The Accunet Mortgage & Realty Show 4-13-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following program. The ENT , mortgage and
Realty Show is paid for in fullby ENT mortgage, LLC and equal
housing lender consumeraccess.org number 2 5 5 3 6 8.
The advice and opinionsexpressed during the Academic
Mortgage and Realty Show aresolely that at the hosts and
guests of ENT mortgage, LLC,and not WTMJ or Good Karma
Brands.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Welcome to the Accu Net Mortgage and Realty Show,
getting you inside informationon buying, selling, and
financing your home with expertadvice from Accu Net Mortgage
and Realty. And now here'sBrian and David Wickers.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Welcome to the Anette Mortgage and Realty
Show. I'm Brian Wicker,licensed real Estate broker
with ANet Realty Advisors andalso the majority owner of
Academic Mortgage, where myindividual N ML s ID number is
2 5 9 6 1 0. And I'm here againtoday with my son David, who is
the president of AcademicMortgage and his individual
NMLS ID number is 3 2 8 8 4 7.

(00:55):
Remember, you can get a podcastto today's show and any of our
past shows wherever younormally get your podcasts. So,
David, what a difference a weekmakes . It was a crazy
week for not only stockmarkets, but also treasury
interest rates and mortgagerates as well. Do you wanna
kick us off with , uh, kind ofa quick summary?

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Well , uh, to go back, you know, last week as
Tim and I were describing, hey,rates had come down , uh, with
the tariff , um, influence andmarkets had digested that in a
way which had led stocks hadcome down and then, but also
mortgage rates and treasuryrates had come down as well.

(01:37):
That, that, that was a weekago,

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Which is kind of the normal, let's call that the
normal thing when the stockmarket is tanking. Usually
investors are selling stocksand what are they doing? I'm
looking for someplace safe toput my money. I know, right ? I
will buy United States Treasurybills and bonds, and it's that
10 year treasury that has thegreatest influence on mortgage

(02:00):
rates. So things were behavingnormally last week.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Then the market kept digesting and completely
reversed course. And it , inmany ways, dad, I, this isn't
my , uh, unique perspective,but markets didn't wanna put
their money anywhere. Theydidn't wanna put money in
stocks, didn't even wanna putmoney in treasuries or bonds or

(02:26):
mortgage backed securities. Itwas just a cash world. Like,
you know what, I'm just gonnarip all my money outta
everywhere. Felt a lot likeCovid when we didn't know what,
what to make of the world.
Everyone was just like, how'sabout cash? And so yields and
rates whipsawed back the otherdirection away from the relief

(02:47):
that we got over last weekend.
And rates kept climbing allweek long. Even even with the
pause that arrived , uh, onWednesday that did nothing to
relieve for, for ourperspective bond markets, if
only because the continued ,uh, tit for tat with China, it

(03:08):
was like, well, it's greatthat, you know, El Salvador got
a break on tariffs. Mm-hmm . But like
China's kind of still the notjust 800 pound gorilla in the
room. Yeah . But like 10gorillas in the room.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
So , uh, interestingly though, some news
outlets, including Bloomberg,you know, put out news stories
saying mortgage rates are down.
'cause they were quotingFreddie Max week , uh, in
arrears average of interestrates. . So Freddie Mac
comes out with their , hey,over the last week, you know,
mortgage rates are better.
Well, that's like saying theaverage temperature over the

(03:42):
last week was, you know, 40,but now today it's 60. Yeah.
The two don't have anything todo with each other. So don't
believe that Freddie Mac , uh,based headline that mortgage
rates are down. The reality isthat mortgage rates are up ,
uh, from where they were. Andthen we also, we caught some
breaks on, on usual inflationnumbers that would've been

(04:05):
mortgage interest ratefriendly. Yes. We got the
consumer price index. That wasa pretty friendly number
relative to expectations. Thenwe got the producer price index
number on Friday, which is ,uh, inflation at the wholesale
level. And I believe that wasactually negative, right?

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Prices driving .

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yep .

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Normally that'd be great for mortgage rates, but
this got a, I don't care.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Exactly.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
A big fat , I don't care.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Well, and it because, because tariffs have
been implemented or paused orwhatever it might be, but like
it hasn't yet arrived downriver . And so it is this
almost , um, waiting game likeinflation. We conquered old
inflation it seems based uponthe reports this week on CPI

(04:51):
and PPI, but we, we don't yetknow what new inflation might
look like or how bad.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Well, and here's what consumers are thinking.
The University of Michigan cameout with their monthly , uh,
consumer sentiment index alsoon Friday. And guess what? It
wasn't good. People are notfeeling good about, you know,
their money or their lives withall this uncertainty and a
couple of interesting things,the sentiment was down 11% from
February down 34% from a yearago. And then they also measure

(05:19):
what do consumers expect pricesto do over the next year? And
by that measurement, consumersare thinking, you know what? I
think prices are gonna be 6.7%higher a year from now, and
that's not good. It's thehighest number, by the way,
since 1981. So consumers arethinking tariffs equal higher
prices. Well ,

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Well, yes. If you double the price of t-shirts
from China, it will increasethe cost of the T-shirts.
That's just, you know, math.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
That's basic math.
Yeah . And , and so in , in themeantime, you know, in the
real, in the real world , uh,we saw , um, we could still
offer a 6.99% 30 year fixedrate , uh, on Friday at the end
of business. Uh, you'd have topay a half a point to get that
, uh, one half or 1% of theloan amount on a $250,000 loan
with all excellent credit andall the other Right. Stuff. Uh

(06:10):
, and that has an A PR 7.05 andI'm gonna say that's probably
where we were in February.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Oh , January. Yeah.
Rates are as high as they weresince January. Not that
dramatic.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Not not that dramatic. Alright. When we come
back , uh, let's talk aboutwhat buyers are experiencing
and sellers for that matter. Inlight of all this , uh, you
know, turmoil. Is it reallymattering? Do buyers care that
mortgage rates are up fromtheir absolute low points of a
We could go , we'll cover thatright after this. You are
listening to the ENT Mortgageand Realty Show on AM six 20

(06:43):
WTMJ

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Home buying advice from the guys who know it best.
This is the ACU Mortgage andRealty Show with Brian Wicker
on WTMJ.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Welcome back and thanks for joining us today.
Uh, David, despite the interestrate turmoils of this last
week, you were just telling meyou helped a lot of people ,
uh, get accepted offers , uh,last week. Uh , that's great.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Well, because as you noted , uh, in the first
segment, headline world had alot of fodder this past week.
Right. But as I like to say, doyou know how many of my home
shopping clients called me andsaid, Ugh , we're calling off
the house hunt because I sawthe 10 year treasury did went

(07:32):
from this to this. Yeah . Andthe answer is zero. In fact, I
was, we across the board atAcuate as well as me
individually, we got morepeople getting out there on the
house hunt because home buyershave never bought because of
what interest rates are. Peoplebuy houses for real life
reasons. And there , there's aworld in which I would like to

(07:55):
declare that interest ratesaren't even real life. They're
just gasoline that you put inthe car and nobody ever bought
a car and got excited about thegasoline. Hmm .

Speaker 1 (08:05):
That's a good analogy. I like that.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Thank you. I I am try to be the maestro of
metaphor when it comes

Speaker 1 (08:11):
To market . There you go . Maestro metaphor.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Well, because Dad, it's on a $300,000 loan. If you
went from a six and a half to7%. Oh my gosh. Like sure. That
would be a , a easy path tohave heartburn, right? Ugh .
Rates went up, it's $99 amonth, dad. Okay . To go from

(08:33):
six and a half to seven on a$300,000 loan.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
And , and , and , and the six and a half was a
flash in the pan or the six andthree quarters Yeah . Or
whatever the low point was foryour particular scenario. It
was a flash in the pan and nowthat's gone. So Yes.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Gotta

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Do with the reality.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
That's

Speaker 1 (08:50):
I was gonna ask you about your, you had mentioned
somebody that you were helping, uh, beat out 10 other offers.
How did they do

Speaker 3 (08:56):
That? Okay, so in , uh, consultation with their
real estate agent, they beat 10out , beat out 10 other offers
because they were utilizingthings like a rock solid
preapproval and an appraisalwaiver. Their agent, it feels
like , uh, Fridays starting atabout like, you know, 11:00 AM

(09:17):
my cell phone starts to goping, ping, ping, ping, ping
from agents with their clientswho want to go write offers.
And they're checking in with meto be like, Hey, can you run 1,
2, 3 Main Street through themortgage underwriting software?

Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yeah . Yeah . 'cause you got 'em trained

Speaker 3 (09:35):
To see if we get Well, yeah. To see if we get an
appraisal waiver because

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Which is the magic sauce man.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
It is. Well 'cause write , writing the offer and
saying , uh, dad, I will payyou a billion dollars for your
house. Yeah. Well that's great.
If , if in your heart you wantto pay a billion dollars for
the house, that's great. Aseller is also thinking to
themselves, well, but can youactually arrive to the closing
table? Yeah . Two , what couldgo wrong two or three or four

(10:04):
weeks from now? And , and bringme the billion for this house.
And my client beat out 10 otheroffers they had been looking
for. I think they had like twoplus years. And oh my gosh.
Finally decided like when, whenthey found the right house,
when it was the one that theywanted, they were ready to make

(10:25):
the strong offer because losinghad become tiresome. Sure . And
on the advice , uh, of theirreal estate agent, we utilized
the full appraisal waiver andtheir incredibly great , a
strong down payment , uh, towrite an offer that beat out 10
other people.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Do they have a home sale contingency?

Speaker 3 (10:46):
They did not.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
And do they have they do not . Do they own
another home

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Or not? They do not.
They are currently renting.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Oh, perfect. Okay.
So that, you know, what you'retrying to do obviously is make
it easy for the seller to sayYes. Well , and go ahead.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Here , here , here's the other element too. So
Milwaukee is a small place,small walkie , as we sometimes
like to call it, reputationmatters. And as I do for all of
my clients, Hey, would you likeme to call and or text the
listing agent to advocate foryour offer? Because guess what?

(11:21):
This listing agent, a grizzledreal estate veteran has been
doing this for a long time,knows that academic mortgage
has been doing this for a longtime and is familiar that it's
not just some random onlinepre-qual Yeah . That's being
included in this offer . It'sOh, this is David and Brian and

(11:44):
the AIT team. I've got both oftheir cell phone numbers. Yep .
Oh, and this person's rocksalad and I have an appraisal
waiver. Right .

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Let's not forget that

Speaker 3 (11:53):
I , I remind my clients that the reputation of
who you're working with can bealmost as influential as the
number that you're offeringbecause imagine

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah . For the ingredients. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Well , and it all matters, right? If, if you try
to bake a cake and you don'thave all the ingredients,
you're just gonna end up with alump of flour . So it all
matters. And for my client, itwas enough to help them beat
out double digits. Otherpeople,

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Are these people having to pay over asking by
the way

Speaker 3 (12:21):
They did? Well, they did. They're paying the price
they're willing to pay dad.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Right. Right, right.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
But in relation to the list prices, who cares?

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Cool out . Correct.
And , and they , we should notethat, you know, they have the
comfort now of knowing, well,at least either Fannie Mae or
Freddie Mac's computer systemYes . Believes that value that
you're willing to offer. Uh ,when we come back, I do have
the numbers , uh, for March.
And let's talk about, well, howmany people are paying over
asking. I've got those numbersand a few other great stats to,

(12:51):
to , uh, impress you or atleast make you more well
informed at the next cocktailparty. You are listening to the
Acade Mortgage and Realty Showon AM six 20 WTMJ,

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Getting

Speaker 2 (13:02):
You into the home of your dreams. Here's more of the
Accu Ed Mortgage and RealtyShow with Brian Wicker on wtmj.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Welcome back. I'm Brian Wicker, the elder. That's
David Wicker, the younger,taller, smarter, better looking
of the wicker men . And , uh,so David , uh, you know, March
is not that far back in therear view mirror. And so if we
take a look at , uh, the fivecounty Metro Milwaukee area and
data from the multiple listingservice, you know, the question
is, Hey, we , it's a hotmarket, you know , it's a

(13:32):
seller's market still, and youknow, how hot is it, as Ed
McMahon used to say? And so acouple of things to note is
that the number of home saleswas actually down in March by
8%, which is 98 fewer closedsales. So we had 1,142 closed
single family detachmentcapital

Speaker 3 (13:50):
Sales . Whenever you tell me that, whenever you tell
me that, I always wanna go lookat my calendar to be like, were
we missing a business day inthe month or is that No ,

Speaker 1 (13:57):
You know , that's No, no , that was a good one.
You know, March has got 31days. I don't know if you knew
that. Yeah . Um, yeah, so I ,I'm guessing because it was
probably a lack of inventory,but this is a guess on my part.
Median sales price , uh, was$338,500. And now remember,
that's five counties in a mixof single family detached in
condos. But that's 23 grand.

(14:18):
More than a year ago, a 7.3%increase. If you look at year
to date meeting sales pricewe're up 30 grand, which is 10%
over 2024. New listings inMarch totaled 1,662, which was
almost as much as March of 2024, 25 fewer homes listed. But
let's call that a tie. And ,uh, there are currently David

(14:41):
2,931 condos and single familydetached homes listed for sale
in southeastern Wisconsin onthe MLS. You want to guess how
many of those have offers?

Speaker 3 (14:53):
Uh, 71%.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Oh , you, you're gonna make everybody feel
relieved. Only 48%, only 48%have offers. And so that does
mean that there are , uh, about1500 homes in condos that
don't. But if you take a lookat that traditional measurement
of, is it a buyer's or aseller's market, if we take the
overall number of listings,active listings, 2,900 and

(15:18):
change and divide it by , uh,the number of home sales in
March, you got a two and a halfmonth supply. If you divide it
by the typical April , uh,number of home sales, which is
more like 1400, then you'recloser to a two month supply.
Yeah . So still a seller'smarket. Uh, but what I am
always most interested in ishow many buyers are having to

(15:42):
pay over , uh, asking And doyou want to hazard a guess ,
uh, on that percentage for themonth? Merry Mary , month

Speaker 3 (15:48):
Of March? Well, just to give the background though,
for our listeners, you knowthis, how much a buyer is
paying over the list price isseasonal, right? It is. The
fewest percentage are payingover list in and around
Christmas time ,

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Christmas and January.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
Yep . But that , but that peaks in May, June and
July that it is the frothiestof months for over the list
price. So we're, we've begun toclimb the hill , uh, toward the
peak month . So I'm gonna guess51% of home shoppers in March
paid a dollar or more over thelist price.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Okay. And the answer would've been 50%. If you were
looking at March of last year.
Last year, okay . This year itwas only 47%. Huh , .
Okay, so we're off by a littlebit. Uh, the number or uh , uh,
or percentage of buyers whobought paid $10,000 or more
over asking however, wasexactly the same this March

(16:45):
compared to last March, whichwas 28%. But then that kind of
caused me to go looking. Right? I'm like, okay, so if we're,
if we're only at 47% payingover asking . Yeah . Um, so I
popped in and I looked at it bycounty. And so remember the
overall five county average was47%. So Milwaukee County home
sales in March, 49% closed overasking , and by the way, that

(17:09):
was 537 of the 1,142 closedsales. So a little better than
the five county average.
Waukesha County with 300 closedsales was right at the average
of 47%. Racine had 131 closedsales, and they were only at
38%. Uh, of the transactionsclosed over asking well below

(17:30):
the average Washington Countywas also below the average with
97 closed sales, and theyaveraged 41% of buyers paying
over asking . And Ozaki Countythough was the hottest, but
also the fewest number ofsales. So 77 closed sales in
Ozaki, but 56% of buyers paidover asking in Ozaki County in
March, which is well above thefive county average. Just kind

(17:52):
of interesting to remember thatall real estate is local. It's
not really a five county hyperlocal . You Yeah. It's not a
five county , uh, you know,market. 'cause very few people
are willing to say, Hey, I'llbuy either in Ozaki County or
Racine. Right. That's , you'relooking at a much typically
narrower geography than that.
And , um, so quite a

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Bit of , but this is , wait , but this is where
David always says the listprice is a made up number, so
that's right. As

Speaker 1 (18:20):
A remind . So maybe that, maybe that 47% number for
this month of March just meansthat sellers were asking more
relatively compared to, youknow, a year ago. Yeah . And so
it is all about, you know, howmany people are shopping, how
many offers are you getting,you know, where does it all
shake out? And also where youstarted. Yes. Um, speaking of

(18:42):
that, I got a story. Maybe yougot a story about Oh yeah . You
know , where are peoplestarting out , uh, you know, in
their asking process and tryingto maybe even incite a bidding
war . Uh, let's talk about thatalong with any other stories
you got in your hip pocket.
David, when we come back rightnow, it's time to turn it over
to the WTMJ Breaking NewsCenter.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Don't break the fact to get into a house, back to
the ACU Net Mortgage and RealtyShow with Brian Wicker on WTMJ.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Welcome back and thanks again for hanging out
with us. Uh, I'm Brian Wicker ,uh, the , uh, majority owner
and chairman of AnetteMortgage. That's David Wicker
over there, the president ofAnette Mortgage. And so , um,
David, I've been working with ,uh, a couple , uh, in suburban
Chicago. So it's not only a hotmarket in the Milwaukee area,
it's a hot market in a lot ofparts of Chicago as well. Yeah

(19:34):
. And , uh, we've been helpingthem shop since the fall and in
fact, they had an acceptedoffer, but it fell apart on
inspection. And they're lookingin some very specific suburbs.
Yeah . You over there.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
Have they expressed , um, that if they could go
back in time, they wouldn'thave made such a big deal out
of the inspection given thattheir house hunt has continued?
Or are they they were glad toskip that risk ? I haven't
brought

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Up this , I haven't brought up that sort of
subject, but I kind of thinkthat it was significant enough
that they don't regret it, ismy Okay . My belief, but good
question. Um, and , and so nowthey , they kind of came across
through word of mouth for saleby owner property in their
target area where they wannabuy. And the nice thing is it's

(20:19):
kind of at the lower end oftheir price range shopping. Uh,
and so they had their buyer'sagent approach the sellers, and
they, they learned that, well,you know, we , we think we're
gonna go out on the market andthey're gonna go for sale by
owner . So they're, theyhaven't done their pictures
yet. They're not out on Zillowor wherever else they're gonna
post. Uh , but they said, youknow, we think we're gonna go

(20:41):
out in the low seven hundredsand hope to incite a bidding
war. And so then of course, youknow, our buyers are like,
well, is there a price that wecould offer you

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
That would prevent you from going out and doing
that?

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Yeah. The answer is , the answer always is yes.
There's always a price. They

Speaker 1 (21:02):
Weren't willing to share it. So it was kind of
frustrating. Okay. And , and ,and , you know,

Speaker 3 (21:08):
No, I, no, I wanna wear this great outfit out at
the bar. You can't tell me,don't propose to me. I wanna go
out and I want people to payattention to me when I walk
through the bar wearing whatI'm wearing. I want that. Well,

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Well, so, you know, so it was uncomfortable because
it's like, oh, great, now my,our buyers are gonna kind of be
a stocking horse, if you will,where, and they did put in an
offer, by the way, 50 grandover what , um, what the
sellers had said they weregonna come out at mm-hmm
. So that's not10%, that's more like , uh,

(21:41):
eight 7% 8% seven , yeah .
Seven or 8% over their, youknow, starting price. But they
put in a financing contingencynow, albeit , um, I've got
their rock solid preapprovalset up such that they don't
have to sell the condo thatthey own now, so it's not
contingent on the sale. Great .
And so the latest was theseller came back and said,

(22:02):
well, you know , we really likea cash offer. Um, and , and my
, my solid Me too . Yeah , ofcourse I would. But that's not
really practical because the ,the , the Illinois offer to
purchase allows you to make acash offer, but say , but I'm
still gonna get a mortgage. Butyou can't use the getting of
the mortgage as an excuse toget out under that, you know,

(22:24):
path. Yeah . And so, in fact,these folks really do need a
mortgage now. Um ,unfortunately I did not get the
appraisal waiver at the priceat which they're offering. Um ,
and, and the other thingthough, that I did offer , uh,
and I don't know, they're kindof talking this this weekend
yet, is, well, the originalpre-approval letter was at 20%
down. Mm-hmm .

(22:45):
And I verified assets thatcould go to 25% down. Yeah . So
I did give them thatpre-approval here , uh, with a
greater down payment. You know,maybe that's gonna be enough to
help the say yes, but it's kindof a unfortunate situation for
my buyers, right. Becausethey're kind of getting used a

(23:05):
little bit to say, well , wheredo you think Okay ,

Speaker 3 (23:08):
The market really is, are they, I mean, wouldn't
couldn't you turn this aroundto say that the buyer had
insight information on exactlywhat was most important to the
seller, which was gonna be ,uh, a bidding more and make me
feel, offer me a price that isgonna make me feel like I am

(23:28):
worth what I think I'm worth.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Right. Yeah. And so,

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Yeah .

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Okay . So they're, they're making that effort. Oh,
by the way, in terms ofoccupancy, that was another
small detail in here is , oh ,well, the , the sellers might
need to live here for a while.
'cause they have an acceptedoffer on some new construction
, um, the property that they'removing to, and it's like, oh ,
don't forget, they can onlystay in the house for 60 days
or 59 days. Yeah . Because whenyou buy a home as a primary

(23:56):
residence, you as the buyerhave to occupy within 60 days,
which means you can't give theseller 75 days to live there.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
No . Yep . Heads in beds unless you're gonna

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Move in with 'em , which is, yeah. So we'll see
that. We'll have to give you anupdate , uh, next week to see
if , uh, they prevail on thisor,

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Or not . But it sounded like were , were you
privy to, or was itcommunicated that there were
competing offers as well forthe same

Speaker 1 (24:23):
Property? No , no , because they're not out on the
market yet. Right. This is apreemptive offer by our
clients.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Oh, they wrote the offer even before it went up on
the physical . They just likewrote

Speaker 1 (24:33):
It. They're like, here . Yeah , exactly. Oh ,
hey, we know you're, we know,you're still working on getting
out Right to the greater publicto incite this bidding war.
Okay . Yeah . But we want togive you this preemptive offer
that's, you know, significantlyover what you're asking.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
I know you've proposed to me, but I'd still
like to talk to some otherpeople. I know I've got your
ring as a backup to your point,iTalk horse. That's ,

Speaker 1 (24:55):
That's kind of the , you know, but yeah, if you , if
it was a bigger ring, if yousaid cash offer, then we'd be
Okay. Well , I

Speaker 3 (25:02):
Wouldn't go on these other dates. Oh, man. Okay.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Well , right, right.
So it'll, it'll be interestingto see what happens. All right
. When we come back, David,let's tell one of your stories
from this past week. Yes .
Helping home buyers. You'relistening to the Academic
Mortgage and Realty Show onWisconsin's radio station. AM
six 20 WTMJ.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Important home buying questions and answers
you can count on. This is theAcuate Mortgage and Realty Show
with Brian Wicker on WTMJ.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Welcome back to the Acuate Mortgage and Realty
Show. I'm David, that's Brianover there. Dad, among the
plethora of , uh, clients whogot accepted offers this past
week. One was an Army veteranwho had just moved back to
town. They're Milwaukee people.
Originally they had moved outwest for a job and now they're
back in town. Uh, because guesswhat? I think they, you know,

(25:51):
grandkids , uh, grandparents,free babysitters, all the
reasons I once knew a guy whodid that. He moved back from
California for freebabysitters. Oh yeah , that's
right. So they , um, as we gotthem prepared for the house
hunt, we of course talked abouthis VA benefit for getting a ,

(26:11):
a VA mortgage, which the quicksummary is you can put as
little as 0% down on a VA loan.
You may be subject to a fundingfee , uh, which for a first
time use can be 2.15% or higherdepending on the size of your
down payment. However, if youhave a service related
disability or injury, you canbe exempt from that funding

(26:33):
fee. And in fact, my client isOh wow.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
So no funding fee and then there's no monthly
government mortgage insuranceor guarantee fee either. So
it's a great deal.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
My clients had sold a home out west and so they had
a boatload of proceeds fromthat sale . They were not
looking to necessarily use the0% down on a VA loan. They're
looking to put as much as a 20%down payment on the new next
home here in and around theMilwaukee area. So of course
then we could analyze andcompare a VA loan compared to a

(27:08):
conventional loan. Which one isbetter? Which one might get you
a lower rate or lower closingcost depending upon, typically

Speaker 1 (27:14):
The VA loan would have a lower rate by a quarter
percent or something like that.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
Yes. Generally speaking, a VA rate dad would
be a little bit lower than aconventional rate. However,
then after I generate thepre-approval letter and
multiple pre-approval letters,'cause I'm not gonna, you know,
run out of electrons as I liketo share with clients, give
them both, here's aconventional pre-approval
letter. Here's a VA mortgagepreapproval letter. They then

(27:40):
had to go out into the wild andgo on the house hunt and decide
, uh, in consultation withtheir buyer's agent, they found
a home. And I posed thequestion to the buyer's agent,
I said, they expect this to becompetitive. Which of these
loan options do you believewould set our clients up to be

(28:03):
the most competitive andactually win? And in looking at
the property, the condition ofthe property and the
competitive landscape, we allagreed , uh, together client
realtor David, that providing aconventional pre-approval
letter and putting conventionalfinancing on the offer was
likely going to be the paththat would allow our clients to

(28:26):
actually win. That kind ofstinks though. 'cause if you
served in the Army, you'dprobably like to use your VA
benefit. But, but winning inthe , they , my client very
well could have written theiroffer using their VA benefit
and guess what? They might havewon. But for them it was more

(28:47):
important to prioritize gettingthe home rather than utilizing
the benefit. And part, I thinkmy job and all of acuate is to
share here is what is availableto you. And then the client
decides how they would like toproceed and for them the
conventional loan so that theycould have a better shot at
winning.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
And they did win.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
And they did win.
Yes sir . They beat out aboutfour other offers.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Any other, any discussion on whether it ,
maybe they wanna approach theseller and say, you know, I am
a veteran and you know, I'dlike to try for a VA loan and
you know, see where that goes.
Do we have enough time to, wedon't have

Speaker 3 (29:26):
Enough time.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Right now to

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Kind of go that way and then, and then if that
doesn't work, we go back toconventional. It's two
different appraisals by theway.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Although I did think to my, I did share with the
client, like, think about this,like chapters in a book, maybe
they get into the home on aconventional loan. If down the
line, you know, let's sayChristmas time rates have
returned from their moon triphigher here, we could always
refinance into a VA loan. Yeah. Because, and, and that would

(29:57):
make sense because he is exemptfrom the funding fee. Right .
And get that lower rate,there's still going to be a
future opportunity to use thatVA benefit if it makes sense.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
Alright . Good, good. Uh , good diagnosing.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Well , alright . You right. It's not just about what
happens on the laptop right. In, in preparing a mortgage game
plan. A good mortgagepractitioner then says, well
what is it gonna take to winout in the world? Because
that's the only, that , that'show the rubber meets the road.
And, and

Speaker 1 (30:28):
You know, even though there may be a
misperception about VA loansbeing tougher on property
conditions Oh yeah . Whichthere really aren't. Especially
if the properties and goodcondition. Uh , anyway, good
job in getting 'em in the endzone 'cause Yeah . All the
first thing, it's all thatmatters. Get the accepted
offer. Alright , why don't wecome back? Uh , I've got one
more story to share. Maybewe've got another one. You are
listening to the AccidentMortgage and Realty show on AM

(30:50):
six 20 WTMJ.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Find a place to call home without the headache. This
is the ACU at Mortgage andRealty Show with Brian Wicker
on WTMJ.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Thanks again for joining us today. Uh , I'm
Brian Wicker. That's DavidWicker over there. And uh,
David, I've been working with a, um, client who has, is in the
final stages of their divorce.
So thing number one is we haveto get the marital settlement
agreement finalized andapproved by the court so that
we know whose debt obligationsare whose in terms of

(31:24):
Definitively. Definitively. Yep. Yeah . And hopefully they're
gonna have that done here inApril. Um, and they've already
sold their house, their formermarital residence. Uh, so that
the good news is, you know,they don't have that, she
doesn't have that to worryabout and I'm working with the
Sure . Soon to be ex-wife andum, and , and so then we're,

(31:46):
you know, kind of down totalking about a few things
like, hey, I'm gonna be gettingsome money from my ex-husband ,
uh, to balance out ourretirement accounts. Sure. And
I think you threw out this ,uh, acronym , uh, week or two
ago Quadro Qualified

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Domestic Relations order. Yeah ,

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah. There you go.
Quadro . And so it's like, oh,okay. And her attorney
mentioned, you know, you coulduse that money and then you
don't have to pay the 10% , um,early withdrawal penalty on
that IRA money Yeah . When it'scoming from a Quadro . Um,

Speaker 3 (32:21):
But on, on any, well on a lot of IRA rules, you can
take money out to buy a homeand avoid the penalty.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
No . It's only if you're a first time home buyer.
Right. Okay . And she's not afirst time home buyer , so she
doesn't get that. Yep . Yeah ,there's a $10,000 exemption for
avoiding the penalty, but youstill have to pay the income
tax. And so I , I'm not surewhere she's gonna land, but I
think it's gonna be, you know,let's just say ballpark, 25%
marginal income tax bracket nowthat she's either, you know,

(32:53):
married filing separately or orsingle person

Speaker 3 (32:56):
Head of household.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:59):
I'm not , I don't know . Yeah. Maybe the head of
household. Well anyway , solet's just pretend for sake of
our discussion here on theradio show, it's 25%. Well, if
she wanted to be able to use 10grand from the ex-husband's
retirement, she'd actually haveto access $13,331 because she

(33:19):
would owe then $3,333 of incometaxes. Right. On the 13,333 in
order to net the 10 grand. Thatis a heavy penalty. Or you

Speaker 3 (33:33):
Know, is there, but so they had sold the previous
home. Yeah. Were those funds,not they , it sounds like she
wants to make even more downpayment those funds

Speaker 1 (33:43):
After they cleaned up their balance sheet there
wasn't very much leftover , butshe's got some Right. But they
, they took care of paying offa lot of other obligations

Speaker 3 (33:52):
Balances. Yeah.
Mm-hmm

Speaker 1 (33:53):
.
Mm-hmm So this isjust in the category of uh Yeah
. People,

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Well, the right the answer is yes you can, but
let's talk about should you andwell,

Speaker 1 (34:04):
And how much expensive is that?

Speaker 3 (34:06):
Well, like a ribeye, right? It's like, well may I
tell you the chef'srecommendation? But if you
order it hockey puck, I willyell back to the kitchen. But I
I , that's not necessarily theway that I would order my
ribeye, but that's okay.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
Well and the other interesting thing is that , uh,
it's the kind of penalty that,you know, unless your IRA
custodian makes you withholdthe money upfront , a lot of
times you don't realize thepain until the next year when
you go to file your tax return.
Hey, it is tax return season ,uh, coming up, you know,
Tuesday everybody's gotta filetheir taxes. Um, so it'll be

(34:43):
interesting to see what shedecides, but at least we can
help her quantify the relativepain or, you know, the income
tax or not bite that would comeout of the , out of the apple.
Alright , so , uh, to recap,boy, we got a tumultuous
market, but we're still helpingpeople , uh, write offers and
get 'em accepted regardless ofwhat interest rates are doing.

(35:05):
Hopefully they'll calm downsometime in the relatively near
future, but we're , uh, happyto help you or your loved one
figure out exactly uh, what theright way is to , uh, make that
offer successful. Our favoritetool is that rock solid
preapproval with the appraisalwaiver if we can get 'em. And
David, you said you got twothis week with down with
appraisal waivers with whatdown payment

Speaker 3 (35:27):
As little as 10% down. Got the full appraisal
waiver, which is a new , uh,uh, increase in scope for the
full appraisal waiver. So notnecessarily having to commit to
a 20% down payment. You mighteven get that full appraisal
waiver with as little as 10%down or less theoretically. But
you gotta check in. Keep, keepyour acting at Loan Consultant

(35:51):
tuned in , uh, to your househunt and any offers you might
write.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
That's all the time we got for today's show. Thanks
for tuning in. You've beenlistening to the Accu Mortgage
and Realty Show on AM six 20WTMJ.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
The proceeding was a paid program. Advice and
opinions expressed during theAccu Mortgage and Realty Show
are solely that of the host orguests of Accu Mortgage and
Acuate Realty Advisors and notWTMJ Radio or Good Karma
Brands. Milwaukee, LLC.