Duncan Duo 10-26-25

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Sunday, Tampa Bay. We're with you for another week

(00:02):
here on the Duncan Duo real Estate Show, like we
are every Sunday talking about the Tampa Bay real estate
market here on WFLA News. Andrew Duncan with the Duncan
Duo team at LPT Realty. I'm energized after I had
to take a day off early this week. So last
week I was at LPT Realties FALCN convention in Orlando

(00:24):
with Robert Palmer, the founder of LPT Realty, and so
I was there for three days, and then this weekend,
I just had a crazy pack weekend. I did Halloween
whoror nights one night with my daughter, her boyfriend, and
my girlfriend. I did, I raced my Ferrari at the
Motor Enclave, and then I had a car show at

(00:45):
Armature Works on Saturday. So I was just completely slammed,
but energized now and excited about everything I learned at
the LPT event. And that's what I want to start
off with today because I want to let you know
what is coming for the real estate market. So our
founder and CEO, Robert Palmer, he also started RP funding.

(01:07):
You've probably seen his TV commercials. You know, a friend
of mine and someone I'm excited to have been in
business with the last few years. Talked a lot about
what is coming from the real estate market and specifically
talked a good bit about Florida because LPT Realty, the
brokers I'm with his now surpassed and become the number

(01:27):
one broker in the Stellar MLS for both agents and
home sales. So that is the first market in MLS
that we really launched in and as we grow nationally
and surpassed twenty thousand agents, just a lot of massive
growth going on for the real estate brokerage with LPT.
So if you're an agent and you didn't hear any

(01:47):
of his chats from last two week and you want
some of the content or some of the information, or
you're thinking about joining LPT learning more about it or
my team, you can simply hit me up join the
duo dot com, you can register for our career Night,
you can apply for anyone of the open positions, or
you can set a direct consultation with me to talk
about your desire for real estate career. But one of

(02:10):
the things that was really important that he talked about
is the last few years everyone is talking about doomsday
for real estate, and look, if I look at the
real estate stats, it's exactly the direction that it points
in in the short term. In the short term, you know,
the average sale price in Tampa is is depreciation. It's
four to fifty eight. It was about four hundred and

(02:31):
fifty eight thousand. It was about twenty thousand higher last year.
So in addition to inflation, we've seen depreciation, and obviously
that means it's more expensive for consumers, especially in a
higher interest rate environment. So we've seen an increase in
the number of listings and a decrease in the number
of home sales. You know, from a month over a

(02:52):
month standpoint. Now, statistically, we technically had a better September
this year in home sale then we had last September.
But if you all remember last September was hurricane season,
and we had a couple of doozies over in September
and October that pretty much crushed our real estate market

(03:12):
and reduced and canceled out a lot of sales and
potential sales because we had weeks where you know, sales
couldn't even happen, cancelations, delays, and then of course, the
fear and panic that a couple of storms sets into
first time home buyers and home sellers, and you know all,
you know, all in all, those were a couple of
the worst real estate months that our market is seen

(03:32):
in a long time because of hurricanes. So you know,
this September didn't really respond massively better than last September.
So not exactly the greatest short term sign, but the
positives that I want to talk about, And so RP
talked about this because you know, having a twenty year
track record like me in real estate and him a

(03:53):
lot of his in mortgage and now as the you know,
CEO of a national cloud based real estate brokerage. The
the statistics tell us what's coming, and history tells us
what's coming. In lieu of some catastrophic economic event or
or you know, some sort of natural disaster. The real
estate market is heading in a really positive direction, especially

(04:16):
here in Florida. So I want you to hear this.
If you're someone that's kind of on the fence. Okay,
if you're someone that's on the fence about getting into
real estate, don't wait until it starts booming. Then you're
going to miss the opportunity, and you're gonna miss those
sales because you're not going to be trained and up
and running and coached enough to be able to benefit
by the time the market turns. If you're a home buyer,

(04:38):
you don't want to buy in the middle of the
bidding war in the boom of the market. You want
to buy before the boom because buying before the boom
allows you to gain appreciation and you know, get benefits
and negotiate from a standpoint of strength. In today's market,
we are steering towards a buyer's market, and a lot
of neighborhoods we're at about five point two months of
inventory throughout the Tampa Bay era, and that is, you know,

(05:03):
a higher number than we've seen in a long time.
I mean, during the boom it drops down to a
month or less. Okay, So so five months is five
times the inventory of what we saw at peak. And
we're nearing not quite half the numbers. Some of the
neighborhoods are half the number of sales. But certainly, you know,
sixty plus percent off you know, not sixty excuse me,

(05:28):
forty plus percent off some of our peak sales months
in the boom So what does that mean If you're
a buyer, it means now's the time to buy. A
lot of consumers, you'll hear them say, well, I'm gonna
wait until rates drop. The problem is if you wait
until rates drop, you waited too late because as rates drop,

(05:50):
prices start to rise more. Every single quarter point drop
in rates causes you know, millions more consumers to be
able to qualify and buy. So at the same time
that rates are dropping, you'll have this period, this kind
of trough. Okay, like if you're trying to time the market,
the timing is now we're kind of at that trough

(06:10):
where you know, where the statistics have pressured the market.
We've seen the low point on price. We've seen some
fed rate cuts but not a ton but a little
bit of relief, and we're kind of at that bottom
peak of price now. As rates drop, okay, every quarter
point drop again, what does that mean? That means more

(06:30):
consumers are able to buy, and it also means more
consumers are able to sell. So the reason it means
more consumers are able to sell is some of them
certainly are turning into buyers and they're comparing the rate
they have in their existing home to what is available
in the marketplace. The closer that rate that they can
get further buy is to the home that they have,

(06:51):
the more likely some of those step off the fence.
For example, if someone has a four percent interest rate
right now and the market rate was seven, they're less
likely to sell their house that has a four percent
rate to go buy one with a seven percent rate.
But as that seven drops to six to five, now
it's a close enough spread where enough consumers will say

(07:13):
I'll give up my four. Now, certainly people with threes
or twos, it's got to go down lower, and maybe
they maybe they don't. But nonetheless, every drop in the
rate opens up more buying and selling audience. So when
prices go up, as a home buyer, you're now competing.
You're doing bidding worst. The list to sell price ratio

(07:35):
in Tampa right now is ninety six percent, meaning that
on average, the asking price is getting negotiated about four
percent off. Okay, Now that's not every neighborhood, you can't,
that's not set in stone. That's the average. Okay. That's
also not factoring in how often buyers are getting concessions
or closing costs paid, which is much more prevalent today

(07:55):
in a in a market like today than it is
in the in the you know, in boom. So you
look at a peak market, we are one hundred and
one percent the homes on average, we're selling above the
asking price. So there's a five percent point swing right
now on what you can get off of asking price,
and a four percent or no excuse me, a five

(08:16):
percent swing on what you can get off of the
asking price. We're three percent depreciated from last year, okay,
And in addition to that, so there's several percentage points.
And in addition to that, the likelihood of you getting
at least two or three percentage in concessions for closing
costs is also much higher today. So you have a
huge swing that is reducing your out of pocket, giving

(08:38):
you more negotiating leverage, and allowing you to buy the
asset at the cheaper price. When rates start to drop,
all of that starts the process of tilting in the
seller's direction, including bidding wars, and that ninety six percent
going up to ninety eight, ninety nine, one hundred, one
hundred and one percent, we are on the precipice of
the boom happening again, and in my opinion, we start

(08:58):
to see a lot of that end of this year
and into next year, we start to see home sales increase,
We start to see prices turn in the corner and
get back to appreciation. Another FED rate cut or two,
and then of course the softening of the treasury treasuries
and then interst rates start to get more affordable. When
interesstrates are more affordable again, you create more buyers and

(09:19):
you create more sellers. The market starts to move more,
and appreciation starts to happen. Now the two things that
are on the books for that are being discussed in
our market. That are another reason why I believe the
boom is coming. Boom's Day is what our peak called it.
He said, Boom's day is coming to the real estate market.

(09:40):
We've got pent up demand. We've got people sitting on
the sidelines, we've got sellers staying in their houses. We've
got all of these things that the economy has kind
of gridlocked our real estate market kind of not really
letting it move. Okay, so now that you start to
get some relief on rates and prices have dropped, it's
becoming more attractive to consumers to lock into a long
term investment. We're turning the corner. We see some FED

(10:03):
rate cuts. Now, the current FED governor has said, you know,
he's I think we look at maybe one or two
more twenty five basis points cuts this year that will
soften mortgage rates some. And again we've talked about this before,
but the FED rate cut, mortgage rates aren't directly proportional.
There's a lot of other factors, but for the most part,

(10:24):
it will cause some mortgage rate relief, usually ahead of
the announcement of the FED rate cut. But President Trump
has made it clear that he wants to blow up
the FED, either get rid of it, change it to
put change someone else that's in there, change out the
FED governor whose term is up next year, and he
wants massive rate cuts. If we see those massive rate cuts,

(10:48):
and again I'm not an economist and I'm not talking
about the overall impact. I'm not saying this is good
or bad. I'm simply telling you what I think is coming,
based on the politics and based on the data. So
if we do get these massive FED rate cuts again,
you're going to see, you know, this kind of four
or five year period that we've seen in our market
where it's just kind of been struggling along fewer home

(11:09):
sales or prices. It'll boom, okay, and it'll boom. It'll
open up reefies, it'll open up millions of home buyers
that can't buy right now, prices will rise. And in
addition to that, in Florida, we have another thing that's
floating out there that would basically be COVID two point zero.
And if there's anything that I've learned about investing over
the years, is that the market moves in anticipation of

(11:34):
these major changes. It doesn't move after. You can't wait
for these things to happen. You have to act with
the predictability that they will happen. And that's why the Fed,
you know, the FED rate cuts, and the prediction of
the FED rate cuts causes mortgage rates to drop before
the Fed even announces. Okay, So there is a reasonably
good probability that we will see massive property tax reform,

(11:56):
including potentially abolishing property taxes. Now I'm going to talk
this after the break because I think there's a lot
of people need to understand what this looks like. But
if we see that happen in our state for homestead properties,
which are about a third of the properties. There are
ways that it would be an increase in tourism tax,
and increase in sales tax, and increase in tolls. If
those things happen and property taxes are abolished or massively

(12:20):
reduced for homestead people, we will see a lot more
people move here. We will see a lot more activity
in our market. Again, we'll get some extra fuel on
the fire of the downward trendon rates and this kind
of pent up activity that's waiting out there because people
buy on payment, they don't buy on price. Okay, those

(12:40):
things that are coming will massively reduce payment, and the
smart people will start moving ahead of the probability of
those things, meaning that we start to see a pickup
in twenty six because they know if they wait till
those things happen, they'll have missed the mark. They'll move
in anticipation or the probability of So I want to
talk about what the property tax relief would look like.
I ran through some scenario with AI and kind of

(13:01):
asked it, like, Hey, how would this work? Because they
get a lot of people saying like, oh, the money's
got to come from somewhere and oh, we can't cut
taxes and we can't do this, and I want to
tell you what I think is likely just talking to
some of the politicians about property taxes. After a quick
break here on the Duncan Duo Show, so we're back
here on the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa
Bay real estate market. Andrew Duncan, the Dunkin Duo team

(13:22):
LPT Realty. I want to make sure you guys know,
as the interest rates in the markets start to drop,
there's so many people out there that can qualify for
a refinance. If you were thinking about refinancing your mortgage,
I want you to think twice about going to a
national lender. The national online lenders to offer these teaser
rates oftentimes misquote your property taxes and mess up your payment.

(13:45):
I'm sure you've gotten those notices when you know from
your lender, hey, look your payment's going up, or we
have an escro problem where we screwed something up. The
national lenders are notorious for that. They mess up insurance,
they mess up taxes, and then you look at the
good faith estimate and think, oh, my payment's lower over here,
but your rate isn't lower because they lied to you
about what your taxes and insurance are going to be,
and then a year comes, a year comes around, and

(14:06):
you get the hit. If you want a refinance, go
to citywide Tampa dot Com. Again, that is citywide Tampa
dot Com. Local lender Melissa Rodriguez works with our team
and our office. If your interest rate is above seven percent,
continue to pay attention to these FED rate cuts. Even
in the high sixes. You could be eligible for refinance
very soon where it'll make financial sense for you. You

(14:27):
can go to citywide Tampa dot com, reach out to Melissa.
She can do an overview for you. If you have
an FAHA or a VA loan, you can do what's
called a streamline without having to qualify, without going through
your taxes and your income, and even if your home
doesn't appraise. So if you have an FAHA or VA loan,
you can simply just get your rate lowered. Okay, So again,
go to citywide Tampa dot Com. Melissa's contact information is there.

(14:50):
So I want to talk about property tax relief. I
tease this in the first segment. There's a lot of
discussion out there. Governor DeSantis has said multiple times that
he wants to abolish property taxes homestead owners. Now, what
is a homestead owner? That's your primary residence? Okay, that
is the home that you live in that you claim
you know, primary residents, you know four, So a lot

(15:12):
of people there's a lot of misconceptions about what is
being discussed with property taxes. There have been multiple proposals
sent out by you know, by Florida politicians and congressman.
Governor DeSantis's goal is to get abolishment for homestead properties
on the ballot in November of twenty six, so that
means is not really affecting people until twenty seven. It's

(15:35):
got to be a constitutional amendment. He can't do some
executive order. Congress can't pass anything. It needs sixty percent
of the people to vote. We don't have sixty percent homeowners.
The idea is most people expect that it has a
reasonable chance just because Florida is more of a red
state today than it has been in the past. Number
one and number two, a high proportion of homeowners. And

(15:57):
then people impact it in the construction, mortgage, and real
estate industry that know that this would increase their industry
and prove their industry increase their income. So I think
there's a reasonably good chance it passes. But I see
people all the time not understanding where how the money
will shake out. First off, Florida has a surplus of
billions of dollars. We're operating at a surplus. The governor

(16:19):
has already said that Florida's the state of Florida, that
kind of traf of money would be would get distributed
to local markets. But I ran through some studies, and
I ran through AI and it says it's about a
third of owners our homestead and so these are the
people that Governor DeSantis wants it to pass for. So

(16:42):
how would you get there? And the idea and the
complaint from homeowners is we're footing the bill and paying
these taxes that cover the roads and the schools and
all these things. And there are a lot of people
that aren't homeowners that use those things too, that aren't
paying for them. So you know, the homeowner uses the
same roads and schools as a er does, but it's
the homeowner that's paying the taxes and that setup to

(17:05):
cover those things. Or people live in apartments. Now you
could argue, but I pay rent and that goes towards
the landlord, which goes towards taxes. Certainly you could argue that,
but my point is that this is a long standing
thing that our governor in our state believes that property
taxes make you not really own your home. So one
of the proposals that I that I ran through some

(17:25):
Grock studies with and asked it to tell me how
to replace the revenue would be a state sales tax
increasing from six percent to eight percent, okay, which would
be a thirty four percent increase in the amount of
tax coming in from sales. So it would change into
a consumption tax, and an average tourism tax increasing from
around five to seven okay, and then toll rates increasing

(17:47):
by thirty four percent. If it did those things, plus
Florida's projected budget surplus of three point eight billion, which
be allocated to the counties, that that could offset the
revvee new loss of the property tax. So the total
current you know, additional revenue needed would be about eighteen

(18:09):
point five billion. And again, so the three point eight
billion isn't good. The surplus isn't going to cover the
amount that we'd list. It would have to be an
increase in sales tax, increase in tourism tax, and toll
rates increasing by thirty four percent. So again, those are
just a few of the things I've seen. So I
saw people out there saying it was going to be
ten or twelve percent sales tax. Those were you know,

(18:31):
those were think tanks that are politically angled, that are
that we're trying to deceive people and make them think
that it was going to be an abolishment of property
taxes for everyone. It's just homestead owners that we're talking
about here, it's just primary residents, homestead owners. A couple
points on sales tax, a couple points on tourism tax,
and some increase on tolls would do it would cover it.

(18:55):
So now they could do some sort of modification. It
could be a you know, be a higher tourism tax
and maybe a lower set. It could be some sort
of combination of those three things. But what I can
say is that it is it is very doable. Uh.
And then that spreads it out to everybody. That spreads
out to people that use roads that you know, that
aren't living in a home, that aren't paying property taxes

(19:16):
that you know so so, and it also offsets the
balance to where you know, the homeowners that are paying
these these taxes in some instances, especially elderly homeowners that
you know have a hard time affording the property taxes.
You know, they're they're paying a disproportionate share of these
things when when they don't disproportionately use the roads anymore
than other people. So so that is something being discussed.

(19:38):
That is another reason why I mentioned in the first
segment that Boom's Day is going to come to Florida
reale estate market over the next couple of years. We're
going to see an upswing. Now is like if you're
if you're watching a stock chart, in my opinion, and
you're kind of looking at it and it goes up
and it goes down, and you're trying to figure out
when you would invest in this. To me, this is
like the timing before there's going to be a surge

(19:59):
at some point over the next couple of years. Of course,
there's short term impacts that could cause a problem, but
in my opinion, we're on the verge of seeing Boom's
Day coming to Florida real estate soon. And if you're
thinking about selling your home, hit up Duncan Duo dot com.
You get an instant cash offer list your home traditionally
sell to our guaranteed sell program. So set an appointment

(20:19):
with our team again at Dunkin Duo dot com. Be
back after a quick break here on the Duncan Duo Show.
So back here on the Duncan Duo Show, talking about
the Tampa Bay real estate market. We continue to work
all of us people to own our businesses, self employed,
work for private companies, public companies. But the government is
shut down, and I want to talk about what that

(20:40):
means to the real estate market because there's some misconceptions
out there. First and foremost VA and FHA loans are
still funding. Okay, they're still happening. There's provisions in place.
There could be delays on certain things. There's delays and
sometimes problems with getting things from the irs right now
because there's skeleton crews. But the real estate market continues

(21:02):
to operate, just with some delays. So don't halt your
your process thinking that you know that that if you're
going to get a VA or f H a loan,
that it's a problem because the government shut down, because
it's not. The Next thing is flood insurance. The National
Flood Insurance Program is shut down. You we are having
a hard time getting UH you know, national flood Insurance

(21:24):
Program insurance policies. But that doesn't mean you can't buy
and close because there's private flood insurance. There are multiple
carrieres carriers that we've seen closed during this process when
flood insurance is required. There are plenty of people out
there where flood insurance isn't required. But nonetheless, you know,
you can close. And then of course if the private

(21:46):
flood policy is a little bit more expensive, then you
can re quote shop, cancel that policy and get the
n f i P policy once the UH, once the
government opens back up again. But the real estate market
continues to operate. Where where it does cost problems is
people that are buying a home that work for the
federal government and are furloughed or laid off. And of
course people whose income can't be verified, certain things can't

(22:09):
get done because they work for the federal government. So
if your home is on the market, just know that
there's a segment of buyers right now UH that can't UH,
that can't buy your home because they're employed at mcdillar
for space by the federal government or employed in some
in the Coast Guard, some other means of something that

(22:31):
that is that is shut down right now. Certainly there's
plenty of the military still operating, but there are portions
of uh contract defense contractors, you know, uh and government
workers that are that are furload are not working right now,
so they're not capable of buying. So, you know, we've

(22:52):
had a couple of instances this week with customers who
are under contract with buyers and uh the buyer's agent
calls us up and says, hey, we got a problem.
My buyer is not going to be able to close.
We're going to have to delay the closing because they're
furloughed and we can't get the information. And they work
for the government. So a lot of times the seller
doesn't know that, you know. You know, again, you can certainly,

(23:15):
you know, try and figure that information out, but you
may be under contract with someone that's going to cause
a closing delay because they were for the federal government.
So those are the things that you know, kind of
throw curveballs into what's going on right now with the
real estate market. Not just in Tampa Bay. Obviously, McDill
air Force BACE is the largest employer in Tampa Bay,

(23:37):
so it is a big impact, but it's also it's
obviously happening across the country. So I want to transition
next and talk a little bit about AI and smart
home technology. So I built my house in twenty nineteen,
and at the time, the stuff that I had put

(23:58):
into my house I thought was, you know, cutting edge,
you know, the cameras and the smart home features. And
it is amazing to me what has evolved with AI
and smart home technology in the six years since I've
built it, and the changes I've made in my house
with different devices and different systems, with how fast smart

(24:19):
home technology is moving. So the first group of people
that I want to talk to about this are real
estate agents and home buyers that are looking at homes
and home sellers that have their home on the market.
First and foremost, if you're a home buyer or a
real estate agent in someone's house, you just have to

(24:40):
expect and understand that there's cameras everywhere. It is just today,
You're not going into a house very very likely that
doesn't have cameras, and in some instances they have audio.
Now it's a gray area in Florida whether they can
record or listen in on audio. You're supposed to have
to disclose that. There's arguments about well, it's private property,

(25:01):
but then when you put it on the market, is
it private property anymore? So there's a lot of legal
gray area about whether or not they can or should
be legally allowed to listen to your audio. But what
I can tell you in practice is that that happens. Okay,
it happens. So if you're in someone's home right and
you're looking at it with your real estate agent, be nice. Okay,

(25:24):
just just be nice. Just be a good person. Follow
the golden rule. If you're a real estate agent and
you want to talk about negotiations and what your client's
going to offer and start negotiating the contract with them
right in the seller's house, guess what, you just tipped
your hand because they're probably going to hear your conversation. Okay,
you know, if you've been in the game a long time,
the idea of sitting down at the seller's kitchen table

(25:44):
while they're gone and talking to your client about what
they want to offer, it's probably a bad idea today,
big brother, is everywhere they are listening, they will hear you.
You will tip your hand, they'll know what you said.
They might be listening. Okay, if you're doing an open house, okay,
going and grabbing drinks out of the cellar's fridge and

(26:06):
putting your feet on the table to watch football. Those
are all things that are probably a really bad idea today,
but I see it and we have to deal with
it all the time. Okay, So other things about smart
home technology that I think are really amazing. You know,
door window locks, home security alarms, fire alarms, you know,

(26:27):
motion sensors, cameras, the ability by voice or by location
of your phone to open your door, to settings that
you can set to where when you come home, your lights,
your TV, your temperature all smart adjust to a setting.
Your pool, your waterfall comes on or doesn't come on,

(26:49):
it heats your spa. All of these things are things
that people don't realize are available today. You know, some
people do. But there are complete systems that that are
amazing that if you haven't looked at in a while,
and there's something that you you know, you lazily don't
want to do. Okay, you don't want to have to

(27:10):
get up to turn on the lights. You know, you
don't want to get up to turn on the microwave.
You don't want to get up to turn on the
you know, something to change the settings and the refrigerator.
It is amazing how much is getting available for you
from a smart home technology perspective, and how much of
it is going even past the technology of your phone.

(27:31):
So when I build my house in nineteen, the technology
is I could pretty much control everything from my phone,
Like I could push a button and you know, stuff
could happen. Now it's getting to the point where some
of this stuff can happen verbally, okay, voice recognition can
prompt some of it. It can happen from your actual location.
Like it tracks the you know the location of your

(27:53):
phone right you you can it can know when you're
home to or know when you're on a certain floor
a party house if you have multiple AC zones, and
it can automatically adjust based on what your preferred settings are.
You can walk into a room and say a word
and it can turn it onto a specific TV channel,
specific thermostat settings, specific lights. These are all things available today.

(28:17):
So if you're one of these smart home people and
you you you've been out of the game a few years.
If there's something that you're thinking you would like for
your house for a smart home feature, it probably has it.
So I want to break through a few of the
things that are there. Obviously a lot of these are
going to be things that you know already that you've
heard of, but I want to talk about some of
the things that are coming. Like smart door locks. Everyone,

(28:39):
you know, most people have a smart door lock today.
You know, you can use your thumb print, you can
use your phone, you can use a code. But again,
some of them are setting up now where you know,
it can geo track you, and it can track you
when you enter a certain perimeter, and it can auto
lock or auto unlock based on your location. That can
be set up with multiple devices. It could be set up,

(28:59):
you know, for with different timeframes, like for example, you
want your you know, your house cleaner to only be
able to access your home from nine to eleven. You
can set something up in a permission for their phone.
They show up at your house, it opens the door,
it shuts the door. Then they can't show up with
your code or something else at any other time, but
that exact set time. The amount of security stuff that's

(29:22):
coming is really available. Outdoor cameras, real time monitoring, motion alerts. Obviously,
people the camera quality has gotten better, the ability for
cameras to move and follow things and people indoor cameras.
Motion detectors. Glass break detectors are another one that are
common for people that are concerned about their home being intruded.
Smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, flood detectors. Okay, this is

(29:46):
a new one that I didn't know about. And when
I say flood detector, I don't mean Helene or Milton, Okay,
I mean you have a leak or a water build up,
you know, and it can be censored in your pipes. Okay,
it can be. There can be sensors in areas that
track water, like if you left the water on for
the tub, or you forgot or something just happened to break.

(30:09):
Smart thermostats obviously we've talked about those, you know, but again,
same thing. A lot of people know. Oh I just
turn it down on my app that that's not what
I'm talking about here. Smart thermostats today, they can be timed,
they can be set, they can be set on location.
They can they can you know, it can depend on
the temperature outside the time of day, the time here.
There's so many different things you can do. Smart lights,

(30:29):
remote control, scheduling, and dimming. Garage openers Okay, Uh, the
garage openers are really cool and because a lot of
people are like, oh, I can just open it on
my phone. Now it's getting to the point where it
can sense your car. It can. There are garage door
openers that can sense the movement of your car and
then start to open. Uh. There are even some working
on being able to sense when you start a car

(30:50):
in your garage and then it opens. It is amazing
what's happening with smart home technology and then of course
control panels, apps and devices, all these things. So those
are features that are going to become more uniform and
going to be considered a functional obsolescence if you don't

(31:12):
move forward with them. And you hear that word and
you might think, what is that, It basically means that
there's something your home lacks if you don't do it.
Because this new construction continues to be a dominant part
of our real estate market, the builders are adapting and
involving these things sooner and sooner. So now you know,
if a builder in a community starts doing it, it
becomes the norm. And then when your house five years

(31:34):
later comes up for market and you're up against those
homes that were built, you know, built in the last
few years, that had some of these features, if you
didn't evolve with it, then consumers are going to, you know,
kind of view that negatively about your house. So those
are improvements that are going to start to become the norm, right,
just like we see with with with with with you know,

(31:55):
self driving, at some point that's going to be more
of a norm. It's just the reality of the way
the world is going. Whether you're a pro or con,
it's going in that direction. So if you're a homeowner
and you want to add value to your house and
you want to compete, and you want to when you
put your house on the market, you know, a lot
of the other competing homes have these smart home features,
it's going to be something you're going to have to
do to compete, and it's going to become more normal

(32:17):
as time goes on. And it's amazing to me, having
someone who built a house six years ago to see
how much it has evolved in the last six years
from when I built my house, thinking that my house
had all these cool things, those things are pretty basic
now compared to what's rolled out. So anyway, we're gonna
be back wrapping up with our last segment after a
quick break here on The Duncan Duo Show. So back
here on The Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa

(32:37):
Bay real estate market. Andrew Duncan the Duncan Duo Team
LPT Realty. If you're a real estate agent looking for
an opportunity for the first time ever, I am looking
to hire listing agents. We've always promoted listing agents from
within my company, meaning that these are agents that work
exclusively with home sellers. But we've been in growth mode.
I expect a boom is coming and you know, we're

(33:00):
seeing you know, record number of leads and opportunities to
where my agents have actually come to me and said, hey,
we need more listing agents. So we're looking to hire
for listing agents. You can go to join the duo
dot com. You can apply directly, but probably what's best
if you're interested in becoming a listing agent, I want
to tell you what it is that we're looking for.

(33:20):
We want someone that has considerable real estate sales experience
a listing agent role on our team. Is not something
for a brand new rookie. We want them to have
some listing sales experience or a massive amount of buyer
sales experience so we can coach them on the other
side of the business. But a track record in sales
and track record in real estate sales. This isn't a
rookie real estate position. It is you know. It is

(33:41):
a great income opportunity. However, it does require someone that
is accountable. That's okay with fierce accountability, that's okay with
being pushed and coached by me to grow. So a
lot of my listing agents have been with me many, many,
many years. They have an incredible opportunity to just go
out and list homes, price, sell, and negotiate and have
a lot of the administrative stuff taken off of them.

(34:03):
We've not typically done it before, but we are ready
to add some listing agents to our team from the outside.
So again, if that is you hit us up at
Joindduo dot com. I talked about mortgage refis you know
previously or purchases of course, and I can't speak strongly
enough about the great job that Citywide is doing for

(34:24):
my clients. Citywide Tampa dot Com are preferred mortgage lender.
They're doing a great job for our clients, but I
want to talk to people out there that have a
higher interest rate. Look, you're we're approaching the holidays. There's
a lot of people out there struggling. There's a lot
of people in tough financial spots. One of the coolest
things that VA and FAHA loans have is a streamline refinance,

(34:45):
which allows you to again, if you time it right,
you can miss it. You can you can kind of
not have a payment because it gets lumped into your loan,
but you can also streamline and lower your rate. So
it is a great opportunity. Go to citywide Tampa dot com.
It is a local lender with an online application that
you can do, but a voice that you can speak to,
and a local person that has a vested interest in

(35:06):
your success and is going to accurately accurately. I want
to emphasize how important this is. Accurately tell you what
your property, tax and insurance will be to give you
an accurate payment. There are a lot of lenders that
cheat on this. You'll look at the payment and think, oh,
their payment's cheaper than yours, But they cheated because they
put lower taxes and insurance. They know those aren't realistic,

(35:26):
and as soon as you close a year down the line,
you're getting dramatically increased on your payment. There's a lot
of tactics that happen like that, or right up to closing.
Oh guess what we screwed up on the taxes. Insurance,
they're higher. Okay, we're going to give you an accurate
one with citywide Tampa. So again citywide Tampa dot Com
for all of your you know, refinance needs. And you know,

(35:48):
the last thing that I want to talk about today again,
I talked about this earlier. I think the boom is coming.
I think I think we're going to see a massive
increase in our real estate market in twenty six and
twenty seven. We're going to more rate cuts, We're gonna
see interest rates soften, and we're also going to see
you know, some property tax reform at some point. Now,

(36:09):
it won't likely happen in twenty six, but the market
always moves in anticipation of it. So whatever ends up
getting finalized and put on the ballot for November will
have a positive impact for the real estate market even
if it doesn't pass. Just the momentum, we'll move some people. Okay,
So I want you to understand that those things do
have a you know, an impact on our market. The

(36:31):
last thing I want to talk about are you know,
there's a lot of scams going on with scrow deposits
and rental properties. It's something we deal with all the
time where one of our homes is for sale, somebody
will post it up on Craigslist and say it's for rent,
it's some unbelievable rent number. They'll meet you out of
the property, they'll take a deposit, they'll sign a lease,
and then come to find out they're not the actual
owner and they just stole your money. We get calls

(36:53):
all the time saying, hey, I saw this houses on
Craigslist and we looked it up and you guys have
it for sale. Is it for rent too? Nope, not typically,
not never, but not typically. So a lot of scams
out there. There's an escro scam where when you're under
contract to buy a house, you know, they'll either hack
the you know, the the agent, they'll know who your

(37:14):
agent is, they'll figure that out somehow, and then they'll
use a fake email to make you think you're agency
emailing you for wire instructions and then you wire the
money to the wrong place. Always, always, always double verify
wire instructions with the title company. Verbally call and speak
to them to make sure you have the right wire
instructions for closing when you're buying real estate. But also
I want to talk about how title companies look. We

(37:35):
work with Strategic Title. We've we've been partnered with them.
I'm I'm a JV partner with Strategic Title and have
been for many years. And I can't tell you how
many times lately title companies because they've fewer transactions, so
they've reduced staffing, so there's reduced service, so that causes problems. Okay,
And you know, I can tell you of someone that
runs a real estate team that has a has a

(37:56):
vested interest in the success of Strategic Title, and it's
constantly giving them feedback that we have that system dialed down.
If you're a real estate agent or you're you know,
you're someone that's refinancing and you want to pick a
title company and you don't want to have problems, Strategic
Title is a way to go. We've got great reviews.
You know, you can see our reviews you have incredible
reviews out there. A Strategic Title uh strategy I believe

(38:17):
as Strategic dash Title dot com. You can just google
Strategic Title and find the address on Del Mebra. If
you're doing a refinance, if you're if you're an agent,
you're looking for a new title company operation. You know,
we're really confident in our ability to provide great service
and prevent the title company from blowing up a deal.
You know, we've had we had two this week where
it just seemed like the title person just wanted to

(38:39):
blow up the deal. It was like they wanted to exert.
They just didn't like realtors or something. I don't know.
So if you want a smooth closing process, somebody can
problem solve again, hit us up at Strategic Title Strategic
dash Title dot com. Well, we appreciate you tuning in.
Hope you have an awesome rest of your Sunday. Thanks
for tuning in, Tampa Bay