Duncan Duo 4-27-25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Sunday, Tampa Bay. We're with you for another week
here on the Duncan Duo real Estate Show, like we
are every Sunday for more than a decade, talking about
what is going on in the Tampa Bay real estate market.
Andrew Duncan with the Duncan Duo team at LPT Realty
want to thank everyone for coming out back a couple
of weeks ago for our appreciation party. If you came

(00:22):
to the event, you want one of your photos from
the event, you can get those on our social media
channels Facebook, you can dm us, but I believe we
posted the album on our Facebook, which is the Duncan
Duo team. Feel free to jump on there and grab
any of the photos that you took and would love
the opportunity to share that with you. You can if you're
following us on Instagram or at the Duncan Duo, pretty

(00:43):
much in every social channel. I know we posted the
folder on Facebook, but you may need a DMUs on
another platform and we can make sure to send you
the link so when we aren't on air again at
the Duncan Duo and all the social channels. If you're
curious about your homes value, you want an instant cash offer,
You're frustrated, you're ready to move on. You know, we're

(01:04):
seeing that a lot right now. We're experiencing a lot
of sellers that put their home on the market probably
after the storms. They looked at pre storm comps to
use to you know, figure out the value, not realizing
that post storm, a lot of stuff was going to change.

(01:25):
Maybe not the right marketing, maybe not the right agent.
And now some of those agreements are expiring, sellers are
starting to wise up. Maybe they picked the wrong agent,
maybe they overpriced the house to begin with. So we're
seeing that over and over and over again. Unfortunately, a
lot of customers picking the agent that tells them the
highest price in the lowest commission. And most of the
time those agents are lying to you simply because they

(01:48):
want a listing and a sign in the art and
they're going to try and work you down on price,
and they weren't honest with you from the beginning. And
the downside of that strategy is that you lose. The
biggest competitive advantage that you have as a home seller
is when you first go on the market. If you
don't go on the market initially with great price, great
marketing great agent correcting, it becomes problematic and you end

(02:12):
up losing more money because you have to cut the price,
and then you're chasing the market down. But unfortunately, too
many sellers got used to the boom COVID market and
price is always rising, and just the assumption that they're
always rising, and you know, used bad comps, used bad judgment,
picked the agent that lied to them, And now those
homes are coming off the market, expiring, and we're getting

(02:34):
calls every single day at our office with upset home
sellers whose home didn't sell because you know, they picked
the wrong agent, or truthfully, because maybe they didn't listen
to the right agent about price and then hired the
wrong agent who lied to them about price. So unfortunately,
it does happen. And I'm going to talk about the
stats next because I want you to understand that, you know,

(02:58):
when I'm talking about this, the data backs it up. Okay,
So I look at the real estate statistics every single month,
I look at what's going on in my market and
my business, and I look at what's going on nationally
and for trends, and then of course in the Tampa
Bay market. And you know, when I talk about the
Tampa Bay market. I'm talking mostly Hillsborough and El's Pasco.

(03:18):
We obviously serve Sarasota and Manatee. I've done complete segments
on this show before about how drastically different the Sarasota
Manatee market is from the you know, the core Tampa
Saint Pete Clearwater market, simply because of seasonality, the demographics
and and just you know, norms and traditions, the markets

(03:41):
just are are much different than each other. So I'm
gonna talk today some of the things translate, some of
the things happening here happen there, and vice versa. But
then there are a lot of times where it's not
necessarily uh, you know, translating. So let's talk about the
stats here in Tampa Bay. There were four thousand and
seven hundred and thirty one sales in March of twenty

(04:03):
twenty five, and the stats usually come out about the
middle of the month following, and it's important for you
to understand the timeline of how real estate statistics come out.
Real estate agents are able to look at this data
on a monthly basis, and frankly even on a daily
and weekly basis to keep the pulse of what's going on. Obviously,
not all agents do that because a lot of agents
are too busy wearing too many hats to be able

(04:26):
to stay on top of the data. Fortunately, as someone
who's got a person with you know, forty something people
on my team and a lot of leverage, I look
at this stuff very regularly so that our agents can
keep giving our clients the best advice possible. So anyway,
March the March of twenty five, four thousand, seven hundred
and thirty, sales, March of twenty four, nine hundred and

(04:49):
seventy four, sales, March of twenty three five, five hundred
and six. Okay, March of twenty two, six thousand and
forty eight. So do you see the trends six thousand
and forty eight down every year all the way to
forty seven thirty. So that is about a thirty five

(05:09):
percent drop in the number of transactions from twenty twenty
two to today. So what does that mean? That means
less demand, more homes on the market, less appreciation. It's
just not as strong of a market. And we're off
even from last year, which was not a good year.
You know, we're off from last year five percent or

(05:30):
so in terms of the year over a year change
in the number of home sales. Now, fortunately February you
know again kind of and again February showed the same thing.
January showed the same thing. So we're seeing fewer home
sales so far this year than we saw last year. Now,

(05:51):
let's talk about price. Okay, this is pricing, and this
translates pretty well across most neighborhoods and not all price points,
not only hoods, but most neighborhoods. Last year in March,
the average sale price was four hundred and eighty thousand,
two hundred and ninety two. This year in March it's
four hundred and sixty nine thousand, seven hundred and ninety two. Okay,

(06:14):
couple percentage point depreciation values dropping, Okay, we are not
seeing appreciation in our market. We're seeing the opposite of that.
And in fact, if you look at the trend from
August of last year or even we'll start with June
June of last year, our average cell price was five
oh seven pre storm, right, five oh seven was our average.

(06:37):
Now it's down to four to sixty nine. Okay, So
again you're seeing home values diminish here. So If you're
going to look at comps that sold a few months
ago and price your home higher than them, your home
is not going to sell. You have to price your
home lower than the comps that sold a few months
ago because prices are dropping and they have been for

(06:58):
a while. If you go back to let's go back
to August of twenty three, average sale price for eighty seven. Okay,
so again, from August of twenty three to today, prices
have been dropping. Okay, Now, are we seeing the Great
recession type price drops? No, this is more of a stabilization,
a smaller drop. But the idea that you're going to

(07:20):
aild pricere home higher than the last sales in a
market where prices are dropping is wrong. You actually have
to get ahead of that. You have to get ahead
of the downward trend on prices. So if we expect
to see another few percentage points drop throughout this year,
if you're going to sell your home, you've got to
look at that and say, Okay, I don't need to
be priced at what my home is worth now. I

(07:40):
need to be priced at what it's going to be
worth in thirty sixty ninety days when we find a
buyer we get to closing and we go through appraisal,
the buyer still needs to see that it's a good
enough value. So if you've got a home that you
think is worth four sixty or four to seventy today,
you probably need to price it at four fifty because
that's what it's going to be worth when the buyer
shows up, because home values are droppping back to uh so,

(08:02):
continuing the conversation on that, and again it's just the
reality of a market that got hit with storms, that
has heigh interest rates, and that has some tariff challenges.
I will say that I think that that we are
going to continue to see that for a few months.
I think there's a chance that later this year appreciation
shows up if we get some interest rate relief or

(08:23):
property tax relief. And of course, the roller coaster that
is Washington right now and the tariffs on and tariffs off,
and the stock market up and the stock market down,
that causes fear. What happens when you have fear, A
lot of home buyers want a deal, if they're gonna
if they're gonna buy during a time where a lot
of people are sitting on the fence, the buyers are

(08:45):
gonna buy know they have the leverage, Okay, So let's
talk about that leverage a little bit. Seventy three days
on market, okay, is the average length of time it's
taking to sell home. That is the longest. Uh, That's
the longest time it's taking to sell a home that
I can remember, and I've been a real estate agent
for a long time, twenty years. I believe it was

(09:08):
probably worse than that during the Great Recession during times,
but seventy three is definitely, you know, a decade a
decade low for a number of days it's taken to sell.
The list of seal price ratio this year is hovered
between ninety six and ninety seven percent. So if a
home is asking you know, a certain number, the buyer

(09:30):
has some leverage for a few percentage points. Again, assuming
that the asking price is accurate and based on market trends,
homes are selling for a few percentage points off of asking.
Now convert this back to March of twenty two, we
was all one hundred and two percent. Okay, So there's
been a five percent swing from sellers to buyers in

(09:50):
terms of negotiating leverage to get a discount off the
asking price. In twenty two, sellers were in a very
advantageous position. We had less than a month of inventory.
Everything was a bidding war, and homes were selling substantially
above asking price, giving the seller massive leverage. Today, that
leverage has obviously flipped on the head and gone to

(10:13):
the buyer. Now now buyers have a there's been a
five percent swing, so buyers have the advantage to be
able to get a better deal compared to the seller
in terms of asking price. Number of homes on the market.
Twenty four and fifty two also a decade high number
of homes that have been on the that are on
the market. We did see a drop in a month's

(10:36):
supply of inventory. We've been hovering around five and six.
But because home sales did pick up from February to March,
which is seasonal and typical, not something to celebrate. Unfortunately,
home sales every single year increase from you know, February
to March, and you know, we didn't really see, you know,
any kind of big swing. In fact, the swing from

(10:58):
February to March is usually more so stantial than what
we're feeling this year. So four point three to two
months of inventory that is still historically speaking, you know,
not a horrible number. You know, we're not loaded with foreclosures.
During the Great Recession, we had twenty months of inventory,
so we had way more homes going to foreclosure, which
we're not going to see. We had way more homes

(11:19):
on the market than this, But again we have seen
the diminished strength of our market lead to more homes
on the market, homes taking longer to sell, and buyers
being in a more advantageous position. We did have six
months of inventory just a couple months ago, so again,
all of those things point towards sellers needing to be

(11:40):
aggressive with the price and buyers be willing to ask
for what you want. Negotiate, make your offer. You know,
three years ago, you may have worked with an agent
that tried to deter you from making an offer because
it never have a chance of getting accepted below the
asking price or five percent off the asking price. Today,
that's not the case. Make the offer and you'd be

(12:00):
surprised at how often you may get it accepted. And
sellers just need to be realistic. You need to price
aggressively from the start, otherwise you're wasting You're going to
keep owning your home you're going to keep being the
high bitter for your home. The value is going to
drop even more. And every time you drop the price,
you're simply trying to catch up with the market, and
you're not catching it because you were behind from the jump.

(12:21):
So so that's pretty much the take on what's going
on in the real estate statistics and what is going
on in Tampa Bay. I'm going to continue this conversation.
I'm going to talk about what things could happen to
prompt a recovery in our real estate market in the
second half of the year. After a quick breaker on
the Duncan Duo show. So, what could happen in terms

(12:41):
of the real estate market if we get some property
tax relief, or if we get some interest rate drops,
or if we get Washington to get some consistency and
stabilization in the tariff war so that the stock market
isn't rising and falling. I'm Andrew Duncan with the Duncan
Duo team at LPT Realty, and I look at the
statistics a single month to analyze what's going on in
our market. We have a lot of things that are

(13:04):
holding our market back right now and keeping it slower
then then we would like it to be fewer home sales,
lower prices, homes taking longer to sell. All of those
things are the result of high interest rates. You know,
the storms that hit here in the you know, third
and fourth quarter of last year, and the economic policies

(13:28):
presently happening in you know, in Washington and Wall Street.
So the the long term benefits of a lot of
the trade things, I certainly do see. I believe that
there is a lot of you know, good to be
had from what is being done. However, the inconsistency of
the messaging, the up and the down and we're going

(13:49):
to do this and we're going to do that, that
causes the fluctuations in the stock market, causes fear from people,
It causes people to sit on the sidelines. Buying a
home for people is and a very emotional process. So
what is happening with the terrast stuff is certainly holding
our real estate market back and causing fear. Interest rates
being you know high. Even though we've got some relief

(14:10):
here and there and they've ebbed them flowed, they're hovering
in the high six is, low sevens, and that's that's
still high compared to what we had a few years ago,
and we saw stuff in the three and fours. It
may be a long time before we ever see three
and four percent interest rates. But if we can start
to see you know, high fives, mid fives, high fours

(14:31):
over the next few years, that is when economists and
a lot of real estate experienced analysts believe we'll see
a swing back in our real estate market where we
start seeing appreciation, increase in home sales and all of
the things, all the relief that is holding our market back.
So it's high interest rates, it's the up and down

(14:52):
of the tariff market, it's the storms and the last wildcard.
And this is something I've teased on the show before.
A couple months ago, Governor Desantists tweeted on X or
he x on X. I don't really know how to
say it. I'm just going to say he tweeted on
X that he wanted to abolish property taxes in Florida. Now,

(15:13):
if property taxes get abolished in Florida and they move
the burden of cost to other things, sales tax, tourism tax,
other types of taxes to make up for that revenue,
we will definitely see a massive pop in our real
estate market in terms of values, in terms of demand,
in terms of people moving here, because property taxes are

(15:35):
much more substantial than insurance costs, and there are a
lot of people that aren't buying or moving because of
how high our insurance costs have gone. And secondly, I
did the math on this for the average home, for
the most expensive home all the way down to this
entry level starter homes, and an elimination of property taxes

(15:58):
would be comparable to payments for home buyers going back
to what they were when we saw the record low
interest rates during COVID. If that were if we were
in our state to abolish property taxes, we would see
a massive influx of buyers able to qualify, a massive
influx of people wanting to move here because they're tired

(16:20):
of paying property taxes wherever they are. We would see
a very quick turnaround appreciation, increased home sales, and we
would be back to seeing bidding wars, homes above asking,
all that kind of stuff. Now, whether or not that happens,
it's hard to predict. There are politicians I've spoken to
that believe that some version of that has a chance

(16:41):
at hitting the ballot box, and it needs a sixty
percent vote by the public. Well, if we know that
fifty percent of people are homeowners, the likelihood is that
the majority of those are going to vote in favor
of not having to pay more money. Some of them won't,
but certainly the majority of those. And then of course
there's enough people involved in construction, real estate mortgages that

(17:02):
know that that would have a positive impact on their income.
I think there's a reasonably good chance that it passes. Now,
whether or not, you know, local governments can survive if
that happens is another question. So I think there'll be
some sort of jocking back and forth, and I wouldn't
be surprised to see something on you know, at the
voter record, you know, an amendment to our constitution that

(17:25):
goes something along the lines of, you know, maybe for
homestead people only, maybe not for institutional investors, maybe not
for people above a certain price point, maybe not for
commercial properties. And either way, something as massive as that
would still have a hugely positive impact on our market. Now,
if they just give you know, five hundred bucks off

(17:46):
or one thousand dollars off, I'm sure a lot of
homeowners are going to appreciate saving some money on their
property taxes, but in order to have the swing back
in our market, and who knows whether that is warranted
or whether you know, our our local senators, congressman, and
governor want that. Who knows, But there's at least some
momentum to believe that that could happen. So there are

(18:08):
people speculating and investors and hedge funds starting to look
very advantageously at Tampa Bay again to try and get
ahead of that, because of course, if that happens, prices
are gonna price, they are gonna spike again. So there
are people, smart people, smart analysts, smart money jumping in
now saying we want to get in now because the
buying opportunity is great, we can get a good deal

(18:30):
because we think this there's a good chance of this
happening a year down the line. So that is that
that happens in our market is going to see a surge.
If that doesn't happen, I still think we're going to
see a reasonably decent recovery and later in the year,
assuming no major storms, simply because more of the flooded
houses get cleaned out, more people move in, more people

(18:50):
move out, and a lot and kind of the top
of mind awareness of those storms starts to wear off,
and then of course, hopefully the tariff battles stabilize and
the stock market stabilizes some and then last but not least,
we get some interest right relief. So all those things
happen and we should see some positive signs of, you know,
improvements in our real estate market later in the year.

(19:12):
Of course, the more that the abolishment of property tax is,
the more momentum it gets, the greater the chance for
a massive upward swing in real estate values in Tampa Bay.
So hopefully that helps you understand what I see coming
to real estate in Tampa Bay. And we're going to
be back continuous 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.

(19:33):
And I want to talk about smart home technology for
a little bit. Andrew Duncan with the Duncan Duo team
at LPT Realty. Obviously, you'd have to be sitting under
a rock to not be paying attention to some of
the some of the developments when it comes to AI
and robotics and smart home technology. And some of the

(19:54):
trends that are happening. But I think a lot of
customers don't think about this where they get set in
the and they forget so first and foremost, if you're
a real estate agent, home buyer, or home seller, I
want you to understand that there are cameras everywhere everywhere.
Just expect that everything is being recorded. All of your

(20:15):
actions are being recorded. I saw. I've seen so many
videos and audio recordings, and again, the audio recordings in
some ways could be interpreted is illegal. There's a lot
of case law, and I'm not a lawyer, so seek
legal advice. Every state's a little bit different. But I've
seen videos recently where consumers that are thinking about offering

(20:37):
on a house and they're talking about it in the
front yard and people are listening to it on the
ring camera and recording it. Right, So, in Florida, you're
supposed to have consent or knowledge. You're supposed to be
known that you're recording you know. But nonetheless, a lot
of the stuff I'm seeing isn't necessarily Florida. My point
is that everyone's recording everything. If you want to have

(20:58):
a conversation with your real estate agent about what you're
going to offer out a house, and you don't want
to tip your negotiating hand. Maybe don't have the conversation
in the house. Maybe wait until you have a phone
conversation with the real estate agent later. You know, the
the win in negotiations sometimes can can you know, not
happen when you tip your hand to the other side,

(21:20):
when you let them know what you're thinking about doing,
when you let them know what your bottom line is.
You know, one of the videos I saw recently, and
again this wasn't Florida, but this, this does happen everywhere.
It is very common. There are cameras everywhere. If you're
looking at houses, if you're selling your house, if you're
buying a house, if you're a real estate agent. There
are cameras and recording devices so easily available today and

(21:43):
so inexpensive. They are everywhere. In fact, in my own neighborhood,
you know, I have a lot of cameras. I see
things regularly that people do when they're walking around the
neighborhood or even on my own property, and I just
sometimes laugh because I'm like, dude, they not realize that
they're on camera? Or do they just not care? The

(22:04):
reality is though, that everything is happening on camera today,
So please be cautious, Please pay attention, Please don't tip
your hand on negotiation. Also your feedback about the house.
You know, sometimes you might say things about a house.
I believe in the golden rule. If you don't like
a house and you want to make fun of it,
probably don't do it while you're in the house, because

(22:25):
you may offend somebody. You may end up getting retribution
or some sort of response from that person. So my
recommendation is, if you're in a house and you have
nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. Wait
till you leave. If you really want to hate on
the house, if you want to negotiate on the house,
wait till you leave. If you want to, you know,
put your feed up and watch TV, wait till you

(22:48):
get to your house. I see that often too, where
real estate agents are doing an open house and they're
popping open a beer and watching football and you know,
just basically cozying up on the couch and be respectful
of people's property. They're always watching next thing about smart
home technology, and I think this is uh, it's something
that you know, I mentioned to a friend. You know,

(23:11):
yesterday we were I was meeting a friend of mine
to take a look at a house and had to
scan into the lock box. And you know, interestingly enough,
with the way technology is moving, I'll be highly surprised
if we're still using lock boxes in five years. I
think every home is going to have a scanability to
be able to open. It's going to get so inexpensive

(23:34):
and so common that lock boxes will almost be ineffective
and not even used. You'll just simply walk up. You'll
have some sort of code on your phone, you'll hold
it up and if you're a real estate agent, you'll
have some app. That app will connect with the smart
lock at the house, the house will open, and you know,
you'll be good to go. Other smart home features smart

(23:55):
smart refrigerators, obviously, alarms, cameras, water, fun you know, the
you know, the technology, the speakers, the sound, cooking, you
name it. It's coming. And I think, on top of that,
and even further from that, robotics. It is not going

(24:16):
to be long before the majority of homes have some
sort of robotic things. And in reality a lot of
people already have them. They're roombas, they're smart vacuums, Okay,
they're they're automated little mini robots that vacuum your house.
So many of those things are going to continue to
develop with technology. With how fast AI is moving, that

(24:38):
smart home technology in five years from now is going
to be completely different than what it is today, so
be prepared for it. But the bottom line, if you're
in a house, showing house, seeing a house, understand you're
on camera. Okay, you're on camera everywhere. I mean even
the number of homes that have cameras today, if you

(24:59):
see the or not just homes, the number of cars
that have cameras today. If you see the controversy and
humor of the people that are vandalizing teslas, and how
many of them are caught on cameras being idiots because
they don't realize that cameras are everywhere. So again, be
smart about it, be respectful. So you're listening to the

(25:21):
dunkn Do a Real estate show when we aren't on
air at the Duncan Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok Facebook,
make sure that you also go to Duncan Duo dot
com if you're thinking about selling your home, if you
want an instant cash offer, if you're frustrated because your
home didn't sell and you didn't have a great agent,
or you overpriced it, or didn't get the right marketing,

(25:44):
or had bad photos. We specialize in helping people whose
homes didn't sell. It's common right now, more common than
it's been in a long time, because there's more homes
on the market. Homes are taking longer to sell than
they have in a long time, and our market just
hasn't really started recovering yet from post storms. We've seen activity,

(26:04):
but not as much as we saw, you know, last year.
So I think that there are a lot of consumers
out there frustrated. So what I want to talk about
next are some tips and some things you can do
if your home failed to sell, is failing to sell,
if you haven't been able to get a buyer for
your house. I want to give you some tips that
you can do to try and refresh the marketing and

(26:24):
get more attention. First and foremost, the price of the
home if it's properly marketed and has a good agent
and it's not getting traction. And when I say properly marketed,
I mean there's pretty, there's good photos, it's got a
nice description, it's on the major real estate websites. You
know it's well syndicated. If those things are happening and

(26:47):
you're not getting offers on your house, your house is overpriced.
It's just the reality of it. People have access to
so much information today. They're using different websites, the search
they're setting up all these different things. And if your
home is relatively well marketed and it's not getting an
offer at all, it's overpriced. If it's getting offers lower
than massively lower than asking price, it's overpriced. The market

(27:12):
is rejecting your house. The market is saying we're not willing,
based on these conditions to bring you an offer. The
market is rejecting your house. That's pretty much the reality
of it. So if your home hasn't sold, I would
caution you to really get serious about your price. Look
at the statistics, look at what's going on in your neighborhood,

(27:33):
and get to your real number. Stop fantasy land. Stop
paying attention to what your neighbor's homes sold for in
twenty two or twenty three. That's over. That was fantasy land.
That was sunshine and rainbows and tiltal whorlds. That was
fantasy land. Okay, get past fantasy land. What is happening
right now in the market. How many homes are you
competing with. How many homes are priced better than your

(27:53):
home that are comparable. If your home isn't moving, it's
probably overpriced. Second thing, the phot even something is subtle
as swapping up the order of the photos can be effective.
Consumers that have clicked through and looked at houses, they've
already seen it, they've clicked next, something didn't capture them.
We will regularly swap out the first photo on a

(28:15):
listing if we're not getting the attention we think we
should simply because then it's almost refreshes the property in
the mind of the consumer. Maybe they don't remember it
the same, and we get them to click through and
they look at the photos and are like, oh, it
has all these great features. So the reality is swapping
out the photos and changing the order, it can be effective.

(28:36):
And then of course shooting all new photos, adding new angles,
adding drone shots, those can all be effective. Increasing the marketing,
more video interaction, more ad campaigns. These are things that
we do when our homes aren't selling for one reason
or another. We obviously talked to the client about price
to try and get it in line with the right price,
but certainly because the market changes. Right, we can have

(28:59):
an opinion of today and two weeks later people in
our neighborhood could go under foreclosure or can undercut our price,
and then the market has changed. You don't live in
a vacuum, you know. No matter what your real estate
agent told you at the beginning, maybe they were honest
with you about price, but then a couple of people
in your neighborhood came in and undercut you. So you've
got to constantly be looking at your price and be
willing to adjust it to get to your next step.

(29:21):
And it's really all relative. I your sellers all the
time saying, well, I'm not gonna sell until I can
get five hundred, and it looks like all I can
get right now is four fifty, and then I'm going
to go out and buy a seven hundred. Well, what
do you think is gonna happen to the seven hundred?
Do you think it's gonna sit in a vacuum? I
think it's not going to go up to If your
four fifty goes up to five hundred, your seven hundred
is going to go up higher. You're not gaining money
from that. It's a dumb it's a stupid financial decision. Okay,

(29:45):
you're losing because the home you're gonna buy is going
to go up too. Okay, so price super important today.
Next thing obviously changing agent's a different strategy, a different
a different approach you know, can certainly help get more
your home improvements to your home. Okay, maybe your home
doesn't show well, maybe it's got bad curb appeal. Maybe

(30:07):
you didn't you don't have the upgrades that some of
your neighbors have. Maybe there's some things that you can
do inexpensively. You can press or wash it. Maybe you
can paint this door that door. Maybe you can fix
some of the cosmetic things that are potentially turning consumers
off economically. A lot of times our advice to customers
isn't massive expense. It's it's subtle things that can change
to make a property look refreshed or more moving ready.

(30:30):
Another thing you can do, and I think this one
is this one gets missed a lot. You know, the
condition of the home obviously matters, the price of the
home matters. But one other thing that you can do
is come off the market to go back on. Okay,
if you've made a mistake on pricing, you've hired the

(30:51):
wrong agent, if you've not put your home in the
right condition, and you decide to do that after the
home's been on the market a while, Unfortunately, your best
hop oportunity to get the whole moved was when it
was first listed. That's when it's new. That's when people's
vanity is highest because they think, oh, everyone wants it
because it's brand new, and by the time it's been
on the market a few months, consumers look at that

(31:12):
as like a scarlet letter. They look at it and say,
what's wrong with it that everyone else is passing on it.
So if you have to do things to correct either
your massively, your price, your condition, your features, your curb
of people, even your agent, and that doesn't necessarily always
mean changing brokerages. Sometimes a brokerage can assign you to
a new agent. We sometimes do that as well with

(31:34):
different strategies. But if you have to come off, come
off for a little bit, a couple of months, go
back on as a fresh new listing with all of
those improvements and changes made, because if you make them
after you've been on the market for a while, you're
not going to get enough eyes on your property and
you're going to miss the mark. Sometimes you might still sell,
but there are a lot of eyes not on you

(31:56):
once you've hit that hundred days on market, and so
hopefully those things help you get your home sold. We're
always helping customers whose homes failed to sell with other
agents Dunkin Duo dot Com. Again, that's Duncan Duo dot Com.
And I'm going to be back wrapping up the last
segment here on WFLA News. So we're back here on
the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay real
estate market. When we aren't on air at the Duncan

(32:16):
Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, I Andrew Duncan, the
Duncan Duo team LPT Realty talked in some prior segments
about my expectations of what's going to happen with our market,
some tips for home sellers whose homes have failed to sell,
as well as some updates on the statistics for the
Tampa Bay real estate market. What I want to talk

(32:38):
about next, student loan woes. It came out this past
week that now the federal government is going to start
pursuing for student loan delinquency and missed student loan payments,
even going as far as hitting credit garnishing wages and
collecting on past DOE student loans. There's been kind of

(32:59):
a pause on that for a while, and there are
a lot of home buyers out there now that probably
need to get current. So if you're thinking about buying
a home, the very first thing that you need to
do before you even go out and look at a house. Okay,
I've seen consumers do this. They are excited, they tell

(33:19):
their significant other, we're going to go look at houses.
They all get excited. They go out, they look at homes,
they think they can afford something, they fall in love,
they're ready to move their family in. They're visualizing all
these things, and they find out that there's problems to
the credit. They can't buy, and it is the absolute
worst letdown. Imagine your spouse getting so excited to move

(33:41):
into a place and then finding out that you can't.
So before you go through that process, Okay, far too
many people put the cart before the horse and think
they know better. Have a mortgage lender run unapproval for you,
have them check their credit, have them figure out are
your student loans showing up? Do they show delinquent? Have

(34:01):
you not had to make a payment in them in
a while, because there were chances or rumors or thoughts
that they were going to get you know, canceled, they
were going to get you were going to get relief
from it. So all these changes obviously can do rail
some home buyers. So I think it's important you run
your credit, you figure out where your student loan process is.
You can go to student I believe it's studentaid dot

(34:22):
gov to view your payment history and find information on
your student loan service or A lot changed during the pandemic,
and there was a period of time where a lot
of people were just like, Oh, it looks like I
don't have to pay it anymore. It's not reporting credit bureaus,
doesn't doesn't show up. I'm not getting hassled. It's probably
going to just go away. And then they buried their
head in the sand. They stop paying it, they go

(34:44):
buy a TV, and they go do other things. But
guess what, you still got to pay it. Unless there's
some sort of change from a government perspective, it looks
like they're going to start pursuing it more. Aggressively. So
if you are a home buyer and you want to
know if you can qualify, and you want to know
what showing up on your credit, you need to run
your credit. It could slash your credit score by one

(35:04):
hundred and fifty plus points. It could completely eliminate your
ability to buy. So you may need to, you know,
get your payments current. You may need to sell a car,
you may need to reduce your lifestyle, stop going to start.
You may have to do something so it doesn't derail
your home buying plans. That consolidation is one. There are
a lot of variables that you can look at, but

(35:24):
that was a thing that got thrown into the wrench
this week. That's going to cost some obstacles for people.
So if you're one of those people, before before you
get out to look at houses, run your credit. And
it isn't just about student loans. They're the most recent
one and probably a major impact because there's billions of
dollars you know, that are out there, and there's you know,

(35:45):
a massive amount of consumers that it's going to impact.
But checking credit lets you know if there are other
things wrong. You know, just recently, my daughter found out
that there was a ten dollars copay from a medical
provider up in collections. Yeah, I mean like they spent
more money sending mail and hiring a collection agency than

(36:07):
the ten bucks is worth. But nonetheless that would harm
her credit if she didn't take care of it. So
it's it's important for you to look at your credit
and if you're serious about buying a home, there's nothing
wrong with having a lender run your credit. You might
lose a couple of points in your credit score, But
what is more important for your credit than buying a house? Nothing? Okay?

(36:30):
You know people get they get excited about, you know,
their experience app And I've got this score and I've
got that score and i don't want it to drop. Well,
what do you get from a high credit score. You
don't get to walk in somewhere and be like, hey,
I got high credit, give me a trophy. You don't
get any awards for it. It's the score that's used
for you to be able to qualify for credit, to
be able to save money. The lower the better your

(36:51):
score to the lower your rate. Well, where does your
rate matter more than buying a house. So, if you're
thinking about buying a house, have a mortgage on, a
run it and then figure out what you need to do,
what you need to fix, what you need to repair,
what you need to challenge because there's mistakes, very common mistakes.
Or what you need to move around. Do you need

(37:12):
to move money from one credit or to another. Do
you need to get a credit line increase? Do you
need to pay off a car that you have enough
money to pay it off. Do you need to sketch
up your student loan payments? Okay, all of those things
matter when you're buying real estate, and far too many
people put the cart before the horse. They go out
and they look at houses, and then they get themselves
in trouble. They look at homes they can't afford, they

(37:34):
look at homes they can't qualify, and then they find
out the stuff that's wrong with their credit that may
take months to resolve. So hopefully that's not you again.
When we aren't on air at the Dunkin Duo all
all of the social media channels, follow our team online.
Thanks for coming out to our appreciation event. And if
you are thinking about selling your home, just hit up
duncanduo dot com. We'll get you a free home value estimate.

(37:57):
We will keep you updated on what your home could
get in a cap offer situation. We'll put a plan
in place. And you know what, we're not right for
every home seller. You know, we just had a home
seller not long ago that was you know, that met
with us as a complete jerk, and we said, look,
we're not a match for you. Okay. So we want
to work with people that want to work with us.
We want to help them accomplish our goals. We want

(38:18):
to be honest with them. That same customer did not
want to agree with our price, put their price two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars higher than what we recommended.
And since then, for the one hundred plus days that
it's been on the market, they've continued to cut the
price and cut the price and cut the price and
cut the price. And the home isn't going to sell.
It's not going to sell because they didn't want to

(38:39):
listen to reality. The reality is is price is everything today.
You've got to aggressively price your home to move it
in today's market. And if you want that, if you
want that aggressive representation, that's us for you. So duncan
duo dot com and have an awesome rest of your weekend,
Tampa Bay