Duncan Duo 6-29-25

Episode Transcript

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

(00:02):
week here on the Duncan Duo Real Estate Show, talking
about the Tampa Bay real estate markets, like we are
every Sunday at ten right here on WFLA News Andrew Duncan,
the Duncan Duo team at LPT Realty. I have been
doing this show for a really, really long time, and
today I'm going to talk to you guys about the stats.

(00:23):
And you know, my twenty year history in the real
estate market, I've never seen a real estate market that's
as unique as this one. You know, when we went
through the Great Recession, that's when my business was really
starting to launch. And I had years during the Great
Recession where my business doubled. We were doing short sales,

(00:43):
we were doing foreclosures. We're starting to see a few
of those, a few of those sprinkle in, nothing like
it was back in the day, because back then people
saw a massive loss of equity that we haven't seen
yet and may not see. But during that massive loss
of equity, what ended up happening is there were there

(01:04):
were so many easy ways to get loans that everyone
was overleveraged. People bought pomes, they couldn't afford everything. With
skyrocketing people were getting loans that shouldn't qualify for a loan.
It was the easiest way to get the easiest path
to get a loan ever in my career. So what

(01:24):
ended up happening is as the value started to drop
and the inventory started to flood the market, you saw
this influx of short sales and foreclosures, and we saw
people losing their homes, losing everything, crying at the closing table,
you name it, we saw it. And the struggle at
the time was that it just continued down that path.

(01:45):
More and more people were, you know, going to foreclosure.
There weren't these institutional hedge fund buyers. There wasn't as
much Wall Street cash in our real estate markets, and
Tampa at that time didn't quite have the spotlight that
it has on it today. So fast forward and today
I want to talk about our real estate stats, and

(02:06):
so as I as I you know, kind of gather
you know up the data and I and I share
with you guys the past trajectory of what's happened in
my career. You had this market that was always really
clear it was either a buyer's market, a seller's market
hot or down, and and you had this change during

(02:26):
COVID where we had this huge run up. So I've
gone through a period of time where we had the
Great Recession with short sales and foreclosures and people losing
their equity, people losing homes, people losing millions of dollars,
people crying, devastated, you name it. And for the next
couple of years after that, the majority of the sales
were driven and controlled by banks. Banks owned a lot

(02:47):
of the inventory, uh or they had a say in
the inventory from short sales. So there was a prediction
during COVID that, oh, here we go, this is you
know all you know, we're gonna have this pandemic and
all these people are going to lose the homes. What
ended up happening to curb that and prevent that from happening.
Number One, the last probably decade plus, we've seen an

(03:11):
enormous amount of Wall Street money move into our market.
A lot of the Wall Street money is connected in
some way or another to mortgage banks or banking institutions,
and these institutions would enter trade assets at the company
level to prevent homes from going to foreclosure because they
know that if a home goes to foreclosure, that it's

(03:32):
going to hurt their ability to loan, and it's going
to drive down values in the neighborhood. So since COVID,
we've had this like protective bubble over the residential real
estate market. I think the FED and the government, all
the banks learned during the Great Recession that if they
don't protect the real estate market with some kind of bubble,
that it will burst and it will have a massive

(03:55):
strain on the economy. So our real estate market isn't
necessarily as capitalistic in nature as you might think anymore
because of the you know, the the structure of the FED,
the structure of banking institutions, the allowance of forbearance, and
the massive amount of equity that's out there. Banks don't

(04:16):
want to foreclose, Banks don't want to short sale because
they know when they foreclose or do a short sale
in neighborhood, they ultimately will bring down values for everyone else.
And if there's too much of that activity without enough
match to retail activity, it starts to curb values down,
which inhibits their ability to loan, inhibits people's ability to buy,

(04:37):
and it's just a domino effect to a crashing real
estate market. Well, they put protections in place to prevent that.
So now in areas where there could be maybe more foreclosures,
you know, the institutions are making sure those don't turn
into foreclosures. They're doing bulk sales. They're saying, Hey, I'm
going to sell you all of my bad houses, and
here's what you have to do. We're not going to

(04:57):
record the individual prices of all of them. You're going
to buy them in a package so no one can
figure out what you actually paid for it, so it
doesn't show up as a low priced foreclosure. Okay, So
the market kind of gets protected by that, and then
those institutions get the people out, give cash for keys
to the people living there, turn the homes into rentals.

(05:18):
And the other side of that is the banks and institutions.
I'll use four barans. If someone has a decent amount
of equity in the past, when they would start to struggle,
the bank would immediately go to foreclosure and short sale
or short sale to try and get bad debt off
the books. Well, because we had such a high run up,
so many people have massive amounts of equity that they

(05:40):
can sell and get out. Number one, they could rent
it because if they bought when they had two to
three percent interest rates, they can rent it and cover okay,
if they can't afford it anymore. And then the third
element to that is they can get for bearans to
help them to keep the property from every going to
foreclosure until or until they either sell it or get

(06:01):
their financial house in order to recover from whatever financial
obstacles they're dealing with. Those tools didn't exist back during
the Great Recession, so everything just went. Everything was just
going to foreclosure and banks were taking back property in
the real estate market crash. So now we have a
bubble over the residential real estate market that will prevent
that from happening. And so when you hear people talk
about interest rates, one of the main things and pushes

(06:25):
to get interustrates back down again is because we've now
had a few years with elevated interest rates, we're pushing
three years and during that three year period, as I'm
going to go over with you on the stats in Tampa,
we have not seen home prices rise, which means that
the people during that three year period are on high
interest rates, so they can't really rent the property out Okay,

(06:50):
they can't really sell it because they don't have equity,
and because of the price point and the way it's structured,
those homes aren't as likely to be advantage or have
equity positions to have the funds interested in those debt
swaps and transfers of properties from institution to institution because

(07:10):
there isnt equity in them because they've been sitting. So
the longer we stay in this higher interest rate environment,
and I think President Trump understands this, the more risk
we have for crashing our real estate market like that
happened during the Great Recession. Because the FED, the government,
and the institutions have all put all of these things
in place to probably prevent the real estate market from
having already crashed. If we didn't have four bearans, if

(07:32):
we didn't have a massive amount of Wall Street money
and hedge fund money buying and turning homes into rentals,
our real estate market would have already crashed. But those
two things are keeping the and of course the huge
run up and values. Those things are keeping the real
estate market kind of protected because so many of the
homeowners have enough equity. There's a lot of cash out

(07:55):
there in the hedge funds that have bought stuff that
don't have mortgages, and then of course for bearans well,
the longer we go in this high interest rate environment
where prices don't rise, the more risk we have to
those homes turning into foreclosures and short sales, and we
are starting to see it. We have recently seen more
short sales and foreclosures out there in the marketplace, you know,

(08:15):
in the field, in our day to day actions. Now
that is because those people during that three year period,
the options to save them aren't as relevant as it
is for everyone that bought and sold and you know
that transacted prior to rates going up. So the longer
we're in this high rate environment, the more risk there

(08:36):
is obviously on the government's debt, but the more risk
there is to the real estate market going into a
downward spiral because all of the government protections only work
for so long. At some point it folds. So that's
why I think there is a major push on interest rates.
I think we'll start to see some relief. My expectation
is we'll see some cuts this year and next year,

(08:57):
and you know, by by twenty twenty seven, and I
expect to see interest rates back in the four range again,
which so if that doesn't happen, our real estate market,
specifically in Tampa is on shaky ground. So let me
explain why the stats show such a unique market. Well.
First and foremost, our average sale price in June of

(09:21):
twenty twenty two was four hundred and eighty four thousand,
nine hundred and sixty. Today, our average sale price is
four hundred and eighty three thousand, two hundred and ninety one.
What that tells me is for the last three years,
our prices have had slight fluctuations month of over month
and year reyear, but our prices are really unchanged. We've

(09:43):
had three years with no appreciation. Okay, So anyone that's
bought anywhere, even probably twenty twenty one to today, probably
doesn't have enough equity to sell and they're likely in it,
you know, potentially in a higher interest rate home, meaning
that they're kind of stuff where they are. So what
we've been seeing the last few months was inventory starting

(10:05):
to rise. Early in the year, we'd seen nineteen thousand,
eighteen thousand, seventeen thousand, seventeen thousand, sixteen thousand houses, and
inventory was rising. We were seeing you know, four or
five six months of inventory in some of our in
a lot throughout a lot of our neighborhoods, which is
gearing towards heading towards a buyer's market. And if you

(10:26):
look across Tampa Bay, most people expecting today we are
probably in a market closer to buyers than we are
to sellers. It's balanced, but you're not seeing the massive
bidding wars and the overpaying price matters. Pricing the home
appropriately aggressively matters. Back in June of twenty twenty two,

(10:49):
homes are selling for one hundred and two percent of
the asking price. Today it's ninety seven percent of the
asking price. So back then everything was selling above asking
that's a five percent swing as well. So within that,
what we know is even though those prices are four
eighty three now and four eighty four back then, the
four eighty three today is massively discounted because sellers are

(11:10):
being positioned with this concept that prices have dropped, the
market is softer, there's more inventory. We want you to
pay our feet, our closing costs. We want you to
pay extra this, or extra that. We want you to
jump through hoops. There's probably three three to four percent
average that sellers are paying closing costs. That doesn't get
factored into the price. You don't get to see that

(11:31):
in the statistics. But what I can tell you is
sellers are netting less money today than they were three
years ago. And if they're netting less money today than
they were three years ago, and they bought during the
last three years with high interest rates and their values
haven't risen, they don't have equity to sell. So that's
pretty much the market that we're in. It is a
very challenging market. We've seen an inventory increase. We are

(11:53):
hopeful for some interst rate relief or maybe a property
tax relief next year will help spike our market. But
it has been very you know, kind of stabilizing. I guess,
kind of a straight line where we'll see a little
bit of a drop and a little bit of a raise,
and that's the market overall. There are some neighborhoods performing
better than others, some neighborhoods performing worse. Another statistics has

(12:15):
taken about seventy days for a home to sell back
during the you know the run up the COVID you
know bump we had it was fourteen days, so five
times it takes five times longer to sell a home
today than it did just three years ago, and buyers

(12:36):
are paying five percent less, not even from the asking price,
not even counting what they're getting in concessions, which we
know are getting massive concessions. So in reality, even if
you look at it and say, oh, you know, and
you you, you know, kind of ring the sunshine of
Rainbow's bell that the boards of the MLS is probably
want you to say, oh, prices aren't changed, that doesn't

(12:57):
tell the whole story. The reality is is sellers netting
less money, they're paying out in concessions, and they're eating
more mortgage payments because their homes are taking five times
longer to sell. The last statistic I want to share
with you, for the first time, we've seen a substantial
drop in inventory fourteen thousand, two hundred and five homes
on the market. We've been hovering around seventeen eighteen, nineteen

(13:18):
thousand and from last month to this month, or from
April to May, it dropped to fourteen thousand, two oh five. Now,
that could just simply be a lot of sellers taking
their house off the market, frustrated, still wanting to sell,
or maybe just giving up because the market isn't delivering
the results that they want. But we also saw four thousand,
five hundred and twenty four sales in May. Last May

(13:40):
five thousand, eight hundred and thirty two, a twenty twenty
plus percent drop in May of twenty three five thousand,
six hundred and thirty one, May of twenty two five thousand,
seven hundred and fifty four, and then the prior May
with six thousand in something. It doesn't show on my report,
but I remember seeing it. So we're we're not seeing

(14:00):
as many homes sell. But now instead of more inventory
coming to market, it looks like some sellers are just
starting to say, you know, we're gonna pack it in
and this isn't the market We've learned, the market has
taught us this isn't the market for us. So hopefully
those stats are helpful. I'm gonna drill down to a
couple of more of the statistics after a quick break
here on WFLA News. So back here on the Duncan
Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay real estate market.

(14:21):
Andrew Duncan, the Dunkin Duo team at LPT Realty, at
the Duncan duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, duncanduo dot com
for your free home value report, free home value estimate
and an instant cash offer. If you want to sell
your home, now is not the time to go with
your cousin's uncle's brother's friend. Okay, the guy that's giving

(14:44):
you the discount, this isn't the market for that. This
is the market for the pros, the pros that have
been around a long time to have the war wounds
to show for it, that have been through tough markets.
If you're going with the agent right now, that's blowing
smoke up here, you know what, telling you a fantasy
land number. They're lying to you. They're going to list
your house and then gouge you down on price the

(15:04):
entire time on the market and set you up for
failure because your best chance to get the home sold
for the most money is the first thirty days. So
they put your home on the market at a higher
price because they blow smoke, they tell you what you
want to hear. You sit on the market for a month,
you lose the best opportunity you're ever going to have
to get the most of money out of that house.
And then they grind you down on price until you

(15:26):
get to a number desperate and motivated enough to where
you're finally willing to listen, and you lost money. If
you want to sell today, get aggressive with your price.
Do not believe fantasy and land doesn't exist. The agents
that are telling you that don't have a track record.
They don't sell a lot of houses. They're desperate for listing.
They're probably working side hustles and delivering food at Uber

(15:47):
and delivering for Walmart. They're not professionals. They're lying to you.
You should go with the agent right now that tells
you the most aggressive price, because that's what's moving homes today.
You can't, no matter how much marketing you do, you
can't replace a home being aggressively priced to get it moved.
That's what moves inventory. So back about the statistics and
twenty four sales in May off twenty to twenty five percent.

(16:09):
The last few Mays forty four seventy nine in April
also comparably off, you know, twenty to thirty percent. The
last couple of months have been off and it's taking
five times longer to sell homes, and homes for selling
are for five percent off of the asking price compared
to the above asking price of just a few years ago.

(16:30):
So sellers, you got a price. Aggressive buyers, make your offer.
What might not have got accepted a few years ago
might have a chance today. The last thing I'll tell
you three point one month's supply of inventory. It's really
surprising for me because a lot of the neighborhoods I
operate in I'm seeing more like five and six months.
So you know, there may be some neighborhoods or pockets

(16:51):
out there where it's really more geared towards the seller's market,
but for the most part across Tampa Bay, we're seeing
fewer transactions. Sellers need to be motivated. It is a
price war and a beauty contest at the same time.
You've got to be aggressive with your price. And you've
got to understand the last three years, prices have dropped.
And here's what I mean by that. The stats don't
necessarily show it, but we know inflation's a minimum two

(17:13):
percent a year. Okay, So four eighty three three years
ago is not the same as four eighty three today.
It's substantially less money. Okay. Then secondarily, we also know
sellers today are paying a lot more enclosing costing concessions
to keep buyers happy. So a seller today is losing
five to ten percent, you know, return on investment actual

(17:36):
capital compared to where they were at three years ago,
when you factor in inflation, the discount off of asking,
and then of course the fluctuation of prices. And that's
just average. There are some neighborhoods it's worse. So if
you're someone that doesn't have to sell, okay, putting your
house on the market is some fantasy land price. People
have access to more data than they ever have. You're

(17:58):
not going to trick them. You're not gonna find some
wealthy Canadian that's stupid that wants to buy your house
and overpay. I had that this week. We had somebody
call and say, well, can't you with all of your marketing,
can't you just find somebody that's got a bunch of
money that can pay for this house. Do you think
people that have a bunch of money are dumb? Did
they get a bunch of money because they're stupid with money?

(18:20):
Did they get a bunch of money because they just
like buying real estate overpriced? No, they're going to look
at the data. I mean you AI can practically get
your home value accurate today. If you're not, if you're
not aggressive on your price, you're just not going to
sell it. And every home seller out there needs this
truth serum right now to move their house. Okay, your

(18:41):
house is the best to you. Okay, you have pride
of ownership. You think it's the best, that's why you
bought it. But the reality is, okay, it's probably not.
The market will tell you what your home is worth,
and it's very likely a lot of the things that
are valuable to you may not be valuable to the market.
And somebody to me the other day, will we spend
all this money paint in the house, so we want

(19:03):
to bump up our price to cover what all this
money we spent paint the house and the color is
god awful. The buyer's got a factor and they're going
to repaint the house. What you spent on the house
doesn't equate to what someone will pay for it. The
market doesn't care what you have in It doesn't care
what you owe, and the market determines the price. No
real estate, we don't. We don't pick the price. Okay,
we can give guidance, all right, we can, we can

(19:25):
help you understand it, but it is a mutual agreement,
and in reality, the only price that we're picking is
the price that we advertise it at. It's the market
that tells us whether it'll sell at. And if you
don't price within market today, your home's not selling. You
might as well just pack it up and wait for
another market. If you're going to overprice your house, it
just doesn't work today. So hopefully this truth theorem about
where you need to price your home today and what

(19:46):
is going on in the real estate market is helpful
for you. If you want to know more about the stats,
or you want to see them in detail, or you
simply want to know the value of your own home,
just go to dunkinduo dot com. When you type in
your address at duncan duo dot com, it's a really
cool dashboard where you get to see all the charts
and graphs, you get to make adjustments to features about

(20:07):
your house. It keeps you updated on what's going on
in your neighborhood. And here's the reality of it, it
blends data from all of the websites. I can't tell
you how many times I see websites like Zilo and
Realtor dot com that have the values massively wrong because
they're only using their own data. Our dashboard uses their
data and a bunch of other data. We think it's
the most accurate home value out there. And again, you

(20:28):
can do that at Duncan Duo dot com. You get
your instant cash offer there. You can see the charts,
the graphs. You can be the nosy neighbor and know
what's going on in your neighborhood and you can see
everything going on around your house. Because these stats, real
estate is local. As much as I want to say
that all of these stats applied every neighborhood in Tampa,
it's just not accurate. There's some neighborhoods that are outperforming

(20:49):
and doing better, and there's some that are doing worse.
Real estate is hyper local. What matters. I can talk
about these stats all day long, what's going on in
the Tampa market, which covers panelas too, the whole market review.
But what really matters what's going on in your neighborhood.
So if you want to know the stats for your neighborhood,
Duncan Duo dot com and I'll be back after a
quick break here on the Duncan Duo Real Estate Show.

(21:09):
So we're back here on the Duncan Duo Show talking
about the Tampa Bay real estate market. I do my
best and I get hyper political about stuff going on
in the country on my show. I do my best
to try and keep it real estate related. I spoke
last week, and apparently I offended a few people, But
I spoke last week about the the Trump administration's desire to, uh,

(21:33):
you know, take some of the federal land that is
throughout this country and you know, use it for affordable
housing and or use it simply to sell it off
and help help the economy. Part of the reason that
that also matters that a lot of people don't understand
and aren't factoring into the Trump as a business person
and some of the things that he's doing. Right now,

(21:56):
we have this enormous amount of debt that we owe
pay that's on and it's at a very high interest
rate because interust rates are very high. Okay, So just
like a normal person, if you go out and acquire
a bunch of debt and the interust rate keeps rising,
you're gonna have a hard time affording it. And we're
in that same place. Trump is a business person is
looking at the balance sheet of America and saying, hey,

(22:19):
how can I get this country back on track. Of course,
there's a lot of opponents to the big beautiful bill
and some of the increases that are there, but tariffs
obviously have been a way where he's tried to get
money in. And one of the presses about interest rates
is related to the debt that we have to service.
So if he wants to get the debt paid down,

(22:39):
tarrifs is a new source of revenue. He wants to
cut taxes where else can he get money from aka tariffs,
AKA maybe taking some of the federal land and selling
it to private development. So when I talked about that,
the premise of it is that America can only go
so long before it becomes bankrupt, before it doesn't have

(23:00):
the ability to pay its debts. Just like consumers we
deal with every day that don't have the money to
pay their bills or they don't have a job. I mean,
America is massively in debt and they've got to do
things to try and to try and recover that and
put things into a better place from an interest rate environment. So,
speaking of our local real estate market. One of the

(23:21):
things I think everyone knows is that Tampa Bay and
Florida in general saw a massive population increase during COVID
simply because of the you know, kind of draconian acts
of governments up in the north with lockdowns and you
know privacy, you know things and tasks, they income taxes,
and we've heard it all now. The downside to that

(23:45):
massive move of people. It's great for business and great
for the real estate industry, it's bad for our infrastructure.
Our infrastructure is struggling. If you've driven around Tampa Bay,
it's no secret that it's starting to turn into a
mini Miami when it comes to getting places, especially anywhere
near rush hour, you're stuck in traffic. Didn't used to
have that, you know, fifteen years ago, you know, I

(24:06):
could just thirty miles, I could drive thirty minutes. That
doesn't exist anymore. We're getting more populated, we're getting more
people here, and we're getting more development. Now. Trump's desire
to take some of this land throughout the country is
really more geared around the land in the west. Probably
there is some Innalligator Alley, but a lot of that
isn't buildable, And you know, with the water the way
it is and the swampiness of it, you know, where

(24:28):
a lot of the conversation is really more about land
out west, you know, for affordable housing. But there is
one political thing going on right now that could weigh
negatively on our infrastructure, and that is the primary win
by Mabdani Zoram Mobdani, who's now the likely favor to
win the New York City mayor and he has some

(24:52):
very aggressive tactics that I am already getting calls. As
soon as he won the primary, we got call from
people in New York City asking about moving down here. Okay,
So I think again, with our infrastructure already struggling and
a lot of things heading in the direction, I think
our real estate market is prime for an excellent comeback

(25:15):
in twenty twenty six, simply from our population growth has
been stunted post hurricanes. Okay, our tourism has been slowed
down post hurricanes. This New York City may or is very,
very controversial with some of his socialistic policies, and I
think it's going to move some of the some of
the people out. And where are they looking? They're looking here?

(25:37):
You can talk to you know, you can go to
the grocery store and talk to a handful of people
and at least one of them is going to say,
I moved to Florida. You know where they came from. Okay,
So our infrastructure needs improvement, there's no question. But our
real estate market is going to get the benefit of this.
So if you've been sitting on the sidelines not buying,
if you've been sitting on the sidelines not selling, I

(25:58):
think relief is coming. I think relief is coming because
I think interistrates in the second half of the year
are going to get some adjustment. I think our economy
is starting to head in a better direction. Inflations under control.
I think political choices of things in the north and
out west are going to move population here, no different
than COVID. But here's the one wild card. Okay, So
I think we're going to get some population movement. Okay,

(26:18):
a benefit of course to Florida businesses in Florida real estate,
not necessarily, a benefit to our infrastructure, not necessarily benefit
to our quality of life, And just being honest, I
benefit from it. But man, I get frustrated too. I
drive through traffic sometimes I'm like, man, I kind of
miss when Tampa felt like a small town. But I
think it's coming. This the New York move of population.

(26:40):
I think we'll fuel our market some. I think we're
going to see some interest rate relief. I think twenty
twenty six there is a decent chance we see some
considerable property tax relief. And again, we're still Tampa Bay.
We're still Champa Bay. We got winning sports teams, we've
got a great you know, we have great weather, we
have sunshine, and we have rainbows. But here's the wild card.

(27:02):
It's this hurricane season. If this hurricane season is rough,
a lot of these things may not happen. Tampa may
get looked over, people may go other places, and it
may set our real estate market back because we're still
weeding through a lot of the obstacles and damage and
storm stuff. So I am praying for a lighter hurricane
season this year that doesn't have the billions of dollars

(27:24):
of damage that it had last year. And also that
disproves the theory that's floating around out there that now
there's this new weather cycle that's going to keep throwing
you know, curving, you know, the hurricanes are going on
curveballs and coming in for the Bay, coming in for
the Gulf Coast. Okay, if we have a light hurricane
season this year, I think twenty twenty six is going

(27:46):
to be a banner year. If we don't, obviously again
that's the wild card, then we're going to have some obstacles.
But I want you to understand something, statistically speaking, and
I plugged this into AI this week, the likelihood of
us getting massive bad hurricanes year is statistically not very high. However, again,
statistics can't really completely extrapolate all the data on weather patterns.

(28:09):
If the weather pattern shows again this year, I believe
then you'll have two years in a row and you'll
have a lot of pundits saying that now Tampa is
the new armpit of you know, hurricane traction, and it
will discourage a lot of people from moving here. They'll
move other places, and we will you know, our market
may not recover as well, may not see home value gains.
So if the odds are that it's not going to

(28:32):
smart money right now starting to look at some real
estate investment opportunities. Smart money is looking at buying now
because if those things happen and we do get safe
from the hurricane the hurricane season, market pops next year,
and you benefit if you take action now because you
have an advantage as a buyer and investor today. As
a seller, certainly you know you may not be in

(28:53):
the advantage position this year. It may be better for
you next year. However, a lot of people get that wrong,
and I'll explain why in a minute. But buyers have
a great opportunity right now because they have they have leverage,
and they can get good deals, they can acquire great assets.
There are some people out there that are you know,
that are more motivated than others to sell inventory. And

(29:18):
if again, if we go unscathed this year, next year
is going to be a really good real estate here.
If we don't, then we're gonna still we're going to
kind of stay in that stagnant place, I think, and
we're not going to recover as much. But again, projected
to see some property tax relief, some you know, some
some relief on interest rates, and then obviously I think

(29:38):
twenty twenty six we start to see a nice bounce
for our market. But I talked a second ago about
homes sellers and why they get it wrong when they
say things like, well, I'm just gonna wait for home
values to go up. And I talked to them all
the time, and far too often a lot of them
think emotionally, and then they lose money, and then they

(30:00):
finally decide that they don't want to lose more money
because here's what's happening. I had a conversation this week
with a seller who was selling a home in a
market that was worse off than the home that they
were the neighborhood they were moving into. And the conclusion
that they came to is they should have cut their
price six months or a year ago because the neighborhood
that they live in prices are dropping, and the neighborhood

(30:22):
that they're buying into prices are rising. So you don't
live in a vacuum. If you say you need more
money out of your house, you also have to understand
the market of where you're buying. You're not in a vacuum.
So I have people all the time say, well, I'm
going to sell my five hundred to go out and
buy an eight hundred. Well, is if the eight hundred
is in a comparable market, which is most of Tampa Bay.

(30:44):
If the eight hundred is in a comparable market, then
here's what's going to happen. You're five hundred, Oh you
needed to get to five fifty. Okay, well let me
wait till it gets to five to fifty. What do
you think is happening to your eight hundred that you
want to buy? You think it's just standing still? You
put it in lay away at Walmart. I mean, what
do you think happening to it? It's also going to
go up ten percent? So you just say you just think, oh,

(31:05):
I got the five point fifty, snap, put more money
in my pocket to go out and now pay eight
eighty for the house that was eight hundred. You'll lost
thirty grand at least, probably more when you factor out
the title, insurance, dock stamps, commissions. You probably lost more
than that, but you lost money. So many home home
sellers don't realize if they're going out and buying and

(31:26):
they're waiting for the market to get better. Now again,
it's one thing. If you're waiting for the market to
get better because you don't have you don't have enough
to pay out for loan, that's different. But if you're
waiting for the market to get better because you want
more money, you're losing money. It's a fallacy. You're going
to go out and spend more money because the home
that you're gonna buy is also going to go up to.
So you have to separate yourself. You have to look

(31:47):
at real estate when you're in not as good of
a market. You have to understand that it is relative
to what you're buying for. What you sell for is
relative to what you buy at. If you can't get
the money that you want out of your sale, that
just simply means that you've got to get it back

(32:07):
when you buy. So so many home sellers, so many
home sellers have that completely wrong. They will say things like, well,
I'm going to wait for my home to go up,
thinking and I don't understand why, and not realizing that
the homeless they are going to buy is also going
to go up. The only place that makes relative sense

(32:30):
to not do that is when you're moving down. Okay,
if you're moving down and you want your and you
think your property is going to go up, and who
knows if it will. You know consequently, the home that
you're moving down to at a lower price going up,
you're actually gaining there. But if you're a move up
or lateral move buyer or a buyer that's moving from

(32:50):
a not as great market to a hot market in
a different part of the country or even a different
part of Tampa Bay. You really have to look at that.
Too many people get it wrong. They just want more
out of their house or emotionally attached and they think
that's the Oh, I need to put one hundred grd
in my pocket. I'm not selling until I put one
hundred GRD in my pocket. Okay, great, But what if
that means you spent you know, one hundred and fifty

(33:11):
grand more on the house that you're gonna buy because
it went up too People don't get that. So if
you're a home seller, really really really stop and think
about this. If your home's not priced right because you
want or quote unquote need a certain amount of money
so you can buy a more expensive home or into
a neighborhood that's doing better than your neighborhood on values,
you're losing money. You're not gaining anything by waiting, you're

(33:33):
just procrastinating. You're losing money. You know, you'd have a
better chance of you know, putting a bucket in the backyard,
dumping money in it. Enlighten it on fire, then you
would have benefiting financially when you're selling a lower priced home.
I'm buying a higher price home. So hopefully that helps
get through the clutter to you. We deal with that
conversation all the time with home sellers in today's market.

(33:55):
They want to wait because they want more money out
of their house, but that means the market has to appreciate.
And if the market is going to appreciate, the home
that you're going to buy is going to go up
to So hopefully that helps. Be back after quick break,
continuing this conversation here on the Duncan Duo Real Estate Show.
So back here on the Duncan Duo Show, talking about
the Tampa Bay real estate market. I want to talk
about one of my favorite topics of all time, one

(34:16):
of the things that as a lifelong real estate professional,
that I absolutely love about being in real estate. And
I'm being completely sarcastic right now because i want to
talk to you about homeowner and condo associations. Every single month,
we get calls from clients who bought in neighborhoods, in

(34:39):
hoas or in condo communities and now they regret it.
Whether there was an election that elected some crazy psycho
to the board that is making dumb decisions, or whether
they can't put up a basketball hoop or fly an
American flag or whatever it is. Okay, Homewners Associated and

(35:00):
condo associations. Look, there's some out there that are great.
I've dealt I've dealt with thousands of them in my career. Okay,
there's some that are great. They're a lot, They're an
absolute circus. They need to put like a tent over
the circus operation that they're running. If you are buying
a home or thinking about buying a home in an

(35:21):
HOA or a condo community, I need you to listen
to me clearly and do these two things. Number One,
read the bylaws. Okay, read them. People don't read them.
Please read them. The condo docs. Read them so often

(35:42):
six months a year after sale. Well I didn't know
you couldn't put up a basketball hoop. Well did you
read the documents that we sent to you, the one
hundred and seventeen pages that the HOA drafted. No, I didn't. Well,
there you go. There's no possible way any real estate
professional and know everything about a community, what's restricted and

(36:02):
what's not restricted. We just don't have the mental capacity
for that. You've met enough realtors. We're not very smart, Okay, Like,
there's no possible way we can know that for all
these communities. That's why there's a contractual provision that you
get these documents, that you get to review them, look
at the budget, ask the questions. Okay. If you think
that you can't do it, you probably can't. Okay. And

(36:25):
if that's going to be a problem for you, don't
live in a homeowners association, Okay, be very cognizant. Ask
the questions. Get in touch with the management company. They're
going to be the people, not the realtor. Realtor are
going to be able to tell you what you can
or can't do. Call the HOA itself, the you know,
one of the HOA contacts that is voted in, or

(36:46):
call the management company and get your questions out of
the way and be thorough with your questions. What do
you plan on doing that you think might have an
issue with the HOA? And again, things like having a
work vehicle wrapped, or having a basket ball hoop, or
having a flag flown or having too big a flag,
or changing the color of your door. Okay, changing the

(37:08):
color of your house. You might think that that color
of tope is an excellent color, but then they tell
you it's not the approved tope. There's a different tope
that you that you're approved at. You know. So again,
if you're going to buy an HOA community, please do
us all a favor and do your own due diligence.
It is not the real estate agent's job to determine

(37:29):
what you may do in the two years from now.
We've had clients' calls to say, well, you didn't tell
me that I couldn't put a you know, a shed
in my backyard. We possibly could not have known that.
You have to read the bylaws contractually, it's in there.
You get provided them their public record, all of them.

(37:50):
You can find them on the county clerk's websites. You
can you can ask the association. But part of buying
a home, it's an investment. Part of that is you
doing your part, doing your due diligence. Call the HOA research,
drive around, figure out what canon can't be done, and
again err on the side of if you think it
can't be done, it probably can't. Okay. But there are

(38:12):
communities out there that are so rigid that they control
the paint colors, they control the mail body, they control
all these things. Okay. And if that sounds like that's
if that sounds like torture for you, then don't buy
in an Ha community. Okay. It's that simple. If you
think that you're gonna want to, you know, light off
fireworks and build build stuff in your back you hard,

(38:34):
and you know, do stuff that people would do out
in the country, You're probably not gonna be able to
do it in Ha. Okay, So read the bylaws, do
your due diligence, do your research, and get in touch
with the people that can answer the questions for you. Okay.
Real estate agents operate in enormous, enormously broad geographic areas.
We cover a variety of different communities. No possible way

(38:56):
we can have memorized what's in every single by law,
every single community. No chance of that. That's why we
provide them to you. So you read them same, the
habits of the contract. People sign them and then they're like, oh,
I didn't read that. Of course you didn't. So if
you're gonna sign something, if you're gonna enter into a
hundreds of thousands or million plus dollars of a purchase,

(39:16):
do your due diligence, read the stuff, take some time,
make sure that it's right. Otherwise, after the fact, you're
gonna end up coming back, You're gonna find something you
don't like. You're gonna be upset all because you don't
want to accept responsibility. You want to play the blame game.
Accept responsibility. If you want to buy it in Ha,
read the bylaws, ask the questions, be prepared. And if

(39:36):
you think hoa life probably isn't for you, look, I
know damn sure it's not for me. I will never
live I will never ever, ever, ever ever ever live
in an HA community ever for the rest of my life.
I can one hundred percent promise you that has aren't
for me. I don't want somebody telling me what I
can and can't do outside of course, so you're going
to have some of that with the city or municipality.
So I know it's not for me. If it's not

(39:59):
for you, then don't do it, Okay, Ask the questions
and get the information from the people that can answer
the questions for you. Frankly, don't rely on the real
estate agent telling you what can and can be done.
Most of them. Most of them are going to be wrong.
Read the bylaws, understand the bylaws, drive around, talk to
people in the management company, talk to people that serve
in the HA. All the time, we deal with HOA complaints.

(40:21):
I mean, there was just one this week. There's some
enormous lawsuit. I think it's some in some community in
Oldsmar some enormous lawsuit over a shed or something, and
now they're suing it like it's you're basically saying, yes,
I would love another layer of government in my life.
I would love another layer of government. Let me let
me go and let people that when a popularity contest

(40:43):
have we have no idea whether they're even qualified to
be doing this job. Let me put my equity, okay,
let me put my property, my financial future, let me
put it in their hands. Okay. It's you're asking for
basically another layer of government, and some of them are
apps lutely crazy. So again, err on the side of caution.
Read your bylaws, read your contracts, ask the questions to

(41:06):
the people that can give you the right answers. And
if you think there's even a hint that hoa's may
not be for you, then don't buy in an HOA community.
Like I said, I know I'm not going to all
right anyway. Hopefully this has been helpful for you when
we aren't on air. At the Duncan Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook,
and Dunkin Duo dot Com for an instant cash offer
and your free home value estimate. Have an awesome rest

(41:26):
of your Sunday, Tampa Bay