Here’s the real estate market info you may have missed

With the holidays in the rearview mirror, we’re hoping you find some time to relax and spend some quality time on tweaking your real estate lead generation plans for 2019. In all the distractions of the past month, however, you may have missed some of the less-scrutinized pieces of real estate market info. Read on to catch up.

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The deadbeats who bring us down

We all know that there are some agents who made the wrong career choice. Real estate agent ranks are filled with “anyone who can fog a mirror,” “bottom feeders,” agents who are “lazy and don’t want to do the work.”

Solutions to rid the ranks of these agents range from raising NAR dues to astronomical rates to requiring all new agents to work as interns for a time.

Sam Deboard goes off on what he labels “the sales police” in a piece at TheAmericanGenius.com, originally published in 2016 and updated recently.

“Culling the lazy, bloodsucker real estate agents” is far kinder than most in dealing with the issue and worth a read when you have some free time.

 

Fun with FICO

Just in time for a buyers’ market, FICO is making changes in how it calculates its credit scores.

Sometime this year we can expect the Fair Isaac Corp. to unveil the “UltraFICO Score.” Instead of basing the score heavily on repayment history, the ultra-score will take into account the borrower’s banking activity as well, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Borrowers with no over-draws and a couple hundred dollars in seasoned funds in their “checking, savings and money market accounts” stand to benefit the most.

In all, the experts at FICO expect that the additional information added to the calculation of credit scores will raise the scores of many low-scoring borrowers.

Read the whole story at wsj.com.

 

Real estate market info to make buyers rejoice

Multiple offers are becoming a thing of the past. Inventories are plumping (up 54 percent from a year ago in Las Vegas) and “home sales have slowed to a crawl nationally,” according to Diana Olick at CNBC.com.

Seattle homebuyers should be especially giddy because, according to Olick, “More than half of homes a year ago saw bidding wars, while less than a quarter are seeing them now.”

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

By the way, do you remember how to work in a buyers’ market? Better brush up on your real estate market info and get your potential listing clients in a 2019 frame of mind.

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Housing during the upcoming recession

The question isn’t “Will there be a recession?” but when. After all, it’s a natural part of our economic cycle and we’re long overdue for a downturn.

Economists differ on the “when” – some say it’ll happen this year while others are pointing to 2020.

While the real estate market was front and center during the last recession, it’s not expected to be a factor in the next.

And, according to the Federal Reserve, during the five recessions prior to the most recent, home prices actually increased (see the graph, here).

That home prices plummeted during the Great Recession was an anomaly, not the norm.

So, don’t let your potential listing clients be frightened off selling because they think their homes will tank in value during the next downturn. The chances are real good that they won’t.

We found a brilliant article on the topic at CNBC.com.

 

Eye on Millennials and Gen Z

It wouldn’t really be a real estate market info roundup if we didn’t talk millennials, right?

Sixty percent of all closed home loans went to Millennials, according to Ellie Mae’s September to November 2018 “Millennial Tracker.”

The problem we have with the tracker is that they use the wrong dates for Millennial births, 1980 to 1999, instead of 1977 to 1995, which is more widely accepted.

This means that a lot of these closed loans actually went to members of the younger Gen Z. When they’re subtracted from the lot, it turns out that 56 percent of closed loans went to Millennials.

We’ve been watching Gen Z, though, for some time and it’s good to see they’re of the age, finally, to buy homes and are doing so. (Check this out if you’re interested in gearing up your real estate lead generation for these younger buyers).

In fact, more than half of Gen Z buyers are obtaining conventional loans with an average note rate of 5.016%.

But, back to those Millennials. The average Millennial homebuyer is male (60 percent) and married. They overwhelmingly used a conventional loan (65 percent) with an average note rate of 4.977%.

They’re buying homes with an average appraised value of $241,839 and the average LTV is 86

So, all the media hype that millennials are using FHA loans is just that – hype.

By the way, the five cities with the highest percentage of millennial homebuyers include Odessa, TX, and Burley, ID both at 60 percent, Williston ND at 58 percent, Aberdeen SD at 57 percent and Quincy, IL-MO at 56 percent.

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