Tim Birt - Green Light Home Sales

03/09/2023

You know, in Charleston metro, we saw one real estate agent for every one listing on MLS during 2021. Understandably, the motivation to get certified was real during the boom market. Even a newbie like me could accumulate a good number of transactions right out of the gate - and I'm very grateful for that! However, admittedly, it will become harder and harder for an agent to demonstrate their value to potential clients. I've read a few articles now claiming that realtors will possibly disappear over the next decade. I agree with many of the points made in these articles, primarily on the topic of the common access to information with today's technology. I can also say that any of you could take on this profession and wear it nicely! My point in this verbose dialogue is that I found an opinion article today that really convinced me of the ominous future of Realtors...

https://www.inman.com/2023/03/08/ai-wont-spell-the-end-of-real-estate-agents-a-court-decision-will/

AI and government intervention [on business practices] teaming up to wipe out most realtors! Only the strongest will survive. Understandably scary for the full timers struggling in today's market.

So, what do you think? Are realtors necessary or just convenient? What do you appreciate most from an agent representing you? Don't worry, I have a thick skin! Be honest. For me, I think an agent is most helpful when trying to accomplish a transaction from a distance or when I need trusted vendors to prep my sale/purchase. What say you?

01/10/2023

Four!!!! Fun times ahead in North Charleston 😁

Topgolf is expected to open in North Charleston soon.

01/06/2023

This dude is sharp!

https://www.housingwire.com/articles/logan-mohtashamis-2023-housing-market-forecast/

12/08/2022

If you're worried about your home value dropping significantly, here are a couple underlying driving factors propping up prices.

Months Supply, aka "inventory" is still historically low. Compounding that issue, home builder sentiment (measured by the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index) is drastically low at 34 and decreasing. For comparison, this time last year the HMI was 87 and increasing. That means less homes being built. One more compounding issue is the mortgage rate trend, obviously. There are fewer sellers because many would be giving up stellar rates they've acquired over the past 10 years to finance a different home. In summary, less homes built plus less pre-owned homes listed plus a historically low inventory equals values SHOULD remain the same.

Next, Days On Market are still historically low. We are still in a seller's market. We need to zoom out of the pandemic mindset to see that DOM are still half of what a "stabilized" market should look like. Normally, DOM should hover around 3-4 weeks. We're at 12 days, likely driven by the aforementioned housing supply.

I want to close on this quote I heard the other day: "marry the house and date the mortgage." Don't be scared of today's mortgage rates. Again, they are still below historical averages. The 30-year rate in the US averaged 7.76% from 1971 until today. Right now we're at 6.9%. Rates are temporary and you could always refi. You can't as easily swap the house you buy. Find a nice home/investment property in a solid neighborhood or on a beautiful piece of land. That should be your long-term concern, not today's mortgage rate.

Xoxo

11/19/2022

According to Moody's Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi, prices will decline nationwide by around 10% from peak to trough, bottoming out in the summer of 2023.

11/02/2022

In case you've been wondering why all the trees behind Harry Teet's have been chopped down...

Explore this new community coming to the Flower Town of Pines.

10/27/2022

'Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful' -Warren Buffett

10/23/2022

"I would be surprised to see prices anywhere drop below where they were in 2019."

- Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow

09/10/2022

CoreLogic published its latest real estate insights yesterday. BLUF: expect price growth to *slow* over the next year, but *not go negative.*

"Annual home price growth slowed for the third consecutive month in July but remained elevated at 15.8%. As 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages neared 6% this summer, some prospective homebuyers pulled back, helping ease overheated and unsustainable price growth. Notably, home prices declined by 0.3% from June to July, a trend not seen between 2010 and 2019, when price increases averaged 0.5% between those two months, according to CoreLogic’s historic data. Looking ahead, CoreLogic expects to see a more balanced housing market, with year-over-year appreciation slowing to 3.8% by July 2023."

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased year over year by 15.8% in July 2022 compared with July 2021

07/27/2022

I'm seeing MANY more doom 'n gloom reports on the housing market. What do YOU think is coming?

07/08/2022

Let me take a moment to congratulate the Waechter family on their gorgeous new home on John's Island! 🎉🥳 Way to sneak in the lower rates too! 😂

06/24/2022

Some of you may have recently noticed, houses are dang expensive! I want to follow up on my Jan 27th post about the Fed announcing their rate hikes and my observation that the housing market typically lags the stock market by 1.5 years.

Here we are in June, 2022. Our last trough in the S&P500, NASDAQ, and DJIA was March, 2020. We're sitting at 2 years and 3 months from that point. So far so good on the housing front, right?

Here's what I'm seeing:
- 8.5% year-over-year DROP in new housing permits in the Charleston area.
- 11.6% year-over-year DROP in the region's Housing Market Index (HMI) and 16.9% drop nationally. This index is effectively a builder confidence level, on a scale of 0-100, published by the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo. They're projecting the June index to be 75 regionally and 67 nationally. We haven't seen builder confidence this low since August, 2019 (except for a short-lived downward spike during the initial impact of COVID in Apr-Jun 2020). Builder confidence peaked at 89 regionally and 84 nationally in December, 2021, before starting its gradual decline through today.
- Casual observation reveals multiple incentives from builders (see attached snips) of up to $25K off price plus $5K in closing assistance! Many builders are even offering additional agent incentives on top of that. These were mostly non-existent for all of 2021.
- Conversations "on the street" with other agents reveals a marked cooling of buyer demand, which is highly uncommon for the summer season. Usually spring/summer is popping! Where will this bring us during the normally slow winter market in 2022?
- Average sales prices (total and per square foot) seem to be peaked. See attached charts.
- Monthly supply of homes and homes for sale appear to be bottomed out and are now climbing. See attached charts.
- What is blowing my mind is that folks are still winning purchase contracts with about 1.3% over asking price despite the ridiculously high mortgage rates and prices. My best rationale for this discrepancy is that the builders' HMI serves as a 6-month prediction for their planning, while my MLS stats are instantaneous information. We may have some latent changes coming to the housing market soon.

I want to close on this gee wiz thought: If you had bought the average 2,300 sqft home in the Charleston area in June 2020, you would have likely paid $432,400 at 3.15% on a conventional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Your monthly payment would have been about $1,487. That same house today would cost you $641,700 at 5.8%, for a monthly payment of about $3,012! You should have bought TWO of those homes back then... what were you even thinking??

Sources:
-https://www.census.gov/construction/nrc/pdf/newresconst.pdf
- https://www.nahb.org/news-and-economics/housing-economics/indices/housing-market-index
- https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CHAR745BP1FHSA
- Local builder marketing emails
- MLS Stats
- G, to the double O, gle for stock charts
- Conversations with builder agents