May 22, 2025 • 53 mins
The real estate landscape is shifting beneath our feet, and the numbers tell a compelling story. Household income requirements for homebuying have reached staggering levels - $86,000 in North Carolina, a jaw-dropping $205,000 in California, while Mississippi sits at just $48,000. These stark differences reveal why homeownership feels increasingly out of reach for many Americans.
Price cuts have become the canary in the coal mine for market shifts. When Arizona shows 37% of homes with reduced prices and North Carolina follows at 24.2%, we're seeing clear signals of a softening market. After three years of flattening prices nationwide, these indicators suggest sellers should act sooner rather than later.
Beyond the numbers lies a deeply human story about our relationship with stuff. That nightstand drawer filled with mismatched socks, obsolete chargers, and dried-up pens? It's a metaphor for how we approach our homes. Most of us wear only 5-10% of our clothing and keep furniture, china, and heirlooms we never use. This accumulated "noise" creates physical and mental clutter that complicates life transitions.
This is precisely why innovative solutions like Certified Pre-Owned home programs are revolutionizing real estate transactions. By applying the successful CPO model from the automotive industry to homes, sellers can unlock equity quickly (often within 14 days), avoid the stress of showings, and potentially receive 90-120% of market value. This approach proves especially valuable for seniors transitioning to retirement communities and homebuyers navigating new construction timelines.
The truth many agents won't tell you: approximately one-third of real estate contracts fall through, often due to inspection surprises. Pre-inspections can dramatically reduce this risk while building buyer trust and minimizing repair negotiations. For a $500,000 home, this difference can translate to thousands in savings.
Ready to rethink your relationship with your home and possessions? Start by decluttering one drawer at a time, letting go of what doesn't serve your next decade, and considering whether strategic selling approaches might better support your life transitions. The choices we make about our homes reflect far more than just real estate decisions—they shape how we live.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Plain English Real Estate Show with
your host, rowena Patton, a showthat focuses on the real estate
market in terms you can easilyunderstand.
Call Rowena now.
The number is 240-9962 or1-800-570-9962.
Now here's the English girl inthe mountains, the agent that I
(00:21):
would trust, rowena Patton.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good morning and welcome to the show.
It's Rowena Patton on the RealEstate News Radio Show and we're
live in Asheville, northCarolina, on this warm, rainy
Saturday morning.
It's awesome and I want to giveyou a little update.
So, after 13 amazing years ofbeing live every Saturday, the
(00:46):
station is making cuts to savemoney and trying to shift us to
a pre-recorded show.
You may know, because I'verecorded shows before.
You know, sometimes it's been13 years of this guys every
single Saturday morning.
So I have to do somethingsometimes or do reruns sometimes
.
However, pre-recorded shows,they just kind of lack that same
(01:06):
life and you can't call in.
Um, we don't get as many callin these days on radio shows,
but, oh my gosh, you guys usedto call in all the time.
And, by the way, you may callin today.
If you're not listening to thison the podcast, you can call in
at 828-240-9962.
And if you're listening on Mars, 1-800-570-9962.
(01:28):
And tell us what you thinkabout the show being recorded
Now.
The good news is that noworries at all.
And, oh gosh, big shout out toRandy Houston who produced the
show for so many of those years.
He's been a huge part of thisjourney.
But no worries, you can stillget your real estate news fix
(01:48):
anywhere in the country atrealestatenewsradiocom.
Come join me on the podcast,realestatenewsradiocom, because
we don't know how long we'll belive on the air here on a
Saturday morning, so I'd love tohear what you think about that.
Realestatenewsradiocom, you canlisten in on the podcast.
All of these shows are podcastsand I will be doing the show on
(02:09):
the podcast going forward, notlive, because if I'm going to
have to record it, I may as welljust do the podcast right, kind
of makes more sense, and thenyou can listen on your schedule.
Same show, same insights.
Hey, let's move with the times,guys.
And if you'd rather keephearing us live on Saturdays,
like we've done for the last 13years unlucky, unlucky for some
(02:30):
of you I'd love to know.
Just drop me a message or giveus a call 828-240-9962.
Would love your thoughts onthat.
If you found the show useful forall of these years I know that
some of you have because I goout and list your houses You're
like, oh, I've been listening toyou for so many years and I
wouldn't go anywhere else.
It's so great, becausesometimes it's like I've been
(02:53):
listening to you for 10 yearsand now I'm listing my home with
you, and last week I had a ladycall in from Denver who listens
to me on the night shiftbecause all these shows are
podcast.
There's also on realest newsradiocom.
There's a big button that sayspodcast and there's lots more
(03:13):
material goes on there than the50 minutes that I get to do on
the radio every week, so you canlisten to a whole bunch there
more so, a whole bunch morethere.
Even oh, you won't be listeningto me if I can't use my english
correctly, right?
So what are we going to talkabout today?
We're going to talk about howwe solve problems for people.
We're doing this all over thecountry now.
But I want to start with acouple of facts and figures.
(03:36):
I'm hearing a lot of realestate agents training a lot of
real estate agents on scripts.
Nothing wrong with scripts whenyou first start in real estate.
On scripts, nothing wrong withscripts when you first start in
real estate, like anything else,you need some basis.
Like when I started in radio 13years ago, I needed like an
outline of segments and how thatworks.
You know, I didn't.
I'd never done radio before.
(03:58):
I wish you could listen to myold shows, but I heart made cuts
in that as well and chopped allthe old shows away, which is
why I do the podcast for thelast many years now, actually,
so that I've got all of my owncontent.
The early shows were reallyfunny.
You could hear my voicewobbling and I'd spend all day,
thursday and Friday, preparingfor the show and having about 14
(04:20):
pages that I read from.
It was a very different show inthese days, in those days, oh my
gosh.
So let's have a look at somenumbers.
You know I run a nationalprogram so I like to look at it
everywhere, but always, ofcourse, I've got a sweet spot in
North Carolina, where I'm attoday.
So this is the income you needto buy a house in these states.
(04:45):
In North Carolina it's nearly$86,000.
So $86,000 is household income,but often a household is one
person and $86,000 is probablywell, I know it's significantly
higher than the averagehousehold income.
That means that most peoplecan't afford a house.
Isn't that crazy to think aboutit that way?
(05:07):
But wait till you hear this oneguys.
What do you think it is?
In California?
I should start giving awaytrivia prices again.
It's really interesting.
$205,000.
Now, of course, that is, youknow, spread out over the
country, right so?
Or over the state, should I say, excuse me?
(05:28):
So you've got those very highpriced areas and I can dig into
every single zip code in thecountry with 30 different data
points with these, but theaverage across California.
Now, some parts of Californiaobviously are bringing that
price down.
So imagine, if you looked inthe really high prices, what
that income would be $205,000.
(05:50):
I wonder what percentage ofCalifornia earns $205,000.
Crazy town, right.
So Georgia is 87.
It's actually a little bit morethan us.
That surprised me a little bit.
Florida is $101,000.
It's just, it's amazing.
I think of my server friendsyou know that are, maybe, with
(06:13):
tips and everything else,pulling 40 or 50, that's half of
the income needed towards amedium priced house.
What do you do?
You rent, I guess.
South Carolina is $10,000 lessthan North Carolina, so we're at
about $86,000.
That's household income toafford to buy a home.
Give us a call, guys.
(06:33):
Tell us where you're at andI'll read yours out.
Obviously I'm not going to.
I'd be here all morning,literally, if I were reading all
these out.
But give us a call,828-240-9962, tell us where
you're at or where you used tobe and I'll read out that one
for you.
Let's see if I can.
Montana 119 000 that's a bit ofa shocker, isn't it?
Washington 160 000, like.
(06:57):
Where are all these incomes?
coming from um.
Now, if you want, let's go theother end of the spectrum, if
you want to go and livesomewhere inexpensive.
And most of these states arehovering around the 85 000.
So north carolina is 86, texasis 87 000.
South carolina is 75 000, alittle bit less.
(07:18):
George is 87 000.
So you know, around the same,no surprises, I guess.
Mississippi 48 000.
So you know, around the same,no surprises, I guess.
Mississippi 48,000.
So you know, and you couldargue well, mississippi has
lower incomes.
I'm not sure whether it does ornot, certainly would have lower
incomes than California, forexample.
Louisiana 52,000.
Texas is 87, which is what youknow.
(07:41):
Many of us are hovering around,which is what many of us are
hovering around.
Kentucky is only 58,000.
Missouri 68,000.
So not too far behind us overthere.
Kansas 66,000.
Nebraska 76,000.
North Dakota 74,000.
Montana was a big shocker to me119,000.
(08:03):
Washington 160,000.
Oregon 139,000.
Washington 160,000.
Oregon 132,000.
Oh my gosh guys, utah is135,000.
That was really shocking.
So yeah, so you can tell whenyou look at household incomes in
an area why a lot of people aremoving to West Virginia when
it's $42,000.
(08:25):
So get a decent job in Virginiaand you know you can double up
on that, but it's probably notthat hard to earn $42,000.
You could wait tables and dothat and be able to afford a
house.
Kentucky is $58,000.
Alabama is $57,000.
I think we did that one already.
I'm trying to find anotherinexpensive one.
There aren't too many left, youguys.
(08:45):
Iowa 63,000.
That's pretty good.
I mean, there's 20,000 less insalary than we are in North
Carolina.
Tennessee is 83,000.
When did that happen?
Kentucky's 59,000.
I think that's the main onescovered.
I'm not finding any that aretoo much less than that.
(09:07):
Arizona 108,000.
Well, let's talk about Arizonanow 108,416, but 108 grand.
Basically You've got to earn toown the median priced house.
I mean that's early management.
What does everybody else do?
So price cuts?
(09:27):
I've been talking about this alot this week.
I've seen a lot of real estateagents training other agents on
scripts.
So, like I said, scripts aregreat.
You know, when I started inradio, I needed some scripts for
that.
When I started in real estate,I needed some scripts for that.
Very quickly I realized thatwhat we really need are numbers.
(09:47):
We need to be able to tell youwhat's going on in the market in
a truthful way.
Now obviously you've heard mesay this many times before.
When we're talking about estate.
Real estate is almost house tohouse.
People say block to block.
It's barely even block to block.
Things change very quickly.
Like even a zip code, it's hardto measure numbers on.
(10:10):
So of course I'm broad brushingthis when I'm looking at states
.
Otherwise we could do a wholeshow on North Carolina and just
cover Western North Carolina.
So price cuts are really,really important.
Why?
Because it's a leadingindicator of what's happening in
the market.
For some reason, a lot of, evenfamous agents out there around
(10:36):
the country when I say famous,you'll know the celebrity real
estate agents, the ones that areon TV, all that good stuff Many
of them are saying it's thebest time to buy a house.
Well, you can spin anything anywhich way.
I believe that my audience isintelligent enough to make great
decisions about anything,really if you have the right
(11:00):
numbers given to you, becauseyou can spin anything any which
way.
So I prefer just to give youthe numbers and look at the
numbers and uncover things thatthe spin doctors don't uncover.
So let's look at price cuts,for example.
Remember I said arizona at ahundred and eight thousand
dollars to afford amedium-priced home.
(11:22):
And these prices, by the waythe way are.
From April 2025, ie last monthPrices in real estate are almost
always last month.
So Arizona is number one forprice cuts.
Why are price cuts important?
Because when I say leadingindicator, it hasn't necessarily
affected the market yet.
(11:42):
So if you look at homes anumber of homes on the market
that's just supply and demand.
If there's a lot of homes onthe market generally, that's
going to put downward pressure.
Actually, it's not a lot ofhomes on the market, it's a lot
of homes on the market with lesspeople wanting homes than homes
that are on the market, homesthan homes that are on the
(12:05):
market, right?
So if you, if you go into thegrocery store and there's a
hundred of loaves of bread andonly 80 people want to buy a
loaf of bread and they're notbuying two loaves of bread, just
say that one before someonetexts me and says what, what if
everybody buys two loaves ofbread?
Then you've got a surplus of 20loaves of bread.
So you might have to put thestore special on those loaves of
bread.
Better, you'll see that andthings that go off more quickly,
(12:28):
right, because loaves of breadalways seem to sell.
But if you look at let's lookat a pork chop or chicken.
You know, if you've put out Idon't know 500 pieces of chicken
in your big grocery store andonly 300 pieces of this chicken
are bought, you're putting themon a manager special the next
day.
In other words, the price hasdecreased.
(12:49):
It's all about supply anddemand.
It's just that simple.
And you've only got so muchtime to sell that pork chop
before you don't get any moneyfor it, so it's almost better to
sell it you know, cost plus 10%rather than the 200% that it
normally is and make something,or at least not make a loss on
it.
Same thing with houses.
(13:09):
If you've got 200 houses in azip code and you've only got 100
buyers, you've got a surplus ofhomes.
So that tends to have an effecton price.
However, this takes a long timeto shake out, a long time.
Well, it could take a fewmonths and the market flattened
(13:30):
in almost every area in thecountry, the northeast being
only.
You know a few of the areaswhere this isn't happening quite
so quickly.
So here's what's happening in.
Let's talk about western northcarolina, for example.
We've had nearly nine months ofstraight price cuts.
Now price cuts in themselves.
(13:50):
We always have price cuts.
It's like foreclosures.
We always have foreclosures.
That's the other thing thatspin doctors do.
Oh my gosh, foreclosures are at5%.
Well, compared to what?
So if they're normally at 5%,then there's been no increase.
There's always someforeclosures.
There's always some people thattake on a mortgage, that then
(14:10):
get medical debt or some reasonwhy they can't afford it anymore
.
Maybe somebody in theneighborhood, in the household,
passes away, or they getdivorced or for whatever reason,
they can't afford the houseanymore.
There's always, alwaysforeclosures.
Same thing with unemployment.
There's always, alwaysforeclosures.
Same thing with unemployment.
Oh my gosh, the unemploymentrate is up to 4%.
Compared to what right?
(14:32):
So if it's usually running at4%, that is a normal rate
because there's always peoplethat are unemployed.
There's always that base ofpeople that maybe don't want a
job or they go in and out ofunemployment.
You know that might be 2% ofthat 4% and then there's just a
Natural flow of some people thatcan't get another job for a
(14:54):
while.
So there's always that baseline.
Let's talk about interest rates.
Interest rates are never zero.
So when they're 6%, andcompared to what right?
So that's where people spinthings, because they look at
what that is being compared to,or they don't look at it, they
(15:14):
just go oh my gosh, interestrates are 6%.
Well, when you peel back thelayer of the onion a little bit
or you start to explain thosethings, 6%, 6 to 7% is a normal
baseline interest rate.
Remember, it's never zero,right?
So we've never seen it in my,in my lifetime.
(15:35):
I don't think we've ever seenit lower than 2.75.
And that was crazy town becausethey were trying to boost it.
Well, all kinds of reasons forwhy the interest rate was so low
.
And now it's got us in a wholepickle because people won't
leave the homes although that'sstarting to happen now.
People won't leave the homesbecause they've got that great
interest rate.
But remember, you can buysomething else and then
(15:56):
refinance down the road.
Yes, that costs money, but it'snot a reason not to move out.
When you are, maybe your familyis increasing in size, maybe
your family is decreasing insize.
So the reason price cuts areimportant if you're selling your
home.
So we're talking about sellingyour home or buying your home.
(16:19):
In that instance of those kindof situations that we're talking
about If you are selling yourhome, I want you to really
closely look at the price cutsIf you are selling your home, I
want you to really closely lookat the price cuts.
So price cuts are looking atwhat percentage of price cuts
have changed right.
So normal price cuts, if youwant to look at it that way, is
(16:41):
about 15%.
So, in other words, of theactive listings of homes that
are listed on the MLS, then 10,15% of them have a price cut.
Arizona is 37%.
It's way out in front.
That means 37% of homes on themarket.
In some areas it's even higherthan that of Arizona.
Remember it's block to block,right.
(17:03):
Sometimes it's house to house,so it it's putting them all in a
pot and averaging them out.
But arizona is 37.
So 37 in 100 homes have a pricecut.
What that means is in in twomonths, three months, six months
, remember, a lot of those homesare obviously not selling.
(17:24):
That's why they're cutting theprices and there's always a
bedrock.
It's back to that bedrock againof 15, 20 percent of people
that are cutting their pricesright.
So there's always those pricecuts.
It's how much has it increased?
That's an indicator in how themarket is shifting, because
you've got home sellers that aregoing oh crap, we better get
our home sold because prices arestarting to come down.
(17:47):
It takes a while for them tocome down.
The problem is, guys, if youdon't get on it now, you're
going to be caught when finallythe alarm goes off and you
really start seeing pricescoming down and we call that
chasing down the market.
The worst case is and I go outon a lot of listing appointments
and we have a big network ofagents that are listing around
(18:10):
the country.
So we see a lot of this we goout and you say, yeah, I've got
this to do and that to do andthis little bit to improve, and
I don't know, I've got to get itcurb ready and I don't want to
be embarrassed of people comingin.
And it's not quite right.
If you are going to sell, getit out there now, right?
So in August, september,october, I think we're really
(18:33):
going to see it right beforewinter.
And then the winter noteverywhere, of course, you know,
in some places in the south.
In fact, you know the winter iswhen a lot of the house buying
goes on, not so much the middlestates and even california, most
of california and the eastcoast.
So we are in selling season now.
(18:55):
My prediction is that as wecome into winter it will get
worse, because winter, naturally, we don't sell as many houses,
right?
So on top of that, you've gotthis softening market.
That's been flat for threeyears and now it's really
softening.
Why in north carolina?
Because we are number 12.
We are number 12 at 24.2percent and locally in western
(19:17):
north carolina we've got somehigher figures than that.
That means one in four of everyhouses is experiencing a price
cut and and, quite frankly, ifyou're not cutting yours, cut it
now and sell it.
Don't go.
Well, we don't really need tosell, that's fine.
If you don't really need tosell, here's what I want you to
do Take it off the market andhave the mindset Good old
(19:41):
Clément Juglar, right, clémentJuglar, 1860, economic cycle 7
to 11 years.
I like to work on 10 becausethe math is easy and it's
Saturday morning and none of uswant to think that hard, right?
So think about 10 years.
Does that house work for youfor the next 10 years if it
(20:02):
doesn't get out now?
I went to see a family estateactually last week and I'm still
working on I've got a number ofcalls out and just examining
all of that.
So if you guys are listening,don't worry I'm working on it
Number of calls out to how toassess the value on it and I'm
trying to think how to saythings without giving things
(20:23):
away here.
The couple who own it are intheir 80s.
They've had the home for thehomes and all the land for 30
years and there's lots of stuff.
I mean all of us right thathave had homes for 30 years,
have lots of stuff.
And you know I said listen is Imean I can barely even say this
(20:44):
is going to work for you for 10years, because they'll be in
their 90s at that point.
The last thing they'll want todeal with is all this acreage
and clearing out three houses.
There's three houses on theproperty, so that means we've
got to get it on as soon aspossible.
So what would be?
And this is?
I want to come back to scriptsfor a minute, because all the
scripts in the world aren'tgoing to save you with this.
(21:06):
Real estate agents.
You have to do, you have tolike really work on your brain
and start with some common sense.
Take your real hat off and lookat what is happening with
people, because people are whatreal estate is all about.
What is going on with them, youknow, in your 80s.
Finally, the kids who aremid-50s are saying, saying we
(21:29):
don't want to be left with allthis stuff.
You know there's lots of peoplewith four bedroom, five bedroom
houses that have had them for13, 40 years, raised their kids
there.
Their kids have gone off there.
Now they live in san franciscowith their own kids and they're
in their 50s.
The last thing they want is forone day you're going to pass
away.
We're all going there, right?
We're all going to the pearlygates hopefully most of us going
(21:52):
to the pearly gates and and notthe ones with the big hot
flames and, um, we're all on theway there.
Do you want to leave yourfamily with all that mess?
Quite frankly, you don't wantto be living in it yourself.
All those stuff and things arenoise and they may have memories
attached to them.
But remember, the memories arein your heart.
(22:14):
Your memories are in your head.
Make a video, take pictures ofthe thing that you're holding on
to.
I moved over here from the UK29 years ago.
I'll be 30 years next year.
I can't believe that.
Back when I was one, of course,and I was raised by my
grandparents and my grandmotherused to collect those little.
(22:36):
I don't know if she used tocollect them.
We just didn't know what to buy, grandma, so we used to buy
those little glass-blown animals.
You all know what I'm talkingabout.
They're about an inch high andthey sell them at the fair.
They sell about.
They're about an inch high andthey sell them at the fair.
They sell them all over theplace, little knick-knack shops,
or at least they used to, andthey're little glass blown
animals and all kinds of animals.
So she used to collect thoseand because I'd given her most
(22:58):
of them, because I didn't knowwhat else to give my grandma,
she gave me the useful stuff she, she stuck a you know five.
Well, it wasn't five dollars,it was five pounds or ten pounds
in the card.
That was much more useful thanthe little glass animal, I'm
sure.
But I took those little glassanimals with me.
I also took her little cottagewear pots.
So a little tea pot, littlesugar pot Half of them were
(23:21):
mismatching because they'dbroken over the years.
Lots of them were shipped.
I shipped them over to the USA,usa.
I also shipped a bunch of myfurniture.
What a nightmare that was.
Don't do it, don't do it, ever.
Don't move furniture.
Sell your house with thefurniture in it.
Let let somebody else deal withthat.
Um, unless it's passed down byoh, let's talk about that one
(23:42):
passed down the generations.
So there you are.
This property was the same waythat I went to see this week.
Grandma's bedroom set, let'stalk about that for a minute.
Grandma, great-grandma, gaveyou usually your parents gave
you a bedroom set.
Your kids used that bedroom set.
(24:03):
They despised it, but it wasgrandma's right.
So you got in the bedroom.
It was a bit wonky and whenthey were little kids and they
jumped up and down on themattress, the headboard hit the
wall and bangers.
It was all a bit wonky andwasn't very solid.
And now you're saying to yourdaughter or your son come get
(24:24):
your bedroom set.
Are you ready for this?
They don't want it.
I know that's a big shocker.
All those antiques that are inyour house, they don't want them
.
It doesn't matter that nobodywants them.
I mean it does matter thatnobody wants them.
It doesn't mean that nobodywants them or that they don't
(24:46):
have value.
Right, they do have value andwe have a team of people all
across the country.
We call them SLPs.
We build a team of people thatwill come and value them for you
.
Sometimes they'll come andclear them out and sell them for
what they can.
It just depends on whetheryou've got high value items or
not.
Basically and here's the thingguys want I want you to listen.
(25:09):
If you're in your 40s and 50s,particularly you.
You've been schlepping thosethings around for 10, 20 years
already, 30 years already.
You're just going to schlepthem around for another 10 years
.
Stop schlepping them aroundlike early on.
Start getting rid of that stuff.
I, I've done it personally andobviously I am one of those
people that brought all thatstuff around.
(25:30):
It's just noise Half the time.
You've got I'm going to let allthe husbands roll their eyes
here Half the time.
You ladies particularly, have aclothes issue.
Actually, I know a guy verywell that has a clothes issue.
He's a clothes hoarder.
He's still got clothes from the80s.
Yes, the 80s, yes, the 80s.
That is 45 years.
(25:51):
I can't believe that's 45 yearsago.
I'm a child of the 80s, 45years ago.
You don't need those clothesanymore.
Um, you know there are a lot ofpeople that need those clothes.
Go and donate them or so.
If you've have, you got threesets of dishes.
You don't need three sets ofdishes.
(26:11):
So I'm talking to those of youthat aren't in the pickle right
now obviously not in the.
In the midst of all this mess,where you're finally up there in
your 80s and you've got allthis stuff to get rid of, it's
completely overwhelming, it'sover.
Have you ever been in thissituation with anything in your
house, even if you're renting oryou're moving around stuff,
(26:33):
like when you've moved?
You're like, oh my gosh, howdid I get all of that stuff?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
yeah, a lot of old furniture my and my parents
house.
They have my greatgrandmother's dining table wow
it's.
It's a pretty nice table, butit's an antique and we we're
scared to ever use it, basicallyso it just kind of sits there.
I mean, we do eat on itoccasionally, but it's like you
can't play board games becauseif you roll dice on it it could
(26:57):
scratch the table.
Yes so it's kind of like it's anice table, I guess.
But when it comes to thingslike that, it's kind of to me I
feel like I don't want to sayjust get rid of it, because
again there's history there yes,but what's the history?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
is the history remembering the grandparents
sitting around that table?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
yeah, I believe so.
I don't know if it's.
I think it's fairly a fairlylike nicer brand, but it's just
that compared to somethingthat's more durable it's just
not as practical.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yes, and the funny well, that's what we used.
It's just not as practical.
Yes, and the funny well, that'swhat we used to have for all
dining rooms.
Do they have the crockery aswell?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
The special plates and dishes.
It is probably somewhere in mygrandmother's attic.
It's not at my parents' house,though.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So it's again we're not using that crockery.
Now, if you do use it, thenthat's great.
Use it every day.
Don't not use it because itmight break.
Yeah.
What are you doing, Putting itin a cupboard behind that glass
door?
I mean, we don't even havethose antique cabinets anymore
because we don't have thecrockery that we're gazing at,
(28:01):
because we don't use it.
Yeah, the fine china that nevergets used.
Use the fine china.
I'm not saying get rid of itbecause it's fine china.
I'm saying use it.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You know, if it breaks, it breaks.
And, by the way, if you have abone china cup, you can turn
that bone china.
Don't sue me if this doesn'twork for you.
If you've got maybe a thriftstore one or something, turn,
I've done it actually and it,I've done it actually and it
worked.
Turn it upside down, stand onit, it will not break.
It's that strong.
Bone china is really reallystrong.
(28:32):
The cheap earthenware that webuy now often chips, often chips
Bone china does not.
Actually, I've got a mug I'vebeen using now that's bone china
.
I have these tall mugs thathave pictures of doggies or cows
or anyway.
That's my strangeness, and Iship them in for England and
(28:52):
they're ridiculously expensive.
I've only got my doggy one left, however.
I use it every day and I'veprobably had it 15 years at
least now.
I've dropped it numerous times.
It's bone china.
That's what you need.
Yeah, it's also thin on yourlips.
I like that on your on yourlips rather than a great big
(29:13):
thick cut for some unknownreason.
But that's my little foie gras.
We've all got them, haven't we?
So get rid of that stuff, youknow, especially if it's that
formal dining room stuff thatyou're not using.
But also I just went throughthis with um.
I bought a little place in inflorida and I realized that in
the house, in the house here Ihad, I don't know three sets of
plates that I wasn't using, so Idonated two sets of plates.
(29:36):
It felt so much better justclearing everything out the
cutlery actually I finally gotaround to I'd had the same old
cut.
Not there's anything wrong withthat.
Most people don't even noticecutlery.
I like nice heavy cutlery andit wasn't like a major
expenditure.
I think I spent 60 bucks orsomething on one set.
Of course, I liked it so much Ibought another set, but that's
part of the story.
(29:57):
Now I've got this beautifulcutlery that I absolutely love
and I don't.
Actually I took the other setdown to the Florida house, but
it's just a way of now I don'thave all right.
Do you know what I'm talkingabout when I say the cutlery
drawer?
Can you ever find anything inyour cutlery drawer?
No, what's in there?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
uh, a mixture of big spoons, knives, forks or mixed
up chopsticks.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
You know just a little bit of everything in
there ketchup, the littleketchup things yeah, uh, maybe a
couple in there.
We've got like a separatedrawer for all the all that, joe
taco bell hot sauce packets andall of that that you never,
ever use, correct?
No?
And you have no idea how manyyears it's been in there.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, there's not dates on those little soy sauce
packets or anything yes,interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
so we we, just many of us are hoarders.
We're just hoarders on thespectrum.
It's the hoarder.
Well, we need to develop this.
I'm gonna do a bold blog postabout this.
It's the hoarder spectrum andmost of us are at least at the
lower end of the spectrum.
Most of us have that junkdrawer.
And the worst thing, whenyou're moving and here's the
(31:06):
thing, guys even if you're notmoving I want you to think about
the fact you're surrounded bycrap in your house or some of
the things.
It's not crap, it's like, oh,this beautiful piece of
furniture or china that I neveruse.
Right, that you think you're.
You keep it in your homebecause you think, oh, my family
is going to use this one daybecause we were taught by our
(31:28):
parents that you don't get ridof anything, because they were
taught by their parents thatwent through the second world
war that they definitely didn't,didn't let anything go to waste
.
It's just been handed down.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
I think that must be why we have that junk drawer
with all those soy sauce oh yeah, when you're when somebody,
when your great-grandparents gothrough the Great Depression,
there's kind of like a differentmentality and mindset there.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
But it gets passed down.
And here's the wonderful thingabout getting rid of everything
in your cutlery drawer apartfrom one set of cutlery.
And people go, oh, but that'sonly six knives, I need more
than that.
How can you need more than that?
It just makes you wash them.
How can you need more than that?
It just makes you wash them.
And the really funny thing isyou know how you can't find the
(32:16):
can opener or you can't find theknife sharpener.
That's because it's crowded outby all the junk.
It's literally.
It's a metaphor for life.
You've got all this stuffeverywhere.
They say that the averageperson wears 10% or 5 to 10% of
their wardrobe.
It's crazy.
You know, I went on a littlehiatus down to Florida and I
(32:36):
took a car full of stuff and Ibet I didn't wear, but it was
only a car full of stuff.
It was nowhere near all of myclothes and shoes and all that
stuff.
I wear flip-flops every day.
I might wear one or two nicepair of sandals and one nice
pair of shoes.
I could literally have six pairof shoes.
Slash flip-flops and not evennotice all the other shoes I
(32:59):
have yeah, I usually rotatebetween like three, depending on
special occasions yes, and howmany pair do you have in
totality?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, I had more, but Helene kind of messed some of
that stuff up, which that's agood thing a little bit, because
I got rid of that junk drawer Idon't have that anymore so, you
know, got rid of some of therandom crap that I never used so
got to look at the positiveside of things, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh my gosh, I love hearing you say that I had a
junk drawer full of jewelry andnot expensive jewelry, except it
might be one stud where I lostthe other diamond stud.
I don't buy diamonds anymore.
It's just not worth it because,especially studs, you lose them
.
Any lady with studs or guy withstuds knows what I'm talking
about.
Even when they've gotscrewbacks, they unscrew
(33:46):
eventually and you lose one, andthat's not fun.
Backs they unscrew eventuallyand you lose one, and that's not
fun.
And but most of the things, 99%of the things in that drawer was
jewelry from 10 years ago.
You know that big, chunky stuffor beautiful pieces that I just
never wear.
And this drawer has been theresince I've moved into this house
, which is I don't know five orsix years now, which doesn't
(34:07):
sound very long, but that thatdrawer has been.
All the stuff in that drawer isjust carted around with me and
it's all tangled up and it's abig old mess.
You know, you'll know what I'mtalking about.
You've all got one, along withthe soy sauce and junk drawer.
So forget moving.
It's worth get it.
You know we're in springcleaning season.
Get rid of it now.
It really does feel really good, even if you do one drawer at a
(34:30):
time.
Let's talk about your nighttables.
You know your nightstands nextto the bed, the drawer that's in
there.
Do you have a nightstand with adrawer?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Oh yeah, and every random thing that I don't know
what to do with goes right inthat drawer.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's the thing, the things we don't know what to do
with.
Can you give me any examples?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
lip salve yeah, like there's some chapstick in there.
There's like uh, I don't knowlike old mail that I'm like I
should probably keep this billfrom like a couple months ago,
but you know I I don't haveanywhere else to put it right
now.
So yeah yeah, it just goes inthe drawer.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Elastic band, oh yeah , yeah, I have some hair bands
and stuff in there yep, a screwfor out of a shelving unit that
you're like oh, I've got to getthat screw back in and it's
sitting in the drawer now youdon't remember which the extra
screw for the drawer that it'sin.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
yeah, paper clips, oh , yeah, yeah, yeah.
A pen that doesn't, a pen thatdoesn't work, a pen that doesn't
work, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Or the dog is chewed in his brain or something.
So the Florida one was it's justgosh, we just cannot get rid of
this stuff.
The guy had passed away, not inthe unit but sometime before,
and he had all these notepadswith nothing on them, just clean
(35:51):
notepads.
I think he was probably amedical rep or something and,
you know, had all those notepadsand the six of them.
How do you throw a notepad away?
So in the bedside table there'ssix notepads.
I never use them, but I think,oh, I might wake up in the
middle of the night.
I might want to, you know,offload that thing that's
keeping me awake and write anote on it.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, it's your dream journal, you know.
Yes, Got to keep track of that,yes.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
And then there's all the.
So we also left six note things.
You know those magnetic thingsyou put on the fridge to do a
shopping list.
How can you throw those away?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Oh yeah, they're so useful kind of.
I mean for me like havingsomething like visual to keep
track of things is nice if youalready have one or something on
the fridge.
I don't think you need muchmore than that.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
But how can I throw them away?
I mean, what I'm gonna do?
donate them you know and there'sit's, you hit the nail on the
head.
Actually, it's all the stuffthat you don't know what to do
with.
That bucket is the worst one togo through and I just went
through this again after only afew months moving everything out
, renting that place down there.
I had to move everything outand I'm like what do I do with
(37:00):
this?
And it was this time it's onlya bucket full, but it's still a
bucket full and it's so painful.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
And many of you have whole houses full instead of a
bucket full.
My grandmother had a uh had abucket that just had a bunch of
pine cones in it from like 10years, like a decade or more ago
and she just didn't want tothrow them away because she like
had memories of them orsomething but they were just
taking up space and we're likeit's just a bunch of pine cones.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I wonder if she used them on the?
So I used to collect oh dear,I'm your grandma I used to
collect pine cones to use on theChristmas tree, oh yeah, so I'd
just like tie them on orsomething.
It makes them look real.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah, she would do some like little DIY projects,
but she hasn't done those inyears 19 years, yeah, and
doesn't have any plans to dothem, and also there's just
plenty of pine trees around thearea.
If she needs pine cones, Icould go out and grab some for
her.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
That's the other thing, and it really does feel
good.
Do a draw at a time and thething is about doing the
nightstand or any of those drawsis you don't know what to do
with it.
Socks, let's talk about socks.
How many socks do you think youhave?
Oh, a lot if you had toestimate pairs of socks, how
(38:16):
many do you think you have?
Speaker 3 (38:18):
30, but I mean, it's like those aren't all pairs.
A lot of those are singles.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Okay, so now we're gonna have all the excuses.
We've got to defend our sockdrawer right.
So they're not all pairs andwhy do you keep hold of the
single socks?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
because when I run out of pairs, I'll still use
that single sock that doesn'tmatch I thought you were gonna
say because the friend will showup one day.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It's the funniest thing with socks.
I used to have a ziploc bag forthe mismatched socks and I'd
put them in it and then everymonth or so I'd tip them all out
on the bed and try where didthe socks go?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
they just go somewhere, I know and then they
just appear back in the dryer.
You do laundry and then you'relike oh yes, it was trapped in a
different dimension in thedryer, so I guess do you know
when it gets trapped?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
um, do you know?
Do you know when?
Um, so okay, so you find thattrap one eventually.
You find it when you've thrownthat bag of mismatching ones
away after six months.
Yeah, yeah, I just found amismatching sock actually.
So I have a new puppy calledPenny.
Sophie's not sure about Pennyyet.
(39:24):
She's the size of a flip-flop,she's a mini Dachshund and she's
Dalmatian colored.
She's very cute and she wenttalking about a nightstand.
She went under my giantnightstand it's not easy to move
out and, um, she found a sockthat had fallen down the back.
How much can you guarantee?
I've already thrown the otherone away and the truth is you
(39:46):
really don't.
I mean, you know, maybe you,maybe you work um out in the
field or something and you'rechanging your socks twice a day.
I don't.
I mean, you know, maybe youwork out in the field or
something and you're changingyour socks twice a day.
I don't know.
But you don't need more thanseven pair of socks.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Maybe 14 pair of socks you don't need 30 pair of
socks, Depending on when you doyour laundry.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I think is what it comes down to, True true, but
how is that if you have to go tothe laundry or something and
you don't have a laundrydownstairs?
Yeah, I would the laundry orsomething and you don't have a
laundry downstairs, or yeah, Iwould probably have more more
socks and underwear at thatpoint well, true that's, if you
had to, if you didn't have alaundry in your house, which not
everybody has a laundry in thehouse.
Most of us have a laundry in thehouse um, probably 95 of the
(40:23):
population to have the laundryin the house.
You can do laundry and then youdon't have stinky socks and
stinky everything sitting in adrawer.
You can only imagine the thingsthat are growing on that
disgusting laundry and you don'tget around to it because,
whatever you know, you've got 19more pair, which is probably
when my only point is you'd beamazed at how much more drawer
(40:46):
space you've got, how much spaceyou have, how much more draw
space you've got, how much spaceyou have.
And when you have space, youdon't have all this noise that's
surrounding yourself all thetime.
That also is in your brain.
It's just like brain noisewhere it's like, oh, I've got to
sort my socks out, oh, if.
But the worst thing is youcan't find the knife sharpener
or you can't find the tin openeror you can't find the whatever,
because it's in, it's mixed upin all this junk that you never
(41:08):
use yeah, I think that's theworst part just not being able
to find what you actually needyes.
So forget moving, just clean itup anyway, listen, I'm talking
to myself as well.
I've got a whole um when, whenI left for a little bit here
over the winter, I've got awhole closet still.
I cleaned out my entire house.
It felt very, very good and itwas very, very stressful, and
I'm so glad I did it.
(41:28):
And this is only after fiveyears, right, so I've still got
an entire, an old-fashionedcloset, so not a big giant one,
but an old-fashioned clientcloset jam-packed of things.
I have no idea what's in thereclothes, um, all the stuff I
didn't know what to do with.
Basically a lot of clothes Ihaven't missed.
I haven't for once thought Iwonder where that xyz piece of
(41:49):
clothing is.
I just haven't a lot of.
It is sparkly things that youwear at christmas.
Uh, ladies, gents, you need onesparkly item, maybe two.
You don't need 16 sparkly items.
You're never going to wear themagain.
Those are one-offs.
Go donate them.
They're not even going to be instyle, never mind all the shoes
.
And then, guess what, when youfinally get around to moving,
(42:13):
it's not going to be as painful,but your day-to-day life just
gets so much better.
We all know it.
It's just painful going throughit.
It's just super painful goingthrough it.
So let's talk about I cannotbelieve is it really 10, 48
already?
How the time flies, oh, mygoodness.
So, uh, yeah, a few minutesleft.
Let's hope this isn't our lastshow.
(42:35):
If you just tuned in, thestation is making cuts to save
money and our live saturday showis moving to recorded.
Only we don't know what day oror anything else yet, and, um,
maybe you can help us out withthat and call into the show or
drop me a message.
I would love to know.
I've been doing this for 13years.
(42:55):
We don't know what day we'regoing on or anything else
because of the cuts, which isvery sad.
However, the good news is I'vebeen doing a podcast for oh, I
don't know eight years nowrealestatenewsradiocom I don't
know, eight years now.
Realestatenewsradiocomrealestatenewsradiocom.
Join me on the podcast and thenI won't have to do any radio
(43:17):
show at all, because you canlisten on the podcast at your
convenience and look at thetopics you want and there's a
lot of topics on there that Ihaven't necessarily talked about
in the show and you don't haveto listen to me jibber on for an
hour.
You can do my little five.
Sometimes I do two minutes onthere where I'm just updating
you on something that's going onin real estate all the world.
(43:37):
You know I don't just talkabout real estate right, because
it's all tied in.
Let's have a quick run throughour niches and we're going to do
a whole show on this.
And people say to real estateagents you know, focus on
something, focus on one niche.
And the truth is that theseniches cover 99% of why we move
(43:58):
or why we do anything in realestate, and it allows real
estate agents to focus.
So, instead of all the stuffyou're trained to do, like door
knocking or sending out mailersor calling expired or any of
that stuff, senior Living is awonderful one SeniorLivingCPOcom
.
If you have parents orgrandparents that are thinking
(44:20):
about senior living anywhere inthe country, we're in hundreds
of them now all around thecountry.
We have agents doing this andwhat we do.
We have what are called slpssenior life partners and we have
senior living cpo experts.
We're about to launch it here,by the way.
I don't know why I launched iteverywhere in the country and
then waited to do it here.
(44:41):
If you know any agents, um,that are amazing at this, maybe
they were ex-nurses or they'vejust got a heart and they like
working with seniors.
It's a wonderful thing to do.
We make a list of 20 plussenior living communities and we
go visit with them and we tellthem about this program that we
have to unlock the majority ofequity in the seniors home.
(45:03):
So seniors go on a wait list onalmost every.
Every decent community has gota wait list and then you get the
call and then, oh my gosh, it's.
It's usually you've got to sellthe house to be able to get in.
87 percent of the time you'vegot to sell the house and your
house is full of stuffeverything we've been talking
about.
So you've got all this stuff.
You, you may.
Your average age is 84.
(45:24):
It's usually a trigger event,like breaking a hip or something
like that, that takes you in.
And then your kids are coming.
Your kids who are in their 60sor 70s are coming in and saying
listen, we can't.
You know we want to help, butwe've got our own jobs, our own
lives.
It's really that time when youneed a little bit more help.
And some of these places arelike cruise ships.
Guys, go look at them.
You know what I'm talking aboutif you've been to see them.
(45:46):
You know what I'm talking aboutif you've been to see them.
The problem is we've gotsomething that can unlock your
money in 14 days.
You move in, we go in and we doHGTV magic.
And then you get a second check.
Two thirds of our sellers makemore than with a conventional
listing with no sign outside, nolockbox on the door, no pesky
realtors coming in and out, nolittle dog behind your couch
(46:11):
that's peeing on the carpet thatyou haven't noticed for a while
.
You might have an avocadofridge.
You might have a formicacountertop.
Who knows?
It may be just that you haven'tmaintained your home for the
last year or so because you gotup there, or maybe you lost your
spouse god forbid.
It's another trigger event.
Only one in eight of thesepeople moving into senior living
are men.
Often couples are moving intowhat we call independent living.
(46:35):
Now it works for that as well.
It's just a wonderful program.
The reason I think it'swonderful is because investors
for many years have been I'm notgoing to say stealing, because
it's not stealing, it's just abusiness model.
There's lots of companies outthere that will buy your home at
50, 60 cents on the dollar.
Ours is 90 to $1.20 on thedollar because we improve the
(46:59):
home, you get the majority ofequity that allows you to move
into the senior living or make anon-contingent offer on your
next home.
Make a non-contingent offer onyour next home, whatever it is.
We're always solving problems.
We've started to unlock builderCPO now.
So a lot of builders around thecountry one in every five
contracts they're cancellingbecause the person can't sell
(47:21):
the house.
We know about this because ofthe number of homes that are
coming on the market.
Plus, how do you know when tosell your house when you're
building a house?
What a nightmare.
With our program, you canliterally wait until you're two
weeks out from the co.
So we go and meet with.
We make a list of 20 buildersand we go and meet with builders
(47:43):
and we tell them what we'redoing.
Most of us have got hundreds ofpeople on our database that are
always asking which, but I'vegot 60,000 people online and
often I get the question youknow which local builder do I
work with?
So meeting local builders is awonderful thing just for that.
And also we have this programwhere two weeks out from getting
(48:05):
your CO, your certificate ofoccupancy, you know that you can
hit that deadline 99% of thetime, six months earlier or a
year earlier when you startbuilding the house.
Hitting that deadline to theabsolute day is rare, I hate to
say it.
Port closures, staffing issues,someone has a baby, whatever it
(48:26):
is, you know it's very, veryhard to hit that timeline.
So there's your issue with thatone.
With ours you can wait until twoweeks out before the CO press
that easy button, get themajority of your equity moving
to your new home.
We can go into your previoushome and people go.
(48:48):
Well, we only bought it fiveyears ago and it was new.
There's nothing wrong with it.
The average inspection report,guys, has 40 to 50 items on it.
The average repair request inthis country is 3%.
So if your home, you sell it at$500,000, that's $15,000.
That's not an overestimation ofa repair request at all.
(49:11):
It takes all that away.
A third of them drop out most.
I have a whole network ofrealtors.
This is where the script thingum, I have a bit of a problem
with.
Just tell the truth.
Agents don't talk about thefact that over a third of
contracts fall out.
That's's not good.
And if you have your homelisted now locally or anywhere
(49:31):
in the country that you'relisting, go ahead and, at the
very least, get the inspection.
I don't know why more agentsdon't talk to you about this.
I've got over 1,100 now aroundthe country that do, because
they understand how powerful itis.
Certified pre-owned cars, cpocars people buy them all the
time.
Every dealership has themcarvana, carmax, that's a cpo
(49:54):
play.
That is where they've done theinspection 156 point inspection.
They are offering a cardealership warranty, which means
you're not buying a lemon.
People pay six percent more forthe car.
So why the heck are we takinghalf a million dollar houses,
throwing them on the market andhoping for the best?
It makes no sense, guys.
It makes no sense.
I've been talking to you live onthe radio.
(50:16):
I know that's going away soonhere, unless you call in um, get
me on the podcast.
It's all good.
More of you are listening tothe podcast now than listening
to the live show.
Maybe it's just the way radiois going, who knows?
But realestatenewsradiocom.
Realestatenewsradiocom.
This is Rowena Patton on theReal Estate News Radio Show Live
(50:38):
on air today.
If you are listening to it onthe podcast, obviously I'm not
live.
I'm on the podcast, and soonI'll be just on the podcast,
which is awesome because you'llbe able to get all that extra
information too, which is reallycool.
Just know well, I think it'sreally cool, but I might be
biased.
Just know that a third of thecontracts fall out.
(50:59):
That means, if you are listedright now and you have a 30%
likelihood, now are you saying,oh, because here's what happens.
You say, well, my house isgreat, that's not going to
happen to my house.
Or what?
Are you not a good listingagent?
That's what you're going to say?
Right, I know because I'veheard over 3,500 transactions.
(51:21):
I've heard it all.
You have no control over whatthe buyers are doing.
You don't know how nervous thebuyers are.
Remember, the market flattenedtwo to three years ago,
depending on where we're in thecountry.
Even the Northeast, most of theNortheast, has flattened.
Now it's just behind the curveand a lot of places say, oh,
we're special here.
We say that in Asheville,actually, we're special here.
(51:42):
That's not going to happen tous, guys, we went down over 30%
last time in Asheville.
32% was the average.
Prices went down.
Now I'm not going to say that'shappening this time, although
we are down about 19% in SouthFlorida.
Now South Florida and Texastend to be the canaries in the
(52:03):
coal mine and we just choose notto listen every time.
It's amazing to me.
So if you're listed and youhaven't done the pre-inspection,
so what are you going to saynext to that?
You're going to say, well, Idon't want to fix anything,
that's okay, you don't have tofix anything.
You do not have to fix anything.
Why?
Because we disclose it.
Well, people aren't going towant a house if we disclose
(52:25):
things that are wrong with it.
You've got things wrong with itanyway.
You just don't know about it.
Aren't they gonna run if, if wetell them there's something
wrong with it?
No, when we get an offer inevery single time I barely do
conventional listings nowthey're certified pre-owned, not
the cash offer.
They're certified pre-owned,although you can choose the cash
offer.
It's just a different choice.
I like to give you lots ofchoices and you make the
(52:47):
intelligent decision.
When an offer comes in, I say tothe buyer's agent let me give
you the inspection that we'vealready done before we go into
contract.
I've had one pull out in 17, 18, 19 years, now One, because
everybody goes in eyes wide open, the trust is developed and it
(53:10):
doesn't matter and we say listen.
We took the price of the houseinto account when we did the
inspection, so please don't comeback with this 3%.
It drops it to half a percent.
Guys, the difference between2.5% on a $500,000 house.
Think about that for a minute.
It only costs $500 to have aninspection.
Go have it done.
Love you all.
(53:31):
I hope this isn't our last liveshow.
Realestatenewsradiocom.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Come join me on the podcast this has been the plain
english real estate show withrowena patton.
Visit rowena and post yourquestions at radioashvillecom or
call her at 828-210-1648.
This is the Plain English Real Estate Show with
your host, rowena Patton, a showthat focuses on the real estate
market in terms you can easilyunderstand.
Call Rowena now.
The number is 240-9962 or1-800-570-9962.
Now here's the English girl inthe mountains, the agent that I
(00:21):
would trust, rowena Patton.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Good morning and welcome to the show.
It's Rowena Patton on the RealEstate News Radio Show and we're
live in Asheville, northCarolina, on this warm, rainy
Saturday morning.
It's awesome and I want to giveyou a little update.
So, after 13 amazing years ofbeing live every Saturday, the
(00:46):
station is making cuts to savemoney and trying to shift us to
a pre-recorded show.
You may know, because I'verecorded shows before.
You know, sometimes it's been13 years of this guys every
single Saturday morning.
So I have to do somethingsometimes or do reruns sometimes
.
However, pre-recorded shows,they just kind of lack that same
(01:06):
life and you can't call in.
Um, we don't get as many callin these days on radio shows,
but, oh my gosh, you guys usedto call in all the time.
And, by the way, you may callin today.
If you're not listening to thison the podcast, you can call in
at 828-240-9962.
And if you're listening on Mars, 1-800-570-9962.
(01:28):
And tell us what you thinkabout the show being recorded
Now.
The good news is that noworries at all.
And, oh gosh, big shout out toRandy Houston who produced the
show for so many of those years.
He's been a huge part of thisjourney.
But no worries, you can stillget your real estate news fix
(01:48):
anywhere in the country atrealestatenewsradiocom.
Come join me on the podcast,realestatenewsradiocom, because
we don't know how long we'll belive on the air here on a
Saturday morning, so I'd love tohear what you think about that.
Realestatenewsradiocom, you canlisten in on the podcast.
All of these shows are podcastsand I will be doing the show on
(02:09):
the podcast going forward, notlive, because if I'm going to
have to record it, I may as welljust do the podcast right, kind
of makes more sense, and thenyou can listen on your schedule.
Same show, same insights.
Hey, let's move with the times,guys.
And if you'd rather keephearing us live on Saturdays,
like we've done for the last 13years unlucky, unlucky for some
(02:30):
of you I'd love to know.
Just drop me a message or giveus a call 828-240-9962.
Would love your thoughts onthat.
If you found the show useful forall of these years I know that
some of you have because I goout and list your houses You're
like, oh, I've been listening toyou for so many years and I
wouldn't go anywhere else.
It's so great, becausesometimes it's like I've been
(02:53):
listening to you for 10 yearsand now I'm listing my home with
you, and last week I had a ladycall in from Denver who listens
to me on the night shiftbecause all these shows are
podcast.
There's also on realest newsradiocom.
There's a big button that sayspodcast and there's lots more
(03:13):
material goes on there than the50 minutes that I get to do on
the radio every week, so you canlisten to a whole bunch there
more so, a whole bunch morethere.
Even oh, you won't be listeningto me if I can't use my english
correctly, right?
So what are we going to talkabout today?
We're going to talk about howwe solve problems for people.
We're doing this all over thecountry now.
But I want to start with acouple of facts and figures.
(03:36):
I'm hearing a lot of realestate agents training a lot of
real estate agents on scripts.
Nothing wrong with scripts whenyou first start in real estate.
On scripts, nothing wrong withscripts when you first start in
real estate, like anything else,you need some basis.
Like when I started in radio 13years ago, I needed like an
outline of segments and how thatworks.
You know, I didn't.
I'd never done radio before.
(03:58):
I wish you could listen to myold shows, but I heart made cuts
in that as well and chopped allthe old shows away, which is
why I do the podcast for thelast many years now, actually,
so that I've got all of my owncontent.
The early shows were reallyfunny.
You could hear my voicewobbling and I'd spend all day,
thursday and Friday, preparingfor the show and having about 14
(04:20):
pages that I read from.
It was a very different show inthese days, in those days, oh my
gosh.
So let's have a look at somenumbers.
You know I run a nationalprogram so I like to look at it
everywhere, but always, ofcourse, I've got a sweet spot in
North Carolina, where I'm attoday.
So this is the income you needto buy a house in these states.
(04:45):
In North Carolina it's nearly$86,000.
So $86,000 is household income,but often a household is one
person and $86,000 is probablywell, I know it's significantly
higher than the averagehousehold income.
That means that most peoplecan't afford a house.
Isn't that crazy to think aboutit that way?
(05:07):
But wait till you hear this oneguys.
What do you think it is?
In California?
I should start giving awaytrivia prices again.
It's really interesting.
$205,000.
Now, of course, that is, youknow, spread out over the
country, right so?
Or over the state, should I say, excuse me?
(05:28):
So you've got those very highpriced areas and I can dig into
every single zip code in thecountry with 30 different data
points with these, but theaverage across California.
Now, some parts of Californiaobviously are bringing that
price down.
So imagine, if you looked inthe really high prices, what
that income would be $205,000.
(05:50):
I wonder what percentage ofCalifornia earns $205,000.
Crazy town, right.
So Georgia is 87.
It's actually a little bit morethan us.
That surprised me a little bit.
Florida is $101,000.
It's just, it's amazing.
I think of my server friendsyou know that are, maybe, with
(06:13):
tips and everything else,pulling 40 or 50, that's half of
the income needed towards amedium priced house.
What do you do?
You rent, I guess.
South Carolina is $10,000 lessthan North Carolina, so we're at
about $86,000.
That's household income toafford to buy a home.
Give us a call, guys.
(06:33):
Tell us where you're at andI'll read yours out.
Obviously I'm not going to.
I'd be here all morning,literally, if I were reading all
these out.
But give us a call,828-240-9962, tell us where
you're at or where you used tobe and I'll read out that one
for you.
Let's see if I can.
Montana 119 000 that's a bit ofa shocker, isn't it?
Washington 160 000, like.
(06:57):
Where are all these incomes?
coming from um.
Now, if you want, let's go theother end of the spectrum, if
you want to go and livesomewhere inexpensive.
And most of these states arehovering around the 85 000.
So north carolina is 86, texasis 87 000.
South carolina is 75 000, alittle bit less.
(07:18):
George is 87 000.
So you know, around the same,no surprises, I guess.
Mississippi 48 000.
So you know, around the same,no surprises, I guess.
Mississippi 48,000.
So you know, and you couldargue well, mississippi has
lower incomes.
I'm not sure whether it does ornot, certainly would have lower
incomes than California, forexample.
Louisiana 52,000.
Texas is 87, which is what youknow.
(07:41):
Many of us are hovering around,which is what many of us are
hovering around.
Kentucky is only 58,000.
Missouri 68,000.
So not too far behind us overthere.
Kansas 66,000.
Nebraska 76,000.
North Dakota 74,000.
Montana was a big shocker to me119,000.
(08:03):
Washington 160,000.
Oregon 139,000.
Washington 160,000.
Oregon 132,000.
Oh my gosh guys, utah is135,000.
That was really shocking.
So yeah, so you can tell whenyou look at household incomes in
an area why a lot of people aremoving to West Virginia when
it's $42,000.
(08:25):
So get a decent job in Virginiaand you know you can double up
on that, but it's probably notthat hard to earn $42,000.
You could wait tables and dothat and be able to afford a
house.
Kentucky is $58,000.
Alabama is $57,000.
I think we did that one already.
I'm trying to find anotherinexpensive one.
There aren't too many left, youguys.
(08:45):
Iowa 63,000.
That's pretty good.
I mean, there's 20,000 less insalary than we are in North
Carolina.
Tennessee is 83,000.
When did that happen?
Kentucky's 59,000.
I think that's the main onescovered.
I'm not finding any that aretoo much less than that.
(09:07):
Arizona 108,000.
Well, let's talk about Arizonanow 108,416, but 108 grand.
Basically You've got to earn toown the median priced house.
I mean that's early management.
What does everybody else do?
So price cuts?
(09:27):
I've been talking about this alot this week.
I've seen a lot of real estateagents training other agents on
scripts.
So, like I said, scripts aregreat.
You know, when I started inradio, I needed some scripts for
that.
When I started in real estate,I needed some scripts for that.
Very quickly I realized thatwhat we really need are numbers.
(09:47):
We need to be able to tell youwhat's going on in the market in
a truthful way.
Now obviously you've heard mesay this many times before.
When we're talking about estate.
Real estate is almost house tohouse.
People say block to block.
It's barely even block to block.
Things change very quickly.
Like even a zip code, it's hardto measure numbers on.
(10:10):
So of course I'm broad brushingthis when I'm looking at states
.
Otherwise we could do a wholeshow on North Carolina and just
cover Western North Carolina.
So price cuts are really,really important.
Why?
Because it's a leadingindicator of what's happening in
the market.
For some reason, a lot of, evenfamous agents out there around
(10:36):
the country when I say famous,you'll know the celebrity real
estate agents, the ones that areon TV, all that good stuff Many
of them are saying it's thebest time to buy a house.
Well, you can spin anything anywhich way.
I believe that my audience isintelligent enough to make great
decisions about anything,really if you have the right
(11:00):
numbers given to you, becauseyou can spin anything any which
way.
So I prefer just to give youthe numbers and look at the
numbers and uncover things thatthe spin doctors don't uncover.
So let's look at price cuts,for example.
Remember I said arizona at ahundred and eight thousand
dollars to afford amedium-priced home.
(11:22):
And these prices, by the waythe way are.
From April 2025, ie last monthPrices in real estate are almost
always last month.
So Arizona is number one forprice cuts.
Why are price cuts important?
Because when I say leadingindicator, it hasn't necessarily
affected the market yet.
(11:42):
So if you look at homes anumber of homes on the market
that's just supply and demand.
If there's a lot of homes onthe market generally, that's
going to put downward pressure.
Actually, it's not a lot ofhomes on the market, it's a lot
of homes on the market with lesspeople wanting homes than homes
that are on the market, homesthan homes that are on the
(12:05):
market, right?
So if you, if you go into thegrocery store and there's a
hundred of loaves of bread andonly 80 people want to buy a
loaf of bread and they're notbuying two loaves of bread, just
say that one before someonetexts me and says what, what if
everybody buys two loaves ofbread?
Then you've got a surplus of 20loaves of bread.
So you might have to put thestore special on those loaves of
bread.
Better, you'll see that andthings that go off more quickly,
(12:28):
right, because loaves of breadalways seem to sell.
But if you look at let's lookat a pork chop or chicken.
You know, if you've put out Idon't know 500 pieces of chicken
in your big grocery store andonly 300 pieces of this chicken
are bought, you're putting themon a manager special the next
day.
In other words, the price hasdecreased.
(12:49):
It's all about supply anddemand.
It's just that simple.
And you've only got so muchtime to sell that pork chop
before you don't get any moneyfor it, so it's almost better to
sell it you know, cost plus 10%rather than the 200% that it
normally is and make something,or at least not make a loss on
it.
Same thing with houses.
(13:09):
If you've got 200 houses in azip code and you've only got 100
buyers, you've got a surplus ofhomes.
So that tends to have an effecton price.
However, this takes a long timeto shake out, a long time.
Well, it could take a fewmonths and the market flattened
(13:30):
in almost every area in thecountry, the northeast being
only.
You know a few of the areaswhere this isn't happening quite
so quickly.
So here's what's happening in.
Let's talk about western northcarolina, for example.
We've had nearly nine months ofstraight price cuts.
Now price cuts in themselves.
(13:50):
We always have price cuts.
It's like foreclosures.
We always have foreclosures.
That's the other thing thatspin doctors do.
Oh my gosh, foreclosures are at5%.
Well, compared to what?
So if they're normally at 5%,then there's been no increase.
There's always someforeclosures.
There's always some people thattake on a mortgage, that then
(14:10):
get medical debt or some reasonwhy they can't afford it anymore
.
Maybe somebody in theneighborhood, in the household,
passes away, or they getdivorced or for whatever reason,
they can't afford the houseanymore.
There's always, alwaysforeclosures.
Same thing with unemployment.
There's always, alwaysforeclosures.
Same thing with unemployment.
Oh my gosh, the unemploymentrate is up to 4%.
Compared to what right?
(14:32):
So if it's usually running at4%, that is a normal rate
because there's always peoplethat are unemployed.
There's always that base ofpeople that maybe don't want a
job or they go in and out ofunemployment.
You know that might be 2% ofthat 4% and then there's just a
Natural flow of some people thatcan't get another job for a
(14:54):
while.
So there's always that baseline.
Let's talk about interest rates.
Interest rates are never zero.
So when they're 6%, andcompared to what right?
So that's where people spinthings, because they look at
what that is being compared to,or they don't look at it, they
(15:14):
just go oh my gosh, interestrates are 6%.
Well, when you peel back thelayer of the onion a little bit
or you start to explain thosethings, 6%, 6 to 7% is a normal
baseline interest rate.
Remember, it's never zero,right?
So we've never seen it in my,in my lifetime.
(15:35):
I don't think we've ever seenit lower than 2.75.
And that was crazy town becausethey were trying to boost it.
Well, all kinds of reasons forwhy the interest rate was so low
.
And now it's got us in a wholepickle because people won't
leave the homes although that'sstarting to happen now.
People won't leave the homesbecause they've got that great
interest rate.
But remember, you can buysomething else and then
(15:56):
refinance down the road.
Yes, that costs money, but it'snot a reason not to move out.
When you are, maybe your familyis increasing in size, maybe
your family is decreasing insize.
So the reason price cuts areimportant if you're selling your
home.
So we're talking about sellingyour home or buying your home.
(16:19):
In that instance of those kindof situations that we're talking
about If you are selling yourhome, I want you to really
closely look at the price cutsIf you are selling your home, I
want you to really closely lookat the price cuts.
So price cuts are looking atwhat percentage of price cuts
have changed right.
So normal price cuts, if youwant to look at it that way, is
(16:41):
about 15%.
So, in other words, of theactive listings of homes that
are listed on the MLS, then 10,15% of them have a price cut.
Arizona is 37%.
It's way out in front.
That means 37% of homes on themarket.
In some areas it's even higherthan that of Arizona.
Remember it's block to block,right.
(17:03):
Sometimes it's house to house,so it it's putting them all in a
pot and averaging them out.
But arizona is 37.
So 37 in 100 homes have a pricecut.
What that means is in in twomonths, three months, six months
, remember, a lot of those homesare obviously not selling.
(17:24):
That's why they're cutting theprices and there's always a
bedrock.
It's back to that bedrock againof 15, 20 percent of people
that are cutting their pricesright.
So there's always those pricecuts.
It's how much has it increased?
That's an indicator in how themarket is shifting, because
you've got home sellers that aregoing oh crap, we better get
our home sold because prices arestarting to come down.
(17:47):
It takes a while for them tocome down.
The problem is, guys, if youdon't get on it now, you're
going to be caught when finallythe alarm goes off and you
really start seeing pricescoming down and we call that
chasing down the market.
The worst case is and I go outon a lot of listing appointments
and we have a big network ofagents that are listing around
(18:10):
the country.
So we see a lot of this we goout and you say, yeah, I've got
this to do and that to do andthis little bit to improve, and
I don't know, I've got to get itcurb ready and I don't want to
be embarrassed of people comingin.
And it's not quite right.
If you are going to sell, getit out there now, right?
So in August, september,october, I think we're really
(18:33):
going to see it right beforewinter.
And then the winter noteverywhere, of course, you know,
in some places in the south.
In fact, you know the winter iswhen a lot of the house buying
goes on, not so much the middlestates and even california, most
of california and the eastcoast.
So we are in selling season now.
(18:55):
My prediction is that as wecome into winter it will get
worse, because winter, naturally, we don't sell as many houses,
right?
So on top of that, you've gotthis softening market.
That's been flat for threeyears and now it's really
softening.
Why in north carolina?
Because we are number 12.
We are number 12 at 24.2percent and locally in western
(19:17):
north carolina we've got somehigher figures than that.
That means one in four of everyhouses is experiencing a price
cut and and, quite frankly, ifyou're not cutting yours, cut it
now and sell it.
Don't go.
Well, we don't really need tosell, that's fine.
If you don't really need tosell, here's what I want you to
do Take it off the market andhave the mindset Good old
(19:41):
Clément Juglar, right, clémentJuglar, 1860, economic cycle 7
to 11 years.
I like to work on 10 becausethe math is easy and it's
Saturday morning and none of uswant to think that hard, right?
So think about 10 years.
Does that house work for youfor the next 10 years if it
(20:02):
doesn't get out now?
I went to see a family estateactually last week and I'm still
working on I've got a number ofcalls out and just examining
all of that.
So if you guys are listening,don't worry I'm working on it
Number of calls out to how toassess the value on it and I'm
trying to think how to saythings without giving things
(20:23):
away here.
The couple who own it are intheir 80s.
They've had the home for thehomes and all the land for 30
years and there's lots of stuff.
I mean all of us right thathave had homes for 30 years,
have lots of stuff.
And you know I said listen is Imean I can barely even say this
(20:44):
is going to work for you for 10years, because they'll be in
their 90s at that point.
The last thing they'll want todeal with is all this acreage
and clearing out three houses.
There's three houses on theproperty, so that means we've
got to get it on as soon aspossible.
So what would be?
And this is?
I want to come back to scriptsfor a minute, because all the
scripts in the world aren'tgoing to save you with this.
(21:06):
Real estate agents.
You have to do, you have tolike really work on your brain
and start with some common sense.
Take your real hat off and lookat what is happening with
people, because people are whatreal estate is all about.
What is going on with them, youknow, in your 80s.
Finally, the kids who aremid-50s are saying, saying we
(21:29):
don't want to be left with allthis stuff.
You know there's lots of peoplewith four bedroom, five bedroom
houses that have had them for13, 40 years, raised their kids
there.
Their kids have gone off there.
Now they live in san franciscowith their own kids and they're
in their 50s.
The last thing they want is forone day you're going to pass
away.
We're all going there, right?
We're all going to the pearlygates hopefully most of us going
(21:52):
to the pearly gates and and notthe ones with the big hot
flames and, um, we're all on theway there.
Do you want to leave yourfamily with all that mess?
Quite frankly, you don't wantto be living in it yourself.
All those stuff and things arenoise and they may have memories
attached to them.
But remember, the memories arein your heart.
(22:14):
Your memories are in your head.
Make a video, take pictures ofthe thing that you're holding on
to.
I moved over here from the UK29 years ago.
I'll be 30 years next year.
I can't believe that.
Back when I was one, of course,and I was raised by my
grandparents and my grandmotherused to collect those little.
(22:36):
I don't know if she used tocollect them.
We just didn't know what to buy, grandma, so we used to buy
those little glass-blown animals.
You all know what I'm talkingabout.
They're about an inch high andthey sell them at the fair.
They sell about.
They're about an inch high andthey sell them at the fair.
They sell them all over theplace, little knick-knack shops,
or at least they used to, andthey're little glass blown
animals and all kinds of animals.
So she used to collect thoseand because I'd given her most
(22:58):
of them, because I didn't knowwhat else to give my grandma,
she gave me the useful stuff she, she stuck a you know five.
Well, it wasn't five dollars,it was five pounds or ten pounds
in the card.
That was much more useful thanthe little glass animal, I'm
sure.
But I took those little glassanimals with me.
I also took her little cottagewear pots.
So a little tea pot, littlesugar pot Half of them were
(23:21):
mismatching because they'dbroken over the years.
Lots of them were shipped.
I shipped them over to the USA,usa.
I also shipped a bunch of myfurniture.
What a nightmare that was.
Don't do it, don't do it, ever.
Don't move furniture.
Sell your house with thefurniture in it.
Let let somebody else deal withthat.
Um, unless it's passed down byoh, let's talk about that one
(23:42):
passed down the generations.
So there you are.
This property was the same waythat I went to see this week.
Grandma's bedroom set, let'stalk about that for a minute.
Grandma, great-grandma, gaveyou usually your parents gave
you a bedroom set.
Your kids used that bedroom set.
(24:03):
They despised it, but it wasgrandma's right.
So you got in the bedroom.
It was a bit wonky and whenthey were little kids and they
jumped up and down on themattress, the headboard hit the
wall and bangers.
It was all a bit wonky andwasn't very solid.
And now you're saying to yourdaughter or your son come get
(24:24):
your bedroom set.
Are you ready for this?
They don't want it.
I know that's a big shocker.
All those antiques that are inyour house, they don't want them
.
It doesn't matter that nobodywants them.
I mean it does matter thatnobody wants them.
It doesn't mean that nobodywants them or that they don't
(24:46):
have value.
Right, they do have value andwe have a team of people all
across the country.
We call them SLPs.
We build a team of people thatwill come and value them for you
.
Sometimes they'll come andclear them out and sell them for
what they can.
It just depends on whetheryou've got high value items or
not.
Basically and here's the thingguys want I want you to listen.
(25:09):
If you're in your 40s and 50s,particularly you.
You've been schlepping thosethings around for 10, 20 years
already, 30 years already.
You're just going to schlepthem around for another 10 years
.
Stop schlepping them aroundlike early on.
Start getting rid of that stuff.
I, I've done it personally andobviously I am one of those
people that brought all thatstuff around.
(25:30):
It's just noise Half the time.
You've got I'm going to let allthe husbands roll their eyes
here Half the time.
You ladies particularly, have aclothes issue.
Actually, I know a guy verywell that has a clothes issue.
He's a clothes hoarder.
He's still got clothes from the80s.
Yes, the 80s, yes, the 80s.
That is 45 years.
(25:51):
I can't believe that's 45 yearsago.
I'm a child of the 80s, 45years ago.
You don't need those clothesanymore.
Um, you know there are a lot ofpeople that need those clothes.
Go and donate them or so.
If you've have, you got threesets of dishes.
You don't need three sets ofdishes.
(26:11):
So I'm talking to those of youthat aren't in the pickle right
now obviously not in the.
In the midst of all this mess,where you're finally up there in
your 80s and you've got allthis stuff to get rid of, it's
completely overwhelming, it'sover.
Have you ever been in thissituation with anything in your
house, even if you're renting oryou're moving around stuff,
(26:33):
like when you've moved?
You're like, oh my gosh, howdid I get all of that stuff?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
yeah, a lot of old furniture my and my parents
house.
They have my greatgrandmother's dining table wow
it's.
It's a pretty nice table, butit's an antique and we we're
scared to ever use it, basicallyso it just kind of sits there.
I mean, we do eat on itoccasionally, but it's like you
can't play board games becauseif you roll dice on it it could
(26:57):
scratch the table.
Yes so it's kind of like it's anice table, I guess.
But when it comes to thingslike that, it's kind of to me I
feel like I don't want to sayjust get rid of it, because
again there's history there yes,but what's the history?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
is the history remembering the grandparents
sitting around that table?
Speaker 3 (27:15):
yeah, I believe so.
I don't know if it's.
I think it's fairly a fairlylike nicer brand, but it's just
that compared to somethingthat's more durable it's just
not as practical.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Yes, and the funny well, that's what we used.
It's just not as practical.
Yes, and the funny well, that'swhat we used to have for all
dining rooms.
Do they have the crockery aswell?
Speaker 3 (27:33):
The special plates and dishes.
It is probably somewhere in mygrandmother's attic.
It's not at my parents' house,though.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So it's again we're not using that crockery.
Now, if you do use it, thenthat's great.
Use it every day.
Don't not use it because itmight break.
Yeah.
What are you doing, Putting itin a cupboard behind that glass
door?
I mean, we don't even havethose antique cabinets anymore
because we don't have thecrockery that we're gazing at,
(28:01):
because we don't use it.
Yeah, the fine china that nevergets used.
Use the fine china.
I'm not saying get rid of itbecause it's fine china.
I'm saying use it.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
You know, if it breaks, it breaks.
And, by the way, if you have abone china cup, you can turn
that bone china.
Don't sue me if this doesn'twork for you.
If you've got maybe a thriftstore one or something, turn,
I've done it actually and it,I've done it actually and it
worked.
Turn it upside down, stand onit, it will not break.
It's that strong.
Bone china is really reallystrong.
(28:32):
The cheap earthenware that webuy now often chips, often chips
Bone china does not.
Actually, I've got a mug I'vebeen using now that's bone china
.
I have these tall mugs thathave pictures of doggies or cows
or anyway.
That's my strangeness, and Iship them in for England and
(28:52):
they're ridiculously expensive.
I've only got my doggy one left, however.
I use it every day and I'veprobably had it 15 years at
least now.
I've dropped it numerous times.
It's bone china.
That's what you need.
Yeah, it's also thin on yourlips.
I like that on your on yourlips rather than a great big
(29:13):
thick cut for some unknownreason.
But that's my little foie gras.
We've all got them, haven't we?
So get rid of that stuff, youknow, especially if it's that
formal dining room stuff thatyou're not using.
But also I just went throughthis with um.
I bought a little place in inflorida and I realized that in
the house, in the house here Ihad, I don't know three sets of
plates that I wasn't using, so Idonated two sets of plates.
(29:36):
It felt so much better justclearing everything out the
cutlery actually I finally gotaround to I'd had the same old
cut.
Not there's anything wrong withthat.
Most people don't even noticecutlery.
I like nice heavy cutlery andit wasn't like a major
expenditure.
I think I spent 60 bucks orsomething on one set.
Of course, I liked it so much Ibought another set, but that's
part of the story.
(29:57):
Now I've got this beautifulcutlery that I absolutely love
and I don't.
Actually I took the other setdown to the Florida house, but
it's just a way of now I don'thave all right.
Do you know what I'm talkingabout when I say the cutlery
drawer?
Can you ever find anything inyour cutlery drawer?
No, what's in there?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
uh, a mixture of big spoons, knives, forks or mixed
up chopsticks.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
You know just a little bit of everything in
there ketchup, the littleketchup things yeah, uh, maybe a
couple in there.
We've got like a separatedrawer for all the all that, joe
taco bell hot sauce packets andall of that that you never,
ever use, correct?
No?
And you have no idea how manyyears it's been in there.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Yeah, there's not dates on those little soy sauce
packets or anything yes,interesting, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (30:44):
so we we, just many of us are hoarders.
We're just hoarders on thespectrum.
It's the hoarder.
Well, we need to develop this.
I'm gonna do a bold blog postabout this.
It's the hoarder spectrum andmost of us are at least at the
lower end of the spectrum.
Most of us have that junkdrawer.
And the worst thing, whenyou're moving and here's the
(31:06):
thing, guys even if you're notmoving I want you to think about
the fact you're surrounded bycrap in your house or some of
the things.
It's not crap, it's like, oh,this beautiful piece of
furniture or china that I neveruse.
Right, that you think you're.
You keep it in your homebecause you think, oh, my family
is going to use this one daybecause we were taught by our
(31:28):
parents that you don't get ridof anything, because they were
taught by their parents thatwent through the second world
war that they definitely didn't,didn't let anything go to waste
.
It's just been handed down.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
I think that must be why we have that junk drawer
with all those soy sauce oh yeah, when you're when somebody,
when your great-grandparents gothrough the Great Depression,
there's kind of like a differentmentality and mindset there.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
But it gets passed down.
And here's the wonderful thingabout getting rid of everything
in your cutlery drawer apartfrom one set of cutlery.
And people go, oh, but that'sonly six knives, I need more
than that.
How can you need more than that?
It just makes you wash them.
How can you need more than that?
It just makes you wash them.
And the really funny thing isyou know how you can't find the
(32:16):
can opener or you can't find theknife sharpener.
That's because it's crowded outby all the junk.
It's literally.
It's a metaphor for life.
You've got all this stuffeverywhere.
They say that the averageperson wears 10% or 5 to 10% of
their wardrobe.
It's crazy.
You know, I went on a littlehiatus down to Florida and I
(32:36):
took a car full of stuff and Ibet I didn't wear, but it was
only a car full of stuff.
It was nowhere near all of myclothes and shoes and all that
stuff.
I wear flip-flops every day.
I might wear one or two nicepair of sandals and one nice
pair of shoes.
I could literally have six pairof shoes.
Slash flip-flops and not evennotice all the other shoes I
(32:59):
have yeah, I usually rotatebetween like three, depending on
special occasions yes, and howmany pair do you have in
totality?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Well, I had more, but Helene kind of messed some of
that stuff up, which that's agood thing a little bit, because
I got rid of that junk drawer Idon't have that anymore so, you
know, got rid of some of therandom crap that I never used so
got to look at the positiveside of things, you know.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Oh my gosh, I love hearing you say that I had a
junk drawer full of jewelry andnot expensive jewelry, except it
might be one stud where I lostthe other diamond stud.
I don't buy diamonds anymore.
It's just not worth it because,especially studs, you lose them
.
Any lady with studs or guy withstuds knows what I'm talking
about.
Even when they've gotscrewbacks, they unscrew
(33:46):
eventually and you lose one, andthat's not fun.
Backs they unscrew eventuallyand you lose one, and that's not
fun.
And but most of the things, 99%of the things in that drawer was
jewelry from 10 years ago.
You know that big, chunky stuffor beautiful pieces that I just
never wear.
And this drawer has been theresince I've moved into this house
, which is I don't know five orsix years now, which doesn't
(34:07):
sound very long, but that thatdrawer has been.
All the stuff in that drawer isjust carted around with me and
it's all tangled up and it's abig old mess.
You know, you'll know what I'mtalking about.
You've all got one, along withthe soy sauce and junk drawer.
So forget moving.
It's worth get it.
You know we're in springcleaning season.
Get rid of it now.
It really does feel really good, even if you do one drawer at a
(34:30):
time.
Let's talk about your nighttables.
You know your nightstands nextto the bed, the drawer that's in
there.
Do you have a nightstand with adrawer?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Oh yeah, and every random thing that I don't know
what to do with goes right inthat drawer.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
That's the thing, the things we don't know what to do
with.
Can you give me any examples?
Speaker 3 (34:49):
lip salve yeah, like there's some chapstick in there.
There's like uh, I don't knowlike old mail that I'm like I
should probably keep this billfrom like a couple months ago,
but you know I I don't haveanywhere else to put it right
now.
So yeah yeah, it just goes inthe drawer.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Elastic band, oh yeah , yeah, I have some hair bands
and stuff in there yep, a screwfor out of a shelving unit that
you're like oh, I've got to getthat screw back in and it's
sitting in the drawer now youdon't remember which the extra
screw for the drawer that it'sin.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
yeah, paper clips, oh , yeah, yeah, yeah.
A pen that doesn't, a pen thatdoesn't work, a pen that doesn't
work, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Or the dog is chewed in his brain or something.
So the Florida one was it's justgosh, we just cannot get rid of
this stuff.
The guy had passed away, not inthe unit but sometime before,
and he had all these notepadswith nothing on them, just clean
(35:51):
notepads.
I think he was probably amedical rep or something and,
you know, had all those notepadsand the six of them.
How do you throw a notepad away?
So in the bedside table there'ssix notepads.
I never use them, but I think,oh, I might wake up in the
middle of the night.
I might want to, you know,offload that thing that's
keeping me awake and write anote on it.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, it's your dream journal, you know.
Yes, Got to keep track of that,yes.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
And then there's all the.
So we also left six note things.
You know those magnetic thingsyou put on the fridge to do a
shopping list.
How can you throw those away?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Oh yeah, they're so useful kind of.
I mean for me like havingsomething like visual to keep
track of things is nice if youalready have one or something on
the fridge.
I don't think you need muchmore than that.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
But how can I throw them away?
I mean, what I'm gonna do?
donate them you know and there'sit's, you hit the nail on the
head.
Actually, it's all the stuffthat you don't know what to do
with.
That bucket is the worst one togo through and I just went
through this again after only afew months moving everything out
, renting that place down there.
I had to move everything outand I'm like what do I do with
(37:00):
this?
And it was this time it's onlya bucket full, but it's still a
bucket full and it's so painful.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
And many of you have whole houses full instead of a
bucket full.
My grandmother had a uh had abucket that just had a bunch of
pine cones in it from like 10years, like a decade or more ago
and she just didn't want tothrow them away because she like
had memories of them orsomething but they were just
taking up space and we're likeit's just a bunch of pine cones.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I wonder if she used them on the?
So I used to collect oh dear,I'm your grandma I used to
collect pine cones to use on theChristmas tree, oh yeah, so I'd
just like tie them on orsomething.
It makes them look real.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Yeah, she would do some like little DIY projects,
but she hasn't done those inyears 19 years, yeah, and
doesn't have any plans to dothem, and also there's just
plenty of pine trees around thearea.
If she needs pine cones, Icould go out and grab some for
her.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
That's the other thing, and it really does feel
good.
Do a draw at a time and thething is about doing the
nightstand or any of those drawsis you don't know what to do
with it.
Socks, let's talk about socks.
How many socks do you think youhave?
Oh, a lot if you had toestimate pairs of socks, how
(38:16):
many do you think you have?
Speaker 3 (38:18):
30, but I mean, it's like those aren't all pairs.
A lot of those are singles.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Okay, so now we're gonna have all the excuses.
We've got to defend our sockdrawer right.
So they're not all pairs andwhy do you keep hold of the
single socks?
Speaker 3 (38:32):
because when I run out of pairs, I'll still use
that single sock that doesn'tmatch I thought you were gonna
say because the friend will showup one day.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It's the funniest thing with socks.
I used to have a ziploc bag forthe mismatched socks and I'd
put them in it and then everymonth or so I'd tip them all out
on the bed and try where didthe socks go?
Speaker 3 (38:52):
they just go somewhere, I know and then they
just appear back in the dryer.
You do laundry and then you'relike oh yes, it was trapped in a
different dimension in thedryer, so I guess do you know
when it gets trapped?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
um, do you know?
Do you know when?
Um, so okay, so you find thattrap one eventually.
You find it when you've thrownthat bag of mismatching ones
away after six months.
Yeah, yeah, I just found amismatching sock actually.
So I have a new puppy calledPenny.
Sophie's not sure about Pennyyet.
(39:24):
She's the size of a flip-flop,she's a mini Dachshund and she's
Dalmatian colored.
She's very cute and she wenttalking about a nightstand.
She went under my giantnightstand it's not easy to move
out and, um, she found a sockthat had fallen down the back.
How much can you guarantee?
I've already thrown the otherone away and the truth is you
(39:46):
really don't.
I mean, you know, maybe you,maybe you work um out in the
field or something and you'rechanging your socks twice a day.
I don't.
I mean, you know, maybe youwork out in the field or
something and you're changingyour socks twice a day.
I don't know.
But you don't need more thanseven pair of socks.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Maybe 14 pair of socks you don't need 30 pair of
socks, Depending on when you doyour laundry.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
I think is what it comes down to, True true, but
how is that if you have to go tothe laundry or something and
you don't have a laundrydownstairs?
Yeah, I would the laundry orsomething and you don't have a
laundry downstairs, or yeah, Iwould probably have more more
socks and underwear at thatpoint well, true that's, if you
had to, if you didn't have alaundry in your house, which not
everybody has a laundry in thehouse.
Most of us have a laundry in thehouse um, probably 95 of the
(40:23):
population to have the laundryin the house.
You can do laundry and then youdon't have stinky socks and
stinky everything sitting in adrawer.
You can only imagine the thingsthat are growing on that
disgusting laundry and you don'tget around to it because,
whatever you know, you've got 19more pair, which is probably
when my only point is you'd beamazed at how much more drawer
(40:46):
space you've got, how much spaceyou have, how much more draw
space you've got, how much spaceyou have.
And when you have space, youdon't have all this noise that's
surrounding yourself all thetime.
That also is in your brain.
It's just like brain noisewhere it's like, oh, I've got to
sort my socks out, oh, if.
But the worst thing is youcan't find the knife sharpener
or you can't find the tin openeror you can't find the whatever,
because it's in, it's mixed upin all this junk that you never
(41:08):
use yeah, I think that's theworst part just not being able
to find what you actually needyes.
So forget moving, just clean itup anyway, listen, I'm talking
to myself as well.
I've got a whole um when, whenI left for a little bit here
over the winter, I've got awhole closet still.
I cleaned out my entire house.
It felt very, very good and itwas very, very stressful, and
I'm so glad I did it.
(41:28):
And this is only after fiveyears, right, so I've still got
an entire, an old-fashionedcloset, so not a big giant one,
but an old-fashioned clientcloset jam-packed of things.
I have no idea what's in thereclothes, um, all the stuff I
didn't know what to do with.
Basically a lot of clothes Ihaven't missed.
I haven't for once thought Iwonder where that xyz piece of
(41:49):
clothing is.
I just haven't a lot of.
It is sparkly things that youwear at christmas.
Uh, ladies, gents, you need onesparkly item, maybe two.
You don't need 16 sparkly items.
You're never going to wear themagain.
Those are one-offs.
Go donate them.
They're not even going to be instyle, never mind all the shoes
.
And then, guess what, when youfinally get around to moving,
(42:13):
it's not going to be as painful,but your day-to-day life just
gets so much better.
We all know it.
It's just painful going throughit.
It's just super painful goingthrough it.
So let's talk about I cannotbelieve is it really 10, 48
already?
How the time flies, oh, mygoodness.
So, uh, yeah, a few minutesleft.
Let's hope this isn't our lastshow.
(42:35):
If you just tuned in, thestation is making cuts to save
money and our live saturday showis moving to recorded.
Only we don't know what day oror anything else yet, and, um,
maybe you can help us out withthat and call into the show or
drop me a message.
I would love to know.
I've been doing this for 13years.
(42:55):
We don't know what day we'regoing on or anything else
because of the cuts, which isvery sad.
However, the good news is I'vebeen doing a podcast for oh, I
don't know eight years nowrealestatenewsradiocom I don't
know, eight years now.
Realestatenewsradiocomrealestatenewsradiocom.
Join me on the podcast and thenI won't have to do any radio
(43:17):
show at all, because you canlisten on the podcast at your
convenience and look at thetopics you want and there's a
lot of topics on there that Ihaven't necessarily talked about
in the show and you don't haveto listen to me jibber on for an
hour.
You can do my little five.
Sometimes I do two minutes onthere where I'm just updating
you on something that's going onin real estate all the world.
(43:37):
You know I don't just talkabout real estate right, because
it's all tied in.
Let's have a quick run throughour niches and we're going to do
a whole show on this.
And people say to real estateagents you know, focus on
something, focus on one niche.
And the truth is that theseniches cover 99% of why we move
(43:58):
or why we do anything in realestate, and it allows real
estate agents to focus.
So, instead of all the stuffyou're trained to do, like door
knocking or sending out mailersor calling expired or any of
that stuff, senior Living is awonderful one SeniorLivingCPOcom
.
If you have parents orgrandparents that are thinking
(44:20):
about senior living anywhere inthe country, we're in hundreds
of them now all around thecountry.
We have agents doing this andwhat we do.
We have what are called slpssenior life partners and we have
senior living cpo experts.
We're about to launch it here,by the way.
I don't know why I launched iteverywhere in the country and
then waited to do it here.
(44:41):
If you know any agents, um,that are amazing at this, maybe
they were ex-nurses or they'vejust got a heart and they like
working with seniors.
It's a wonderful thing to do.
We make a list of 20 plussenior living communities and we
go visit with them and we tellthem about this program that we
have to unlock the majority ofequity in the seniors home.
(45:03):
So seniors go on a wait list onalmost every.
Every decent community has gota wait list and then you get the
call and then, oh my gosh, it's.
It's usually you've got to sellthe house to be able to get in.
87 percent of the time you'vegot to sell the house and your
house is full of stuffeverything we've been talking
about.
So you've got all this stuff.
You, you may.
Your average age is 84.
(45:24):
It's usually a trigger event,like breaking a hip or something
like that, that takes you in.
And then your kids are coming.
Your kids who are in their 60sor 70s are coming in and saying
listen, we can't.
You know we want to help, butwe've got our own jobs, our own
lives.
It's really that time when youneed a little bit more help.
And some of these places arelike cruise ships.
Guys, go look at them.
You know what I'm talking aboutif you've been to see them.
(45:46):
You know what I'm talking aboutif you've been to see them.
The problem is we've gotsomething that can unlock your
money in 14 days.
You move in, we go in and we doHGTV magic.
And then you get a second check.
Two thirds of our sellers makemore than with a conventional
listing with no sign outside, nolockbox on the door, no pesky
realtors coming in and out, nolittle dog behind your couch
(46:11):
that's peeing on the carpet thatyou haven't noticed for a while
.
You might have an avocadofridge.
You might have a formicacountertop.
Who knows?
It may be just that you haven'tmaintained your home for the
last year or so because you gotup there, or maybe you lost your
spouse god forbid.
It's another trigger event.
Only one in eight of thesepeople moving into senior living
are men.
Often couples are moving intowhat we call independent living.
(46:35):
Now it works for that as well.
It's just a wonderful program.
The reason I think it'swonderful is because investors
for many years have been I'm notgoing to say stealing, because
it's not stealing, it's just abusiness model.
There's lots of companies outthere that will buy your home at
50, 60 cents on the dollar.
Ours is 90 to $1.20 on thedollar because we improve the
(46:59):
home, you get the majority ofequity that allows you to move
into the senior living or make anon-contingent offer on your
next home.
Make a non-contingent offer onyour next home, whatever it is.
We're always solving problems.
We've started to unlock builderCPO now.
So a lot of builders around thecountry one in every five
contracts they're cancellingbecause the person can't sell
(47:21):
the house.
We know about this because ofthe number of homes that are
coming on the market.
Plus, how do you know when tosell your house when you're
building a house?
What a nightmare.
With our program, you canliterally wait until you're two
weeks out from the co.
So we go and meet with.
We make a list of 20 buildersand we go and meet with builders
(47:43):
and we tell them what we'redoing.
Most of us have got hundreds ofpeople on our database that are
always asking which, but I'vegot 60,000 people online and
often I get the question youknow which local builder do I
work with?
So meeting local builders is awonderful thing just for that.
And also we have this programwhere two weeks out from getting
(48:05):
your CO, your certificate ofoccupancy, you know that you can
hit that deadline 99% of thetime, six months earlier or a
year earlier when you startbuilding the house.
Hitting that deadline to theabsolute day is rare, I hate to
say it.
Port closures, staffing issues,someone has a baby, whatever it
(48:26):
is, you know it's very, veryhard to hit that timeline.
So there's your issue with thatone.
With ours you can wait until twoweeks out before the CO press
that easy button, get themajority of your equity moving
to your new home.
We can go into your previoushome and people go.
(48:48):
Well, we only bought it fiveyears ago and it was new.
There's nothing wrong with it.
The average inspection report,guys, has 40 to 50 items on it.
The average repair request inthis country is 3%.
So if your home, you sell it at$500,000, that's $15,000.
That's not an overestimation ofa repair request at all.
(49:11):
It takes all that away.
A third of them drop out most.
I have a whole network ofrealtors.
This is where the script thingum, I have a bit of a problem
with.
Just tell the truth.
Agents don't talk about thefact that over a third of
contracts fall out.
That's's not good.
And if you have your homelisted now locally or anywhere
(49:31):
in the country that you'relisting, go ahead and, at the
very least, get the inspection.
I don't know why more agentsdon't talk to you about this.
I've got over 1,100 now aroundthe country that do, because
they understand how powerful itis.
Certified pre-owned cars, cpocars people buy them all the
time.
Every dealership has themcarvana, carmax, that's a cpo
(49:54):
play.
That is where they've done theinspection 156 point inspection.
They are offering a cardealership warranty, which means
you're not buying a lemon.
People pay six percent more forthe car.
So why the heck are we takinghalf a million dollar houses,
throwing them on the market andhoping for the best?
It makes no sense, guys.
It makes no sense.
I've been talking to you live onthe radio.
(50:16):
I know that's going away soonhere, unless you call in um, get
me on the podcast.
It's all good.
More of you are listening tothe podcast now than listening
to the live show.
Maybe it's just the way radiois going, who knows?
But realestatenewsradiocom.
Realestatenewsradiocom.
This is Rowena Patton on theReal Estate News Radio Show Live
(50:38):
on air today.
If you are listening to it onthe podcast, obviously I'm not
live.
I'm on the podcast, and soonI'll be just on the podcast,
which is awesome because you'llbe able to get all that extra
information too, which is reallycool.
Just know well, I think it'sreally cool, but I might be
biased.
Just know that a third of thecontracts fall out.
(50:59):
That means, if you are listedright now and you have a 30%
likelihood, now are you saying,oh, because here's what happens.
You say, well, my house isgreat, that's not going to
happen to my house.
Or what?
Are you not a good listingagent?
That's what you're going to say?
Right, I know because I'veheard over 3,500 transactions.
(51:21):
I've heard it all.
You have no control over whatthe buyers are doing.
You don't know how nervous thebuyers are.
Remember, the market flattenedtwo to three years ago,
depending on where we're in thecountry.
Even the Northeast, most of theNortheast, has flattened.
Now it's just behind the curveand a lot of places say, oh,
we're special here.
We say that in Asheville,actually, we're special here.
(51:42):
That's not going to happen tous, guys, we went down over 30%
last time in Asheville.
32% was the average.
Prices went down.
Now I'm not going to say that'shappening this time, although
we are down about 19% in SouthFlorida.
Now South Florida and Texastend to be the canaries in the
(52:03):
coal mine and we just choose notto listen every time.
It's amazing to me.
So if you're listed and youhaven't done the pre-inspection,
so what are you going to saynext to that?
You're going to say, well, Idon't want to fix anything,
that's okay, you don't have tofix anything.
You do not have to fix anything.
Why?
Because we disclose it.
Well, people aren't going towant a house if we disclose
(52:25):
things that are wrong with it.
You've got things wrong with itanyway.
You just don't know about it.
Aren't they gonna run if, if wetell them there's something
wrong with it?
No, when we get an offer inevery single time I barely do
conventional listings nowthey're certified pre-owned, not
the cash offer.
They're certified pre-owned,although you can choose the cash
offer.
It's just a different choice.
I like to give you lots ofchoices and you make the
(52:47):
intelligent decision.
When an offer comes in, I say tothe buyer's agent let me give
you the inspection that we'vealready done before we go into
contract.
I've had one pull out in 17, 18, 19 years, now One, because
everybody goes in eyes wide open, the trust is developed and it
(53:10):
doesn't matter and we say listen.
We took the price of the houseinto account when we did the
inspection, so please don't comeback with this 3%.
It drops it to half a percent.
Guys, the difference between2.5% on a $500,000 house.
Think about that for a minute.
It only costs $500 to have aninspection.
Go have it done.
Love you all.
(53:31):
I hope this isn't our last liveshow.
Realestatenewsradiocom.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
Come join me on the podcast this has been the plain
english real estate show withrowena patton.
Visit rowena and post yourquestions at radioashvillecom or
call her at 828-210-1648.
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