Duncan Duo 2-15-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Sunday, Tampa Bay. We're with you for another week
here on the Dunkin Duo Real Estate Show, talking about
the Tampa Bay real estate market like we are every
Sunday at ten o'clock right here on WFLA News like
I've been doing for more than a decade to keep
you updated on everything going on in the Tampa Bay
real estate market. When we aren't on air, make sure

(00:20):
to follow us at the Dunkin Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook,
you name it, We're on it. Follow us on socials.
We're constantly giving out things and sharing resources and news
talking about things going on in the real estate market.
And I've got some breaking news right now. Our Client
Appreciation event, we do it every single year. It is

(00:43):
going to be April twelfth, so we'll get some invites
out for you soon. You've got two months. Save the date,
April twelfth. We do it every year at Amale Arena.
Believe we're doing it from ten to one or ten
to two, somewhere around that. We'll firm up the details,
get a website build, and then get invites out to everybody.
But as an event for us where every year we

(01:03):
invite all of our past clients, we invite the community,
We invite real estate agents that we've worked with. Our
entire team will be there. The Lightning are always there
to support us as the official real estate agents for
the Lightning for more than a decade. And it's just
a fun time. You get to skate on the amilyreen ice.
We'll have some signed item giveaways, we'll have food, catered,

(01:25):
T shirt attacks, lots of cool stuff going on. And
again we'll get the sign up for that built out
so that everybody can register an RSVP, and we'll be
talking about it regularly here on the show for the
next couple months. We hope to see some of our listeners.
If you listen to this, if you're hearing the show,
you are invited because that means you have helped my business,
even if you've not used me. Just the impression, just

(01:48):
the listener on the rankings and just the impression of
you entertaining my show is valuable to me. So we'll
get the invites out on that soon again. That'll be
April twelfth, Saturday, April twelfth at Amily Arena. A lot
going on in the economy the past couple of weeks
if you if you haven't been paying attention, and it's

(02:09):
pretty much impossible not to pay attention to politics right now.
A lot of federal government cuts, a lot of what
does just trying to do is to try and streamline
the economy, and even President Trump coming out and pushing
to try and reduce interest rates. Now we don't know
what kind of impact it's going to have. The FED
has come out and said that, you know, interest rates

(02:30):
are likely not to come down anytime soon. The President
and his economic advisors see things differently and feel with
all the cuts that they're making and some of the
tax breaks, that it's going to help the economy be
prepared or be in a position to be able to
take lower rates. FED hasn't agreed with that. So nonetheless,
we're still in a higher interest rate environment. We do

(02:51):
expect to see it come down maybe later in the year,
with hopes that it could happen sooner, but so far
that doesn't appear to be the case. So that's that
is the one thing that's holding back our real estate
market is high rates. It's causing some buyers not to buy,
and it's causing certainly plenty of sellers to stay in
their homes. We talk to sellers every week where we

(03:13):
look at their situation, then we look at what they
can buy, and we look at what they can afford
with a six or six and a half percent rate
compared to the three or three and a half they
may have in their house, and they just decide not
to take action. So so that is the one thing
that is challenging for our market. We are starting to
see a little bit more inventory and and a little

(03:35):
bit more demand. Our market obviously got hit pretty hard
by a couple of storms which slowed us down considerably,
and the year's gotten off to a little bit of
a slow start. So it'll be interesting to see as
we get as we approach spring, if market demand picks up,
if some of the storm damaged homes get cleaned out
and there's some activity from that standpoint, and in the

(03:58):
in the next several months, we're gonna can continue to
see buyers having the leverage. And here's what I mean
by buyers having the leverage. Buyers, it's a buyer's it's
trending towards a buyer's market in some neighborhoods. We've always
believed a seller's market to be less than six months,
but in reality the last years it's probably trended towards
more like four months. If it was four months or below,

(04:21):
people consider that a seller's market. That's kind of become
the new norm. We're hovering a little above that now
in the overall market, and considerably above that in a
lot of our neighborhoods and communities. So the neighborhoods are
communities that have more than six months of inventory. Sometimes
those can be condos. There's certainly condo communities out there

(04:43):
that have twelve, fourteen, eighteen months of inventory. They're neighborhoods
that got hit harder with the storms and others that
are having problems moving their homes. But the leverage is
going to be on the buyer's side for the next
several months. One third of homes in Tampa Bay have
seen price reductions, and I have to tell you the

(05:05):
other two thirds probably need it. If your home is
on the market and it's been on the market for
a month and it hasn't gotten offers on it, you
probably need to adjust your price. There are a lot
of sellers still living in twenty twenty two. Okay, it's over, Okay,
COVID is gone twenty one, twenty twenty one, twenty two

(05:28):
incredible times saw record breaking appreciation, record breaking home sales.
But I like to call it fantasy land. We're not
going back to fantasy land anytime soon. So the belief
that you can ask in a market where the buyer
is gaining the leverage and where we're not seeing prices
rise and the many neighborhoods we're seeing the opposite, that

(05:48):
you can ask more than the last home that's sold.
That's the mentality a lot of sellers have. Oh, real
estate appreciates forever, and look, real estate over long periods
of time does appreciate, but there are certainly periods of
time where it doesn't. And we're in one of those.
So if you're a seller and your home hasn't sold
and you're pricing it above the last sold comp you're
just not going to sell. Okay, the buyers can do

(06:10):
the data, the realtors can do the data. Your house
isn't going to move. You have to get serious with
the with your price to move real estate today, and
the buyers are going to expect, you know, a lower price.
They're going to expect. They're going to expect concessions and
closing costs, and they are going to be tougher in negotiations.

(06:31):
They want a discount because they know the marketplace, and
they also don't really want to pay the interest rates.
So and for all the clients out there that you know,
we get this a lot. We have clients that'll that'll say, hey,
I want to sell my you know, four hundred and
fifty thousand dollars house for five hundred thousand dollars. And
when we tell them, you know, look your four hundred
your five hundred thousand, our houses is worth four hundred

(06:53):
and fifty. We'll just find somebody that's rich. Okay. Well, look,
rich people are rich for a reason. They're not dumb.
They're not overpaid. Saying for real estate, they're going to
get an appraisal, they're going to look at the value,
find somebody outside of the country to buy it. Okay,
In case you hadn't figured out, there's not as much
of that activity going on today. And just because someone
doesn't live in America doesn't mean they're stupid and they're
going to overpay for your house. And the last but

(07:14):
not least surelyser's a cash buyer out there. Since my
home can't to praise, surelyser's a cash buyer out there
that can buy my four hundred and fifty thousand dollars
house for five hundred thousand dollars. The logic sometimes is
just baffling to me, because if they have cash, they're
not going to overpay. If they have cash, they're going
to underpay. In fact, Florida leads the country in all

(07:40):
cash purchases, mean that we have the most number of
sales in the country per capita. They're selling for cash now.
So if you're a real estate if you're selling real
estate or real estate agent, it's likely you've seen cash
offers in your properties and sellers. The reality is, if
you want a cash offer for your house, they want
a diss count. Okay. Cash buyers are not paying you know,

(08:04):
the price that you want. Okay, there's an adjustment they need.
They need a sales feed, they need something so that
they can either turn around and rate your property or
turn around and sell it and make a profit. Okay.
So cash buyers are even less likely to pay the
price that you want than a finance buyer. So if
a property can't to praise, it's never going to close,
which means, now, if you're overpriced, you can't have a

(08:27):
finance buyer buy it because they can't actually buy it.
They can't get an appraisal high enough to buy the house.
Cash buyers are the fallback. People would say, oh, well,
you know, maybe you can get somebody to overpay. I
don't know the last time I checked. You know, when
I go shopping at Walmart and bring a twenty four
pack of coke up to the thing and they tell
me it's eight ninety nine for that, you know, for

(08:50):
that twenty four pack of coke. You know, the last
time I went there, I didn't tell them. You know what, well,
I'll just go ahead and pay you ten dollars for it,
you know, like it's eight ninety nine. That's the price.
That's what it's worth. Okay, that's what they're charging. You're
not getting a premium on real estate in Florida today.
It just doesn't exist. The only place that real estate

(09:10):
is getting a premium above what COMPS can show is
ultra luxury and so ultra luxury I'm talking in Tampa
Bay five plus million, ten plus million. Certainly some of
those homes because of their uniqueness because of their finishes,
because of how exemplary the construction is, and because the

(09:32):
clientele they're selling to has an unlimited amount of money,
maybe not unlimited, but a very large stockpile of money.
They might pay more for that house because of its uniqueness.
I have seen that happen. But that's not five hundred thousand,
that's not a million, that's not even two million. I'm
talking five plus million, and in many instances ten plus million,

(09:53):
where someone might pay more than the comps because maybe
there isn't a comp and because they have that much money.
But home sales into lower price ranges. It's just not
that just isn't the case. So while we may lead
in all cash home purchases, if you look at the
list to sell price ratios of those all cash purchases,

(10:14):
and we've looked at them, and GNAR and the Florida Times,
none of the media aggregators tell you this, but we
look at it, it's around eighty eighty five percent of
market values. What those cash offers end up being in
a best case scenario, if your house needs work, it's
going to be more like seventy seventy percent or less.
So the people that are buying cash, have data, massive

(10:38):
amounts of data they pay for. They're going to run
the house through algorithms, they're going to look at the condition.
They're not going to pay more than market value. They're
certainly not going to pay fifty thousand dollars more than
market value. So sellers get real with your price, price
aggressor for them to start. If you want to sell today,
if you want to sell today, you've got a price
so that you can create traction and an energy and

(11:01):
a bidding war early because you've got to knock buyers
off the fence. It's just the reality of a real
estate market that's still dealing with stuff post storm, still
has high interest rates, inventory starts to rise a little bit,
and again you've just got a price very aggressive today
to move property. Now again, are there scenarios? Of course,

(11:24):
you know, of course there's a listener out there right
now that's like, well I got you know, I did this.
And there are people that get lucky. Okay, there are
people that just get lucky. But most of the time
you end up costing yourself more by overpricing it, sitting
on the market and then having the lower your price.
And if you just cut to the price from the
beginning and negotiate up versus negotiate down. So again you're

(11:47):
listened to the Dunk and do a real estate show
when we aren't on air, make sure to fall some
all of our socials. If you're thinking about a real
estate career. Our real estate team is growing. We're looking
to add dynamic people to our team that want to
do the work. If you want to do the work
and reap the rewards, go to join the Duo dot com.
Sign up for our free career night, apply for any
of our open jobs, set an appointment on our calendar

(12:09):
where we'll have a private, confidential consultation with you. And
again you can do that at Jointhduo dot com. We'll
be back continue this conversation after a quick break here
on the Duncan Duo Show. So back here on the
Duncan Duo Real Estate Show talking about the Tampa Bay
real estate market when we aren't on air at the
Duncan Duo. When you want a home value estimate, you
want a top market value cash offer. We have a

(12:34):
buyer that is paying the highest numbers that we've seen.
You can get that at Dunkinduo dot com. We will
reach out offer you what they can give if you
want a quick, clean, easy out transaction. Again duncanduo dot com.
The market's going to crash, you know, a many times
I hear it market's crashing. The market's going to be destroyed.

(12:55):
Trump's going to destroy the real estate market because of
his tariffs. And look, you see so much nonsense on
social media about real estate, and let me explain why
real estate is so much different. Could some of these
things cause some negative ramifications in the overall economy, of course,
Could they cause some problems, some short term problems in

(13:17):
the stock market. Of course. When Trump announced the tariffs
on some of the countries, the stock market didn't like it.
It tumbled a couple percentage points. Guess what those two
days later, or less than a day later, it gets
resolved in the stock market rows again. The stock market
responds ebbs and flows based on news, based on opinions.

(13:41):
And there's a lot of emotional buying and selling that
happens in stock and it happens every day. Real estate
doesn't work that way. Real estate values don't jump a
bunch in a day. They don't go up five or
ten points in a day. Like a stock mite. Okay,
they grow gradually, slowly, consistently over time. So Florida is leading,

(14:04):
uh in equity rich homes. So Florida leads in equity
rich homes. And let me explain why that matters to
the naysayers that say, oh, the real estate market's going
to crash. In Q four, twenty twenty four, Florida had
sixty point seven percent equity rich homes. Miami Dade had
sixty four point four percent. And basically what this means

(14:24):
is they were worth more. They were worth at least
at least fifty percent more than the property's outstanding mortgages.
So to put this into perspective, sixty percent of the
homes are worth at least fifty percent more than the mortgages.
So the number of people that are underwater is such
a small number, and the number of people that have

(14:46):
so much equity because of the rise up in prices,
we've not seen prices drop. We've just kind of seen
them stabilize a little bit, despite record high interest rates,
despite storms hitting our market. If our market was going
to crash, it would have happened already. And US leading
in equity rich homes, the number of homes in our
market that have that amount of equity prevents us from

(15:10):
going down that path. There's so much of the inventory
that's bought in cash today, and granted, yes, a lot
of its hedge funds and investment groups and you know,
but there's so much equity being held privately with real
estate that the likelihood of some massive downturn into real
estate market doesn't exist because the market, if you look

(15:33):
back to when we had the Great Recession, the number
of equity rich homes was was negligible, was very low.
People were leveraging, they were putting very little down. There
weren't very many cash buyers. There wasn't as much equity.
So when the market shifted and there was an equity loss,
those people wanted to bail, you know, they wanted out.

(15:54):
They're like, Oh, I don't want to lose money. I'm
just going to bail on this mortgage. I'm not going
to pay the difference. Well, now, you've got so many
homes out there that don't have a mortgage, or they're
paid down so much, or that have such low interest
rates that even if there are foreclosures here and there,
there won't be enough of them because the only thing
that takes out the residential real estate market is foreclosures.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
It is the absolute only thing, in lieu of you know,
natural disasters or terror attacks or something that the only
economic thing that takes the residential real estate market out
is foreclosures. And if you have so many homes that
have equity and so many people that have low interest rates,
even if those people ran into problems because they put
down money, because the lending institutions required more down payments,

(16:37):
because they vetted people stronger, because they need sure they
could qualify before they gave them a loan, and then
reduce the number of people getting bad loans, which brought
in a lot of cash. If you put it into perspective,
the number of homes that are equity rich, the number
of homes that don't have a mortgage, and the number
of people that have such low rates, even if those people,

(17:00):
you know, the hedge funds aren't going to run into
financial problems and run into debt situations. We know the
people that are equity rich are not going to run
into it. And then you have a massive amount of
people that have these low interest rates. From a few
years ago, the only people really at risk of foreclosure
are people have bought a couple of years ago and
haven't seen equity gain and have to sell and have
high interest rates. Because anyone even with a low interest rate,

(17:22):
if they get hit with trouble, all they have to
do is rent out the property and they would cover
because the rent is the rent is going to be
higher than what their mortgage onto three or four percent mortgages.
And then secondly, the other reason why the foreclosure crisis
won't come is because banks have figured out forbearance. They
don't want to foreclose, so they're simply going to allow

(17:44):
people when they have enough equity to just miss the
mortgage payment and pile it on. At the end, the
bank wants money, the bank doesn't want the house. So
with forbearance, if they can't make their payments for a
few months and they're in a great equity position, the
bank will allow that to happen and then just added
to the existing mortgage balance and allow people to kind
of kick the can down the road until they figured

(18:04):
their stuff out. Those people you know years ago ended
up in foreclosure. They ended up with late fees and
penalties and attorneys, and the banks figured out how much
that costs, how much they have to pay lawyers, how
much equity loss happens, and then how hard it is
for them to loan money when properties and neighborhoods are
getting foreclosed on and depressing the values. So you're not
going to see some massive wave of foreclosures. The government

(18:27):
figured it out. They do four barons. Now there's too
many equity rich homes, there's too many people in low
interest rates so that they ran into trouble. They could
rent the property out to cover the costs. So the
naysayers that say the real estate market is crashing, look,
maybe it could in some other states, but it's just
not happening here. So hopefully that helps you understand the
stability of our real estate market where I expected to

(18:48):
keep showing signs of improvements this year.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
So I'm back.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
We're going to continue this conversation 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. Andrew Duncan at the Duncan Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube,
TikTok duncanduo dot com for free home value estimate or
an instant cash offer on your house. And I have
an exciting announcement team Player of the Year at my company.

(19:14):
This is something that we do every year. This year,
our team Player of the Year was Andre Harold. Andre
I have known for more than a decade. I used
to play basketball with him at the YMC. I spent
years telling him he needed to get into real estate
because how socially was, how competitive he was to how
many people that he knew, and he had a great
real estate year. And he is the epitome of what

(19:37):
a team player is at my company, always helping people,
always showing up, always filling shifts. In fact, the dude
was at my house helping me during storm cleanup because
of how bad the storms impacted me personally. So I
just I want to give a shout out to Andre.
He won our team Player of the year. We're doing
an annual cruise we take our agents on a cruise

(19:57):
and Andre is going on the cruise with because of
his awards. So congrats Andre, thank you for all that
you do. So what is a due diligence fee? Due
diligence fee? I've never heard of this in my life. Okay,
Like I've sold my company sold three billion dollars in
real estate, thousands of transactions, and I've never heard of

(20:19):
a due diligence fee in my life. So I read
this article and I ended up finding it on Reddit,
and it was a couple that paid three thousand in
earnest money and nailed seven thousand dollars in due diligence
fees to the seller. Well, first off, in Florida. I mean,
like I said, I have done, are there times where

(20:40):
a seller may want the escrow to be non refundable?
Of course?

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Is it common?

Speaker 1 (20:45):
No? Not in residential so it is. You know, there
are people that could call it a due diligence fee,
but in this instance, an earnest money and a due
diligence fee. So due diligence fee is a non refundable
payment to the seller in return for accepting a buyer's
offer and taking the property off the market while inspections
are done. That's wild to me. I I've never heard

(21:09):
of such a thing.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
So apparently they're used commonly in North Carolina and South Carolina.
Texas has a similar concept called option fees. It's meant
to show the buyer's dedication to purchasing the property and
a due diligence period is established, allowing the buyer to
cancel the deal for any reason within that time frame.
Due diligence feels fees very non refundable and are only

(21:31):
common in certain states and markets, so it is not
common here. The only time I think, I think I've
heard of this once and it was on something really
really high end. It was it was like a you
know it was it was an eight figure property, and
I remember I remember something about this happening. So if

(21:52):
someone asks you that in Florida, they probably haven't done
a lot of Florida real estate transactions, and maybe maybe
they're used to real estate in Texas, North Carolina or
South Carolina. However, the seller in the case of the
couple on Reddit, they mailed the due diligence feed directly
to seller and the cashier check was stolen out of
the mailbox and catched by a fraudster. So the difference

(22:14):
between due diligence and earnest money. So what I can
say is the earnest money binds the contract you have
to have.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
And I'm not a lawyer, but I've hired a lot
of them and worked with a lot of them, and
you have to have consideration for a contract to be valid.
So I'm sure you've seen the you know, the times
on TV commercials or on movies where someone's going to
an attorney for financial advice and they're like, give me
a dollar, like, give me a dollar like, and so

(22:44):
he gives the attorney a dollar. And the reason is
because once money exchanged hands, that's considered consideration. Now you've
you've you've hired someone. Well. Similarly, in real estate, the
earnest money deposit is a way for you to show
your good faith and to show that you're serious about
the house in Tampa Bay. The stronger the escrow deposit,

(23:06):
the more likely the seller is to believe that your
offer is serious, legitimate, and that you're committed to the
property and that you have the financial resources to buy
the home. The lower the esc grow deposit, the more
the seller could have concerns about whether or not you
really have enough skin in the game for them to
take their home off the market. So that's how we
typically see earnest money. It's certainly a consideration for negotiations.

(23:30):
It is a it's a reason that some sellers may
accept or not accept an offer, but a due diligence
money are both deposits. They're both deposits made by buyer
and real estate transaction, but they serve different purposes. The
earnest money is deposit made by the buyer to show
their intent to purchase, but it's typically refundable if the
buyer backs out of the deal okay, such as during

(23:53):
an inspection or in the appraisal contingency the buyer terminates
the contract. Outside of those contingencies, the earnest money can
possibly be forfeited to the seller. Due diligence money is
a fee paid by the buyer to secure the right
to inspect, a praise, and evaluate the property during the
due diligence period. It shows the buyer's commitment while allowing
them to back out of the deal without any penalty

(24:14):
during the due diligence for any reason. The due diligence
money is non refundable, though regardless of whether the buyer
decides to proceed, and is typically not applied to the
purchase price or the closing costs. In Texas, however, option
fees are usually applied to closing costs, so interestingly, the
main difference is that earnest money can be refundable, and

(24:36):
the due diligence money and option fees are non refundable.
So what I can say is, I'm really glad we
don't have due diligence money and happening regularly in our
market because because I can tell you, it would cause
so much buyer has, it would cost so many contractual issues.
But so in our market they're kind of one and
the same. You just we just don't regularly. See it

(24:59):
doesn't mean you can't ask for it, but it's just
not a common practice for due diligence fees in Tampa Bay.
It is the earnest money, and the earnest money can
be non refundable, and certainly it can't. So reasons why
someone could get earnest money back, well, first off, those
are all established in the contract. Every single contract real

(25:23):
estate contract is different and the majority of buyers and
sellers and real estate agents don't read them. So if
you want to know whether or not you can get
your earnest money back or whether it's non refundable in
what situations, read your contract, and truthfully, don't trust your
realtor to tell you because they probably and read it.

(25:43):
Either read your contract understand it before you sign it.
I cannot tell you how many times we deal with
complaints from consumers because they simply didn't well, I looked
on Google. Did you read your contract like you spend
all this time on Google. You should pull out the
paper that you signed in that read it. Read your
contract and it will stipulate some common reasons. And again

(26:06):
this varies in every contract. Some common reasons why your
escrow deposit may be non may be refundable. The property
didn't appraise. If there's a financing contingency, you lost your
job and lost your ability to get financing during the
period of time the contract allows you. You canceled based
on inspection results within the time frame the contract allots you.

(26:30):
You canceled because you didn't like the condominium documents and
language that maybe in some of those documents related to
your your intended use of the property could be reasons.
The title. There's clouds on the title, there's issues with
getting clear title. You could cancel for that. You could
cancel for repairs that were requested but then not yet

(26:53):
completed despite the seller agreeing to them. Also, storms and
and there are other are contingencies you can put in contracts.
There is a contingency about insurance or flood insurance, determining
the property doesn't need flood insurance or doesn't need insurance
above a certain dollar amount. So those are all reasons. However,
they're typically aligned with dates and timelines. So you may

(27:15):
have thirty days for your loan commitment period, and if
you lose your job on day thirty two, you missed it. Yeah,
you're not getting your deposit back unless the seller is
gracious and decides to, but you've missed your opportunity. So
those timelines in the contract are what will determine whether
or not you might actually be able to get an
escrow deposit back if you want out of a real
estate deal. And it's one of the reasons why sometimes

(27:36):
buyers are hesitant to put up escrow because they understand
that there is risk with that money. So the lower
they put up because they're afraid of losing it, the
less likely the seller is to think they're serious and
work with their offer versus declining it or countering it
at something else. But the escro deposit is negotiable. You
will see situations where you might offer to buy a

(27:57):
house and offer a certain dollar amount and the seller say, Nope,
I won't accept your offer. I like it. Maybe I
like your price. Maybe I don't, but maybe I like
your price. I won't accept your offer unless your escor
deposit is X, and your inspection period is WHY and
your financing period is Z. So there aren't standards, Okay,
there just aren't. Every single contract has a lot of

(28:19):
blanks in it that can be filled out with those timelines,
and you can choose you know, those, and you can
negotiate them. But far too many people do not read
their real estate contract, and they'll say things like, oh, well,
we've been trying to get this closed for three months
and you know, and now I've lost my job. Well,
you don't have a right to your escrow anymore. You're
past that period of time. So you have to understand

(28:42):
that the seller has then been you know, despite most
people being self interested first and foremost, the seller is
as well. And the seller's taking their house off the market.
The seller's lost money, the seller's paid a mortgage, and
now they've lost the ability to market the home. They're
gonna want that escor deposits. So there are certainly times
when the buyers lose or escro and there are times

(29:05):
when the sellers are reasonable and maybe there's a negotiation
that can ensue. But in order to get your escrow
deposit back, you've got to have an irrational reason that
the contract allows you to have. So again, read your contract.
That's the best advice I can give you. If you're
thinking about jumping into real estate right now, I want

(29:26):
to tell you you're going to hear a lot of
naysayers out there saying that the market's this, the market's that.
I know so many agents that have gone and gotten jobs.
I see it on Facebook every day. People that were
doing good production a few years ago. Now they've gone
out and they're working somewhere else. And I know the
real estate market is challenging, but I got into the
business and it built an incredible business after getting into

(29:46):
the business during one of the worst periods of time
for real estate in our country. So I know firsthand
that if the person with the right mentality and the
right work ethic plugs into the right operation and the
right team, that they can be massively successful. It's really
up to the market. If someone's willing to do the
work and there are a lot of real estate agents
out there that got used to not having to do
the work. So people out there that want to get

(30:08):
in and do the work, you will. If you're a savage,
you will absolutely crush so many of the agents that
got in during the heyday that don't have the right
work ethic, that aren't hungry, that don't work hard. So
if that is you, if you're a hard worker, we
would love to have you join the duo dot com,
apply for any of our open positions, register for our
career night, set an appointment with our team. We'd love

(30:31):
the opportunity to talk to you about options within our team.
But we are looking for the people that want to
work hard, that want to grind, that don't want money
to rain from the ceiling, that know they got to
work for it. If they're willing to do that, we've
got a place for them. So again, you can do
that at Jointhduo dot com.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
We're really back.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
We're going to wrap up with our last segment talking
more about the Tampa Bay real estate market here on
the Duncan Duo Show. After a quick break, So back
here on the Duncan Duo Show, talking about the Tampa
Bay real estate market. I want to talk a little
bit about new construction. It is probably one of the
best places right now to buy real estate in Tampa Bay.

(31:09):
You hear a lot of rumblings about insurance costs and taxes,
property taxes, and new construction is one of the places
that is safest for that. You're going to pay lower
tax property taxes because especially in a lot of new construction,
the first year is priced at land value. You're going
to pay lower insurance because it's built a higher standards,
higher wind standards, it doesn't have deferred maintenance that could

(31:34):
turn into claims. And in addition to that, the builders
today are offering incredible incentives to buy rates down and
to get you a lower payment for the next few
years until rates start to drop so you can afford
the payment. Those are things builders that scale can do.
We've just partnered with a new builder for US, not

(31:54):
a new builder in the market, a new builder for
US meritage Homes. We just listed ten properties for them
all over Tampa Bay. We've got them from Brooksville to Perish,
Zephyr Hills, Plant City, Auburndale, all basically out in the suburbs.
New construction between three hundred and five hundred thousand. If
you're looking for new construction, we've got some great opportunities.

(32:17):
There are so many builders out there competing today that
it is delivering a great product for Tampa Bay home
buyers when they look at new construction as an option,
you just bess to just go to eight one, three, three,
five nine eighty nine ninety and here's the key. Here's
what our builder partner in Beritage Holmes is offering, which
I think is an incredible deal. Four point ninety nine
percent interest. Now, look the rates right now, are it

(32:39):
well into the sixes. They're giving a five thousand dollars
closing cost credit and buying your rate down to four
point nine to nine percent. Just again, to get that
rate at that number, you would have to come out
of pocket so much that they at scale can be
then can comfortably get those rates down and sell you
a home that you can afford. That. It's a lot

(33:00):
harder to do on a retail sale where the seller
doesn't want to pay those things. The seller wants more.
Net builders look at a bigger piece than just one
house at a time. They're looking across a large swath
of homes that they want to move, and they're able
to use that leverage and scale to pass savings along
to you to find scenarios and structures that make more

(33:22):
sense for you to buy. So I have a team
of specialists to focus on helping clients buy new construction homes. Obviously,
you know we're working with Marritage in those communities. We've
worked with other builders like Lenar and D. R. Horton
in different neighborhoods throughout Tampa Bay. So if you're looking
for a new construction home, the key is understanding that
the person at the new construction office does not work

(33:43):
for you, Okay, they work for the builder, and the
builders don't change prices, whether you have an agent or not.
They don't change prices because if they do, that lowers
their comps, and that lowers your ability to sell their
next home and get an appraisal if they lower the price,
because there's a buyer agent. So this belief that you
can go in without a real estate agent negotiate a

(34:03):
better deal is flawed. It's wrong. They sell too much
real estate, They care too much about the realtor community.
They want to partner with great agents, and the reality
is that agents that have that experience across a lot
of different communities, know the pros and the cons They
know the benefits that are out there, they know how
much one builder can negotiate. So you definitely need a
realtor on your side if you're thinking about buying new construction.

(34:25):
We'd love the opportunity to represent you. We can register
you at communities that you can go out and tour
on your own, but ultimately you've got to contact us
so that we can help you do that. We'll certainly
show you our offerings with Marritage Homes some of the
new construction properties that we have new construction single family
homes for three hundred thousand dollars with a reasonable commute
to downtown Tampa is pretty remarkable. So if that's something

(34:46):
you're looking for, just hit us up at eight one
three three five nine eight nine nine zero. You can
call or text, you can go to the Dunkin Duo
dot com start searching for new construction and our team
will reach out and talk to you about the next
steps of you know, looking for your next new construction home.
But it's definitely something we have specialists doing that are

(35:09):
helping clients every day buy new construction. So one last
thing that I want to talk about. You know, we're
almost to the spring market. You have a lot of
our clients. We've always told through the years that Florida
doesn't have as much seasonality and we don't have as much,
but we have some. If you're a home buyer that's
out there or a home seller that's out there, you

(35:31):
don't want to keep waiting any longer. You want to
get ahead of the spring market. You don't want to
wait until everyone else is deciding to buy or sell,
because then you're just one of many. Right now is
a great opportunity for people to get their home ready
for the market, to get it listed, and then for
buyers to kind of beat that spring and summer rush
where we usually see prices rise. If you look historically

(35:52):
in Tampa Bay, the months where we have the most
appreciation is over the summer. So you you know, buying
or you know buying now definitely the better option. And sellers,
please get out of thinking like you're in a vacuum.
Every day I hear clients say, well, I need to
wait for my four hundred and fifty thousand dollars house
to get to five hundred thousand so I can buy

(36:14):
my eight hundred thousand. That's assuming your eight hundred thousand
dollars is just not going to move in price. It's
going to be the same. If you're waiting for the
four to fifty to go to five hundred, that's an
eleven percent gain in price, almost a twelve percent gain
in price. You're going to that home is going to
go up, but the one at eight hundred isn't. Your
flawed logic and thinking that you need to wait for

(36:35):
your property rise, you're losing money because the property you're
moving into is a higher price home, it's going to
add more value at the same appreciation rate. So please, sellers,
think about your next step, not just the step that
you're in. Look forward a little bit, look a look
ahead a little bit, and understand that you're not in
a vacuum that if you wait for your home to rise,
what you're going to buy is going to rise to
So that's my advice for today. If you need that

(36:56):
cash offer, if you need to sell your home fast,
if you need your home value estimate up, dunkin Duo
dot com and have an awesome rest of your Sunday.
Tampa Bay,