Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, it's Michael Blaze. Welcome to Your Home three sixty.
The show. We talk about everything that has to do
with your home, everything from the roof to the plumbing,
to the foundation, to your lawn and landscaping, to the
buying and selling of your home, even using your home
to pay off some higher, nasty, high interest rate credit
card bills. Maybe you've put some home repairs on your
(00:22):
credit cards because you couldn't afford it, and now you're
trying to find a way to afford those payments. Well,
we're going to discuss that today on Your Home three sixty.
Don't forget we have all the past episodes up and
available for you. Just go to ninety four to three
WSC dot com and look under podcasts, or just search
for your Home three sixty with Michael Blaze on your
(00:43):
iHeartRadio app, which you can download for absolutely free. Let's
jump right into it. On the line with me is
Lisa Simpson. You're a mortgage superhero and over the years
I have done so much business with Lisa. She is
my go to mortgage broker. I know that she'll get
it done. And Lisa, we've done deals from multiple million
dollars down to a couple of one hundred thousand dollars,
(01:06):
and each one of them presents its own unique set
of challenges and circumstances. And I have to hand it
to you, we always put our heads together and we
get it done. And that's the most important thing in
the mortgage industry, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And it absolutely is.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes, And in the real estate industry too, is getting
it done and getting people into the property that they
want and that works for them, and that you know,
is going to ultimately be a better investment for them
moving forward, a better situation for him. So let's talk
a little about what's going on in the mortgage industry
(01:43):
right now, including interest rates. So what's the forecast for
interest rates? Are they going to stay the same, are
they expected to go down, or what's going on there?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Lord, if we only knew. They are saying that they
should be coming down over the rest of the year,
but it will only be small amounts. There's not you know,
any predictions or anything saying, hey, we're going to be
back at that four percent by the end of the year.
That's probably not likely to happen. You might dip into
(02:15):
the high fives by the end of the year is
what I'm hearing, but that remains to be seen. It
depends on a lot. There's a lot going on in
the market that's affecting them, especially with the tariffs that
are happening.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So, now, how do the tariffs affect the mortgage rates?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It affects the bond and anything that affects that tenure
bond is going to affect the mortgage rates. So you know,
the tariffs that are happening are of course just throwing
the whole market into a tizzy. And when that affects
it badly, our rates go up.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And I was just reading how you know Moody's downgraded
not only JP Morgan Chase well as Fargo, they also
down graded the United States because the United States is
so far in debt. Now does that affect people's mortgage
rates at all?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
It does, because it's affecting the overall market. And you
see a lot of big changes happening. Like you know,
you've got companies that have been around forever that are
either merging or being bought out. Like everybody knows who
Discover is, You've got to Discover Card. They just got
(03:30):
bought out by Capitol one two days ago. Any type
of buyouts like that. And you know, like you said,
JP Morgan is downsizing, a lot of them are downsizing,
cutting the fat, so to speak, because they fear that
tougher times are coming. And a lot of that is
circling around those terraces.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, and that leaves a big question for consumers too,
who are concerned about it, right, you know, and and
I mean that affects anything that you're going to purchase,
including real estate or an automobile or anything like that.
You know, some people just to get on the fence.
I always have this advice. I was talking to a client,
(04:13):
longtime client the other day where we were talking about
the situation, and I'm like, you know, there's so many
times in the past where I personally have I used
an example of it was during COVID and I had
a house. I wanted to buy a rental house, and
I had it under contract. I had it in my hand,
and I did the inspections. It needed a lot of work.
(04:37):
You know, COVID was starting to hit. There was a
bunch of uncertainty, and I chickened out, and so I
backed out under due diligence. And you know, and then
now you look at it. I mean I would have
made a lot of money off of that property. Now
I can kick myself in the butt and say, well,
you made the wrong decision, But was it the wrong decision.
(04:58):
It wasn't at the time that I made it, So
I like to stick to that. And that's the advice
I give everybody is look at everything through the prism
of today, not through what has happened in the past,
not what you think or is what is forecast to
happen in the future. But let's just look at it
from today and does this make sense today? Can I
(05:20):
make this work? Can I make this make sense today?
And then you can always adjust down the line. But
either it makes sense for you today or it doesn't.
And I think you're doing yourself a disservice by trying
to guess what's going to happen or forecast what's going
to happen by what has happened in the past. I
think all you can do is look through the prism
(05:41):
of today and make the best decision that you can.
When do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I do agree with that it has to be what you,
as an individual feel comfortable with. However, you also have
to kind of take a lot of what's going on
with a grain of salt. It is affecting now, what's
going to be affecting in a week, what's going to
be affecting in a year. And we can't predict the future.
(06:08):
We can only guess based on past experiences, right, And
they all say, you know, scared, money doesn't make money,
so I had I've seen a lot of people back
out of during during COVID because it was so uncertain
and the market was just in a crazy place. I
(06:28):
saw a lot of people back out. And you know,
some that are like, oh, I'm glad I did that
because they ended up losing their jobs. Other ones are
I should have bought that because now the price, you know,
the rates, whatever, it's not the same deal for them.
So it has to be what's right for you. But
take what's happening around you with the grain of salt.
(06:51):
The rates are high, are they? People ask me every day.
Are the rates high? Yes, they absolutely are, But the
prices of how are fairly stable right now. And when
your rates start plummeting, that's usually caused by some kind
of crazy turmoil going on in the world, such as
I mean, when COVID hit a huge pandemic and people
(07:13):
were losing their jobs, but you could get one and
a half percent interest rate. So you know, it's hard
to tell. It has to be what's right for you.
But look at all the factors and talk to a
mortgage expert, talk to a real estate expert, you know,
call me, call you, and let's talk about it. It
might be a good option, that might not be, but
(07:35):
you can't make that decision without all the information.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
No, absolutely, And just to be clear, I mean, and
you know my point doesn't differ from yours at all.
I mean, you have to look at what the situation is.
But if you think that your job is safe, and
then you think that your stream of income is safe
at least for you know, the foreseeable future, then to me,
(07:58):
that's the biggest obstacle and the rest of it's all
just noise that's going to get in your way. And
you know, I have a friend of mine where we
call it analyzation paralyzation where you just start over analyzing
everything so much you become paralyzed and you don't do anything.
And that's that's not a good place to be either.
(08:19):
You know, when you're looking at returning an investment, or
when you should have jumped into the market way down
the line, and we can go back. I think every
single one of us has a story about looking at,
you know, a property a long time ago and saying, man,
if I would have only bought that then, but you know,
but it seemed expensive, or there was one reason or
(08:41):
another why you couldn't move forward with it then, And
so you know, don't beat yourself up over it now.
You probably made the right decision for that point in time.
And you know, and a lot of people are waiting
for the interest rates to come down. I think what
they don't realize if the interest rates come down anything considerably,
(09:01):
you know what's going to happen to property values. They're
going to go up, going up on the house. Yeah, exactly,
So did you really get anywhere? And I had people,
even you know, during COVID, when property values really started
taking off, saying, you know what, I'm going to sell
and get out now, and I'm going to sit on
(09:23):
my pile of money and I'm going to get back
in when the prices go back down. And I'm like,
that is a horrible idea, horrible idea, horrible And if
they would have done it. You know what, they probably
would have priced themselves right out of the housing market,
and they would have taken an asset that they had
and try to cash in on it and ultimately end
(09:43):
up not being a homeowner anymore because they messed up
the margins so bad by you know, trying to guess
on what was going to happen and bet on the
market going down. And I'm like, do you really want
to live your life that way? Every day checking to
the market go down today, the market go down today.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
It'll make you crazy. Yeah, it'll make you crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
That sounds like a horrible place to be. And as
far as you know, the real estate market, it never
went down, and it continues to go up. Now. It's
not going up anywhere near the pace at which it
was before, but still at least a few percent a year.
It depends on kind of you know, all real estates local,
so it depends on what even neighborhood you're in. But
let's call it, you know, overall, on the median price
(10:27):
where at like four percent something like that. Appreciation in
Charleston County and the various counties differ by you know
a little bit, but stay right in there three four percent,
So we're still at that appreciation rate. So the prices
are still going up, and so these people still be waiting,
and then now the interest rate's higher and everything else.
(10:48):
And like I said, they would have screwed themselves right
out of being property owners if they went and did
what they thought was a good idea at the time,
trying to forecast what was going to happen. So that's
that's always a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But I mean, what do they say that you hear
all the time you marry the house, you date the
rate because you can't once you purchase a house unless
you sell it, you can't renegotiate what you paid for
it when so you buy it when the price is
right on the house, you feel like it's a good value.
And then even if the rates are elevated, rates go up,
(11:24):
rates come down when they come back down, and it's
a good move for you, and then you just refinance,
you know, when that comes proper for you. But to
just run scared from the market, you can't do that.
You just got to kind of figure out what's right
for you and can I afford this, and do I
love this house? And move forward?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, you have to put everything, yeah, and you have
to put everything in a perspective. Right. So I also
told this story about this conversation I had with my dad.
Now he passed away years ago, but I remember, I
don't know about fifteen years ago or so. He was
telling me, Hey, I just paid off my house, our
house in the house I at least for part of
(12:08):
my youth grew up in. And he said I'd just
paid off our house. And I'm like, Oh, that's so great.
You're gonna have so much extra money. And he's like, Nah,
not really. And I'm like, you're not excited that you
paid off your mortgage. He's like, well, it's a good
thing to pay off your mortgage. But he said, you
know what, my mortgage was three hundred and fifty dollars
a month. Oh lord, and it's a drop in the bucket.
(12:30):
He's like, I bought this house, and what I bought
it in nineteen seventy three is like that three hundred
and fifty dollars seemed like a lot of money. And
I was worried about it. Right, And then you get
to the end of that thirty years and that three
hundred and fifty dollars a month is a drop in
the bucket, literally, So you have to put things in
perspective too.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You do my parents when it's funny, you tell me
that three hundred and fifty bucks my parents mortgage? Are
you right for this? When they bought their house fifty
two bucks? Fifty two dollars so I can remember, I mean,
my parents had me later in life. But when they
paid off, they paid off the mortgage, and she was
(13:10):
so excited because she let my dad know and literally
he died a few days later, but she let him know,
we've paid off the house. It's ours, and he was
so happy and it made them com I'm like, wow,
that I would most people would kill for that kind
of payment on their house.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Absolutely, But you know, and I guess the point or
the moral of that story is, but when you start,
you know that might be your income's way lower lot
good property value. Yeah, it's a lot of money, just
like today where you're like, I don't know if I
can handle a forty five hundred dollars mortgage, and I
understand it's like it's scary, but when you get thirty
(13:50):
years down the road, more than likely that forty five
hundred bucks is going to be We're going to be
laughing about it like we are with you know, three
hundred and fifty or even fifty two dollars payments like
we are.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Or no, yeah, I have a lot of people to
ask me about that. You know, I don't know if
I can afford these, you know, ridiculously high payments. And
I said, well, you know, you might have to look
at some lifestyle changes. I said, but you also have
to look at that forty five hundred dollars payment is
buying you something substantial that is going to stand the
(14:22):
test of time. Your weekend vacation to Aruba is probably
not going to do the same thing, so or you know,
go out deep once a week instead of four times
a week, and all kinds of things like that, little
tiny changes Compared to where you want to invest your money.
(14:43):
A house is something that increases in value and it's
going to and can make you money down the road.
So it's usually something you got to look at pretty
hard as opposed to, you know, spending money on something
that's only going to last that particular moment.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, all that other stuff belongs in the red column, right,
So houses tend to be in the black column, and
everything else, from an automobile to a vacation, to furniture
to everything is in the red column. You're not making
any money back on any of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No, you're usually losing. I mean, look at what you
pay for a car versus you know, you go pay
for any amount of car right now, and it's probably
fifty sixty thousand dollars, if not much higher than that.
So well, you go trade that in. Most people trade
a car in within what two years maybe three, unless
you're my husband has it forever. But you go to
(15:43):
trade in and they're giving you how much out of
that sixty grand? You know you might get forty maybe,
And you certainly didn't pay off twenty grand worth of
it in two years.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
So yeah, I don't even think you'd get forty.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I mean really started extremely generous.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, I started paying cash for cars, and you know,
my whole thing, and I can't always make it work
this way, but you know, my new outlook on things is,
and I wish I would have had this a long
time ago. I tell my wife, you don't make money
to spend it. You make money to make more money,
and then you take the money you made and you
spend that money. Yeah, and if you look at it
(16:25):
through that formula, you'll always have your principle at least
and then some hopefully. So you just have to be
smart on how you look at money. And we've all
been trained to be consumers, and oh I make this much,
well I can afford this much. Well, you know, start
looking at it like, well, I make this much? How
(16:46):
much more can I make on it? And then what
can I get with what I make off of it?
And if you can work it out like that, you
you're literally golden. But let's talk about bridge and temporary lifeans.
So you know people that are hesitant right now, I
mean they're hesitant for many different reasons. One of them
(17:07):
might be because they're already in an existing house and
they just can't figure out, you know, it's too onerous
for them to consider how am I going to make
the move from one house into another? How am I
going to get financed? How am I going to make
this all work? And you have some bridge loans or
(17:28):
call them temporary loans or whatever you want, where you
can take the equity in your existing home and use
that as a down payment on the home you're going
to purchase, and you can also avoid your insurance cost,
your mortgage insurance cost, your MIP you know, mortgage insurance
premium or your PMI primary or private mortgage insurance. You
(17:50):
can avoid that cost by doing it that way. So
explain a little bit about some of the bridge slash
temporary loans that you offer.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Well, yes, we offer both a bridge and an attempt loan,
and it can be used for multiple different reasons. If
you own a house now and like you said, you're
looking to purchase a new house, if the circumstances are right,
you've got equity in the current house and you don't
need to sell it before closing on the new house,
(18:22):
but you need some cash for that. We can help
you tap into the equity that you have to use
for the new house. You might also have to, you know,
get ready to sell your house and you need to
make updates or repairs or whatever you need to it,
but you don't you know, sometimes that can be costly
(18:44):
up to twenty thirty thousand dollars. If that's the case,
A lot of people don't have that amount of cash
laying around. So we can help again with a temporary
loan we'll get in there and you can pay your
contractors or whatever you need to do to accomplish your goal.
And it's usually a six month term, but six months
(19:05):
to repair and sell the house is enough time for
most people. And we helped one guy. He was trying
to get a VA loan, and most people in the
industry know that if you're trying to get a VA loan,
the house needs to be in very good conditions. Well,
(19:26):
he couldn't do that because the storms that came through
Summerville kind of did some damage to his house. So
we funded it with a temporary loan. He hired a contractor,
he come in, he fixed it, and now we're putting
back into a VA loan and his house is all fixed.
So you can use it for multiple different reasons and
(19:49):
they're very quick. We can usually close in from them
in seven days.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, and I just did one similar to that with you,
where I had a client who it's a long story,
but he wanted to move back to Charleston. He moved
out of here, you know, ten years ago or so,
and he ran into the problem of he didn't want
a mortgage and the prices had gone up so much.
He was surprised when we started looking at houses, you
(20:16):
know how much the property values had gone up. But
he had a rental house. He had a few of them, actually,
and so I told him, well, you know, the take
one of these rental houses and sell it, and we'll
go look for a house for you. And you're going
to take out a mortgage on the house, not nearly
(20:36):
what it's worth, roughly about half, and we're going to
market the rental property. And so you're going to carry
that mortgage, and then when we sell the rental property,
then you can pay off this mortgage and you can
be mortgage free. And that's exactly what we did and
what you helped us do.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yep, there's a lot of good uses for it. And
like I said, we can close those super quick because
it's funded with our own money. We don't sell those
off to anybody, so they're completely totally in house. And
I mean, speaking of quick, we were able to I
(21:16):
was able to help two people lately. One was a
real estate agent. He was trying to purchase a house personally,
and he was having difficulty with the loan company that
he was working with. He ended up having to extend
his closing day almost a full month and they still
(21:36):
were goofing around and oh, we're trying, We're trying. He
came to me, what can you do to help? He
came to me on Friday, late Friday afternoon, I got
his information, got a pre approval together. I said, are
you ready to go? And he's like, yes, I sure,
am sign disclosures. I ordered an appraisal at six o'clock
(21:57):
on Friday night and put in their shrush rush. I
got the appraise of like a ten thirty Friday night.
At the conditional approval Monday and Tuesday morning, he was clear, close, excellent.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Well, like I said when we started this conversation, I'm like,
you're my go to. I know I can count on
you and if it can be done, you'll get it done.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And I absolutely will.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, And I always consider myself one of those people too.
I'm not going to be the one that fails at this.
And you know, this is probably the biggest investment that
you're dealing with. With a lot of clients that we
deal with, it's going to be the biggest chunk of
money they ever spent. And you know, and I don't
you know, I want to come through for them. And
be successful for them. I'm not. Oh, I'm sorry, I
(22:39):
can't make it happen. And the underwriter said this and
this and that, and that happens sometimes, and to be
quite honest, sometimes it's just you just can't get it done.
But I know that if it can be done between
the two of us, we will for damn sure get
it done.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Leaves no rock unturned.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And that's right. Let's talk about the cash out refis
here a little bit. So we were talking off there
about how there's still people refinancing their homes.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
There are it needs to be. When somebody comes to me, hey,
I'm looking to refinance my house, I'm going to ask
them a lot of questions and what are you trying
to accomplish and in some circumstances and ends up being
a not even a good deal, but a very good
deal for them. Because I had a guy not that
(23:38):
long ago that went from a three and a half
percent industry. He kind of ended up. He closed during
COVID when the raids were just starting to come down,
not in the two jet and he come on to
some hard times, had you know, a lot of time
off from work for medical reasons, had to take out
some personal loans, brack up some credit so he was
(24:01):
drowning in monthly payments, and I said, well, let's look
at it. Let's run some numbers, and we did. His
mortgage payment ended up increasing by a couple hundred dollars,
but he ended up saving in monthly output of paying
up all those high high interest loans. He saved over
seventeen hundred dollars a month in outgoing cash every month.
(24:24):
So that was a lifesaver for him. And if there's
situations like that, the cash out is still there. It's
still a good good deal. Because if you're carrying a
five thousand dollars balance on a credit card that's at
twenty nine point nine nine percent, your monthly payment on
that is going to be drastically higher than adding enough
(24:47):
money to pay.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That off in a refine, right, And I mean, the
same thing goes. I mean there's several different scenarios where
it would make sense for you, say the house is
in disrepair and you don't have the cash to repair it. Well, uh,
you know you need a new roof, or there's foundation
problems run into this all the time, you know, you uh,
(25:08):
that's a source to get your hands on some money
there and not have to put it on a credit
card and pay those exorbitant interest rates.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, I mean speaking of the new roof. We had
a uh, it's a funny thing. I had a bar
word that put a contract in on a house. When
they did the inspection, they found out that it needed
a new roof. It was in a very bad condition.
And the seller you know, of course you need that
to close on the mortgage because mortgage company is not
going to let you buy that house of the roof's
(25:38):
going to fall in.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, I'm sure, yeah they're not.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
But the sellers like I just don't have the funds.
So we turned around and talked to the seller and said,
but let me give you a templan. He had nothing
equity to do it. We had a contractor come in,
they took up templan, they put a new roof on
our barer was able to close and everybody was happy.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Nice. Now we're almost out of time and I want
to get this in. You're opening a new office July
tenth in Summerville, So tell us about your your new
office and your new adventure. Here we are.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
We're super excited they have a new office location opening
It's in downtown Summerville at one point three North Magnolia.
The grand opening is going to be July tenth, from
eleven am to six pm. We will have live music there.
We will have a huge smoker full of all kinds
of barbecue, a lot of giveaways, a lot of good times.
(26:40):
Come check us out, say hi and get some free food.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Perfect July tenth and you can meet Lisa in person. Lisa,
if somebody wants to talk to you about a loan
or at least to you know, get your thoughts on it.
And you're the same way I am. You know, you
don't have to feel compelled. We're not going to bug
the hell out of you. And you know, oh I
have a live one one here and then you know,
are you ready? Are you ready? I mean we're here
(27:04):
as an information, a source of information to help you
make a decision and then hopefully when you make the decision,
you know you'll go with us. But that's not the uh,
the impetus of how we operate. We're happy to share
information with people when they're you know, researching what they
want to do. So either way, if they're looking for
a loan or just looking to hash out their situation
(27:27):
and they want to have a conversation with you. What's
the best way to reach here?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They can call or text me at eight four three
four three seven seven nine seven.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Two and repeat that one more time.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Call or text me at eight four three four three
seven seven nine seven two.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Lisa Simpson, your mortgage superhero. Congratulations on your new office
opening July tenth. Head to the grand opening on July tenth.
It sounds like a big old to do and I'll
be there too, so as always they Thanks for the
conversation and good to talk to you Lisa YouTube.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thanks Michael.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That does it for today's episode of Your Home three sixty.
Thanks for listening. Remember today's episode and all past episodes
are available in podcast form at ninety four to three
WSC dot com, or just search for Your Home three
sixty with Michael Blaze on your iHeartRadio app. Have a
good weekend. I'll talk to you again soon
Hey, it's Michael Blaze. Welcome to Your Home three sixty.
The show. We talk about everything that has to do
with your home, everything from the roof to the plumbing,
to the foundation, to your lawn and landscaping, to the
buying and selling of your home, even using your home
to pay off some higher, nasty, high interest rate credit
card bills. Maybe you've put some home repairs on your
(00:22):
credit cards because you couldn't afford it, and now you're
trying to find a way to afford those payments. Well,
we're going to discuss that today on Your Home three sixty.
Don't forget we have all the past episodes up and
available for you. Just go to ninety four to three
WSC dot com and look under podcasts, or just search
for your Home three sixty with Michael Blaze on your
(00:43):
iHeartRadio app, which you can download for absolutely free. Let's
jump right into it. On the line with me is
Lisa Simpson. You're a mortgage superhero and over the years
I have done so much business with Lisa. She is
my go to mortgage broker. I know that she'll get
it done. And Lisa, we've done deals from multiple million
dollars down to a couple of one hundred thousand dollars,
(01:06):
and each one of them presents its own unique set
of challenges and circumstances. And I have to hand it
to you, we always put our heads together and we
get it done. And that's the most important thing in
the mortgage industry, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
And it absolutely is.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes, And in the real estate industry too, is getting
it done and getting people into the property that they
want and that works for them, and that you know,
is going to ultimately be a better investment for them
moving forward, a better situation for him. So let's talk
a little about what's going on in the mortgage industry
(01:43):
right now, including interest rates. So what's the forecast for
interest rates? Are they going to stay the same, are
they expected to go down, or what's going on there?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Lord, if we only knew. They are saying that they
should be coming down over the rest of the year,
but it will only be small amounts. There's not you know,
any predictions or anything saying, hey, we're going to be
back at that four percent by the end of the year.
That's probably not likely to happen. You might dip into
(02:15):
the high fives by the end of the year is
what I'm hearing, but that remains to be seen. It
depends on a lot. There's a lot going on in
the market that's affecting them, especially with the tariffs that
are happening.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
So, now, how do the tariffs affect the mortgage rates?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It affects the bond and anything that affects that tenure
bond is going to affect the mortgage rates. So you know,
the tariffs that are happening are of course just throwing
the whole market into a tizzy. And when that affects
it badly, our rates go up.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And I was just reading how you know Moody's downgraded
not only JP Morgan Chase well as Fargo, they also
down graded the United States because the United States is
so far in debt. Now does that affect people's mortgage
rates at all?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
It does, because it's affecting the overall market. And you
see a lot of big changes happening. Like you know,
you've got companies that have been around forever that are
either merging or being bought out. Like everybody knows who
Discover is, You've got to Discover Card. They just got
(03:30):
bought out by Capitol one two days ago. Any type
of buyouts like that. And you know, like you said,
JP Morgan is downsizing, a lot of them are downsizing,
cutting the fat, so to speak, because they fear that
tougher times are coming. And a lot of that is
circling around those terraces.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Yeah, and that leaves a big question for consumers too,
who are concerned about it, right, you know, and and
I mean that affects anything that you're going to purchase,
including real estate or an automobile or anything like that.
You know, some people just to get on the fence.
I always have this advice. I was talking to a client,
(04:13):
longtime client the other day where we were talking about
the situation, and I'm like, you know, there's so many
times in the past where I personally have I used
an example of it was during COVID and I had
a house. I wanted to buy a rental house, and
I had it under contract. I had it in my hand,
and I did the inspections. It needed a lot of work.
(04:37):
You know, COVID was starting to hit. There was a
bunch of uncertainty, and I chickened out, and so I
backed out under due diligence. And you know, and then
now you look at it. I mean I would have
made a lot of money off of that property. Now
I can kick myself in the butt and say, well,
you made the wrong decision, But was it the wrong decision.
(04:58):
It wasn't at the time that I made it, So
I like to stick to that. And that's the advice
I give everybody is look at everything through the prism
of today, not through what has happened in the past,
not what you think or is what is forecast to
happen in the future. But let's just look at it
from today and does this make sense today? Can I
(05:20):
make this work? Can I make this make sense today?
And then you can always adjust down the line. But
either it makes sense for you today or it doesn't.
And I think you're doing yourself a disservice by trying
to guess what's going to happen or forecast what's going
to happen by what has happened in the past. I
think all you can do is look through the prism
(05:41):
of today and make the best decision that you can.
When do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I do agree with that it has to be what you,
as an individual feel comfortable with. However, you also have
to kind of take a lot of what's going on
with a grain of salt. It is affecting now, what's
going to be affecting in a week, what's going to
be affecting in a year. And we can't predict the future.
(06:08):
We can only guess based on past experiences, right, And
they all say, you know, scared, money doesn't make money,
so I had I've seen a lot of people back
out of during during COVID because it was so uncertain
and the market was just in a crazy place. I
(06:28):
saw a lot of people back out. And you know,
some that are like, oh, I'm glad I did that
because they ended up losing their jobs. Other ones are
I should have bought that because now the price, you know,
the rates, whatever, it's not the same deal for them.
So it has to be what's right for you. But
take what's happening around you with the grain of salt.
(06:51):
The rates are high, are they? People ask me every day.
Are the rates high? Yes, they absolutely are, But the
prices of how are fairly stable right now. And when
your rates start plummeting, that's usually caused by some kind
of crazy turmoil going on in the world, such as
I mean, when COVID hit a huge pandemic and people
(07:13):
were losing their jobs, but you could get one and
a half percent interest rate. So you know, it's hard
to tell. It has to be what's right for you.
But look at all the factors and talk to a
mortgage expert, talk to a real estate expert, you know,
call me, call you, and let's talk about it. It
might be a good option, that might not be, but
(07:35):
you can't make that decision without all the information.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
No, absolutely, And just to be clear, I mean, and
you know my point doesn't differ from yours at all.
I mean, you have to look at what the situation is.
But if you think that your job is safe, and
then you think that your stream of income is safe
at least for you know, the foreseeable future, then to me,
(07:58):
that's the biggest obstacle and the rest of it's all
just noise that's going to get in your way. And
you know, I have a friend of mine where we
call it analyzation paralyzation where you just start over analyzing
everything so much you become paralyzed and you don't do anything.
And that's that's not a good place to be either.
(08:19):
You know, when you're looking at returning an investment, or
when you should have jumped into the market way down
the line, and we can go back. I think every
single one of us has a story about looking at,
you know, a property a long time ago and saying, man,
if I would have only bought that then, but you know,
but it seemed expensive, or there was one reason or
(08:41):
another why you couldn't move forward with it then, And
so you know, don't beat yourself up over it now.
You probably made the right decision for that point in time.
And you know, and a lot of people are waiting
for the interest rates to come down. I think what
they don't realize if the interest rates come down anything considerably,
(09:01):
you know what's going to happen to property values. They're
going to go up, going up on the house. Yeah, exactly,
So did you really get anywhere? And I had people,
even you know, during COVID, when property values really started
taking off, saying, you know what, I'm going to sell
and get out now, and I'm going to sit on
(09:23):
my pile of money and I'm going to get back
in when the prices go back down. And I'm like,
that is a horrible idea, horrible idea, horrible And if
they would have done it. You know what, they probably
would have priced themselves right out of the housing market,
and they would have taken an asset that they had
and try to cash in on it and ultimately end
(09:43):
up not being a homeowner anymore because they messed up
the margins so bad by you know, trying to guess
on what was going to happen and bet on the
market going down. And I'm like, do you really want
to live your life that way? Every day checking to
the market go down today, the market go down today.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
It'll make you crazy. Yeah, it'll make you crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
That sounds like a horrible place to be. And as
far as you know, the real estate market, it never
went down, and it continues to go up. Now. It's
not going up anywhere near the pace at which it
was before, but still at least a few percent a year.
It depends on kind of you know, all real estates local,
so it depends on what even neighborhood you're in. But
let's call it, you know, overall, on the median price
(10:27):
where at like four percent something like that. Appreciation in
Charleston County and the various counties differ by you know
a little bit, but stay right in there three four percent,
So we're still at that appreciation rate. So the prices
are still going up, and so these people still be waiting,
and then now the interest rate's higher and everything else.
(10:48):
And like I said, they would have screwed themselves right
out of being property owners if they went and did
what they thought was a good idea at the time,
trying to forecast what was going to happen. So that's
that's always a bad idea.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
But I mean, what do they say that you hear
all the time you marry the house, you date the
rate because you can't once you purchase a house unless
you sell it, you can't renegotiate what you paid for
it when so you buy it when the price is
right on the house, you feel like it's a good value.
And then even if the rates are elevated, rates go up,
(11:24):
rates come down when they come back down, and it's
a good move for you, and then you just refinance,
you know, when that comes proper for you. But to
just run scared from the market, you can't do that.
You just got to kind of figure out what's right
for you and can I afford this, and do I
love this house? And move forward?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, you have to put everything, yeah, and you have
to put everything in a perspective. Right. So I also
told this story about this conversation I had with my dad.
Now he passed away years ago, but I remember, I
don't know about fifteen years ago or so. He was
telling me, Hey, I just paid off my house, our
house in the house I at least for part of
(12:08):
my youth grew up in. And he said I'd just
paid off our house. And I'm like, Oh, that's so great.
You're gonna have so much extra money. And he's like, Nah,
not really. And I'm like, you're not excited that you
paid off your mortgage. He's like, well, it's a good
thing to pay off your mortgage. But he said, you
know what, my mortgage was three hundred and fifty dollars
a month. Oh lord, and it's a drop in the bucket.
(12:30):
He's like, I bought this house, and what I bought
it in nineteen seventy three is like that three hundred
and fifty dollars seemed like a lot of money. And
I was worried about it. Right, And then you get
to the end of that thirty years and that three
hundred and fifty dollars a month is a drop in
the bucket, literally, So you have to put things in
perspective too.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You do my parents when it's funny, you tell me
that three hundred and fifty bucks my parents mortgage? Are
you right for this? When they bought their house fifty
two bucks? Fifty two dollars so I can remember, I mean,
my parents had me later in life. But when they
paid off, they paid off the mortgage, and she was
(13:10):
so excited because she let my dad know and literally
he died a few days later, but she let him know,
we've paid off the house. It's ours, and he was
so happy and it made them com I'm like, wow,
that I would most people would kill for that kind
of payment on their house.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Absolutely, But you know, and I guess the point or
the moral of that story is, but when you start,
you know that might be your income's way lower lot
good property value. Yeah, it's a lot of money, just
like today where you're like, I don't know if I
can handle a forty five hundred dollars mortgage, and I
understand it's like it's scary, but when you get thirty
(13:50):
years down the road, more than likely that forty five
hundred bucks is going to be We're going to be
laughing about it like we are with you know, three
hundred and fifty or even fifty two dollars payments like
we are.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Or no, yeah, I have a lot of people to
ask me about that. You know, I don't know if
I can afford these, you know, ridiculously high payments. And
I said, well, you know, you might have to look
at some lifestyle changes. I said, but you also have
to look at that forty five hundred dollars payment is
buying you something substantial that is going to stand the
(14:22):
test of time. Your weekend vacation to Aruba is probably
not going to do the same thing, so or you know,
go out deep once a week instead of four times
a week, and all kinds of things like that, little
tiny changes Compared to where you want to invest your money.
(14:43):
A house is something that increases in value and it's
going to and can make you money down the road.
So it's usually something you got to look at pretty
hard as opposed to, you know, spending money on something
that's only going to last that particular moment.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Well, all that other stuff belongs in the red column, right,
So houses tend to be in the black column, and
everything else, from an automobile to a vacation, to furniture
to everything is in the red column. You're not making
any money back on any of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No, you're usually losing. I mean, look at what you
pay for a car versus you know, you go pay
for any amount of car right now, and it's probably
fifty sixty thousand dollars, if not much higher than that.
So well, you go trade that in. Most people trade
a car in within what two years maybe three, unless
you're my husband has it forever. But you go to
(15:43):
trade in and they're giving you how much out of
that sixty grand? You know you might get forty maybe,
And you certainly didn't pay off twenty grand worth of
it in two years.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
So yeah, I don't even think you'd get forty.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
I mean really started extremely generous.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, I started paying cash for cars, and you know,
my whole thing, and I can't always make it work
this way, but you know, my new outlook on things is,
and I wish I would have had this a long
time ago. I tell my wife, you don't make money
to spend it. You make money to make more money,
and then you take the money you made and you
spend that money. Yeah, and if you look at it
(16:25):
through that formula, you'll always have your principle at least
and then some hopefully. So you just have to be
smart on how you look at money. And we've all
been trained to be consumers, and oh I make this much,
well I can afford this much. Well, you know, start
looking at it like, well, I make this much? How
(16:46):
much more can I make on it? And then what
can I get with what I make off of it?
And if you can work it out like that, you
you're literally golden. But let's talk about bridge and temporary lifeans.
So you know people that are hesitant right now, I
mean they're hesitant for many different reasons. One of them
(17:07):
might be because they're already in an existing house and
they just can't figure out, you know, it's too onerous
for them to consider how am I going to make
the move from one house into another? How am I
going to get financed? How am I going to make
this all work? And you have some bridge loans or
(17:28):
call them temporary loans or whatever you want, where you
can take the equity in your existing home and use
that as a down payment on the home you're going
to purchase, and you can also avoid your insurance cost,
your mortgage insurance cost, your MIP you know, mortgage insurance
premium or your PMI primary or private mortgage insurance. You
(17:50):
can avoid that cost by doing it that way. So
explain a little bit about some of the bridge slash
temporary loans that you offer.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Well, yes, we offer both a bridge and an attempt loan,
and it can be used for multiple different reasons. If
you own a house now and like you said, you're
looking to purchase a new house, if the circumstances are right,
you've got equity in the current house and you don't
need to sell it before closing on the new house,
(18:22):
but you need some cash for that. We can help
you tap into the equity that you have to use
for the new house. You might also have to, you know,
get ready to sell your house and you need to
make updates or repairs or whatever you need to it,
but you don't you know, sometimes that can be costly
(18:44):
up to twenty thirty thousand dollars. If that's the case,
A lot of people don't have that amount of cash
laying around. So we can help again with a temporary
loan we'll get in there and you can pay your
contractors or whatever you need to do to accomplish your goal.
And it's usually a six month term, but six months
(19:05):
to repair and sell the house is enough time for
most people. And we helped one guy. He was trying
to get a VA loan, and most people in the
industry know that if you're trying to get a VA loan,
the house needs to be in very good conditions. Well,
(19:26):
he couldn't do that because the storms that came through
Summerville kind of did some damage to his house. So
we funded it with a temporary loan. He hired a contractor,
he come in, he fixed it, and now we're putting
back into a VA loan and his house is all fixed.
So you can use it for multiple different reasons and
(19:49):
they're very quick. We can usually close in from them
in seven days.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, and I just did one similar to that with you,
where I had a client who it's a long story,
but he wanted to move back to Charleston. He moved
out of here, you know, ten years ago or so,
and he ran into the problem of he didn't want
a mortgage and the prices had gone up so much.
He was surprised when we started looking at houses, you
(20:16):
know how much the property values had gone up. But
he had a rental house. He had a few of them, actually,
and so I told him, well, you know, the take
one of these rental houses and sell it, and we'll
go look for a house for you. And you're going
to take out a mortgage on the house, not nearly
(20:36):
what it's worth, roughly about half, and we're going to
market the rental property. And so you're going to carry
that mortgage, and then when we sell the rental property,
then you can pay off this mortgage and you can
be mortgage free. And that's exactly what we did and
what you helped us do.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Yep, there's a lot of good uses for it. And
like I said, we can close those super quick because
it's funded with our own money. We don't sell those
off to anybody, so they're completely totally in house. And
I mean, speaking of quick, we were able to I
(21:16):
was able to help two people lately. One was a
real estate agent. He was trying to purchase a house personally,
and he was having difficulty with the loan company that
he was working with. He ended up having to extend
his closing day almost a full month and they still
(21:36):
were goofing around and oh, we're trying, We're trying. He
came to me, what can you do to help? He
came to me on Friday, late Friday afternoon, I got
his information, got a pre approval together. I said, are
you ready to go? And he's like, yes, I sure,
am sign disclosures. I ordered an appraisal at six o'clock
(21:57):
on Friday night and put in their shrush rush. I
got the appraise of like a ten thirty Friday night.
At the conditional approval Monday and Tuesday morning, he was clear, close, excellent.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Well, like I said when we started this conversation, I'm like,
you're my go to. I know I can count on
you and if it can be done, you'll get it done.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And I absolutely will.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, And I always consider myself one of those people too.
I'm not going to be the one that fails at this.
And you know, this is probably the biggest investment that
you're dealing with. With a lot of clients that we
deal with, it's going to be the biggest chunk of
money they ever spent. And you know, and I don't
you know, I want to come through for them. And
be successful for them. I'm not. Oh, I'm sorry, I
(22:39):
can't make it happen. And the underwriter said this and
this and that, and that happens sometimes, and to be
quite honest, sometimes it's just you just can't get it done.
But I know that if it can be done between
the two of us, we will for damn sure get
it done.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Leaves no rock unturned.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And that's right. Let's talk about the cash out refis
here a little bit. So we were talking off there
about how there's still people refinancing their homes.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
There are it needs to be. When somebody comes to me, hey,
I'm looking to refinance my house, I'm going to ask
them a lot of questions and what are you trying
to accomplish and in some circumstances and ends up being
a not even a good deal, but a very good
deal for them. Because I had a guy not that
(23:38):
long ago that went from a three and a half
percent industry. He kind of ended up. He closed during
COVID when the raids were just starting to come down,
not in the two jet and he come on to
some hard times, had you know, a lot of time
off from work for medical reasons, had to take out
some personal loans, brack up some credit so he was
(24:01):
drowning in monthly payments, and I said, well, let's look
at it. Let's run some numbers, and we did. His
mortgage payment ended up increasing by a couple hundred dollars,
but he ended up saving in monthly output of paying
up all those high high interest loans. He saved over
seventeen hundred dollars a month in outgoing cash every month.
(24:24):
So that was a lifesaver for him. And if there's
situations like that, the cash out is still there. It's
still a good good deal. Because if you're carrying a
five thousand dollars balance on a credit card that's at
twenty nine point nine nine percent, your monthly payment on
that is going to be drastically higher than adding enough
(24:47):
money to pay.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
That off in a refine, right, And I mean, the
same thing goes. I mean there's several different scenarios where
it would make sense for you, say the house is
in disrepair and you don't have the cash to repair it. Well, uh,
you know you need a new roof, or there's foundation
problems run into this all the time, you know, you uh,
(25:08):
that's a source to get your hands on some money
there and not have to put it on a credit
card and pay those exorbitant interest rates.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, I mean speaking of the new roof. We had
a uh, it's a funny thing. I had a bar
word that put a contract in on a house. When
they did the inspection, they found out that it needed
a new roof. It was in a very bad condition.
And the seller you know, of course you need that
to close on the mortgage because mortgage company is not
going to let you buy that house of the roof's
(25:38):
going to fall in.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, I'm sure, yeah they're not.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
But the sellers like I just don't have the funds.
So we turned around and talked to the seller and said,
but let me give you a templan. He had nothing
equity to do it. We had a contractor come in,
they took up templan, they put a new roof on
our barer was able to close and everybody was happy.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Nice. Now we're almost out of time and I want
to get this in. You're opening a new office July
tenth in Summerville, So tell us about your your new
office and your new adventure. Here we are.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
We're super excited they have a new office location opening
It's in downtown Summerville at one point three North Magnolia.
The grand opening is going to be July tenth, from
eleven am to six pm. We will have live music there.
We will have a huge smoker full of all kinds
of barbecue, a lot of giveaways, a lot of good times.
(26:40):
Come check us out, say hi and get some free food.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Perfect July tenth and you can meet Lisa in person. Lisa,
if somebody wants to talk to you about a loan
or at least to you know, get your thoughts on it.
And you're the same way I am. You know, you
don't have to feel compelled. We're not going to bug
the hell out of you. And you know, oh I
have a live one one here and then you know,
are you ready? Are you ready? I mean we're here
(27:04):
as an information, a source of information to help you
make a decision and then hopefully when you make the decision,
you know you'll go with us. But that's not the uh,
the impetus of how we operate. We're happy to share
information with people when they're you know, researching what they
want to do. So either way, if they're looking for
a loan or just looking to hash out their situation
(27:27):
and they want to have a conversation with you. What's
the best way to reach here?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They can call or text me at eight four three
four three seven seven nine seven.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Two and repeat that one more time.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Call or text me at eight four three four three
seven seven nine seven two.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
Lisa Simpson, your mortgage superhero. Congratulations on your new office
opening July tenth. Head to the grand opening on July tenth.
It sounds like a big old to do and I'll
be there too, so as always they Thanks for the
conversation and good to talk to you Lisa YouTube.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thanks Michael.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That does it for today's episode of Your Home three sixty.
Thanks for listening. Remember today's episode and all past episodes
are available in podcast form at ninety four to three
WSC dot com, or just search for Your Home three
sixty with Michael Blaze on your iHeartRadio app. Have a
good weekend. I'll talk to you again soon
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