Monday Morning Coffee with Buddy

WILMINGTON, NC - February 21, 2022

Hi, this is Buddy Blake with Waypost Realty right here in Wilmington, North Carolina. I hope you and your family had a great weekend and looking forward to a great week ahead. We're going to see some really nice weather actually up towards the eighties this week, which is super exciting, but I wanted to give you some updates on what's going on in our real estate market and around the country because it's pretty much everywhere now. In our market, it is continually busy, we're not seeing as many deals done only because we don't have homes to sell.

In Wilmington, right now, as of two minutes ago in the Wilmington area, which is not the city limits, but actually anything that has a Wilmington address, which is around 200,000 population, there is 135 single family properties available. So, we are seeing multiple offers on properties, we're seeing site unseen offers on properties, we're seeing frustration built-in with backdoor deals that are going on where some buyers don't know about a property, we are also seeing a number of for sale by owners that are selling to people that are just tying up their property and then the deal falling apart because they don't understand everything that's going on.

So I'm going to make some suggestions for you, whether you're a buyer or a seller. If you're a buyer in this market, you need to understand that the interest rates hover around 4% now and a little more than that, depending on your credit score and what type of loan you get. So we've moved past the twos, they're gone, but there are still some good mid-three rates if you're doing an FHA or a VA rate. The big thing that I would recommend right now is getting with a lender and getting an extended rate lock because everything's taking a little bit longer, especially if you're looking at new construction. To give you an example, we own our own mortgage company. It is called Waypost Mortgage, and it is backed by Movement Mortgage, which is one of the largest mortgage companies in the country.

Paul Bowers is our loan officer and the manager of our office, which is right here in Waypost Realty. Paul is able to do now, with Movement's help a 90-day rate lock. It doesn't cost you any extra deal, there's nothing added on the back end, the rate is not adjusted. You can do a 90-day rate lock for free. So if you're thinking about buying something, you will need to get with him as soon as possible. He will need an address. Now, the other thing that he can do, and this really is for new construction or if it's an extended closing, he now has the opportunity to do a one-year rate lock. There is a cost to it, okay? You'll need to call Paul and get all the details around it. I can't give you rates or anything like that, but there is a cost, but you get it back once you close. It's not a big cost.

But with this, one year, you're able to lock today's rate for one year and that's going to be super powerful for new construction. And in that year, you get a one-time float down option, where if all of a sudden something happens in the economy, the rate drops, you're able to take your rate down one time during that process. So it's a great opportunity, especially for new construction. Make sure that you're really in tune with your lender, and you're really in tune with your agent right now because things are moving quickly. And as the interest rates go up, that's going to mean you're going to be able to afford fewer houses and house prices are going up. So be very careful.

Now, if you're selling in this market, all right? I'm going to make it really clear. I know you can sell your house by yourself, FSBO, or to your neighbor or on Facebook or on some group or something like that, but I am going to tell you that there are horror stories we're hearing more and more of where yes, we sold it. Well, you didn't get enough, okay? You thought you got enough, but you didn't get enough. You didn't get enough deposit, you didn't do a site unseen, you didn't have the right contract, somebody did what's called tie your house up. And then all of a sudden they didn't close on it, or they ghosted, disappeared, or they beat you up on the back end with home inspections, or quite honestly, you only had one or two buyers look at it and you didn't get exposed to the whole market.

In today's world, it has never been cheaper for a seller to hire a real estate agent, no matter who it is. Hire a real estate agent, they're going to more than exceed their value in the commission that's involved, just in the fact that they're going to bring you more offers, they're going to walk you through which ones to choose, and they're in more in tune with which loan programs and which situations are going on because everything matters right now. We have a wonderful plan. We've started doing these massive open houses every Saturday morning, and we roll out brand new listings so that every buyer has a shot at it. So we have a lot of people come and we have a lot of people interested. We are sold out of everything we've done this with now because we get multiple offers, significantly over the asking price because we are doing something different.

We, me, Buddy Blake, and the agents at Waypost Realty, we're paying for a home inspection upfront because we know for a fact that will get you more deposits and a higher price offer, and more offers on the table, especially from all the site unseen West Coast and Northeast buyers who don't have time to get here and don't want to miss it. It is the best thing you can ever do. We are seeing offers $30,000 $40,000 $50,000 higher just because there's a home inspection and they don't have to worry. Known is always, always more comfortable than the unknown. We do that, we pay for it upfront, the seller doesn't pay for it, we do the pictures, when we put a property on the market, everything that's there is a transparent situation and it is to be sold as-is. We're not even going to deal with the backend negotiation on these things. If the appraisal comes in lower than it should, that's the buyer's issue, not our issue because we're going to have enough money on the due diligence to cover that.

These are just some tips that I wanted to share with you because I'm seeing more and more mistakes. Sellers think they're winning and they're bragging about it and telling everybody, and then I'm thinking in my background, "Wow, you have no idea how much money you left on the table," or, "You have no idea how big of an advantage you got taken off." So anyway, there might be the rogue ones, the unicorns that just did something, but I'm just going to tell you that I am absolutely certain, and I'll put my money where my mouth is that if you list your house with me and our team here at Waypost Realty, we will get you significantly more money or you don't pay us anything. Because I know we can get you more than you can get on your own because we're going to do it right and we're going to get you exposed to the entire market, not just try some back door quick deal so we can try to get a little more commission on our end or something like that.

Call us. Challenge us. I dare you to give us a call. Have a great week. And if I can help in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out.