High Home Prices, Interest Rates, And Advice That Can Help

High Home Prices, Interest Rates, And Advice That Can Help

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey, I'm Michael Blaze. Welcometo Your Home three sixty, the show
where we talk about everything that hasto do with your home. Spraughn to
you. My Pool Works, theLow Country's exclusive dealer of the Little Pool
line of pools. Stick around tofind out exactly what a little Pool is.
But first we're going to talk mortgages. Everybody thinks that we're off the

(00:22):
Richter scale here on mortgage rates becausethey're much higher than they were not that
long ago. Historically, that's notso true. Home prices, out of
the other hand, are off theRichter. On the line with me is
Lisa Simpson. She's a mortgage superherowith a legend lending. Thanks for joining
me today, Lisa, happy tobe here, Michael. April this blew

(00:43):
me away. Median price in CharlestonCounty for April, the median sales price
for a single family detached home wasseven hundred and ten thousand dollars. You
believe that it's outrageous. For theyear to date is six hundred fifty eight
thousand dollars. So that creates anaffordability issue, and we're going to get

(01:04):
to that in just a second.The other thing it creates is equity.
So I wanted to ask you aboutyou know, I know for a while
there are second mortgages and he locksdried up there for a while for the
mortgage industry. Are you seeing that'sstarting to come back now that prices continue
to go up and people want totake advantage of that value of that equity

(01:27):
that they have in their homes.I've seen a little bit of that.
I've seen more of just cash outrefi honestly, which even when they're got
a three percent or a three anda half percent rate, when you're looking
at some he locks or upwards offourteen or fifteen percent, the blended rate

(01:48):
between a cash out refi sometimes endsup being more advantageous to them. So,
especially if they're paying off twenty ninepercent credit cards, Well, explain
what a blended rate is. Sowhen you're when you're calculating it, you
want to see what your first mortgage, say you have a three percent rate
and a new helock would be fourteenpoint nine to nine percent. You're going

(02:13):
to blend those two rates to giveyou a median rate, and if that
is higher than what a cash outrefib would be, then it makes more
sense to do it that way.Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
And right now ballpark because you knowthe interest rates of change every day.
What would a cash out refive costyou about right now? Interest rate wise,

(02:35):
I mean, I'm in the midsixes depending on what the situation is.
If it's a conventional, you're goingto be in those mid sixes.
Sometimes the FHA or VA is asmidge under that. You know, that's
not a bad rate. Everybody thinksthat because the rates went up so high
so fast, that's not a badrate at all. Historically it is not.

(03:00):
Yeah, it was show shock foreverybody, the same as I can
remember the day the rates first hitthe twos and it just went nuts from
there on. But show shock ofcoming out of that, going into you
know, the fours, the fivesixes. We went all the way up
into the eighth at some point.But now, if you're settled in the

(03:21):
mid sixies, if you look back, if you're constantly waiting, oh,
I'm not going to buy a house. I want to wait for him to
get back in the twes, you'reprobably never going to own a house in
your lifetime because that was a freakthing. It's probably never going to be
back in the twes, in thenext you know, twenty years, right,

(03:42):
unless we get another pandemic. ButI don't get happening. Yeah,
let's hope not. But you know, a six percent rate, everybody keeps
waiting, Oh, I'm going towait and see it does next year,
Wait and see it does the followingyear. Well, the housing prices are
tenuously going up. The old thing. Marry the house, not the rate,

(04:03):
so you can refinance when the ratescome down. You can't renegotiate what
you paid for the house. Yeah, you can't make the price of the
house go back down. And you'relosing ground in the meantime. And to
put it in perspective, like Isaid, historically, I can remember buying
a house at like eleven points somethingpercent. Then I refinanced. When it

(04:24):
dropped to like i ten percent orsomething like that, I thought I was
doing great, right, and thenwrote it all the way down. But
you know the point is, Imean, and if you go back to
the eighties, some of those peoplewere paying like eighteen percent interest rates.
They sure were. I mean backin two thousand and six, two thousand

(04:44):
and seven, you know, duringjust before that housing crisis, happened the
rates there for they would do onehundred percent loans and those rates were eleven,
twelve, thirteen percent. You're notthere now, no right, so
you know, And that's why Isay historically, I mean people think that
your bs it on it. It'slike, oh, oh, well,
what else are you going to say? It's like, well, I'm speaking

(05:08):
the truth. You have to puteverything into perspective. But having said that,
I mean, affordability is an issue, and the prices keep going up,
and we were just talking about it, and I was just using that
medium price as an example for themonth of April and Charleston for a single
family detached home seven hundred and tenthousand dollars. Man, that hurts and

(05:29):
it's not attainable for a lot ofpeople. So do you have any programs
that you know that help buyers,say down payment assistance or anything like that.
We have a really good down paymentassistance program. It is not the
South Carolina State Housing. It iscalled the Rosebud and it's a little bit
better on the fact that we don'tcare how much income you make. Other

(05:55):
programs have restrictions on how much youcan make. You have to be under
almost have a level to get thisassistant. Well, we don't care.
If you make a million dollars ayear and still want down pay assistance,
we'll give it to you. We'regoing to ask why we're going to give
it to you. We also don'tcare anywhere. We don't have targeted areas.

(06:16):
You can purchase a home anywhere inSouth Carolina and you can get the
down payment assistance. It's four percentof the purchase price. It's based off
an FAHA moan, so it coversall of your three and a half percent
down payment plus a little bit aftertowards closing costs. Well, that's great,
And you know those things you mentionedbecause oftentimes these down payment assistance programs

(06:43):
that you'll find from the state orthe USDA. And that's why I think
you mentioned like the areas like USDA, you have to be in the USDA
zones to tap into their program otherprograms, and maybe even THEIRS. It's
been a while since I did oneof those, worked with one of those.
You know, you can only youcan't exceed the median income for the

(07:04):
county, and in a lot ofcases, like you said, that's near
poverty level. In a lot ofthese areas. So in this Rosebud program
you have so income doesn't matter andgeography doesn't matter. Am I hearing that
correctly? That is correct? Sowe also go on standard FAHA dead to

(07:27):
income ratio. So a lot oftimes down payment assistance or especially those USDA
programs, those dead to income ratiosare much stricter and harsher. They aren't
with ours. It's a strict FAHAguidelines as far as dead to income,
and you can purchase anywhere in thestate and you're good to go. Now,

(07:48):
let me ask you this. SoDave Ramsey among other people, and
I like Dave Ramsey and everything,and I you know, I agree with
him to a certain extent. Buthe's always talking about fifteen year loans,
fifteen year loans, fifteen year loans. What's the difference in the interest rate
between a thirty year and a fifteenyear. You know, there's not much.

(08:11):
You have to figure this too.A lot of people will call me
and they'll be, hey, Iwant to get a fifteen year mortgage.
Okay, Well let's look at that, and let's compare the differences in payments,
compare the differences in overall lifetime interest. Because sometimes you're strapping yourself with

(08:31):
a much larger payment, then you'reactually staving an overall interest because the interest
rate isn't that much. Yes,you're paying it off in half the time,
but keep in mind you're paying itoff in half the time, what
does that do to your payment?Reefing it almost double? Right? Well,
And that's kind of the point Iwas getting to is I learned,

(08:54):
And I've had a fifteen year andI thought I was a genius and I
was so proud of myself when Igot my year, myself into the fifteen
year, and then you know,the financial crisis hit and now I'm stuck
with, like you said, nearlya double payment, and it didn't leave
me any breathing room at all.It actually got me nearly into trouble.

(09:18):
And so I learned from that frompersonal experience. Get the thirty year loan
because the fifteen year, as yousaid, is it's not that much difference
in the interest rate. So it'sgoing to cost you a little bit more,
but it's going to give you breathingroom. And then if you continue
to do well, make your paymentson a fifteen year schedule, right,

(09:39):
So double your payments and put ittowards you know, and put it towards
equity, and then you'll end upalmost in the same place, and you
leave yourself some breathing room if thingsgo south, you don't have to come
up with that huge payment, andmaybe you can back off and just make
your regular thirty year payment and thenwhen things change your circumstances change again,

(10:01):
switch back to doubling down on puttingthat money towards principle. So do you
see any flaws in that kind ofstrategy. I don't. That seems like
the better strategy to me. Everybodythinks that life is going to continue as
it is. Look, I've gota great job, I'm in great health.

(10:22):
Everything is coming up roses. Thingshappen. You could lose your job,
your company could go out of business, you could have an illness,
you could have anything that's going todelay or put a ripple. Because life
is not that smooth and not thatstraightforward. So you have to hear planning
on. Yes, I can affordthat right now, and I'm at the

(10:43):
top of my world. What happenswhen you know, you get the flu
and you've had or what happens withall these people that got COVID and lost
their jobs. Right, if youget laid off, you now you do
and their companies go out of businessor they can't work or whatever. So
don't put yourself in that kind ofsituation. You know, a thirty year
mortgage is not the devil. Itis the best program for you because you

(11:09):
can make those extra payments when youare on top of things and you're bringing
it down, bringing it down,and then if something happens, look I'm
five months ahead on my mortgage,or look I'm already ahead and I've paid
down so much inequity. There areso many things you can do. You
can look into recasting that loan ifyou need to, you know, gain

(11:30):
a little bit more attraction there andnot have to deal with refinance costs.
There's so many options. But ifyou go, hey, give me a
fifteen year mortgage, you are lockingyourself into a super high payment and putting
a lot of pressure on yourself thatdoesn't need to be there. Just be
organized and you know, pay attention, and when you've got the extra money,

(11:52):
pay it on your mortgage. Yeah, it gives you more options and
you know, ultimately we'll leave youin a better financial situation. So we'll
have to continue. I have abunch more questions for you, but unfortunately
I'm out of time. I appreciateyour time today. If anybody wants to
talk to you about the Rosebud programor about getting pre approved for a loan,
how can they reach you, Lisa. They can call me at eight

(12:13):
four to three, four three sevenseven nine, seven to two. You
give the number one more time eightfour to three, four to three,
seven seven nine seven two. MortgageSuperhero with Legend Lending. Lisa Simpson,
thanks for your time today. ThanksMichael, talk to you soon. In
the studio with me is Heath bodOrf. He's vice president of Pool Works.

(12:35):
They're the low Country's exclusive dealer ofthe Little Pool line of pools here
in the low Country. Welcome Heath. Let's start by explaining what a little
pool is. A little pool isa plunge pool, right, it is
a plunge pool, but it's afree standing plunch pool. So it's a
fiberglass pool shell and then surrounded witha exoskeleton of GRP, which is glass

(12:58):
rein first polymer or something I callthe glass reinforced plastic. It doesn't rust,
it doesn't rot, it doesn't gettermite damage. It's pretty tough stuff.
And just to set this up,so the fiberglass comes from Australia,
right, that's correct, and thenyou manufacture it put it together here in
Ridgeville, right here in South Carolina. That is correct. It is shipped

(13:20):
in containers nested together. The poolshells are it's a standard fiberglass pool built
for originally built for end ground,been modified a little bit so that it
can accept our exoskeleton. And oncethey're brought in, they come in nested
together in a container. And thenhere in Ridgeville they take the pool shells

(13:41):
and then convert that over and addthe GRP exoskeleton to make it a free
standing fiberglass pool. Now, theexoskeleton is an important component, if not
the most important component of the pool. That's what gives it its strength,
right Heath, Yeah, So theexoskeleton is what allows this pool to be
free standing. So it's a patentedprocess of how it's applied to the pool.

(14:03):
And then once that pool is builtthe exoskeleton, you can fill it
full of water net It allows thatpools so that it can withstand those forces
of the you know, the waterpushing outwards on that pool. So most
fiberglass pools, if you were totake a standard fiber glass pool and sit
that on the ground and fill itfull water, the whole sides would just

(14:24):
literally buckle. They would they wouldpush out to an extent. And then
if you know, take somebody andhave to do a cannon ball in it,
that force, that pressure that wouldbe a for exerted on that pool
wall would literally bust the walls.So is what the little pool is.
It's engineered and designed to a pointthat it can withstand that. I think
they're testing. One of their testingis they take a fifty five gallon drum,

(14:48):
raise it thirteen feet in the ear, and then free to fill,
drop it into a water filled pool, and it's able to withstand that.
So that's part of their testing procedures. They have a lot of patented trademarks
on the actual process that I can'tshare. But it's you know, it's
it's pretty strong. It's it's durableto last most people in entire lifetime.
Wow. And it's strong enough too. Where this is what impressed me is

(15:11):
you can attach a deck to itwithout any supports for the deck right and
strong enough to support not only thewater and people jumping in it, but
you can also if you want toput it next to a deck, you
can attach the deck base right toit. Right. Yeah, So a
lot of times, like if youwere to take a standard above ground pool
or you know, the old theround, you know, type of above
ground pools, and you wanted todeck run it, you would have to

(15:33):
put support columns right up next tothe pool. Well, with this pool,
you know, first of all,it's not you know, it's not
a tin can pool, but itis an actual fire glass pool, and
you can attach what we call awhaling board around the perimeter of it and
then set your floor joists right onit, so you don't need those support
structures right up next to the pool. The pool is the support structure,

(15:54):
so it's kind of like cannilever inyour deck off that so you could go
out eight, ten, twelve feetbefore you actually have to put your first
post. Now, of course,a lot of that's in your designs and
everything, but yeah, the poolwas strong enough to withhold with stand the
entire deck load, all on allfour sides at once and still be strong
enough to hold that water. Yeah, that's awesome. And you know,

(16:15):
and we had discussed this before aboutyou know, we're in the low country,
so groundwater level is pretty high here. Sometimes, you know, I
joke, it's like a you know, right at the ground level, at
the ground water. And so somepeople with these fiberglass pools, if you
don't keep them full, they canpop right out of the ground. And
not only that, but with floodingissues and everything else, sometimes an in

(16:38):
ground pool is just not practical.So the little pool that you manufacturer is
perfect for a situation like that.And not only is it strong, it's
pretty too. Right, without beingover or zealous on this, I mean
it's it's a swimming pool that isgorgeous. It's the colors are beautiful.

(16:59):
The warranty on it's astronomical. They'venever had a reported case of osmosis in
their pools shells, and so youknow, they offer a twenty five year
warranty on that. And you know, typically in the fibreglass industry, you
see, you know, had abad name you know, from the eighties
in that where people were using thewrong kind of resins and stuff. So
you've seen a lot of osmosis onstuff on pool shells and never has Compass,

(17:25):
our manufacturer of our poolshell. Theynever had a recorded case of osmosis.
So that's that's that's a big statementright there. And just the pool
itself is gorgeous. They've nailed thecolors. It's kind of a three D
look to it. It's a prettypool and it's just like any other fiberglass
pool. You can do what youwant with it. You know, you
can put jets in it and putdifferent lights in it. You can do
all kinds of things in it.Now. They're also light weight, so

(17:45):
they're perfect for tight spaces or spacesthat are hard to get you know,
any kind of heavy equipment into thatyou would normally use to dig an in
ground pool. And in a lotof cases you can be swimming the same
day it's delivered, right, Soexplain the installation process. Yeah, So,
typically the pools are designed to siton a on a some type of

(18:10):
flat surface, whether that is concreteor pavers. There's engineer drawings for each
of those. It tells you howthick the concrete needs to be and how
big the pavers need to be.In stuff, But so whether you sink
it in the ground partially fully orfully above ground or raise it up on
a steel platform for like say andIle Palms type project where they wanted their

(18:30):
pool up level with the first storyof the home. Then you know there's
there's that type of design. It'sbuilt into the pool. It's able to
do all that. And when youtake all the benefits of having this type
of pool, it really fits differentinstallation in scenario. So one one might
be, you know one the poolis super light, it's it's the biggest

(18:52):
pool I think is rated around thirtythree hundred pounds. When you compare that
to say a shipping container pool ora pre fab concrete pool, you know
those things weigh twenty twenty six thousandpounds depending on what size you're getting fifteen
thousand pounds, and you take youmight have to crane something over home or
something. Well for every pound you'vegot to move a foot. That costs

(19:15):
money. So if it's a lotcheaper to take a three thousand and thirty
three hundred pound pool, lift itover a home, sit it in somebody's
backyard than it is a twenty fivethousand pound pool, So huge cost difference.
There are huge cost savings in theactual shipping of the pool, you
know, less weight to ship downthe road, down the highway, but

(19:37):
you know that's one way to installit. You can install it with a
crane. The cool thing about thelittle pool is in some scenarios it's actually
easy enough to actually put casters underit and wheel it into somebody's backyard.
It's that light as long as youhave some way to lift it off the
truck, whether that's with a telehandlertype a piece of equipment. Very few

(19:59):
people will probably familiar with that term, but a brand name would be a
lull A. It's a fork truckthat's kind of all terrained with an extendable
boom and then so that that caneven lift it in most of the times
that it'll fit between people's homes andthat's a very cost effective way of getting
it in a backyard if you haveto lift it over a fence or something
like that. So the site work, getting into a little bit of the

(20:22):
site work part of it. Thesite work is, you know, it
can be as minimal as putting somepapers on the ground, you know,
ripping up some sawed a little bit, not really digging into the ground,
and putting a paper base down andputting the papers in stamping them in place
and then putting the pool on topof that, or it can be a
little more intensive. You know,let's do a concrete pad because maybe we
need to bring it up to anexisting deck level. Then at that point

(20:42):
you might want to bring it upyou know, save foot you know,
then okay, so you want tobring your concrete pad up level so that
the top of that pool is goingto be even with the existing deck that's
already there, so that you know, the site work is minimal. When
you consider pools, a tip ofwind ground pool, you know, there's
a lot of dirt to move anda lot of dirt to haul out of
somebody's backyard, and this one here, you know, it depended on this

(21:06):
situation, and it's not made forevery situation. You know, that's something
that you know, it's got tobe taken into account when you're when you're
thinking about a little pool or anypunch pool, you know, is it
going to fit the family of six? Right? You were telling me off
the air, You're like, youknow, I just don't want this to
be a sales piece for the littlepool. I want to be informative and

(21:27):
let people know what they are andlet people know that it might not be
right for everyone. That's correct.So you know, if you look at,
you know, trends in the poolindustry. You know, years ago,
everybody wanted that free form pool thatwas big, and you know,
it had an eight foot nine footdeep end. And you know, since

(21:47):
most people have gotten away from becauseof mainly insurance reasons, have gotten away
from putting diving boards in pools.Today, you know, your average homeowner,
they're not going to use that spaceout there, that seven eight foot
deep unless they purposely got that poolto swim laps. Nobody wants to go
out there and tread water. Sothe need to have that big deep pool

(22:10):
in it today is is really notthere unless it's just mindset from well that's
what my parents had or that's whatmy grandparents had, But nobody puts diving
boards. They might put a slidehere and there, but really that's a
thing of the past. And sowhen you think about pools today and how
the industry has evolved, you know, you see people a lot more companies

(22:32):
offering these plunge pools. Well,let's let's explain what a plunge pool is.
So a plunge pool is a smallerpool. It's designed for, you
know, coming home from work andrelaxing. It's designed for entertaining a few
guests, having some you know,a glass of wine or a cocktail or
even a beer after work whatever,getting in there, chill, let your
stress take you, you know thatjust wash that stress away from you,

(22:55):
just cooling down after mowing the lawnon a Saturday or something. And that's
what a plunch pool is, youknow. It's it's a pool to just
sit in, relax, enjoy companyof others, enjoy, you know,
just taking that stress away from theday of work. And that's what you
know, I think, you know, that's what a plunch pool does.
It's I think when they originally startedout, people were calling them party pools.

(23:18):
You know, it's it's not evenreally a party pool. It's it's
a something for you to enjoy almoston a personal level, where you know,
your typical big, you know pool. You know you've got a family
of six. Is a plunch poolgoing to work for that person? No,
it's not. And uh, somepeople, you know, they got
it. They want that big pool. They want to be able to swim
laps in it and not that plunch. Pools can't offer some forms of exercise.

(23:42):
You know, there's there's stuff thatthat are made to to you know,
you can actually swim with and stuff. But and those options are available
even on the little pool. Butyou know, is it going to be
the right pool for a family thathas maybe three or four kids and those
kids are going to grow up forthe next ten years in that home before
they go off to college, andthey're going to have friends over and they're

(24:03):
going to want to play you know, volleyball, basketball, stuff like that.
Is it the right pool for that. No, it's not. And
so really educating the consumer about whatworks best for them, I think that's
more important than actually selling the pool. I think, you know, if
the industry. I had a customerand it's a very well known person in
the area. He just bought alittle pool from us, and one of

(24:25):
his comments was he said, yourindustry is broken, and that it took
me a step back. But youknow what's funny, I knew that the
industry has broken. The pool professionalsdon't have a good name. I think
currently in the state of South Carolinathere are three or four lawsuits against pool
companies. That's bad press. That'swhy is that what's going on in the
industry. So I think that's theseare all questions people need to talk to

(24:48):
their their pool company about and youknow, educate themselves. What what makes
a good pool company a good poolcompany? Sure, and you know,
and what makes a pool a goodpool And what makes the installation process a
good installation process one that's not goingto cause you headaches down the road.
That's correct, That's correct. Youknow, it's all about you know,
making the right choice. And youknow, if I got to walk away

(25:11):
from a job, even though Imight want that sale, if I got
to walk away from it because itdoesn't fit that customer or it doesn't fit
that situation. Maybe they even believethat it fits them. But if it
doesn't. And if i've you know, you got to look at you know,
consumers, not a pool professional.They haven't installed fifty or one thousand
or a hundred or whatever that numberis for each each different pool builder out

(25:33):
there. If if if you gotto walk away from it, you know,
you got to because that's it's moreabout that consumer's happiness. You definitely
don't want a consumer that you solda pool tool just for the pool sale
and then next year them realized that, hey, this wasn't really the greatest
purchase for us. You know,pool is a big investment. It's not

(25:55):
a necessity. It is a desire, it's a it's a it's a want,
and you know, you want thatperson to make the right choice.
And that's that's what we're about.That's what Pool Works is about. That's
why we, you know, havethe reputation we do have. You know,
we're not afraid to walk away fromit if it's not the right fit

(26:15):
for that customer. Well, forthose that are interested in learning more about
the little pool line of pools,what should they do? One they could
call us. That's probably the bestway. It's eight four three six nine
five eight three five five. Theother way is just go to our website
and you know, we have somecontact of stuff. We don't spam people,
really, we don't. You Ifyou fill out that form on our

(26:37):
website, it stays in house.We don't sell it. We don't do
anything like that. We just contactyou know, if you're interested, We're
not going to hound you. Orif you know, if you just want
general some knowledge, you know,we're we're here to to help educate people.
That's that's the important part. Inthe website's mypoolworks dot com. Mypoolworks
dot com. Go ahead and givethe phone number one more time. It's
eight four three six nine five eightthree five five. Well, you're celebrating

(27:02):
a birthday and you're having a springpromotion, and right now for our listeners,
you're offering them two thousand dollars offtheir order, right, that is
correct. So pool Works has beenin business sixteen years as of March,
and we're extending that promotion into theend of April. So yeah, take
get your pool ordered and we'll helpyou. And you can take two thousand
dollars off the cost of that pool, or you can add it to some

(27:25):
you know, something else that youwant, maybe you want a heater or
something like that. Definitely, andyou said you can even you even have
the equipment. It escapes me whatit's called, but you can even there's
all kinds of add ons and youcan even swim laps, right, that's
correct. So we offer a superswim system. It's actually what the University
of Florida US is to train theirswimmers. So that's that that's part of
a package. And it's very affordable. It's nothing like putting a you know,

(27:51):
like a pool pool or something likethat in your back ey. It's
this is very easy, very affordable, and it's it's great. It provides
resistance training and it's that's what reallybuilds exercise. Well, that's excellent.
Go to mypoolworks dot com or thephone number one more time eight four three
six nine five eight three fivey five. Heath Bodorf, vice president of pool
Works, the Low Country's exclusive dealerof the Little Pool line of pools.

(28:15):
Thanks for your time and thanks forthe explanation today. Thank you, Michael,
appreciate it. That's it for yourhome three sixty. Make sure you
tune in every Saturday. And ifyou want to catch the podcast, you
can download that for free on youriHeartRadio app. You can also find it
online at ninety four to three WSCdot com just look under podcasts