February 8, 2026 • 37 mins
In this episode of the Duncan Duo Real Estate Show, Andrew Duncan discusses the benefits of investing in real estate over other asset classes like cryptocurrency. He shares his personal experience with friends who've been affected by the recent downturn in the crypto market and explains why real estate offers a more stable and consistent return on investment. Andrew also highlights the unique advantages of real estate, including the ability to improve and leverage the value of a property, and the tax benefits that come with it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Sunday, Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We're with you for another week here on the Duncan
Duo Real Estate Show, like we are every Sunday at
ten o'clock on WFLA Andrew Duncan the Duncan Duo team
at LPT Realty giving you all the information about the
Tampa Bay real estate market every single week when we
aren't on air, make sure to follow us on all
of our socials at the Duncan Duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube,
(00:24):
TikTok again at the Duncan Duo anytime we aren't on air,
happy to give you all the real estate information in
Tampa Bay on our social media channels, constantly doing giveaways,
exciting stuff on there. And man, what a week it
was to be a Tampa Bay Lightning fan for the
last week or so. Last Sunday I got to attend
the Raymond James inaugural hopefully they continue that game, and
(00:49):
saw what an.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Epic comeback by our Lightning.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So proud to be honored as the official real estate
agents of the Lightning for more than a decade and
happy to be a part of such a winning team.
But what a cool game and cool experience, And I
hope they get to do that again, I just hope
the next time they do it, maybe it's a little
bit warmer. So anyway, I want to start today talking
about one of the polarizing things I see quite regularly
(01:13):
with a lot of friends, and it's people you know
that kind of look to invest in different things. And
I want to make the case today for why investing
in real estate can be so powerful for you compared
to investing in other industries, and one of those industries,
in particular, cryptocurrency. I have friends that are bleeding this
(01:34):
week with the massive downturns in cryptocurrency at Bitcoin and ethereum,
and I have very little exposure to that. But ultimately,
when I do see these huge swings in the stock market,
in individual stock positions or in cryptocurrency, it reminds me
the value of investing real estate. And I want to
(01:57):
talk about that a little bit today for anyone out
there that's a covering crypto bro or somebody that's heavily
invested in crypto, I want to talk about the pros
and cons of investing in real estate and how our
team can help you with that. So, if you're thinking
about investing in real estate, first and foremost and important
that you have an investor savvy agent. We have multiple
(02:18):
agents on our team that are investor savy. You can
call or text us at eight one three three five
nine eighty nine ninety. You can go to the Dunkin
Duo website, you can look at our reviews online. And
if you reach out to us and you inquire about
investing in real estate, whether that's commercial real estate, whether
that's multifamily, rental property, single family home rentals, whatever path
(02:39):
that you're looking to invest in, we have agents to
specialize in particular niches. So, for example, if you're someone
that says, hey, I want to I'm thinking about investing
in commercial real estate, You're going to get a different agent.
You're gonna get Grant on my team or Sam on
my team that focus on working with our commercial clients.
If you said, hey, I want to buy rentals, and
you're going to get Benn Jackie. You know, if you said, hey,
(03:01):
I want to buy you know, multifamily, that would probably
be the same thing. A Grant or a Sam so
on my team. Our agents really focus on niches and
I think it's one of the unique differences about working
with a group like mine is that my agents will
obviously serve a lot of customers, but they but they
have things they specialize in no different than a large
law firm that has you know, personal injury attorneys, divorce
(03:23):
attorneys the state or trust attorneys that are that are
experienced in different niches. We offer the same thing in
the same focus. So back to kind of making the
case for why to real estate, Why to invest in
real estate over a cryptocurrency or a stock? And certainly
I have exposure, I have money in the market, I
have stock, I have a lot of real estate. But
(03:45):
why real estate is so valuable is the the the
non uh you know, like for example, the public markets
and cryptocurrency have these enormous swings. They're very fast moving markets.
A stock may have a something bad that happens in
the company and it might drop a massive amount in
one day and then it recovers. And there's this kind
(04:07):
of you know, psychological damage that people go through when
they're when their portfolio or one of their positions is down,
or whether their bitcoin position is down. And I deal
with it when I talk to friends because I'm like, oh, hey,
how's it going, you know, how's your week? And they're like, oh,
it was horrible. You know, I'm you know, Crypto crushed
me this week. And what it made me realize was that,
(04:28):
you know, maybe that person, you know, wasn't it wasn't
advised properly, and maybe they're not in the right asset class.
Because if you're that much into any one particular asset class,
when the market drops, you feel that emotional that emotional drain.
That is one of the beautiful parts about real estate.
In addition to the tax benefits, right, you get you know,
(04:50):
get some depreciation benefits, you get certain write offs. You
can use other people's money to grow the value of
the asset and get renters to pay or mortgage. You know,
there are not a lot of assets that allow you
to do that. Number one. Number two, you know, at
have these huge swings. Real estate is slow, so slow
moving that even things like massive cuts in interest rates.
(05:14):
For example, when we've seen twenty five or fifty basis
point cuts in the public markets, you see a moon effect.
You see risk assets massively rise, right, and then when
there's not a ray cut, they drop. Real estate doesn't
operate the same way. It takes such a long time
for these these things to impact the real estate market.
(05:36):
It just doesn't work that way. So when you have
this this you know, downturn in the real estate market,
it takes a long time to get there. Same thing
when you have a huge upswing, it takes a long
time to get there. So no one piece of news
is moving people psychologically or emotionally like they move with
(06:00):
ocurrency here the stock market. So so an example would be,
let's say we have a FED rate cut. Of course
that might prompt a little bit of demand and increase
some transactions if if that rate cut trickles down through
the treasuries and ends up reducing interest rates, but you
might see a one or two percent swing in price
over a several month period. Even in the months that
(06:24):
we saw the most massive appreciation we've ever seen, where
in an entire year, you know, the market. In our market,
we saw the average seale price increase twenty seven to
thirty percent. That's an average two and a half percent
in a month.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Now, your home or an individual home was kind of
seeing that same trend. Whereas a stock might go up
twenty percent in a day or drop twenty percent in
a day. The psychological damage that that can cause for
somebody and how can control their happiness is something you
don't deal with in real estate. It's it's much more consistent,
it's much more mentally you know, rewarding in my opinion,
(07:04):
because you don't have those huge swings. The other benefit
is that it is an asset you can improve. So
when you have investment real estate, you can say, hey,
I'm going to go and improve the building. I'm going
to go spend money on this, which I then write off.
I'm going to go improve the value by doing these
things so that I can either increase the rent or
(07:24):
improve the value of the property. With cryptocurrency or with stocks,
you really can't do that.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Can you leverage them? Can you take margin against them?
Of course you can, but you're not really improving the situation.
You're gambling in a sense. That's one of the beautiful
things about investing in real estate is that you can
buy distressed properties, you can buy damaged properties. You can
make improvements to them, sweat equity improvements, even if you
don't actually spend money, but you go and work on them.
(07:50):
If you own a Google stock or you own bitcoin
or ethereum, you can't show up at Google headquarters in
Palo Alto, or you know, you can't show up a
bitcoin place and say, hey, let me come in here
and work today to increase the value of my bitcoin. Now,
you could mind bitcoin, but there are people that are
pretty much mastered that and made it cost prohibitive for
(08:11):
an individual person to keep up with that. So what
am I saying? Should you have all of your money
in any one of those asset classes, whether it's the
stock market or whether it's the cryptocurrency. In my opinion, no,
And I'm not a financial advisor, but I've had a
lot of success investing in real estate and in other
asset classes, and I can tell you that the emotional
(08:35):
upswings and down swings of the public markets and of
cryptocurrency can be debilitating. You don't have that same obstacle
with real estate. The only time you have those obstacles
with real estate, of course, are things like hurricanes or
maybe a tenant damaging your property. The difference in real
estate with the biggest risks that you have. Okay, so
the biggest risks that you have in real estate are
(08:57):
a storm damaging your property or a fire or a
tenant damaging it. Well, that's insurance. You know, that's what
insurance is for, to cover your downside risk. The ability
to cover your downside risk and cryptocurrency or in the
stock market is much more challenging. Can it be done?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yes? You can.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
You know, short certain industries, you can short certain sectors.
You can headge your bets by betting heavy on one
stock and then lighter on another. Are there ways to
get insurance in a sense yes, however not completely the
same way as real estate, not full protection and not
easy click of a button. The challenge with most investors
(09:36):
in the public markets that aren't really experienced at it
is there sometimes relying on people that are giving them
bad advice that is self fulfilling number one and number
two they turn to it turns into gambling. Okay, they
chase something, they lose a little bit, so then they
try and earn it back. The house always wins. Okay,
(09:57):
you go to vegas. Are there people that win in vage?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I guess yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Are there people that win on polymarket and on calshi Yes?
Are there people that win doing day trading, Yes, but
they are few and far between. Most of the time,
when they lose, they make bad choices, They pull out
of the investment and then they try to gamble to
win back what they lost. That same thing doesn't really
apply to real estate, so you're able to keep consistently
(10:21):
hitting singles as a real estate investor. You buy another
rental property, You buy some land and you hold it
until you can develop it. You buy a multifamily building
or a quadplex and you upgrade into an apartment building.
All these things are ways that you can leverage the
tax consequences as well. So for example, we have a
(10:41):
ten thirty one exchange in investment real estate where you
sell your asset and then you have a gain, but
you roll that over into another property and you don't
have to pay taxes on it. You don't have the
same tax benefits in most other asset classes. If I
sell a stock today and I have a game, I'm
paying taxes on that even if I go buy another stock.
(11:03):
So there are a lot of different strategies with real
estate that make it very tax advantageous, and so that's
why I'm a proponent of real estate. If you're somebody
that's heavily invested in the stock market in crypto and
you're tired of those ups and the downs, please reach
out to us. I'd love to align you with one
of my team's agents that can help you, you know,
focus on investing in real estate and avoid the emotional
(11:27):
drawdowns of you know what we saw in crypto and
in the stock market this week, and you know, focus
on hitting singles consistently over time and growing your wealth
because unfortunately, the main reason people don't chase real estate
is because it is it takes longer to gain your
wealth compared to the hope or the dream that you're
gonna pick some stock that's going to ten x, and
(11:50):
the likelihood is that you'll end up losing, you know,
because you're gambling. So hopefully that makes sense. We'd love
to help you The Dunkin Duo dot com. Be back
after a quick break here on the Duncan Duo Show.
So back here on the Duncan do a real estate
show talking about the Tampa Bay real estate market. Andrew Duncan,
the Duncan Duo Team, LPT Realty. Look into higher agents
at joindduo dot com. If you're interested in a real
(12:10):
estate career, changing brokerages, whatever it is, we'd love the
opportunity to help you again at Join the duo dot com.
We are looking to add agents to our team, we
increase our marketing budget this year. We're already off to
a great start, performing better than we did last year,
marketly better than we did last year in January, and
looking really strong in February as well. So if you
(12:30):
need some new motivation and new group to be around,
as well as an awesome setup with coaching, wealth building,
helping agents be better with buyers, helping agents be better
with sellers, and the opportunity to work with leads, we'd
love the opportunity to help you again. That's at jointhduo
dot com. So I've talked about this a few times before,
(12:53):
and I think the last time I talked about it
it was pretty pretty well received. But I want to
talk about multi generational. So if you're a home seller
and you have a and this is important because a
lot of agents don't do a good job of marketing this.
So when you have a detached in law apartment, or
(13:13):
a separate entry way for an attached either bonus room
or bedroom, a garage apartment, all those things are becoming
more and more valuable. A new survey finds that thirty
nine percent of Americans are more likely to move aging
parents into their home than consider assisted than consider assisted
living or nursing facilities. And I'm actually one of those people.
(13:35):
You know, my mom splits time between living with me
and my brother, and ultimately it was just for us.
We felt like we could handle it, we could get
help for her as she needed it, and we didn't
want to put her in assisted living. We wanted to
continue to spend as much time with her as we could.
And so fortunately my house is set up as is
my brother's house are set up to be able to
(13:56):
accommodate that. If it wasn't, that would be something we
would be looking looking forward to be very important to us.
So if there are a lot of customers of ours
that sometimes say I'm thinking about adding onto my house,
or I want a bonus room, or I am going
to do some renovations, that is one unique thing that
you can do that will add massive value, That isn't
(14:19):
that expensive if you're already going to add on anyway,
to add an extra entry way, Because it applies to
so many different people. Not only does it apply to
someone who wants to move their aging parents in it.
You know, there are a lot of kids graduating college
and moving back home, or even older than that moving
back home because maybe the economy didn't handle them well
(14:39):
or they lost their jobs. So those extra options in
a home, to be able to have another person, another
generation of your family, be able to internetxit without disturbing
everyone else becomes very valuable. So anyone that I talk
to that thinks about renovating their home, it's something that
I recommend if you're going to add on a a room,
(15:00):
add on a door as well, maybe even add in
electrical outlets for a small fridge or a small sink.
You know, those are things that make those spaces more
valuable than those then they're going to cost. And so
if you're thinking about doing that, you know we you know,
we have a lot of renovation contractors we work with,
(15:21):
you know, Revive Design and Renovation definitely somebody that we recommend.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You can find them Revive.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You can search for them pretty simply on Google by
searching for Revives or located on Kennedy Boulevard. They do
some really incredible renovation work for our clients, and they
won't typically assist with the addition part of it. But
if you've got the house already set up for that,
or if you want to kind of maybe add an
extra door, different things like that. There are things that
they can do in terms of also updating kitchens and
(15:51):
bass which are more of their specialty, but multi generational
family living I see not marketed properly all the time
by real estate agents. I went on a tour with
a client of mine who is an ex hockey player
not long ago, and that was a really important thing
for them, and we found a house that checked off
all the boxes and it actually had a mother in
law setup where you could enter into the bedroom from
(16:14):
a separate entrance. It didn't have a walkway, but that
could easily be done, and it was just poorly marketed.
It wasn't mentioned at all the marketing remarks about the
ability to add that. So if you're a home seller,
maybe that's something that got missed.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
This year.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
We noticed in January a huge surge of clients coming
to us that had homes that failed to sell because
the agents didn't market the features properly. If you're one
of those people, whether it's a mother in law apartment
that didn't get marketed properly, whether it's a view, the size,
the features, the photos, the neighborhood. There are a lot
(16:50):
of times where we look at situations and find out
that it wasn't the price. Oftentimes it is wasn't the
price of the home, that it was that features weren't
properly marketed. If you're one of those people, we would
love the opportunity to help you. We have sold thousands
of homes that failed to sell with other agents. It
is something that we specialize in in a big way.
It's a completely different marketing strategy. We're going to look
(17:12):
at everything that was done on the home. We're going
to analyze it, We're going to figure out where the
mistakes were. We're going to guide you towards success. Again,
we specialize in helping customers whose homes failed to sell
with other agents. If that's you, if your home didn't sell,
if you became unhappy, if you pulled it from the market,
we would love the opportunity to talk to you, apply
for the job and show you what we would do
(17:33):
differently as an agent. That would be focused on revitalizing
the marketing of the property, refreshing it new photos, new videos,
and then a different target marketing approach to get that
home in front of the right people, including the ones
that are looking for multi generational housing or any of
the features that sometimes get missed to marketing. If that's
something you're interested in, just go to dunkinduo dot com.
(17:56):
You can get your free home value estimate on that website.
Can also make tweaks to your home value. You can
provide more features. You can communicate with a live human.
While it is an AI platform, our agents oversee it.
They can update your value, They can let you know
what your home and self for to cash offer situation,
as well as help you get your home back on
the market. You can set an appointment directly with our
(18:17):
team again at duncanduo dot com. And we're going to
continue this conversation after a quick break here on the
Duncan Duo Real Estate Show. So we're back here on
the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay real
estate market. And look, it's no secret that there's people
out there challenging, having challenges in the labor market and
their personal lives, having financial struggles. You know, I noticed
(18:38):
this week that there was a you know, some kind
of really low numbers that came out for employment. Stock
market has had its ups and downs, and I want
to make sure people that own their house that haven't
looked at refinancing in a while think about that as
an option to help them. This is specifically helpful for
someone like a veteran who's got a VA loan, someone
(19:01):
who has an FAHA loan. Of course, if you have
a conventional or jumbo loan, this can apply, but it
isn't necessarily as easy. So when you have a loan,
you know, one of the best things you can look
to do to improve your financial situation, lower your you know,
monthly payment, and potentially use the lower interest rates to
(19:22):
pay off other debts is a refinance. And the best
refinance product out there is called a streamline refinance. Now
it's called something a little bit different for the differences
between VA and FHA loans.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
But I want to give you the plug of.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Who I think can help you with this, and it's
Citywide Mortgage Melissa Oscar Morgan Citywide Tampa dot com. Again,
the website is citywide Tampa dot com. If you have
an interest rate that is near a seven, high six
is even mid sixes, you could potentially save yourself hundreds
of dollars a month thousands of dollars a year in
interest depending on the price of your home by doing
(19:57):
a streamline refinance. Now, I want to make this clear.
If you're thinking about doing a refinance on your house
and you have a VA or FHA loan, listen up
because this is important. First, you don't actually have to
qualify the same way you do for a typical refinance
er purchase. In a typical reefinanceer purchase, they're going to
want to appraise the home to make sure it meets
(20:17):
that value or higher, and they're going to want to
make sure that you're employed and you have the income
and the ability to afford it. Now, you might be
using savings, you might be unemployed, and you might think, oh, no,
one's going to refinance me. Or you might say, hey,
my house is nowhere near. My house is depreciated, it's
worth less.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Than what I owe.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It doesn't matter. VA and FHA are still on the
hook for that loan no matter what, So they're willing
to give you relief and lower your payment with no
out of pocket costs. Now, the cost of doodle loan
are typically lumped into your principle, but the ability to
lower your payment is pretty considerable. You can do a
streamlined refinance, and this is especially important if you have
an interest rate six point five or higher because where
(20:57):
rates at today on VA and FHA are much lower
than that, so you'd have an instant savings in your
monthly payment. Typically you could skip a month or two
of your payment a month, not two a month, depending
on when the dates line up. You could also get
your PMI eliminated or reduced, or avoid PMI and start
building more equity. So again, if you think about the
(21:21):
path to your financial life and you're struggling financially and
you need some help, a refinance can be a great
way to inject some much needed cash into other situations
as well as lower your down payment. We've had customers
this week at Citywide reach out to do a refinance
and they not only got some cash to pay off
o their debt, but they still lowered their payment even
while taking a higher loan because of the drastic savings
(21:45):
in their industrate. So there's so many people out there,
and again, especially veterans, they've earned the right to get
these kinds of benefits, these streamline refinances because of the
things that they do to protect our country So if
you're a veteran or you have a VA ref H loan,
strongly recommend you think about it. And again, our representatives, Morgan,
Melissa and Oscar, we'll shoot you straight. They'll tell you
(22:08):
whether or not you should do it or whether you
should wait. There are some scenarios where you might be
able to wait and get a slightly lower rate a
few months from now, or you might need rates to
come down a little bit more before it makes sense.
Every situation is a little bit different because it depends
on how long you're going to be in the house.
To ensure that you know, the money that you add
on to the balance makes sense. So how long you're
(22:31):
going to be in the house, and what your current
rate is, what your financial situation is. So they act
in a sense as a consultant, So look at your
overall financial situation to decide does it make sense to
refinance now or should you maybe wait a little bit
down the line. So it's super important to think about
that as an option. If you've lost your job, you
don't need to qualify, doesn't matter. If you're not employed,
(22:53):
doesn't matter, if you don't have the money, it doesn't
matter if your house isn't worth what it used to be,
already on the VNF chair, already on the hook for
that loan, so they're willing to lower your payment, okay,
in a streamline, and then potentially you could also look at,
you know, a cash out type scenario again, assuming the
(23:15):
appraisal hits now. They won't let you typically take cash
out above of above your current loan amount if there
isn't equity there. So it depends on how long you've
owned your home, but at a minimum, an easy ability
to lower your down payment. And I can't say enough
great things about Melissa Oscar and Morgan was citywide. We
had a sale this week and they absolutely saved the day.
(23:38):
It was a client of ours that had decided to
work with another lender. They went through the whole process,
and they found out towards the end that the mortgage
lender gave him a bait and switch and weren't honest
with them about what the taxes and insurance were going
to be. The customer looked simply at the total payment
of the mortgage with tax and insurance factored in, and
(24:00):
that's how they shopped and the lender that quoted them
lower taxes and insurance which were alive because the lender
has nothing to do with those things, got the deal,
and then.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
As it is, it moved down the line.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
They were paying a higher rate and higher closing costs
with that lender, and then when taxes and insurance came in,
they didn't realize that the lender had no control over that,
and their payment was massively higher. Switched over to Melissa
at Citywide, got them a better rate, got them lower
closing costs, made the whole deal happen, and saved the day.
So if you need your mortgage saved, go to Citywide
(24:32):
Tampa dot com. Also check them out for a streamline
refinance and so much more. They really do a great
job for our team. So again you're listening to the
Duncan Duo real Estate show here on WFLA News Andrew
Duncan the Duncan do a team at LPT Realty. When
we aren't on air, please make sure to follow us
on all of our socials again at the Duncan Duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And TikTok.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I want to talk next to home sellers that are
thinking about putting their house on the market. There are
a lot of sellers that are really good at this.
They go to our model homes or they watch HDTV
and they're they're into design and technology, and they have,
you know, they've got a beautiful home and beautiful you know,
furniture and it shows well and they play music and
(25:18):
they bake cookies and you know. So there are some
sellers that knock this out of the park, okay, and
then there are some that do not. When you're buying
real estate, and this is especially important if you're selling
to someone who plans to buy it and occupy. If
this is an investment property, it's probably not as applicable.
But if you're selling it to someone that's going to
be a homeowner, you're selling a lifestyle. Okay, you're not
(25:40):
selling four walls. You're really selling a lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
When they look at your house, do they see themselves
living in it? And do they feel comfortable? Do they
see the lifestyle of the home. And unfortunately a lot
of times the customers, the buyers, don't see the lifestyle
of the home because they're too busy weeding through all
of your stuff. Okay, So I want to give you
some tips here. You're thinking about selling your home, the
things that you need to do to be able to
(26:05):
help get the most value, the most money out of
your house, okay, and to sell the lifestyle to the customer.
First and foremost, most customers don't have vision, and a
vacant home will show better okay than a home that
is massively cluttered, dirty, and has a bunch of stuff everywhere,
(26:26):
because at least in that scenario, they can envision where
their stuff would go. When there is a house it's
cluttered and has ugly furniture and bad design and repairs
that are needed, the buyer has a hard time looking
past those things. Are going to pay too much attention
to your stuff. So first and foremost home sellers, declutter
your house. If you're not great at design, be as
(26:48):
minimal as possible. You can go to a builder model
home and get some ideas. You can go online, you
can ask your favorite AI for help as well.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
But the idea is to allow the.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Buyer to walk into that home and feel at home
and feel like it could be their home. So all
the personal mementos, the the you know, the the Nascar wall,
the all of the things that make that home yours
you need. You're get to declutter that out of the
house so the buyer can make it feel like they're
so personal.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Photos.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
You know, we've seen whole walls of family photos.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
You know, we've seen.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Large memorabilia collections. We've seen really flamboyant art. Those are
things that are going to cause the customer to talk
about and pay attention to, and then they're not paying
attention to your house. So Number one, declutter the house.
Number two, take care of any visible repairs.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Look.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I understand that sometimes it's impossible to know what's behind
the walls or what an inspector might find. It's not
a bad idea sometimes to have an inspector look at
the house before it goes on the market and correct everything.
But if you have visible flaws, things that people can
see that you don't correct, customers automatically think that there's
more damage there, there's more things that are wrong. If
(28:02):
they don't take the initiative to repair a minor, easy
cosmetic thing, what are we not seeing and it spooks them.
The second thing that you want to do when you
put your house on the market again, when it comes
to furniture, I mentioned this before, be minimalist and declutter.
You want people to be able to freely move between
the rooms. You don't want so much furniture and so
(28:25):
much clutter that people don't feel like they can sit down.
The more comfortable someone is going into your home, the
longer they stay in it, the more likely they are
to buy it. Okay, So that's a really important tactic
to the customer feeling great and comfortable in the home.
Second thing, if you're not grade at design and you've
got a lot of furniture and color mismatches, okay, fix it,
(28:48):
declutter it, or simply remove stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I always tell people we're going to sell your house,
you might as well start moving now. So again, take
care of the repairs, declutter the house. Last, but not least,
have the house spotless clean. Okay, have it smelling nice.
Smells matter. If if you can't do anything but that,
that's at least a sign that shows that you care
(29:15):
about the home and that you you maintain it, that
you keep it clean. If you're not great at design,
if you're not great at furniture picking, if your colors
are all or bad or flamboyant or crazy, or you're
you're not gonna remove your personal you know, mural to
your to your daughter, who's a beauty contest pageant? Yes,
I had that one before. Have the home spotless, clean,
(29:38):
have it cleaned. Don't have dishes everywhere, don't have accidents,
don't have stuff spread out, don't have dirty clothes everywhere.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Have the bed made. Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Those are just simple common things. If you want to
go the extra mile, the extra mile would be always
having the air conditioned cool okay, always having music playing
like nice, calm, chill music, having the house smelling nice,
fresh baked cookies don't hurt. And then, last, but not least,
(30:08):
don't be there. Okay, as the home seller, you should
not be there. Let me repeat that, do not be there.
The more that you're there, the more uncomfortable and rushed
people feel, because now they're on your time instead of
their time. They feel like they're trespassing into your home,
and then they rush through the house. Also, frankly, there
are a lot of home sellers that just don't understand
(30:28):
how uncomfortable they make people. Maybe they don't have great
people skills, they don't have great sale skills, and they
follow people around from room to room. It's like, you know,
it's like when your parents wanted to go on your
date with you. Okay, it's not comfortable. Don't be there
if you're the seller. The buyers don't want to fact
finding mission. They don't need you to answer all the
questions on the first showing. They want to experience the home,
(30:49):
they want to emotionally attach, and they want to fall
in love.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
They can't do that if.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
You're leg humping them through every single room, following them around,
you know, like their mom.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Okay, don't be their seller. Do not be there.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Let the customer feel it. If you need to be
there for a second showing, potentially answer questions if the
buyers have them, or to be prepared to answer questions
for your agent that can help too. So hopefully these
tips help you get your home sold for top dollar.
If that's what you want, just head to Duncan Duo
dot com. We'll be back wrapping up our last segment
after a quick break here on WFLA News. So back
here on the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa
(31:23):
Bay real estate market. Andrew Duncan, the Duncan Duo team
at LPT Realty. I took a call from a friend
this week. It's a guy that I know from the
car scene. You know, I'm a big car collector and
I go to a lot of car shows, so I
meet a lot of people and got approached by him
with a really specific and unique need, and it made
(31:45):
me realize it was something that I needed to talk
about on air. After having done this run this business
for more than twenty years. We have an enormous database
of people that were communicating with where we're letting them
know about their home value, many of which don't end
up using my company, but they use my website or
my dashboard through my website to keep up to date
on their home value and up to date on what's
(32:06):
going on in their neighborhood. So, if you're someone out
there that is a home buyer and you're looking for
something unique off market, okay, some of the best opportunities
never make it to the market, never make it to
the mls. They get sold, especially in the luxury space,
they get sold before they ever hit the market. If
that's you, If you are looking for something that is
(32:29):
off market that you haven't found, that you've gone to
all the websites and you don't see there's plenty of
real estate agents that they'll probably set you up on
a search and say, hey, if it comes available, i'll
let you know. Those real estate agents are waiting for
the magical MLS marketing machine to shoot out deals for them.
My real estate agents are going to take it a
step further, and they're going to go grind, and they're
(32:50):
going to go door knock, and they're going to go
browse our database to find homes that fit your criteria. Recently,
we've had customers. We had a custom and we're looking
for something a water chase up to one point five
we have a customer looking for Bayshore waterfront above ten
million dollars. We've got a customer that wants something obviously
super custom and amazing, and there's only a few of
(33:12):
those out there. We have a customer that wanted a
condo in a specific building, only in that building, and
we've been able to work and help them. So if
you're looking for something very specific but you don't you're
not finding it on the MLS, your agent isn't finding it,
Please reach out to us. Go to the dunkin doo
dot com, call us or text us eight one, three,
(33:33):
three five nine eighty nine to ninety let us know
specifically what it is that you're looking for. Now, what
I will tell you is, if you're just looking for
deals on investments or cap rates, or if you're just
about the numbers, it's it's going to be really challenging
to find those things specifically. But if you're someone that
wants to buy and move into a home and what
you're finding out on the market isn't working for you,
(33:53):
that's really more the niche that we'd like to help,
because the problem with finding homes that meet certain criteria
financially is that it's really hard to find that from
the data. You don't know what it's renting for you
don't like. But if you're wanting to be a home
owner and living a home and you're not finding what's
out there, you're looking for something unique, or you know
you're affluent and you have really high standards and you're
(34:15):
not seeing it out on the market and you don't
want to build it, we will go to hunt for you.
We will look on our database, we will door knock,
we will track down the properties to see if we
can make an off market deal happen. Because some of
the best real estate sells off market. If that is you,
I'll give you again the contact information. If you're not
finding what you want in the market and you want
to buy a home that doesn't exist, you don't want
(34:36):
to build, even if you've identified the homes, you know,
you figured out it's these five properties that would fit
my criteria. Will we will reach out to them. We
will see if we have a connection one of the ones.
This week I ended up knowing one of the sellers
after having been in the business so long, the one
of the sellers of one of the properties that one
of my clients is looking for, I personally know the guy.
(34:56):
So it made that It made the reach out really
really simple. So if you're looking for something you need,
we go to the Duncan duo dot com send us
a message. You can also send us a message on
any of our social channels, or you can go to
v dunkinduo dot com. Last, but not least, you can
text us eight one three three five nine eight nine
(35:16):
nine's here with what specifically you're looking for, and again
we'll go to work. Our agents are constantly out looking
at homes. We go on listing appointments every single day.
You know, I have a group of ten listing partners.
They go out to meet with home sellers every single day. Unfortunately,
some of those home sellers choose not to work with
us or choose not to sell their home, but we
know that they're a seller, we know that they're interested.
(35:37):
So every week in our office we have a meeting,
and in that meeting, you know, our agents that are
working with home buyers will say, hey, here's what I'm
looking for. And oftentimes one of my listing agents will say, hey,
let's talk. I've got that there. It's not on the
market or not on the market yet, but it's coming.
And then we obviously have a database of customers. We
use the database our agent's plugin needs. So we're going
(35:59):
to use tech technology to our advantage and AI features
to help find the properties that meet your needs.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So, if you're an.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Affluent customer, it's looking for something really specific and you're
not finding it. Maybe your agent isn't doing the work.
Maybe your agent is just plugging you into the MLS
and sending you ever, sending you what pops on to
the magical MLS marketing machine, and you're not seeing what
you want. You might need an agent that's willed to
do the nitty gritty stuff, the harder door knocking a neighborhood,
(36:27):
getting into a condoct community and seeing if there are
any owners that want to sell, including but not limited
to going back in the history of the MLS to
find agents to help those customers. We had one recently
where a customer gave us something really unique and they
said that's what they wanted. We went and found a
home that was on the market in twenty nineteen and
didn't sell. We couldn't get a hold of the owner.
(36:47):
The owner wasn't responding. We called the agent that had
the listing, and the agent was able to get a
hold of them. We put a deal together for a
house that wasn't even listed. So if that's you again,
hit us up eight one, three, three five nine eighty
nine ninety or and you can call or text that
line or simply go to the Duncan Duo dot com
or message us on any of our social channels with
what your need is and we'll go to work seeing
(37:08):
what we can do to find it. So hopefully you've
gotten some great information from today's show. Again, hit us
up at the dunk and Duo any of the social
media channels and anytime we aren't on air, and have
an awesome rest of your weekend.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Tampa Bay. Thanks for tuning in.
Happy Sunday, Tampa Bay.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
We're with you for another week here on the Duncan
Duo Real Estate Show, like we are every Sunday at
ten o'clock on WFLA Andrew Duncan the Duncan Duo team
at LPT Realty giving you all the information about the
Tampa Bay real estate market every single week when we
aren't on air, make sure to follow us on all
of our socials at the Duncan Duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube,
(00:24):
TikTok again at the Duncan Duo anytime we aren't on air,
happy to give you all the real estate information in
Tampa Bay on our social media channels, constantly doing giveaways,
exciting stuff on there. And man, what a week it
was to be a Tampa Bay Lightning fan for the
last week or so. Last Sunday I got to attend
the Raymond James inaugural hopefully they continue that game, and
(00:49):
saw what an.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Epic comeback by our Lightning.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So proud to be honored as the official real estate
agents of the Lightning for more than a decade and
happy to be a part of such a winning team.
But what a cool game and cool experience, And I
hope they get to do that again, I just hope
the next time they do it, maybe it's a little
bit warmer. So anyway, I want to start today talking
about one of the polarizing things I see quite regularly
(01:13):
with a lot of friends, and it's people you know
that kind of look to invest in different things. And
I want to make the case today for why investing
in real estate can be so powerful for you compared
to investing in other industries, and one of those industries,
in particular, cryptocurrency. I have friends that are bleeding this
(01:34):
week with the massive downturns in cryptocurrency at Bitcoin and ethereum,
and I have very little exposure to that. But ultimately,
when I do see these huge swings in the stock market,
in individual stock positions or in cryptocurrency, it reminds me
the value of investing real estate. And I want to
(01:57):
talk about that a little bit today for anyone out
there that's a covering crypto bro or somebody that's heavily
invested in crypto, I want to talk about the pros
and cons of investing in real estate and how our
team can help you with that. So, if you're thinking
about investing in real estate, first and foremost and important
that you have an investor savvy agent. We have multiple
(02:18):
agents on our team that are investor savy. You can
call or text us at eight one three three five
nine eighty nine ninety. You can go to the Dunkin
Duo website, you can look at our reviews online. And
if you reach out to us and you inquire about
investing in real estate, whether that's commercial real estate, whether
that's multifamily, rental property, single family home rentals, whatever path
(02:39):
that you're looking to invest in, we have agents to
specialize in particular niches. So, for example, if you're someone
that says, hey, I want to I'm thinking about investing
in commercial real estate, You're going to get a different agent.
You're gonna get Grant on my team or Sam on
my team that focus on working with our commercial clients.
If you said, hey, I want to buy rentals, and
you're going to get Benn Jackie. You know, if you said, hey,
(03:01):
I want to buy you know, multifamily, that would probably
be the same thing. A Grant or a Sam so
on my team. Our agents really focus on niches and
I think it's one of the unique differences about working
with a group like mine is that my agents will
obviously serve a lot of customers, but they but they
have things they specialize in no different than a large
law firm that has you know, personal injury attorneys, divorce
(03:23):
attorneys the state or trust attorneys that are that are
experienced in different niches. We offer the same thing in
the same focus. So back to kind of making the
case for why to real estate, Why to invest in
real estate over a cryptocurrency or a stock? And certainly
I have exposure, I have money in the market, I
have stock, I have a lot of real estate. But
(03:45):
why real estate is so valuable is the the the
non uh you know, like for example, the public markets
and cryptocurrency have these enormous swings. They're very fast moving markets.
A stock may have a something bad that happens in
the company and it might drop a massive amount in
one day and then it recovers. And there's this kind
(04:07):
of you know, psychological damage that people go through when
they're when their portfolio or one of their positions is down,
or whether their bitcoin position is down. And I deal
with it when I talk to friends because I'm like, oh, hey,
how's it going, you know, how's your week? And they're like, oh,
it was horrible. You know, I'm you know, Crypto crushed
me this week. And what it made me realize was that,
(04:28):
you know, maybe that person, you know, wasn't it wasn't
advised properly, and maybe they're not in the right asset class.
Because if you're that much into any one particular asset class,
when the market drops, you feel that emotional that emotional drain.
That is one of the beautiful parts about real estate.
In addition to the tax benefits, right, you get you know,
(04:50):
get some depreciation benefits, you get certain write offs. You
can use other people's money to grow the value of
the asset and get renters to pay or mortgage. You know,
there are not a lot of assets that allow you
to do that. Number one. Number two, you know, at
have these huge swings. Real estate is slow, so slow
moving that even things like massive cuts in interest rates.
(05:14):
For example, when we've seen twenty five or fifty basis
point cuts in the public markets, you see a moon effect.
You see risk assets massively rise, right, and then when
there's not a ray cut, they drop. Real estate doesn't
operate the same way. It takes such a long time
for these these things to impact the real estate market.
(05:36):
It just doesn't work that way. So when you have
this this you know, downturn in the real estate market,
it takes a long time to get there. Same thing
when you have a huge upswing, it takes a long
time to get there. So no one piece of news
is moving people psychologically or emotionally like they move with
(06:00):
ocurrency here the stock market. So so an example would be,
let's say we have a FED rate cut. Of course
that might prompt a little bit of demand and increase
some transactions if if that rate cut trickles down through
the treasuries and ends up reducing interest rates, but you
might see a one or two percent swing in price
over a several month period. Even in the months that
(06:24):
we saw the most massive appreciation we've ever seen, where
in an entire year, you know, the market. In our market,
we saw the average seale price increase twenty seven to
thirty percent. That's an average two and a half percent
in a month.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Now, your home or an individual home was kind of
seeing that same trend. Whereas a stock might go up
twenty percent in a day or drop twenty percent in
a day. The psychological damage that that can cause for
somebody and how can control their happiness is something you
don't deal with in real estate. It's it's much more consistent,
it's much more mentally you know, rewarding in my opinion,
(07:04):
because you don't have those huge swings. The other benefit
is that it is an asset you can improve. So
when you have investment real estate, you can say, hey,
I'm going to go and improve the building. I'm going
to go spend money on this, which I then write off.
I'm going to go improve the value by doing these
things so that I can either increase the rent or
(07:24):
improve the value of the property. With cryptocurrency or with stocks,
you really can't do that.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Can you leverage them? Can you take margin against them?
Of course you can, but you're not really improving the situation.
You're gambling in a sense. That's one of the beautiful
things about investing in real estate is that you can
buy distressed properties, you can buy damaged properties. You can
make improvements to them, sweat equity improvements, even if you
don't actually spend money, but you go and work on them.
(07:50):
If you own a Google stock or you own bitcoin
or ethereum, you can't show up at Google headquarters in
Palo Alto, or you know, you can't show up a
bitcoin place and say, hey, let me come in here
and work today to increase the value of my bitcoin. Now,
you could mind bitcoin, but there are people that are
pretty much mastered that and made it cost prohibitive for
(08:11):
an individual person to keep up with that. So what
am I saying? Should you have all of your money
in any one of those asset classes, whether it's the
stock market or whether it's the cryptocurrency. In my opinion, no,
And I'm not a financial advisor, but I've had a
lot of success investing in real estate and in other
asset classes, and I can tell you that the emotional
(08:35):
upswings and down swings of the public markets and of
cryptocurrency can be debilitating. You don't have that same obstacle
with real estate. The only time you have those obstacles
with real estate, of course, are things like hurricanes or
maybe a tenant damaging your property. The difference in real
estate with the biggest risks that you have. Okay, so
the biggest risks that you have in real estate are
(08:57):
a storm damaging your property or a fire or a
tenant damaging it. Well, that's insurance. You know, that's what
insurance is for, to cover your downside risk. The ability
to cover your downside risk and cryptocurrency or in the
stock market is much more challenging. Can it be done?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yes? You can.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
You know, short certain industries, you can short certain sectors.
You can headge your bets by betting heavy on one
stock and then lighter on another. Are there ways to
get insurance in a sense yes, however not completely the
same way as real estate, not full protection and not
easy click of a button. The challenge with most investors
(09:36):
in the public markets that aren't really experienced at it
is there sometimes relying on people that are giving them
bad advice that is self fulfilling number one and number
two they turn to it turns into gambling. Okay, they
chase something, they lose a little bit, so then they
try and earn it back. The house always wins. Okay,
(09:57):
you go to vegas. Are there people that win in vage?
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I guess yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Are there people that win on polymarket and on calshi Yes?
Are there people that win doing day trading, Yes, but
they are few and far between. Most of the time,
when they lose, they make bad choices, They pull out
of the investment and then they try to gamble to
win back what they lost. That same thing doesn't really
apply to real estate, so you're able to keep consistently
(10:21):
hitting singles as a real estate investor. You buy another
rental property, You buy some land and you hold it
until you can develop it. You buy a multifamily building
or a quadplex and you upgrade into an apartment building.
All these things are ways that you can leverage the
tax consequences as well. So for example, we have a
(10:41):
ten thirty one exchange in investment real estate where you
sell your asset and then you have a gain, but
you roll that over into another property and you don't
have to pay taxes on it. You don't have the
same tax benefits in most other asset classes. If I
sell a stock today and I have a game, I'm
paying taxes on that even if I go buy another stock.
(11:03):
So there are a lot of different strategies with real
estate that make it very tax advantageous, and so that's
why I'm a proponent of real estate. If you're somebody
that's heavily invested in the stock market in crypto and
you're tired of those ups and the downs, please reach
out to us. I'd love to align you with one
of my team's agents that can help you, you know,
focus on investing in real estate and avoid the emotional
(11:27):
drawdowns of you know what we saw in crypto and
in the stock market this week, and you know, focus
on hitting singles consistently over time and growing your wealth
because unfortunately, the main reason people don't chase real estate
is because it is it takes longer to gain your
wealth compared to the hope or the dream that you're
gonna pick some stock that's going to ten x, and
(11:50):
the likelihood is that you'll end up losing, you know,
because you're gambling. So hopefully that makes sense. We'd love
to help you The Dunkin Duo dot com. Be back
after a quick break here on the Duncan Duo Show.
So back here on the Duncan do a real estate
show talking about the Tampa Bay real estate market. Andrew Duncan,
the Duncan Duo Team, LPT Realty. Look into higher agents
at joindduo dot com. If you're interested in a real
(12:10):
estate career, changing brokerages, whatever it is, we'd love the
opportunity to help you again at Join the duo dot com.
We are looking to add agents to our team, we
increase our marketing budget this year. We're already off to
a great start, performing better than we did last year,
marketly better than we did last year in January, and
looking really strong in February as well. So if you
(12:30):
need some new motivation and new group to be around,
as well as an awesome setup with coaching, wealth building,
helping agents be better with buyers, helping agents be better
with sellers, and the opportunity to work with leads, we'd
love the opportunity to help you again. That's at jointhduo
dot com. So I've talked about this a few times before,
(12:53):
and I think the last time I talked about it
it was pretty pretty well received. But I want to
talk about multi generational. So if you're a home seller
and you have a and this is important because a
lot of agents don't do a good job of marketing this.
So when you have a detached in law apartment, or
(13:13):
a separate entry way for an attached either bonus room
or bedroom, a garage apartment, all those things are becoming
more and more valuable. A new survey finds that thirty
nine percent of Americans are more likely to move aging
parents into their home than consider assisted than consider assisted
living or nursing facilities. And I'm actually one of those people.
(13:35):
You know, my mom splits time between living with me
and my brother, and ultimately it was just for us.
We felt like we could handle it, we could get
help for her as she needed it, and we didn't
want to put her in assisted living. We wanted to
continue to spend as much time with her as we could.
And so fortunately my house is set up as is
my brother's house are set up to be able to
(13:56):
accommodate that. If it wasn't, that would be something we
would be looking looking forward to be very important to us.
So if there are a lot of customers of ours
that sometimes say I'm thinking about adding onto my house,
or I want a bonus room, or I am going
to do some renovations, that is one unique thing that
you can do that will add massive value, That isn't
(14:19):
that expensive if you're already going to add on anyway,
to add an extra entry way, Because it applies to
so many different people. Not only does it apply to
someone who wants to move their aging parents in it.
You know, there are a lot of kids graduating college
and moving back home, or even older than that moving
back home because maybe the economy didn't handle them well
(14:39):
or they lost their jobs. So those extra options in
a home, to be able to have another person, another
generation of your family, be able to internetxit without disturbing
everyone else becomes very valuable. So anyone that I talk
to that thinks about renovating their home, it's something that
I recommend if you're going to add on a a room,
(15:00):
add on a door as well, maybe even add in
electrical outlets for a small fridge or a small sink.
You know, those are things that make those spaces more
valuable than those then they're going to cost. And so
if you're thinking about doing that, you know we you know,
we have a lot of renovation contractors we work with,
(15:21):
you know, Revive Design and Renovation definitely somebody that we recommend.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You can find them Revive.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You can search for them pretty simply on Google by
searching for Revives or located on Kennedy Boulevard. They do
some really incredible renovation work for our clients, and they
won't typically assist with the addition part of it. But
if you've got the house already set up for that,
or if you want to kind of maybe add an
extra door, different things like that. There are things that
they can do in terms of also updating kitchens and
(15:51):
bass which are more of their specialty, but multi generational
family living I see not marketed properly all the time
by real estate agents. I went on a tour with
a client of mine who is an ex hockey player
not long ago, and that was a really important thing
for them, and we found a house that checked off
all the boxes and it actually had a mother in
law setup where you could enter into the bedroom from
(16:14):
a separate entrance. It didn't have a walkway, but that
could easily be done, and it was just poorly marketed.
It wasn't mentioned at all the marketing remarks about the
ability to add that. So if you're a home seller,
maybe that's something that got missed.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
This year.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
We noticed in January a huge surge of clients coming
to us that had homes that failed to sell because
the agents didn't market the features properly. If you're one
of those people, whether it's a mother in law apartment
that didn't get marketed properly, whether it's a view, the size,
the features, the photos, the neighborhood. There are a lot
(16:50):
of times where we look at situations and find out
that it wasn't the price. Oftentimes it is wasn't the
price of the home, that it was that features weren't
properly marketed. If you're one of those people, we would
love the opportunity to help you. We have sold thousands
of homes that failed to sell with other agents. It
is something that we specialize in in a big way.
It's a completely different marketing strategy. We're going to look
(17:12):
at everything that was done on the home. We're going
to analyze it, We're going to figure out where the
mistakes were. We're going to guide you towards success. Again,
we specialize in helping customers whose homes failed to sell
with other agents. If that's you, if your home didn't sell,
if you became unhappy, if you pulled it from the market,
we would love the opportunity to talk to you, apply
for the job and show you what we would do
(17:33):
differently as an agent. That would be focused on revitalizing
the marketing of the property, refreshing it new photos, new videos,
and then a different target marketing approach to get that
home in front of the right people, including the ones
that are looking for multi generational housing or any of
the features that sometimes get missed to marketing. If that's
something you're interested in, just go to dunkinduo dot com.
(17:56):
You can get your free home value estimate on that website.
Can also make tweaks to your home value. You can
provide more features. You can communicate with a live human.
While it is an AI platform, our agents oversee it.
They can update your value, They can let you know
what your home and self for to cash offer situation,
as well as help you get your home back on
the market. You can set an appointment directly with our
(18:17):
team again at duncanduo dot com. And we're going to
continue this conversation after a quick break here on the
Duncan Duo Real Estate Show. So we're back here on
the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay real
estate market. And look, it's no secret that there's people
out there challenging, having challenges in the labor market and
their personal lives, having financial struggles. You know, I noticed
(18:38):
this week that there was a you know, some kind
of really low numbers that came out for employment. Stock
market has had its ups and downs, and I want
to make sure people that own their house that haven't
looked at refinancing in a while think about that as
an option to help them. This is specifically helpful for
someone like a veteran who's got a VA loan, someone
(19:01):
who has an FAHA loan. Of course, if you have
a conventional or jumbo loan, this can apply, but it
isn't necessarily as easy. So when you have a loan,
you know, one of the best things you can look
to do to improve your financial situation, lower your you know,
monthly payment, and potentially use the lower interest rates to
(19:22):
pay off other debts is a refinance. And the best
refinance product out there is called a streamline refinance. Now
it's called something a little bit different for the differences
between VA and FHA loans.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
But I want to give you the plug of.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Who I think can help you with this, and it's
Citywide Mortgage Melissa Oscar Morgan Citywide Tampa dot com. Again,
the website is citywide Tampa dot com. If you have
an interest rate that is near a seven, high six
is even mid sixes, you could potentially save yourself hundreds
of dollars a month thousands of dollars a year in
interest depending on the price of your home by doing
(19:57):
a streamline refinance. Now, I want to make this clear.
If you're thinking about doing a refinance on your house
and you have a VA or FHA loan, listen up
because this is important. First, you don't actually have to
qualify the same way you do for a typical refinance
er purchase. In a typical reefinanceer purchase, they're going to
want to appraise the home to make sure it meets
(20:17):
that value or higher, and they're going to want to
make sure that you're employed and you have the income
and the ability to afford it. Now, you might be
using savings, you might be unemployed, and you might think, oh, no,
one's going to refinance me. Or you might say, hey,
my house is nowhere near. My house is depreciated, it's
worth less.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Than what I owe.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It doesn't matter. VA and FHA are still on the
hook for that loan no matter what, So they're willing
to give you relief and lower your payment with no
out of pocket costs. Now, the cost of doodle loan
are typically lumped into your principle, but the ability to
lower your payment is pretty considerable. You can do a
streamlined refinance, and this is especially important if you have
an interest rate six point five or higher because where
(20:57):
rates at today on VA and FHA are much lower
than that, so you'd have an instant savings in your
monthly payment. Typically you could skip a month or two
of your payment a month, not two a month, depending
on when the dates line up. You could also get
your PMI eliminated or reduced, or avoid PMI and start
building more equity. So again, if you think about the
(21:21):
path to your financial life and you're struggling financially and
you need some help, a refinance can be a great
way to inject some much needed cash into other situations
as well as lower your down payment. We've had customers
this week at Citywide reach out to do a refinance
and they not only got some cash to pay off
o their debt, but they still lowered their payment even
while taking a higher loan because of the drastic savings
(21:45):
in their industrate. So there's so many people out there,
and again, especially veterans, they've earned the right to get
these kinds of benefits, these streamline refinances because of the
things that they do to protect our country So if
you're a veteran or you have a VA ref H loan,
strongly recommend you think about it. And again, our representatives, Morgan,
Melissa and Oscar, we'll shoot you straight. They'll tell you
(22:08):
whether or not you should do it or whether you
should wait. There are some scenarios where you might be
able to wait and get a slightly lower rate a
few months from now, or you might need rates to
come down a little bit more before it makes sense.
Every situation is a little bit different because it depends
on how long you're going to be in the house.
To ensure that you know, the money that you add
on to the balance makes sense. So how long you're
(22:31):
going to be in the house, and what your current
rate is, what your financial situation is. So they act
in a sense as a consultant, So look at your
overall financial situation to decide does it make sense to
refinance now or should you maybe wait a little bit
down the line. So it's super important to think about
that as an option. If you've lost your job, you
don't need to qualify, doesn't matter. If you're not employed,
(22:53):
doesn't matter, if you don't have the money, it doesn't
matter if your house isn't worth what it used to be,
already on the VNF chair, already on the hook for
that loan, so they're willing to lower your payment, okay,
in a streamline, and then potentially you could also look at,
you know, a cash out type scenario again, assuming the
(23:15):
appraisal hits now. They won't let you typically take cash
out above of above your current loan amount if there
isn't equity there. So it depends on how long you've
owned your home, but at a minimum, an easy ability
to lower your down payment. And I can't say enough
great things about Melissa Oscar and Morgan was citywide. We
had a sale this week and they absolutely saved the day.
(23:38):
It was a client of ours that had decided to
work with another lender. They went through the whole process,
and they found out towards the end that the mortgage
lender gave him a bait and switch and weren't honest
with them about what the taxes and insurance were going
to be. The customer looked simply at the total payment
of the mortgage with tax and insurance factored in, and
(24:00):
that's how they shopped and the lender that quoted them
lower taxes and insurance which were alive because the lender
has nothing to do with those things, got the deal,
and then.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
As it is, it moved down the line.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
They were paying a higher rate and higher closing costs
with that lender, and then when taxes and insurance came in,
they didn't realize that the lender had no control over that,
and their payment was massively higher. Switched over to Melissa
at Citywide, got them a better rate, got them lower
closing costs, made the whole deal happen, and saved the day.
So if you need your mortgage saved, go to Citywide
(24:32):
Tampa dot com. Also check them out for a streamline
refinance and so much more. They really do a great
job for our team. So again you're listening to the
Duncan Duo real Estate show here on WFLA News Andrew
Duncan the Duncan do a team at LPT Realty. When
we aren't on air, please make sure to follow us
on all of our socials again at the Duncan Duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
And TikTok.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I want to talk next to home sellers that are
thinking about putting their house on the market. There are
a lot of sellers that are really good at this.
They go to our model homes or they watch HDTV
and they're they're into design and technology, and they have,
you know, they've got a beautiful home and beautiful you know,
furniture and it shows well and they play music and
(25:18):
they bake cookies and you know. So there are some
sellers that knock this out of the park, okay, and
then there are some that do not. When you're buying
real estate, and this is especially important if you're selling
to someone who plans to buy it and occupy. If
this is an investment property, it's probably not as applicable.
But if you're selling it to someone that's going to
be a homeowner, you're selling a lifestyle. Okay, you're not
(25:40):
selling four walls. You're really selling a lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
When they look at your house, do they see themselves
living in it? And do they feel comfortable? Do they
see the lifestyle of the home. And unfortunately a lot
of times the customers, the buyers, don't see the lifestyle
of the home because they're too busy weeding through all
of your stuff. Okay, So I want to give you
some tips here. You're thinking about selling your home, the
things that you need to do to be able to
(26:05):
help get the most value, the most money out of
your house, okay, and to sell the lifestyle to the customer.
First and foremost, most customers don't have vision, and a
vacant home will show better okay than a home that
is massively cluttered, dirty, and has a bunch of stuff everywhere,
(26:26):
because at least in that scenario, they can envision where
their stuff would go. When there is a house it's
cluttered and has ugly furniture and bad design and repairs
that are needed, the buyer has a hard time looking
past those things. Are going to pay too much attention
to your stuff. So first and foremost home sellers, declutter
your house. If you're not great at design, be as
(26:48):
minimal as possible. You can go to a builder model
home and get some ideas. You can go online, you
can ask your favorite AI for help as well.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
But the idea is to allow the.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Buyer to walk into that home and feel at home
and feel like it could be their home. So all
the personal mementos, the the you know, the the Nascar wall,
the all of the things that make that home yours
you need. You're get to declutter that out of the
house so the buyer can make it feel like they're
so personal.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Photos.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
You know, we've seen whole walls of family photos.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
You know, we've seen.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Large memorabilia collections. We've seen really flamboyant art. Those are
things that are going to cause the customer to talk
about and pay attention to, and then they're not paying
attention to your house. So Number one, declutter the house.
Number two, take care of any visible repairs.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Look.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
I understand that sometimes it's impossible to know what's behind
the walls or what an inspector might find. It's not
a bad idea sometimes to have an inspector look at
the house before it goes on the market and correct everything.
But if you have visible flaws, things that people can
see that you don't correct, customers automatically think that there's
more damage there, there's more things that are wrong. If
(28:02):
they don't take the initiative to repair a minor, easy
cosmetic thing, what are we not seeing and it spooks them.
The second thing that you want to do when you
put your house on the market again, when it comes
to furniture, I mentioned this before, be minimalist and declutter.
You want people to be able to freely move between
the rooms. You don't want so much furniture and so
(28:25):
much clutter that people don't feel like they can sit down.
The more comfortable someone is going into your home, the
longer they stay in it, the more likely they are
to buy it. Okay, So that's a really important tactic
to the customer feeling great and comfortable in the home.
Second thing, if you're not grade at design and you've
got a lot of furniture and color mismatches, okay, fix it,
(28:48):
declutter it, or simply remove stuff.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
I always tell people we're going to sell your house,
you might as well start moving now. So again, take
care of the repairs, declutter the house. Last, but not least,
have the house spotless clean. Okay, have it smelling nice.
Smells matter. If if you can't do anything but that,
that's at least a sign that shows that you care
(29:15):
about the home and that you you maintain it, that
you keep it clean. If you're not great at design,
if you're not great at furniture picking, if your colors
are all or bad or flamboyant or crazy, or you're
you're not gonna remove your personal you know, mural to
your to your daughter, who's a beauty contest pageant? Yes,
I had that one before. Have the home spotless, clean,
(29:38):
have it cleaned. Don't have dishes everywhere, don't have accidents,
don't have stuff spread out, don't have dirty clothes everywhere.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Have the bed made. Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Those are just simple common things. If you want to
go the extra mile, the extra mile would be always
having the air conditioned cool okay, always having music playing
like nice, calm, chill music, having the house smelling nice,
fresh baked cookies don't hurt. And then, last, but not least,
(30:08):
don't be there. Okay, as the home seller, you should
not be there. Let me repeat that, do not be there.
The more that you're there, the more uncomfortable and rushed
people feel, because now they're on your time instead of
their time. They feel like they're trespassing into your home,
and then they rush through the house. Also, frankly, there
are a lot of home sellers that just don't understand
(30:28):
how uncomfortable they make people. Maybe they don't have great
people skills, they don't have great sale skills, and they
follow people around from room to room. It's like, you know,
it's like when your parents wanted to go on your
date with you. Okay, it's not comfortable. Don't be there
if you're the seller. The buyers don't want to fact
finding mission. They don't need you to answer all the
questions on the first showing. They want to experience the home,
(30:49):
they want to emotionally attach, and they want to fall
in love.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
They can't do that if.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
You're leg humping them through every single room, following them around,
you know, like their mom.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
Okay, don't be their seller. Do not be there.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Let the customer feel it. If you need to be
there for a second showing, potentially answer questions if the
buyers have them, or to be prepared to answer questions
for your agent that can help too. So hopefully these
tips help you get your home sold for top dollar.
If that's what you want, just head to Duncan Duo
dot com. We'll be back wrapping up our last segment
after a quick break here on WFLA News. So back
here on the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa
(31:23):
Bay real estate market. Andrew Duncan, the Duncan Duo team
at LPT Realty. I took a call from a friend
this week. It's a guy that I know from the
car scene. You know, I'm a big car collector and
I go to a lot of car shows, so I
meet a lot of people and got approached by him
with a really specific and unique need, and it made
(31:45):
me realize it was something that I needed to talk
about on air. After having done this run this business
for more than twenty years. We have an enormous database
of people that were communicating with where we're letting them
know about their home value, many of which don't end
up using my company, but they use my website or
my dashboard through my website to keep up to date
on their home value and up to date on what's
(32:06):
going on in their neighborhood. So, if you're someone out
there that is a home buyer and you're looking for
something unique off market, okay, some of the best opportunities
never make it to the market, never make it to
the mls. They get sold, especially in the luxury space,
they get sold before they ever hit the market. If
that's you, If you are looking for something that is
(32:29):
off market that you haven't found, that you've gone to
all the websites and you don't see there's plenty of
real estate agents that they'll probably set you up on
a search and say, hey, if it comes available, i'll
let you know. Those real estate agents are waiting for
the magical MLS marketing machine to shoot out deals for them.
My real estate agents are going to take it a
step further, and they're going to go grind, and they're
(32:50):
going to go door knock, and they're going to go
browse our database to find homes that fit your criteria. Recently,
we've had customers. We had a custom and we're looking
for something a water chase up to one point five
we have a customer looking for Bayshore waterfront above ten
million dollars. We've got a customer that wants something obviously
super custom and amazing, and there's only a few of
(33:12):
those out there. We have a customer that wanted a
condo in a specific building, only in that building, and
we've been able to work and help them. So if
you're looking for something very specific but you don't you're
not finding it on the MLS, your agent isn't finding it,
Please reach out to us. Go to the dunkin doo
dot com, call us or text us eight one, three,
(33:33):
three five nine eighty nine to ninety let us know
specifically what it is that you're looking for. Now, what
I will tell you is, if you're just looking for
deals on investments or cap rates, or if you're just
about the numbers, it's it's going to be really challenging
to find those things specifically. But if you're someone that
wants to buy and move into a home and what
you're finding out on the market isn't working for you,
(33:53):
that's really more the niche that we'd like to help,
because the problem with finding homes that meet certain criteria
financially is that it's really hard to find that from
the data. You don't know what it's renting for you
don't like. But if you're wanting to be a home
owner and living a home and you're not finding what's
out there, you're looking for something unique, or you know
you're affluent and you have really high standards and you're
(34:15):
not seeing it out on the market and you don't
want to build it, we will go to hunt for you.
We will look on our database, we will door knock,
we will track down the properties to see if we
can make an off market deal happen. Because some of
the best real estate sells off market. If that is you,
I'll give you again the contact information. If you're not
finding what you want in the market and you want
to buy a home that doesn't exist, you don't want
(34:36):
to build, even if you've identified the homes, you know,
you figured out it's these five properties that would fit
my criteria. Will we will reach out to them. We
will see if we have a connection one of the ones.
This week I ended up knowing one of the sellers
after having been in the business so long, the one
of the sellers of one of the properties that one
of my clients is looking for, I personally know the guy.
(34:56):
So it made that It made the reach out really
really simple. So if you're looking for something you need,
we go to the Duncan duo dot com send us
a message. You can also send us a message on
any of our social channels, or you can go to
v dunkinduo dot com. Last, but not least, you can
text us eight one three three five nine eight nine
(35:16):
nine's here with what specifically you're looking for, and again
we'll go to work. Our agents are constantly out looking
at homes. We go on listing appointments every single day.
You know, I have a group of ten listing partners.
They go out to meet with home sellers every single day. Unfortunately,
some of those home sellers choose not to work with
us or choose not to sell their home, but we
know that they're a seller, we know that they're interested.
(35:37):
So every week in our office we have a meeting,
and in that meeting, you know, our agents that are
working with home buyers will say, hey, here's what I'm
looking for. And oftentimes one of my listing agents will say, hey,
let's talk. I've got that there. It's not on the
market or not on the market yet, but it's coming.
And then we obviously have a database of customers. We
use the database our agent's plugin needs. So we're going
(35:59):
to use tech technology to our advantage and AI features
to help find the properties that meet your needs.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So, if you're an.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Affluent customer, it's looking for something really specific and you're
not finding it. Maybe your agent isn't doing the work.
Maybe your agent is just plugging you into the MLS
and sending you ever, sending you what pops on to
the magical MLS marketing machine, and you're not seeing what
you want. You might need an agent that's willed to
do the nitty gritty stuff, the harder door knocking a neighborhood,
(36:27):
getting into a condoct community and seeing if there are
any owners that want to sell, including but not limited
to going back in the history of the MLS to
find agents to help those customers. We had one recently
where a customer gave us something really unique and they
said that's what they wanted. We went and found a
home that was on the market in twenty nineteen and
didn't sell. We couldn't get a hold of the owner.
(36:47):
The owner wasn't responding. We called the agent that had
the listing, and the agent was able to get a
hold of them. We put a deal together for a
house that wasn't even listed. So if that's you again,
hit us up eight one, three, three five nine eighty
nine ninety or and you can call or text that
line or simply go to the Duncan Duo dot com
or message us on any of our social channels with
what your need is and we'll go to work seeing
(37:08):
what we can do to find it. So hopefully you've
gotten some great information from today's show. Again, hit us
up at the dunk and Duo any of the social
media channels and anytime we aren't on air, and have
an awesome rest of your weekend.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Tampa Bay. Thanks for tuning in.
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