Duncan Duo 11-9-25

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'by Sunday, Tampa Bay. We're with you for another week
here on the Duncan Duo Show, talking about the Tampa
real estate market like we are every Sunday here on
w f L A News. Excited to have a couple
of guests today to talk a lot about real estate
as well as renovations when we aren't on air at
the Duncan Duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, pretty much

(00:23):
every single social media out there. At the Duncan Duo
and Andrew Duncan with the Duncan Duo LPT Realty. The
market has kind of started to pick up a little bit.
We're seeing some really positive signs. We've seen interest rates
trickle down. We've seen some evidence that they'll probably be
another FED rate cut, even though good old Jerome didn't

(00:45):
give us the wonderful news that we were hoping for,
but very likely just based on all the employment data,
that we're going to see some more rate cuts. And
I think that, you know, one of the reasons why
I wanted to have you guys both on the showyfically
to talk about what you're seeing in the marketplace. But
we have a lot of customers right now that go

(01:05):
through this process of do they do they sell to buy?
Do they renovate the home they're living in? You know
what the financing structure looks like of that are their
loan products where people can buy and renovate the home.
Because one of the things we're starting to see more of,
we're starting to see more homes that aren't renovated, right

(01:26):
like if anyone bought during you know, the twenty two,
twenty three, twenty four period, a lot of those people
don't have equity, so there's deferred maintenance. There's more distressed
properties than we've seen in a while. And I want
to make sure not to get it twisted here because
we don't have like some massive amount of you know,
it's not like we have some massive amount of distressed

(01:49):
properties Like I've been in the game for twenty years.
Back in two thousand and nine and ten, we had
a massive amount of distressed properties. We don't have that today.
But what we do have is an increasing number compared
to where it was a year or two ago. So
I think it's it's it's crucial for people to understand,
like the whole premise of where we are with the

(02:12):
market is that there's more distress properties, but you don't
need to be scared like it's we're not crashing. So
so let's talk about that a little bit first. Justin
Cabero with Revived Design and Renovation is on with us today.
They're a partner of ours that does really incredible renovation

(02:32):
work for clients of ours. We were talking before how
they just started a job in Beach Park for a
mutual client of Melissa and I and a really good
friend of mine. And so justin the market right now
and what you guys are seeing, Uh, there are a
lot of customers that are kind of on that fence
of do I do I sell my house and buy

(02:53):
another or do I renovate?

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
And and so talk a little bit about what you
guys do differently, because I was really impressed when I
met you know, your dad, uh, you know, a co
owner of the company, in terms of some of the
things that you guys do to to provide quality because
it's a it's an area of real estate where unfortunately
there is a lot of lack of that, and you
guys really stand out incredible reviews, you know, a great

(03:20):
process and and for people that are weighing the idea
of renovating. Sometimes that's the scary thing, right They're they're scared,
like I'm gonna have these people in my house. So
what what kind of differentiates you guys as you know,
to to you know, to keep doing such an incredible
job for your clients.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, well, thank you for the kind words and thanks
for having me by the way. So, yeah, we're a
family owned and operated business and we really try to
keep that family feel for you know, when when we
bring on a client, we want them to feel like family, right,
and we want them to know that we have their back. So, uh,
one thing we do is the five year warranty. We
want people to know. Look, we stand behind our work.

(03:58):
In construction, hiccups are gonna happen from time to time
no matter how well you plan. It's just kind of
the nature of the business. Of course, we do a
lot of preparation and planning up front from the design
phase to make it sure all the materials there, double
checking everything is not only on site, but there's not
broken mirrors, broken falsets, all of that that could delay
a project. So really a lot of upfront preparation, a

(04:20):
lot of on site intensive management, and then at the
end of the day, if and when there is something
that goes wrong, we stand behind it. And typically there's
a one year warranty on this type of construction work.
We recently rolled out about six months ago a five
year warranty because we just want we want to put
peace of mind in people's mind. Look, we're not going anywhere,

(04:40):
you know, we want to be here for decades and
decades to come. We're about four and a half year
old companies, so we're still relatively new. But you know,
we got the showroom in the corner of Kennedy and
that was kind of like, Hey, this is going to
be our flagship location. We're part of the community. We're
getting involved in charities and different fundraisers and organizations and
toy drives. We want people to know like we're investing

(05:01):
in the community. We're gonna be here for the long run.
We're not going anywhere. If we mess up, we're gonna
We're gonna stand behind our work one hundred ten percent,
and we really care to make sure that our customer
is happy at the end.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Of the day. And I like the project management aspect
because you guys have more staff than other renovation companies
I've seen. And the other thing that I thought was
cool was, you know, not just how staffed you are,
but how specific you are. Like there are general contractors
that kind of try and be the jack of all
trades and they take every job. They're like, oh, you
need kitchen counters, so we can do that. We The

(05:34):
problem is is when they try and do too much,
they do a really bad job of trying to spread
themselves too thin. You guys are really focused in that
renovation space and and I think that allows you to
specialize and provide a better quality service to the client.
It's kind of like the real estate agent. Like on
my team, I have agents that specialize, right. You guys
work with sellers. You guys work with buyers. You guys

(05:56):
work with high end. You guys do the distress stuff.
So it's it. I think the more specialized you are,
the better you are at it. I think you guys
are a testament to that because you guys have that
specialist thing. And you know, I was I was really
surprised when I learned, you know, when I met your dad,
you guys were less than the five year old company.
Because in my mind, just because I've I've driven by

(06:18):
the spot on Kennedy, I've seen the cyber truck like
I've seen ads, right. I in my mind, I just
I believe that it was a much, you know, much
older company. So that's pretty awesome that you guys have
grown that fast because you do differentiate like you're You're
not like the like a lot of other renovation companies,
and the five year warranties unheard of.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, absolutely, I think. You know, unfortunately for the industry
as a whole, there are lots of unprofessionally run remodeling businesses.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
But also got truck guys exactly.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
We call them chuck in the truck, right, So so
unfortunately for us, you know, we come in and we're
so professional from our first touch point when you call
us on the phone, to the way we show up,
way we price everything extremely detailed, how we're taking notes,
how we're taking photos. From the first touch points to
the last, we're really trying to differentiate ourselves with a

(07:08):
level of professionalism, of organization and just and of communication
because a lot of it it is consistent communication. There's
so many moving parts. You have dozens of people, you know,
different trades coming in and out of your house. So
it is a lot of communication. So that's really how
we try to differentiate ourselves as well and why that's

(07:30):
led to a lot of success, referrals, repeat business so on.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, and I think another thing that I think is
a niche for you guys. And again kind of going
back to my prior experiences, I've done home remodeling, We've
renovated homes before, I've renovated homes I've lived in, and
I felt one of the biggest obstacles was communication. And
you guys have that pretty solt like from the way

(07:55):
it was described to me, the way there's a project
manager and a direct contact and then a sale person.
It's the communication is there? Your Like, your construction guys
aren't really the ones necessarily always dealing with the client
because there's usually a skill level and a communication level

(08:15):
difference between the guys that might be really good at
construction and then the guys that might be really good
at explaining construction.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
You know, we have been able to get to the
scale to where we have layers of management and a
division of responsibilities, so it's not just like, hey, one
project manager doing everything. We have scheduling coordinators that are
making sure that the subs show up one time every day. Yeah,
we have project managers on site to make sure that
the crews are actually doing high quality of work right.

(08:44):
We have interior designers making sure that the designs are
being executed perfectly. So we have layers and specialists of
people to make sure it's like, hey, it's just you
don't hire a one man band. We have team of
specialists at everything that we're doing.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
I think, you know, like talking about this dressed properties
because there are more of them right now. There are
more homes than we've seen in a while. Because of that,
you know, a few year period from like twenty two
to twenty four where people naturally you know where they
bought and what's happening with prices and interest rates, where
you know they've they've stopped maintaining their home. Then and

(09:19):
then some of those turn into short sales. So a
lot of people are misinformed when they look at buying
one of those properties and thinking, oh, I have to
pay cash to renovate that, right, And so I want
to talk about two things. One you guys do in
house financing, and then to Melissa, there's a loan product
that a lot of people don't know about called a

(09:39):
two oh three K loan, and you've got some you've
done some specialized training with it, and it's a loan
product that allows you to basically buy a house that
needs work, finance the work is part of the mortgage
at a pretty competitive rate, not necessarily always the lowest
possible rate, but a pretty competitive rate, and do certain
things prior to occupying, as long as the increase in

(10:02):
value will be supported. That's correct.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
That's how it is. So if you're purchasing let's say
five hundred thousand, you need one hundred thousand dollars reno,
we can roll that in. Your down payment would be
based on the full six hundred thousand.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Yeah, and so a lot of people don't know that
that's available, and it is now, it's not it's it's
probably more of a custom product if they get into
the higher end type stuff for financing, like if they
were going to finance up, you know, and they were
buying a two million, because I think two of three
k has some limits, am I? Right now? They are
the same limits, okay.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
As conventional same as a regular conventional fhava okay.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
So it's just if it goes above jumbo, then then
it would be one where it would be where to
be some limitation. So so the difference with that too
is that you're not coming out of pocket for that cash,
right you're you know, the person doesn't have to have,
you know, the one hundred thousand dollars in cash or
innovate the house. It can all be done. And so
talk about me be a couple of nuances about that

(11:01):
loan program, like what what's the timeline take? What are
some what are some conditions that people need to pay
attention to that are maybe a little bit different than
a typical line.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
So you do have to move in within twelve months, okay,
the contractor does have to be licensed, ensured, approved by
the bank. But everything is based off the total amounts,
so the cost of the home plus the renovation. The
appraisal is done on both, so we need blueprints, spec
sheets and so everything is based on the total amount.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
And it's also got everything's permitted, everything's disclosed, like there's
no like you're not you know, you're not You're not
calling chucking a truck, right, that's for sure. And so
so a lot of people again don't know that that's available.
So if you're out there as a buyer and you're
looking at a property that needs work and your lender
isn't telling you about that, there's a lot of lenders

(11:54):
that don't offer that or don't have the experience to
offer that. Right, that's correct. Yep. Yeah, so so that
would be a great opportunity to call Melissa against Citywide
Tampa dot com if you're looking to buy a home
that needs renovation and justin you guys also do well
finance or renovation work. So somebody wants to do a
big renovation on their house, they don't always have to

(12:14):
come with all in cash. It's something that can be financed.
Talk about what the terms look like on that as well.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, absolutely, So there's a variety of good programs. Actually,
earlier today, about two hours ago, somebody signed up for
a one hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars homery model.
You're financing one hundred percent of that.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
So he's actually doing the lower monthly payment. But you
can do a lower monthly payment option, or it's about
one hundred dollars per month every ten thousand dollars that
you borrow. Okay, so say if you get a fifty
thousand dollars loan, it's about five hundred dollars per month.
There are different terms as well, you know, based on
your credit right, they are actually fairly aggressive. And you

(12:51):
can do rate buydowns as well. Wow, yeah you can.
So you can get as low as six seven percent,
which is not bad for a lot. It's unsecured loan.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Wow, so they don't they don't, they don't lean the property.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
They don't lean the property. Wow, that's pretty insecure loans.
So you can do low monthly payments. You can also
do what we call the no no so no payment, uh,
no interest for twelve months, and there's also a twenty
four month product. Is okay, So a lot of people
are doing that. It just kind of depends whether they
want to do a low monthly payment and pay it
off over several years, or if they just want to
do a no no payments, no interest for a year.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
It just depends on their own perspective of their own
risk tolerance, which is really cool. And then speaking on
that same thing, obviously, you know it's got to be
the right credit profile. It's got to be they've got
to have good credit they've got to have good income,
you know, Melissa, We're going to talk after the break
about people out there that may need to do a
refinance that may not have great credit anymore or great income,

(13:49):
because there's a product if they have an f h
A or a VA loan, there is a way for
people to do a refinance, you know that that doesn't
necessarily require what they might think. There's a lot of
misconceptions out there about people that are in homes right
now that have higher rates than are in the market,
and they think they can't refinance, either because they don't
have equity or they you know, they're they're they're searching

(14:11):
for a job. So there's a product we're gonna talk about.
After a quick break, we'll be back here on w
fl A News. So back here on the Duncan Duo
Show talking about the Tampa Bay real estate market. Andrew
Duncan with the Duncan Duo team. I want to next
talk about, and like what I talked about before the break,
was this idea that people could refinance their home even

(14:35):
if their credit isn't great, even if you know, they've
lost their job, and even if they don't have equity
and and so I think there's a lot of people
that don't realize that that is available for them.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
Right, So the va earl, which is it's a rate
term refinance, and conventional FHA it's the FHA streamline. And
then the va earl, which is just an interest rate reduction.
You're not taking cash out, you're not paying anything off.
We are just lowering the rate.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
And so talk a little bit more about like how
easy that is to qualify. There's a lot of people
that don't realize, like it's not it's not as typical
of a like cumbersome, you know process to get a
refinance done on the streamline stuff. Right.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Obviously there are still requirements, but a lot of the time,
the majority of the time, we don't ask for an
appraisal because that loan is already in the system. We
don't ask for an appraisal. The vos are typically already
you know what we used in the past, So we're
literally just lowering your rate to do better for the

(15:46):
client and to make it more affordable.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
So again, if you're out there struggling, there's also a
premise to where and again citywide Tampa dot Com. If
you're thinking about doing one of these streamline programs. If
your lender maybe hasn't told you about it, it simply
just lowers your rate. One other thing on that same topic,
there's the ability if you lined it up right. We
know the holidays are tough time for a lot of people. Yes,

(16:10):
they run into bills. It's the end of the year.
They've got Christmas, you know all, you know, and jobs
numbers came out for October a private job, Marcus. The
government is closed, so that we're not here in their stuff,
and they weren't good. There's more layoffs happening than people,
you know. So the the other part of that is
there's a possibility if you time it right, where you

(16:30):
can actually miss a payment. Now you're technically still still
getting lumped into the mortgage, but you wouldn't actually have
a payment if it's timed riding.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
It's collected as interest at closing. But let's say you
close first week of November or first week of December.
Let's just say you don't have to make that December
mortgage payment. Obviously, I'm always going to advise you always
have to make your payments, don't stop making your payments.
But the first week you have a fifteen day grace period,
So if you can miss that first December payment, so

(16:59):
you don't have a December payment January, your first payments
February first.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
That's and for a lot of people this time of year,
that could be what gets into their next job. You know.
So again, if you're out there, if you're struggling, if
you need to lower your rate, as well as the opportunity,
like Melissa said, to go through a period of time
where you don't actually have a mortgage payment because it's
lumped into your refinance. Get with our citywide Tampa dot
Com and you can you can make sure to time

(17:25):
that out properly. So have Justin Caveiro with Revived Design
and Renovation are preferred renovation contractors. And we talked in
the first segment about you guys, as you guys being
able to finance people that are that are doing a
renovation because a lot of people don't know that they
can do that. But and that's the whole thing that supplies,

(17:48):
that's materials, that's that's all of it that you know,
so they're not that they can do the one hundred
percent not come out of pocket. So when when you
guys do go and talk to someone and you know
that they're maybe speaking to someone else. How often are
renovation companies offering that kind of competitive financing? Are you
guys finding that not as many do or maybe not

(18:10):
as many or as solid financially as you guys, so
they don't and they don't want to have to go
through the hassle. Is that is that normally the case?
You guys Acides are able to help make that happen.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, So a lot of people do come to us
because we do offer financing, so like to get approved
with these different financing companies, we are preferred vendors. They
actually make you do background checks a lot of times,
they check your financials, so we're a preferred vendor.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Making sure you guys run a good business exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
So they're kind of doing the due diligence on us,
which is great. So it's kind of a stamp of
approval from these different firms that hey, you're a preferred
vendor and you know, we don't push anyone product. We
go to bat for whatever makes sense for our customer,
probably similar to you, Melissa, right, So we're preferred vendors
with five or six different financing companies and based on
what they're telling us they want, whether it's a low

(18:57):
monthly payment, whether it's hey, maybe no payment sewn for
a year, then pay it off for two years and
pay and pay it off. Then we'll figure out, all right,
what's the best rate for this person, and we can
get them the best loan option.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
And so, you know, one one thing that I think
is important for our listeners. And you guys are gonna
come on the show regularly with us, and they're gonna
hear me talk about you guys more. But what would
you say your target customer is, like, you know, you know,
you guys are obviously in a niche. Melissa and I
serve everybody, like you know, we've got clients that buy
you know, I think last year we had a seven

(19:29):
million dollar deal. Yeah, and we've sold twenty five thousand
dollars trailers, right, I mean, we've we do everything in
all between. Like I've got you know, a lot of
agents that work for me, So we're we really serve
the entire marketplace, and we have agents that kind of
specialize on different things. You guys, though, which I think
is awesome, have that niche of you know, you really
want to do design and renovation. You don't want to

(19:51):
do additions, you don't want to do brand new builds,
you don't want to do the you know, oh I
just need a you know, a new toilet. You know,
like you guys, are you guys niche? So talk to
our audience a little bit about what revives target customer is.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah, great question. So typically it's a busy professional, somebody
who wants to pay for quality for service and they
realize that's going to be a little bit of a
premium versus more of your investment friendly you know, smaller operations. Right.
So we're not doing like fix and flips, we're not
doing like apartment terns. We're looking for people who really

(20:27):
appreciate having an award winning professional interior designer on staff
to help them curate a beautiful new space, whether that
be a kitchen, a large bathroom, or full homery model.
That's really what we specialize in kitchen, bathrooms and full
homry models.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
You know.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
With that, we do a lot of closets, We do
a lot of in home offices things of that nature,
but we work in homes really from four hundred thousand
all the way up to ten million dollar homes.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
So we have a wide.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Variety of people that we serve and homes that we
work in, and we do have different tiers of service
as far as different design packages and material packages that
can service from maybe the more economical all the way
up to the ultra luxury.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
That is awesome, And Justin, I'm excited to continue partnering
with you guys. Like I said, we've got a lot
of customers in common. I just found like it was
a great opportunity to, you know, get you guys on
the show and talk about what you do because I
was finding again so often that we had customers and commerces.
So Justin, thanks for coming on, and we'll be back
after a quick break here on the Duncan Duo Show.
So we're back here on the Duncan Duo Show talking

(21:33):
about the Tampa Bay real estate market. Andrew Duncan with
the Duncan Duo team at LPT Realty. At the Duncan
Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. You had Justin Cabeiro with
Revive Design and Renovation on with Melissa Rodriguez from Citywide
Home Mortgage, and I'm Andrew Duncan with the Duncan Duo team.
First segment, we talked about home renovations and the different
finance products are available for people buying and renovating their home,

(21:57):
as well as what you know, what we see in
that space was like some distress properties and different things.
So but Melissa, you in our meeting with our agents
this week, which are a great resource for that. If
you're a real estate agent out there looking for a
really good lender, hit up Melissa citywide Tampa dot com.
You've probably seen her. You've probably seen her in the market.
She's been around for a while, but she does a

(22:18):
great job really helping our agents understand kind of the
nuances and the pros and cons of different things. And
speaking of that, you mentioned the idea that a lot
of buyers have that they should wait to buy because
rates may come down more so talk about that a
little bit.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
So we get that a lot Andrew, and it's you know,
how long are you going to wait? Is are you
waiting until it comes down a quarter? Fifty bases points
a whole point? You know, if it does come down
a point for the same price, you're saving about two
hundred dollars a month. But let's just say you wait.

(22:58):
So let's say the house that you love, it's five
hundred thousand. You know, you're at six point three five
interest rate the monthly payment. So let's just look at
P and I right now, not taxes, insurance, so just
principle and interest. It's about twenty four hundred dollars a
month for if you wait until the rates go down,

(23:21):
let's say five and a half, so from six point
three five to five point five that value. We all
know that once rates come come down, the values go up,
so the value can go up let's say another five percent,
so five twenty five for that same house. The payment
is only one hundred dollars less, so twenty three hundred dollars.

(23:45):
So but you're paying twenty five thousand dollars more, you know,
for just saving one hundred bucks a month, which buy
the house now at a lower value and then refinance
later when the rates go down.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
That's a perfect side. I couldn't have said it better myself.
And I think truly that people can find a way
to afford the one hundred or two hundred bucks that
they're talking.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
About, right And you know what, like I genuinely I
just want the best for the client. So, like I
was mentioning in the meeting as well, let's talk different scenarios.
Let's talk Hey, if I put down ten percent, I
have this amount of money. A lot of people are like,
I have fifty thousand dollars for a down payment. But

(24:32):
maybe it doesn't make sense to put all fifty thousand
dollars down for a down payment. What if we pay off.
I had a client who paid off a camper. His
monthly payment was five hundred and thirty four dollars a month.
That saved him. Paying that off saved him more money
a month than putting down you know, that entire amount
for the down payment. So let's run different scenarios, let's

(24:55):
pick the best option for you.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
And great again, great summary. And I think again it
goes back to what is in a you know, customer's
best interest, and so waiting isn't always better. And I
think a lot of people try and time the market.
It's interesting, you know through the years that I've done this,
having done it for twenty years, three over three billion

(25:18):
in sales on my team, and there's no chance I
could time the market, like I can look at the
data and I can I can get close, you know.
But there's a lot of people out there trying to
time it perfect and they think they're going to get
right at the bottom trough, at the quarter of a point.
All it takes is a is a truth social post
from the president and then everything goes Hey, why right?
Like so so you the idea that you think that

(25:40):
you can time everything perfectly and the economy is a myth,
you know. But going back to the one hundred or
two hundred, and I help lots of friends, you know, financially.
I don't mean I give them money. I help give
them financial advice, help them with budgeting, because I think
that's something I established really early in my career that's
been been official for me as i've you know, as

(26:02):
I've built wealth in my business and life, and so
far too often people don't aren't really paying attention to
what they're spending money on. Like they could cut out
a few trips a week to Starbucks, they could cut
out the Chick fil A for a couple of days.
They the subscription. Yeah there's you know, they they've got
a you know, they're paying Netflix. You know, they're paying this,
and they haven't logged onto Disney plus in a month.

(26:23):
And you know, so there's so many things like that
to where you could effectively save money. And and so
that's where you know, that's where things come in and
and those things are not you know, your Netflix subscription
isn't growing in value. You know, it's not contributing to
any financial benefit of yourself unless you're a Netflix stock owner,

(26:44):
and that's maybe different. But like you're the difference of
paying towards your house is that over time, and certainly
not every year, not every period of time, but over
long periods of time, real estate values go up. So
the money that you're paying in addition to paying down
the principle the asset is going to over the long term.
So over you know, if you look at any seven

(27:04):
year period in history owning real estate, you know appreciates
it and it builds wealth for people. So of course,
over two or three year period sometimes it may not,
but then it corrects and catches back over that four
year period. So there are times where I'll hear people
say like, well, I lost money on my last house,
you know, And but the truth is that if you
look at it in seven year increments, the house that

(27:26):
you bought next probably went up a lot in that
four year period, you know, so you can't you know,
if you're if you're buying real estate for the long term,
you're you're gonna win and you're gonna it's gonna do
well for you well.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
And also what I've run into is buying when the
values are low, because you're building equity instantly. When we
go back to like, you know, the COVID days, when
the values.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Were I saw people paying way over, way over.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Forty fifty thousand dollars over list price, and now they're
stuck in a situation where they don't have because they.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Were pad as much. Right, Yeah, And you make a
good point. I analyze the stats every month. I just
looked at them a couple of weeks ago, and you know,
so the September stats come out about mid October, so
our October stats won't be out for another week or so.
But the September stats showed that our average cell price
was the lowest that's been in a long time. We
dipped below four fifty in our market. And we have

(28:22):
year over year and month over month and depreciation in
addition to inflation. Right, so we've got we do have
you know, lower prices lower buying power, and again, could
it spend a few more months depreciating. Maybe, but a
lot of economic indicators and things going on in our state,
an election in New York City, there's a lot of

(28:45):
things that are going to improve our market and drive
that drive those prices back in a positive direction. Property
tax relief is on is going to be on the
ballot in twenty six, wouldn't be effective until twenty seven,
but there's going to be whether it's abolishment or whether
it's massive relief combined with you know, parts of the

(29:05):
country that are becoming really polarizing politically and are going
to move people here. I believe we're on the verb
and some rate cuts. I believe we're on the verge
of a boom of a like a twenty seven ish
twenty Maybe at some point twenty six and twenty seven
we see this boom again. That's you know, maybe not
quite at the level of COVID because we're not going
to see rates drop as much. But if we see

(29:27):
massive property tax relief, those payments could be comparable to
where we were at with those really low historic interest rates,
and that's what people buy.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
They buy payment well, also, you make a great point
as well. And what I wanted to bring up is
the homes have been on the market for longer, you know,
and so now the sellers are willing to negotiate. So
if you really want to, we can even look at
buying down the rate, you know, and using some of
those seller credits to buy down the rate. In that way,

(29:57):
just get into the home now at a lower value.
That's the best. That's the best route to go.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
And speaking of the rate buydown, we are offering a
free one to zero interes straight buydown with citywide home
mortgage on listings of hours that are priced between three
two hundred I keep saying three hundred. It's two hundred
thousand and eight hundred thousand single family town homes only.
Can't do it on condos, but we're doing a free
one oh buy down on our own listing. So little
extra amo if you're thinking about hiring our team to

(30:25):
sell your home, is that we're going to partner with lender.
We're going to give you that free one oh buydown
as long as you work with our lender to do
the mortgage on the listing of ours. So something we're
offering that's a lot like, what do a lot of
the builders do. It's a way to kind of bridge
the gap and help make it more financially feasible. But
you mentioned the closing costs, and this is actually kind

(30:48):
of interesting. I'm gonna put Melissa on the spot here
and I'm gonna quizz her. She hates this, but I'm
gonna do it anyway. Melissa, what do you think what
percentage off of the listing price is the average home
selling for in our market today? So back during COVID
it was one hundred hundred and one percent. What do
you think where would you guess the average is at today?

Speaker 3 (31:08):
For the closing costs?

Speaker 1 (31:09):
No, no, no, not closing costs, for the negotiation off the
asking price. So someone's so, someone's so, what what percentage are?
And again it could be different with what you're seeing,
but I imagine you're probably seeing that in your business.
You're seeing that that percentage. What would you guess that
it is? Just throw out a number, what do you
guess it is. I'm gonna bet money, you're going to

(31:30):
be right. No, yeah, throw it out there, throw it
out there. It's close. It's four percent. I was going
to go with five, but and here, So here's the reality.
It's actually it actually ends up being more because Stellar,
our MLS partner, only shows the list of sell price ratio.
It doesn't show how much sellers you're paying in concessions.

(31:52):
And you know they're paying concessions. So in addition to
the four percent off of asking, you're getting a lot
of times two three, four points on consent. Whereas where
you seeing that in COVID? Where get people getting concessions
during COVID? Oh my gosh, so right, pay more right.
So it's it's literally like, in addition to seeing the
lower price, it's also about a six to seven percent

(32:12):
swing in favor of the buyer. So in addition to
you seeing those asking prices back during you know, five
years ago, four years ago, those COVID prices were the price,
the price is the price is the price? Right, it's
listened for five hundred, you're paying that in more right
today it's listened at five hundred. You know you might
be able to get it for you know, four sixty four,

(32:34):
seventy four eighty and get your closing cost covers and
and buy downs. So the reason Melissa only said two
is because she does a lot of our team, and
we're just better negotiators for our clients. So we're getting
better closing costs for our clients. So she's seeing a
lot of two percents because our buyer agents do a
better job. But it is that's kind of where the

(32:54):
stats line up. And I think it's important that the
customer knows that because you know, five years ago, even
though real estate agents, by law are not supposed to
do this, they're supposed to present any in all offers.
There were times where real estate agents were deterring their
client from making offers. Oh no, no, you don't want to

(33:14):
make that offer. We don't want to make that offer. Like,
we can't make that offer, it's too low today, make
the offer, you'd be surprised, like, and especially this time
of year. You know, I just put two homes that
I'm buying for renovation. You know projects. They're not one's revival,
work on it, because they're there are those you know,

(33:36):
there's small home renovations. But I just bought two really
good deals. This time of year, you find really good deals.
If you're an investor or you're a buyer looking to buy.
People this time of year get motivated they're motivated to
close by the end of the year, to get the
home sold by the end. Maybe it's been on the
market for a long time hasn't moved. That was both

(33:56):
of the homes that I bought, they'd been on the
market with bad real state agents that couldn't get them sold,
that marketed them and priced them poorly. And then the
sellers get to the point of, you know what, I'm
just ready to go, give me, give me my money,
and let me, let me get out of here, because
I don't want to I don't want to waste any
more time. I've lost so much time getting to where
I want to get. So as a buyer, this is

(34:17):
an incredible time of year to get a great deal.
And I think next year the market swings in the
other direction. Especially you know, we're going to talk about
the FED after a quick break. I think we're going
to see another FED rate cut. So we'reing me 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. Melissa Rodriguez was Citywide
Home Mortgage Citywide Tampa dot Com. If you want to

(34:39):
lower your interest rate and do a refinance if you
want to get a mortgage for any type of loan product,
fha VA, conventional jumbo, you name it. It is UH
citywide Tampa dot com. We talked about the FED rates
a lot on the show before and how they influence
and somehow do have a have an effect on mortgage rates,
but it usually kind of leads up up to the decision.

(35:01):
You know, the market moves ahead of that decision. Well,
when Jerome Powell as president, Trump likes to call him
too slow, slow, too slow, and too slow. Powell made
his comments at the at the most recent FED meeting,
there was definitely a response from the marketplace that wasn't

(35:21):
overly positive because he wasn't super convincing about a cut.
You know, he more or less said, it's not guaranteed.
You know, there's a lot of data to look at
and the government's closed. So if there is a FED
rate cut, and I think there's going to be, the
mortgage rates start to soften ahead of that, right Like,
if it looks like the closer it gets to that

(35:43):
date and it looks more likely for there to be
a cut, then you start to see a little bit
of a softening. So that's another reason why now is
the perfect time.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Right before before the actual talk. So the past two
we've seen that they've come down probably close to a
quarter lower before the talk and he announced a quarter
but after.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
The talk they jumped up. Yes, yeah, they jump is
it gets closer to that talk. And here's here's why
I why I'm pretty confident that it's going to Why
there's going to be a FED rate cut. First off,
you've had the government shut down for for five weeks, right, so,
so there's money not flowing, right there's people not employed

(36:26):
that are furloughed, that are laid off, and some of
them have been fired. And then there's you know, there's
a whole controversy in lawsuits over some of that. So
so there's there's a huge employer of our of people
in this country that are not able to be consumers
right now. There's that. Secondly, the other the data is
flying blind from the federal government, but the private market

(36:49):
data that's coming out, in my opinion, makes it very
clear that in the employment sector is not where it
needs to be, and a FED rate cut is going
to be necessary to continue rebounding the employment market. Private
employment data came out in you know, this past week
saying the October was a really bad month for employment.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
I think it was one hundred and fifty three thousand
job cuts, correct, which is like one hundred and eighty
three percent.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Increase and and like the worst month we've seen in
a long time. And of course the government has something.
The FED shut down trickles down, and then that causes
problems with liquidity. All of these things get impacted the
longer the government stays shut. And I think that my
hope is over the next week or two there's resolution,

(37:37):
but you know, but right now it's it's still shut
and it doesn't look like an end in sight, so
you know, so that that, in my opinion, helps make
the rate cut more likely. The other reason I think
the rate cut, you know, becomes more likely is prediction markets.
I look at prediction markets. I look at polymarket. For example.

(37:59):
Polymarket has nailed every single presidential election, every single gubernatorial
mayoral election. It is better than polls, okay, it is
people basically bet and you can't bet on the site
in America yet they're working on a US license. But
people use their money to predict what they think is
going to happen. So these are these can't be really

(38:21):
tricked like polls can. Polls can are dependent on the source,
they're dependent, they're skewed. I think the last few elections
have shown us how bad polls are. But prediction markets
are pretty much on the money when it comes to
stuff in politics. And so it's predicting a seventy one
percent chance of a FED rate cut. It had dropped
into the sixty range after his comments, and it has

(38:43):
risen this past week with the data that continues to
come out. I think, you know, the consumer spending that
that happens during the holidays won't be as strong as
they want it to be, and I think that will
be another indicator. I'm very confident that we'll get another
FED rate cut here. And my expectation is is that
as it gets closer and that percentage gets higher, that

(39:05):
then the mortgage markets start to respond to that. So
all the data, in my opinion, points towards another FED
ray cut, even if Powell wasn't willing to commit to it,
because he just seems to be that type of guy
and he doesn't have the governmental data. I think the
governmental data is going to show the same stuff. It's
not going to show much different than what we're getting
from the private sector. And the fact that you have

(39:26):
had people, the government employees down so long, so we
get that fed Ray cut and it's it's going to
be another positive thing, especially as we move into twenty six.
I think propel the real estate market.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's that's what
it's pointing, that's what we're hoping for. Let's just see
what he says. The talk is December ninth, so let's
tune in and we'll have more information after that.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
So we got two more minutes left in the show.
Melissa speaking about, you know, home buyers, what would be
a couple of tips that you can give home buyers
out there as they're thinking about getting a mortgage or
thinking about buying in twenty six things they can do now.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
So let's connect. Let me do a soft pull on
your credit. Let me look to see if you need
to work on anything on credit. So we do a
thing called it's a rapid rescore. So it literally tells
me exactly what needs to be paid down or off
by how much and how many points your score will increase.

(40:23):
So if we need to get you up into the
above six forty. Let me tell you what you need
to do. A lot of those credit you know, repair
companies will charge you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars,
and all they do is dispute dispute, dispute, dispute. Okay,
it may help increase your score temporarily, but after the

(40:45):
thirty days sixty days, your score is going to come
right back down.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yep. That's a really good tip. So the credit I
think also if you're thinking about buying, paying attention and
not going into more debt during the holidays.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
And another good thing that I've been done it personally
is the credit cards. If you can consolidate your credit
cards those are twenty four percent interest rates into a
personal loan, you're still probably paying about ten percent in
interest rate, but you literally cut your monthly payment in half.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah. There's definitely a lot of things you can do
with with debt consolidation. And I think, last, but not least,
look for ways to cut expenses during the holidays, price
out your insurance, look for ways to kind of reduce
your expenses to make your debt to income look better
by the time that you buy the credit repair is
a good one. You know. Last thing, if you've got

(41:35):
a rich parent, a rich uncle, a rich brother, a
rich friend, really spend some time with him ahead them,
go hang out with them, you know, go spend some
time with them during the holidays. Really buddy them up.
So se Yeah, Anyway, we appreciate you tuning in. Hope
you have an awesome rest of your weekend when we
aren't on air again at the Dunk and Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube,

(41:56):
and TikTok, and have an awesome rest your weekend. Tampa
Bay