right, cause that was, that was the, that was a bad, that was a recession, that was pretty gnarly. And look at that, I can remember that, like it was yesterday, it went from 20 to 15.

Speaker 1:

It seems like the worse the recession, the more the rate went down Exactly, isn't that funny. Yeah, it is Well, because that happens to spur on growth. Exactly and it worked. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so rates are around the. They have come back a little bit. They're around 6.75, 6 point.

Speaker 2:

I saw six and a half this morning.

Speaker 1:

Six and a half. Which was the lowest I've seen in a while. Yeah, it was up again at seven not too long ago. It was A little bit over. It's crazy. It's so exciting, it's like it's such a. It's exciting, it's character building, it's character building.

Speaker 2:

If you love a roller coaster ride. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

Speaker 1:

So what else? Do you have anything else?

Speaker 2:

With people getting their houses on the market this time of year. I know we just came out of that busiest. As they said, it was the number one time that people put their homes on the market. But I don't know about you, but I'm Boom.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're asking price still has to be compelling. Yeah, you can still overprice your home. Absolutely, this isn't a pie in the sky. I'll slap any price I want on my house and I'm going to get it. And I'm going to get five bidding you know people bidding against it and go 20, 30 over that. Yeah, no, that's not happening. No, it actually never has. Really, you can still always overprice your house. In any market you can overprice your house, but just keep that in mind right now, because you can go crazy.

Speaker 1:

You want to put it at the price that's going to get you the best final price. Exactly, you want to list it at the price that's going to get you the best final price.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, put it at a number with your realtor. Put it at a number that's going to create the most compelling interest so people can come along and maybe get into a bidding war for you and make sure you get an appraisal gap and all that. But you know that's, you know I just wanted to make that point because people are thinking they're buying this guy right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I agree with a hundred percent and I'm seeing that. I'm seeing a lot of overpricing. Like I said that one house, they're going to hate me, but so I want to bring this up, not actually getting anything, but I got to say these guys were in here in the studio. It's BroGlo. I always say GloBro.

Speaker 2:

BroGlo.

Speaker 1:

They're funny as can be. Check out the episode. But they were on Shark Tank and I got to say I'm using this stuff, I love it. It's a self-tanner for the boys. Is actually the phrase Self-tanner for the boys? It is really good. And what's nice is this time of year, you don't want to look like Casper when you go outside. Do you know what Casper is? The ghost, the friendliest ghost in town. Okay, just making sure you knew what that was, because sometimes Hugo doesn't get my humor. He just looks at me like I'm nuts. Yeah, so this stuff's amazing. They were on Shark Tank and I just love it. So if you're looking for BroGlo there, it is, look it up. Go online and if you do go in, they were nice enough to give me a code for my friends and listeners. You put in the discount code BradW and you get 10% off. Nice, yeah, it's good stuff.

Speaker 2:

It's great stuff, so it's a natural tanner. Yeah, it's a natural tanner, it's not like that orange thing. No, no, yeah, yeah, oh, it's amazing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I met a little guy once that I asked him hey, what's your name? And he said oh, my name is Tanner.

Speaker 2:

And I said no.

Speaker 1:

I am.

Speaker 2:

But he didn't get it, that's a dad joke.

Speaker 1:

No, I am Totally a dad joke, yeah, totally a dad joke, yeah. So that's it. All right Is there anything else I was. Well, these lights, too, tend to you. Know, I'm a little Tanner now. I don't know, maybe you are Tanner Tanner, yeah yeah, all right, I don't know why I talked to him about this stuff at all Unbelievable. All right, well, thanks for coming in Pete.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, bro, We'll see you again next month.

Speaker 1:

Make sure you bring all kinds of stuff. I here every month. He's not too impressed with the Broglo, but that's all right. That's good, I like it and Tanner likes it. So you know what the hell. All right, we'll see you next Thursday 7 pm. All right, thanks for listening.

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