If you’re planning to buy a home this season, you’re probably thinking about what you’ll need to do to get your offer accepted. In previous years, it was common for buyers to try and determine how much less than the asking price they could offer to still get the home. The buyer and seller would then negotiate and typically agree on a revised price that was somewhere between the buyer’s bid and the home’s initial asking price.

In today’s real estate market, buyers shouldn’t shop for a home with the same expectations.

Things Are Different Today

Today’s housing market is anything but normal. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the average home that’s sold today:

• Receives 4.8 offers
• Sells in just 17 days

Homes selling quickly and receiving multiple offers shows how competitive the housing market is for buyers right now. This is because there are more buyers on the market than homes for sale. When the number of homes available can’t keep up with demand, homes often sell for more than the asking price.

How Does This Impact You When It’s Time To Submit an Offer?

Market conditions should help guide your decisions throughout the process. Today, the asking price of a home is often the floor of the negotiation rather than the ceiling. Knowing this is important when it’s time to submit an offer, but you should also use that information as you’re searching for homes too. After all, you don’t want to fall in love with a home that ultimately sells for a price higher than what you’ve budgeted for.

The Mortgage Reports has advice if you’re looking to purchase a home in a competitive market. The article encourages you to be realistic with your housing search, saying:

“The best thing to do is set your budget and expectations ahead of time so you know how much you can afford to offer — and when to walk away. This will make negotiations a lot easier.”

Of course, when you’ve found your dream home, you’ll want to do everything you can to submit your best offer up front and win a potential bidding war. Knowing the current market is key to crafting a winning offer. That’s where working with an expert real estate advisor becomes critical.

A real estate professional will draw from their experience and expert-level knowledge of today’s housing market throughout the process. They’ll also balance conditions in your area to make sure your offer stands out above the rest.

Bottom Line

Understanding how to approach the asking price of a home and what’s happening in today’s real estate market are critical for buyers. Let’s connect so we can work together to create a winning plan for you.

Some Highlights

• If you’re planning to buy or sell a home today, it’s important to be aware of common misconceptions.
• Whether it’s timing your purchase as a buyer based on home prices and mortgage rates or knowing what to upgrade or repair before listing your house as a seller, it takes a professional to guide you through those decisions.
• Let’s connect so you have an expert to help separate fact from fiction in today’s housing market.

Fair Housing is one of my big bugaboos. It is for most REALTORS® I’d like to think. In fact, the National REALTOR Association (NAR) has a big website section on it this month because April is National Fair Housing Month.

For me, as a middle-aged, middle-income, white woman, it’s hard to imagine being turned away from a home loan or a neighborhood because of the color of my skin or my gender but it happens and I’m damned lucky. To be turned down for a rental because of my children or my handicap may seem inconceivable, but it happens. It’s also fucking illegal.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 (as it expanded upon the Civil Rights Act of 1964) was brought to fruition by President Lyndon B. Johnson and amended further over time. A brief history is presented by the Office of Housing and Urban Development here so I won’t bother to go into that. A quick Google will lead you down the tortuous path of people’s pain and horrible experiences.

My own experience with fair housing violations annoyed the crap out of me and resulted in me firing a client.  I was asked to find a townhouse with, “No HOA and no black people.” Right. That’s a negative Ghost Rider and here’s why: it’s illegal and crappy, bitch. Besides, I don’t have that kind of demographics because who would even have the life energy to go around and do that? Before you get snarky, the US Census does have that information, they don’t look at or publish it in that kind of micro-statistic. Besides, no HOA for a townhouse? Good luck fixing that roof leak.

With that in mind, NAR has published a Fair Housing Declaration for REALTORS®

I agree to:

• Provide equal professional service without regard to the race, color, religion, gender (sex), disability (handicap), familial status, national origin, sexual orientation or gender identity of any prospective client, customer, or of the residents of any community.
• Keep informed about fair housing law and practices, improving my clients’ and customers’ opportunities and my business.
• Develop advertising that indicates that everyone is welcome, and no one is excluded, expanding my client’s and customer’s opportunities to see, buy, or lease property.
• Inform my clients and customers about their rights and responsibilities under the fair housing laws by providing brochures and other information.
• Document my efforts to provide professional service, which will assist me in becoming a more responsive and successful REALTOR®.
• Refuse to tolerate non-compliance.
• Learn about those who are different from me and celebrate those differences.
• Take a positive approach to fair housing practices and aspire to follow the spirit as well as the letter of the law.
• Develop and implement fair housing practices for my firm to carry out the spirit of this declaration.

If you’re on the fence about whether or not you want to sell your house this year, there’s good news. For nearly two years, real estate professionals have worked tirelessly to ensure the safety of buyers and sellers during the pandemic.

Today, they’re seasoned experts, not just in the art of buying and selling homes, but also in how to keep you safe throughout the process. Real estate professionals have learned new technologies plus safety and sanitation measures. As new variants emerge, those lessons continue to be key ways agents add value.

Real Estate Advisors Stay Current on Guidance for In-Person Showings

Agents don’t leave your health up to chance. They follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to ensure in-person showings are safe. NAR maintains industry-specific resources to ensure agents are informed on the latest recommendations and best practices.

Guidance from the CDC also equips real estate professionals with the know-how to employ sanitization and disinfectant measures during the health crisis, so they’re safe for you and your potential buyers.

Digital Tools Can Enhance Your Home Sale

In addition, agents are also well versed in using technology and digital tools to sell your home efficiently. In their guidance for realtors, NAR says:

“The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting members in unprecedented ways, and raises numerous unique and novel issues for the real estate industry.”

Real estate advisors have responded by reimagining the tech and tools they use. For instance, serving clients at a distance and limiting exposure to others is more important now than ever. That’s because restricting the number of people you need to interact with during the sales process is one of the best ways to keep everyone safe.

To accomplish this, agents now use a variety of methods to serve their clients, including:

• Virtual Open Houses, Tours, and Listing Appointments
• High-Quality Photos for Websites and Social Media
• eSignature
• Video Conferencing

Bottom Line

The health challenges we face today have fundamentally changed the way real estate professionals conduct business for the better. Let’s connect today so you have the latest tools on your side to feel safe and confident when you sell your house this year.

Residential Review: Metro Portland, Oregon
December 2021
Residential Highlights

New listings (1,599) decreased 8.1% from the 1,740 listed in December 2020, and decreased 28.3% from the 2,229 listed in November 2021.

Pending sales (1,942) decreased 3.0% from the 2,003 offers accepted in December 2020, and decreased 27.0% from the 2,660 offers accepted in November 2021.

Closed sales (2,582) decreased 7.4% from the 2,789 closings in December 2020, and decreased 8.8% from the 2,832 closings in November 2021.

Inventory and Total Market Time Inventory decreased to 0.6 months in December. Total market time increased to 32 days.

Year-To-Date Summary Comparing the twelve months of 2021 to the same period in 2020, new listings (40,531) increased 5.4%, pending sales (35,405) increased 7.8%, and closed sales (35,182) increased 9.8%.

Average and Median Sale Prices Comparing 2021 to 2020 through December, the average sale price has increased 15.8% from $494,000 to $571,900. In the same comparison, the median sale price has increased 15.7% from $440,000 to $509,000.

Do you know the biggest thing that differentiates a REALTOR® from a real estate agent? One of the most important things is THIS piece of paper and everything it stands for.

A real estate agent is just someone that passed a couple of tests – a state law and knowledge test and a national law and knowledge test. It’s really not hard. I passed the tests a long time ago and have to keep my knowledge growing and updated with new technology, laws, conditions, and policies. To keep my real estate license, I must take a minimum of thirty hours of classes every two years. Three hours of those must be about the law and changes thereof.

A real estate agent is not required to be a REALTOR®.

A REALTOR® is a member of the National Association of REALTORS® (the largest trade association in the US) at the very least. I have to also be a member of the Oregon Association of REALTORS® and the Portland Metropolitan Association of REALTORS®. What do those groups do? They are business associations that offer insight and opinions to our local, state, and national governments and keep watch on the real estate business on many levels. They work to promote homeownership and the interests of REALTORS® nationwide. Personally, I call them The REALTOR® Mafia and/or “The Union” (even though it’s not). A member of The National REALTOR Association are called (guess?) REALTORS®. According to NAR, about half of the agents in the US are REALTORS®.

Here in Portland, an agent must be a REALTOR® to access the Regional Multiple Listing Service.

The NAR Code of Ethics was adopted in 1913 and is actually the first of any trade association to require an ethics code for its members. It was originally written to assure customers that their agents are well trained, have spotless reputations, and are held accountable by the organization for infringements. It did, and still does, ensure that REALTORS® best serve their clients by cooperating with each other.

What makes a REALTOR® different is a three-hour class I have to take every three years on Ethics.  It’s mandatory for members of the National Association of REALTORS and I can be kicked out of NAR if I don’t go. In fact, if I don’t attend, I would lose my RMLS access and my real estate key!

It isn’t just an “Ethics” moral code, it’s an enforceable reputation and standard of care for our clients, strict adherence to law and statute, the way we treat each other and the public, and even the manner in which we speak. The enforcement of the Code of Ethics is carried out by the local boards and may involve anything from a nastygram to fines to official censure to being removed from the Association.

A link to both the official Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice that we all agree to abide by.

I won’t post the whole thing here because I trust that my readers are both smart and have the means to click a link. (And it isn’t that exciting, trust me.)

The entire gist of the eight-page, 8pt., double-column document as it applies to clients, buyers, sellers, and other agents can easily be summed up with Wheaton’s Law: Don’t Be A Dick.

Last Updated: Jan. 8, 2022 at 9:29 a.m. ETFirst Published: Jan. 6, 2022 at 10:51 a.m. ETBy Jacob Passy

The latest uptick in mortgage rates could be the start of a prolonged increase

Mortgage rates rose markedly in the first week of 2022 — potentially setting the tone for a year in which economist expect interest rates to move steadily higher.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.22% for the week ending Jan. 6, up 11 basis points from the previous week, Freddie Mac FMCC reported Thursday. This is the highest level for the benchmark mortgage rate since May 2020, Freddie Mac chief economist Sam Khater noted in the report.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage, meanwhile, rose 10 basis points to an average of 2.43%. The 5-year Treasury-indexed adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 2.41%, unchanged from the previous week.

Right now, most signs point to interest rates continuing to climb higher in the year to come. In particular, the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic remains strong. There are around 11 million job openings nationwide now, providing ample runway for the job market, which should bring the unemployment rate down. Supply-chain issues remain, but have shown some signs of abating.

High levels of inflation, meanwhile, mean that the Federal Reserve looks set to take decisive action more quickly than previously expected. “With economic momentum gaining, the Federal Reserve’s recently-released minutes point to a faster pace of balance sheet reduction in the months ahead,” said George Ratiu, manager of economic research at Realtor.com, adding that this pushed the 10-year Treasury note’s yield BX:TMUBMUSD10Y to the highest level since last May.

Typically, mortgage rates generally follow the direction of long-term bond yields, including that of the 10-year Treasury. “This also indicates that rising mortgage rates are on the horizon,” Ratiu said.

‘This inflation picture we’re talking about — if it doesn’t cool off, the Fed might have to really stop on the brakes as opposed to gently tapping them.’— Michael Frantantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association

Economists generally expect mortgage rates to rise higher this year. The question is: How high? Michael Frantantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association, said his team predicts mortgage rates will end the year around 4%. And he said that an even more pronounced increase in rates was more likely, as of now, than a decrease in interest rates.

“This inflation picture we’re talking about — if it doesn’t cool off, the Fed might have to really stop on the brakes as opposed to gently tapping them, and we could see the rate path move even higher even faster than we have in our baseline forecast,” he said during a Barron’s Live webcast on Wednesday.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t even have talked about the higher rate path much last year, so the fact that I bring it up [indicates] there is probably a higher probability than another drop in rates,” he added.

This isn’t to say another drop in rates isn’t possible, as Fratantoni pointed to two factor that could bring rates down again. For starters, he said that another, more severe coronavirus variant could cause economic upheaval in the future if it were to gain traction as the latest omicron variant has done.

Additionally, he suggested that geopolitical unrest could cause investors to seek safety in bonds, which would bring rates down. Examples of this include a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine or an escalation in tensions between China and Taiwan, he said.

“I often tell people that this job keeps you humble because rates can move for any number of reasons and in directions that really will surprise most of us,” Fratantoni said. “So could rates go down? Absolutely. I don’t think it’s the most likely outcome, but it could happen.”

Some Highlights

• If you’re looking to buy a home, you may want to put these items on your to-do list to ensure you hit your goals.
• It’s important to start working on your credit and saving for a down payment early. When you’re ready to begin your search, work with a real estate professional and get pre-approved so you know how much you can borrow.
• Connect with a real estate advisor so you have the guidance you need to achieve your homebuying goals this year.