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Buying your first home can feel overwhelming—but it doesn’t have to be. Open House is the go-to podcast for people who want real answers, practical tips, and a no-pressure look at what it actually takes to buy a home. We talk credit, financing, inspections, offers, and everything in between, all in plain English. If you’re ready to stop renting and start building a future— Open House is officially open.
Speaker 1 0:00
Hey, what's up, everybody? My name is Anthony sharp. I'm a realtor with car like properties unlimited. And this is the first episode of my new podcast. It's going to be called Open House. We're going to kind of be diving into all things real estate. But today, what I want to talk about the most is going to be just the kind of the whole process of buying and selling a house can be very difficult to do. I know when I first bought a house before I was a realtor, me and my wife, we just kind of doom scrolled Zillow. We found houses that were $150,000 over our budget, found houses that had a great backyard, didn't like the kitchen, vice versa. So to kind of help us break that down, pull the curtain back on that and give us a lot better insight on that, I brought some awesome guests with me today. Have Brandon and Jerome from cry like properties unlimited. They are the brokers. So thanks Anthony for having us. We're super excited and super stoked to be here
Unknown Speaker 1:00
today. Glad to have us. Alright?
Speaker 1 1:03
So, so most people think, you know, you when they just want to start buying a house or really even selling, but especially buying, they're just going to look on Zillow or Redfin or whatever. You know, they like that one. They think they just kind of show up signing papers and they move in. You guys want to talk about why it's a little bit more complicated than that, or, yeah,
Speaker 2 1:20
I kind of start this out with and, you know, always, I didn't realize this, Anthony, until I got into real estate. But I'm gonna give you a really good example of why you should use, first of all, why you should use a realtor, because I think that's a really important thing to talk about here. I recently went down to the beach, and I was just, you know, even though I'm licensed down that way, I can, you know, I have access, of course, all the houses down there. And told my wife, I said, Look, we can go in these houses. I can call get them set up and stuff. And then she mentioned, she said, Well, you don't know this area, like, like you should, so you may want to contact a realtor, even though I was a realtor. So kind of put, put it back in perspective of, like, kind of what we really do and why people do use us. It's just, you know, we got representation, right? But it's also because we know we got contacts. We know that we know the market, we know the zoning, we know all that in that area. So, you know that's, that's the thing that's the most important part is, you know you were talking about Doom scrolling on Zillow when you first started, is to get that realtor, get that real estate agent, sit down with them, go over your buyer agreement with them, and and your buyer agency agreement with them, how they're going to represent you in the transaction, and simply start that process from there. And they can lead, lead, guide, direction. You can get on Zillow, anybody get online realtor.com, all those different places. But those are all computer models, and they're not going to know a lot about that house. And it's, you know, I know the biggest thing right now is I have AI, right? That's a huge component in the market that we're in. However, AI still does not have that human touch like a realtor does. So I think the first start in looking for a house, not just getting on real.com and Zillow, because you don't really know what you're looking for, is get with a professional who knows the area really good. And I think that's the first start.
Speaker 3 2:58
And the chime on that is actually you need to meet with a realtor and just sit down and talk to them. And once you do that, you can either get get pre approved. Once you get pre approved, you can they'll give you a guideline on where, let's say you approve for half a million dollar house, and you're looking at a million dollar house, so you kind of tighten up your guideline, he won't be looking. You won't be wasting your time. And what you do, you get more information as far as, all right, I'm looking for three bedroom, five car, garage or whatever, something that's out in the ordinary. So you really go back and say, okay, all right, what really matters the most in purchasing a house? So you get that conversation, and get a good conversation and a good, good relationship with your realtor. And that's where it all starts.
Speaker 2 3:49
And Anthony, I will chime in on this too. Before you meet with your realtor, make sure you have a game plan together, right? So make sure you have exactly what you want. You know, the number of bedrooms, the number of bathrooms, estimated square foot. You know, people, some people that I meet with, they get really down to a fence. They want this. They want and and real in reality, it's good to have those dream boards, but a lot of times, you know, we're not able to find the every single deal in there, but we can, we can pull out the most important things to you. So the question I always say to my clients is, what is the most important thing that matters to you, if it's school district, if it's the number of bedrooms for your children, if it's the number of bathrooms for your children, what's the most important thing? And that's where you need to start at. Well, number one is what's the most important thing to you? And have that game plan, have that list prepared before you sit down with your agent. That way they can have a better idea of what you're
Speaker 1 4:37
looking for. Okay, so say I come to you guys, and I'm looking for a house, and I have all these details figured out, picked out my realtor. So what happens next? How do I know what I can afford? And then kind of walk us through after that, maybe I get approved with lending, which we'll talk about in a second. But what happens after that? What's the process?
Speaker 3 4:54
Well, the first process, once you get pre approved, let's say, for the X amount. So what we're doing. Will go into MLS, and we'll search with we'll edit your filter your search, and we okay, this is you have 11 results, so we will give those 11 to you, and we can either set up an appointment for showing and we go view them. And what's the give at least your top three. Once your top three is there, we can go negotiate, and we can do it all for you.
Speaker 2 5:25
And Anthony, one of the main questions that we get asked a lot is, like, and it's a misconception, is, I don't have 20% to put down, right? And that's, that's like, huge is, like, what I got 20% I mean, I don't have 20% you know, I don't have the best credit and that's all that's okay because we have, there's so many different loan programs, you know, you have a USDA program, and most of this area, even in right over the state line in Alabama, especially in Columbus, Lowndes and temple Hall, all that clay, it qualifies for USDA, which is 100% financing. Now they, of course, there have some income limits and all that kind of good stuff, but they qualify for 100% financing. What does that mean for the buyer? Means they get a house for no down payment, right? So, and if we, if the seller covers their closing costs, they're literally getting in the house for nothing, basically, you know, then you got FHA loans, which is like, three and a half percent down. You have VA loans, which is very popular, of course, here with the Columbus Air Force Base, that's 100% financing. And then you have the conventional financing, which is 5% down or more. You typically, there's some three, there's some 3% conventional products, but usually it's 5% down or more on those and but the misconception, you know, just for the the for this podcast, I'd say, make sure, like, don't just nail yourself out, or take yourself out of the buying the house, just because you think you have to have 20% now, it's not. It's not the that's not, that's not, that's a big myth. You can get in a house. I'm almost 100% for very I mean, 100% down payment nowadays, without any anything. So that's, that's really big. So to answer your question is, get that the process the after you meet with your agent, get with that lender, so you can get, get a pre approved, and get that process going. Because, like Jerome said, Well, I'll go. There's no sense of looking at a looking at houses, and you don't know your true budget. Because what a lot of times, what happens is these people get super excited. They want to show their family the house. They all that, and then the lender comes back and says, you know, you don't qualify for that much. So let's, you know, I kind of know what you're shopping, right? So it's always like drones to tone it down and really do your due diligence before you get your hopes up.
Speaker 1 7:20
And that's on the lending side. We'll have a whole different episode. Different episode on that. But, like I said, we're just kind of hitting an overview of everything today. But I was, I just became a realtor about a year ago, and that was one of the things that kind of shocked me was, you know, there's a lot of ways, like you said, a lot of people are scared. Like I don't, I don't think I'll get approved for this much, or I can't afford this much, but you just need to go talk to them and really, you know, let them take a look. At what you got, because I feel like there is a lot of ways nowadays to ways nowadays to get around the down payment and that sort of thing. Absolutely, yeah. So what's next? I get pre approved. We find some houses. What happens from there?
Speaker 2 7:52
I think home inspection So, and this is, this is huge. So I had a call, actually. This is funny. This brings up. I had a call yesterday from somebody that was asking me how to go about buying a for sale by owner, by themselves and stuff, and so I was trying to guide them through that. And so the biggest deal is, is a lot of people, or a lot of buyers, don't know, to get a home inspection, and that's very important, even as an agent, do we like home inspections? No, because we have to prepare. Just be completely honest with you. However, it's not about what we like. It's about what protects our client, right? So protecting our client that is recommending getting home inspection, and that that that's a big that's a big part is getting a home inspection. And Jerome probably can kind of touch on a little bit too about the home inspection process as well.
Speaker 3 8:34
Yeah, actually, we will refer or give you a list of at least three inspectors, and once you get those three inspectors, you will call them and just ask them the availability, and if you want to, just ask them the price. So so once you get that price, you schedule a showing or an inspection. So once that's done, they are going to either email, they're going to email you a list of all the everything that needs to be done. You're going to have a summary, where you have the cover sheet summary, and actually a defective summary as well defective area where you he recommends repair. So once you get that, you and the buyer, we go over Dan inspection, and you're going to find something. There's no perfect house, of course. So after that, you're going to ask the buyer, all right, what's the most important thing that you really want to be done on this house? XYZ, non or whatever? Let's we can make it happen. So we'll submit that to a to the other agent,
Speaker 2 9:42
and Anthony, I will say this too, just to be completely honest, the you know, you're not, you mentioned you're not getting new house, right. So when you're going through these inspection of the buyer, just keep in mind, like that, there's certain things that that's that's going to affect the value of your house, that's going to affect the safe. You have your house, this truck, you know, like your roof, your structure, your HVAC unit, your appliance, that kind of stuff. Those are your most important things, right? So when these home inspections come back and you're going through that process, don't really worry about a lot of cosmetics, I wouldn't say, unless it's something that's detrimental that you want to do, it's more you're looking for more stuff that's going to negatively affect you. Can anybody can go put some paint on the wall, right? But you're looking for stuff that's going to be negatively affect
Speaker 1 10:22
your house. And I feel like that's another, we're kind of highlighting the value of Realtors today. I feel like that's another thing that your Realtor can bring you, because even if it is something you know, there is some stuff you want to stay away from that we can talk about, but even if it is something substantial, you know, I feel like we have contacts in place. We all share contacts with one another. They can go in there and give you prices on these things, and we can, kind of, you know, we can adjust your offer based on, you know, the prices that you may need to maybe submit your offer for an
Speaker 3 10:48
inspection is another negotiating tool as well. So, as you were saying, you can get prices on replacing a piece of rotten wood or flooring. You can, you can ask the seller to replace it, or I can say, hey, I have someone that I want to do it, and I and I may want to redo the floor and all of it. So you can kind of negotiate that area as well, right?
Speaker 1 11:15
All right. So put an offer. It's accepted. Home Inspection comes back. We kind of negotiated through that, what happens next.
Speaker 2 11:22
So during this whole process, and I know I'm so glad you said, you mentioned you're getting lender in here, right? And I'm so glad that you're going to do that, because it will really kind of, I'm just going to barely touch on this a little bit. But during this whole process, your bank is always working behind the scenes to get your loan done, unless it's a cash deal, course, but they're always working needing documents, so underwriting and all that. So as your agent will typically let, let your bank know to order that appraisal and that appraisal, the appraiser will go out there and do his thing and or, and I think you mentioned too that you may have an appraiser coming to a podcast too. So that's that's gonna be awesome. So Y'all stay tuned, because he's got a lot of awesome people that's gonna be coming up.
Speaker 1 11:59
Pretty much everything we're talking about. You can have a whole episode on but, uh, like I said, these guys are experts in this field, so they're kind of just hitting, uh, hitting, a brief overview of the whole the whole process. Awesome.
Speaker 2 12:08
So go ahead. So, yeah, um, so appraisal, and then, you know, if you've got termite inspections, septic inspections, of course, you know, as your agent, we're always coordinating all that stuff, so we go through that process. So the biggest thing I would say is, like going through that process, we and we make it look easy a lot of times, but behind the scenes, we're working our butts off to make sure you're representing, you're taken care of and everything. The biggest thing is for a buyer is make sure you have your documents give them to make sure you get your documents to the lender in time. Don't check your credit. Don't go buy new furniture. Don't go buy a new car if you're going to do don't change jobs, for sure, if you're going to do any of that, please get with your agent and get with your your lender, and talk to them and let them counsel you through that before you make those hasty decisions. Because that will I've seen more loan denials just based off that, that alone than than
Speaker 1 12:55
anything it's you to do. I mean, if you you know you're about to move into a house, you want to get all new furniture, so yeah, definitely something that you need to get checked out. So out of all the stuff that's going on, what do you guys normally see, like, where is the hang up? Where do people get overwhelmed and feel like it's kind of just too much for
Speaker 3 13:12
them in the beginning and once they're on the contract? So once they do in the beginning, they're thinking about, all right, I don't have enough money. What about the legal What about the legal aspect of it? What about the inspections that that point they get overwhelmed and during as as part as the home inspection, okay, they they're going to get real nervous about that, the appraisal, looking for insurance company, and again, the closing part. So what we do as real tours, we make sure that we give them a step by step. We're not going to give them all three things to do at one time, right? So in our job is to calm them down and just keep teach them to not to get overwhelmed.
Speaker 2 14:04
Yeah, and I agree with that. And you know, we talked about, I think we touched on this a little bit earlier, is the pain points of that just the initial thought of getting buying a house, and it can be extremely overwhelming. So that's what we're here for. I mean, that's as realtors, and Anthony, you're a realtor to now, and that's, that's what we're here for, is to meet with that person. And it's always takes that one phone call, one text message, one direct message on Facebook. Hey, look, I'm just interested. I'm just weighing my options. There's no strains attached. You don't not gonna owe us a thing just to talk to us, right? So we, you know, you go to a lawyer a lot of times. Lawyers are gonna charge you money just for a consultation. We're not gonna charge you that. So we're here. You that. So we're here to be your advisors to buy the house. Another pain point is, like Jerome talked about, is the home inspection. Of course, that's what we're here for. And what I have recently seen a pain point, or not really a pain point, but something that you know is gets frustrated with a buyer, is the lender. I'm just gonna be honest. They're gonna ask you for everything but a blood sample. Okay, so if they're asking you for your 30 minutes, your your banking documents, your W twos, your tax return, don't get offensive for that, like that's something. So I've always put you got to put yourself in their shoes. If you're if you're loaning somebody $200,000 you're gonna want to know everything about them. And the depending on the loan type, will depend on what documents they need. And so your mortgage officer, that's what they're there for, is to gather all the documents before it goes underwriting. So don't get frustrated. They're going to ask you for $100,000 100,000 documents, provide them, and then after it comes out of underwriting, guess what, they're going to ask you for some more documents. So don't get frustrated in that that in that process, they usually can send you a list over those documents in advance, and the faster you get it to them, the better it is, and the less pain points that you're going to have. But like I said, we're as agents. We're here to help you through all those processes. You don't really have to worry about those processes, because we're going to be here to help
Speaker 3 15:52
you through correct and to chime in on that. What another thing? If you work a different an odd shift, and you can't get that those document to that lender. You can always drop it by the office, or we can meet somewhere. You can come to the office. We're we're come pick it up, and we can scan it and email it to the lender, right? So never, never feel like you're in, you're in this thing by yourself,
Speaker 1 16:15
exactly, yeah, and this is kind of putting you on the spot. So if you don't have a story, I got one lined up and ready to go. But Do y'all have any, uh, maybe any recent success stories where somebody was really, you know, they were overwhelmed. They were thinking about backing out, or they just thought it was too much for them, and you guys kind of
Speaker 2 16:30
walked them through that. Or go ahead, okay, yeah. So, um, yeah, I've got, I can probably, I'm sitting here thinking of 100 different stories, but, um, but yeah. So here recently we had, we had a deal go on, and their their debt to income ratio was a little bit out of whack, right? So what we had to do, they were trying to back out. They were trying to do all this thing. So we're able to get with that lender, and we're able to say, like, what, what I and this is how I run my business. This is like I get with the lender, I get with the buyer, and all, like, what is the issue? Like? We got to figure out what the core issue that's going on, right? Because everybody they're backing out, if they're excited about buying a house, and then they back out. It's not that they don't want the house. They still want the house. They're just some underlying issues, maybe their personal life, maybe their finances. But in this case, it was their debt to income ratio. And so we're able to sit down, and we were able to refinance and their car, which got their car payment down so and they were able to qualify. So just because a lender says, you know, we can't do it, then we need to figure out what we can't do. Because a lot of times, even if it don't work out on that house per se, we can they can do even if it's like your credit, if it's something like that, we can always take 30 to 60 days step back and fix the problem, and then regroup and go back after it again. So that was just a recent one that we dealt with. Dealt with is they were back, ready, back out. They were very upset, but we're able to get that car refinance, almost lower their payment in half, because they had a high interest rate at the time, because that was their first car they ever had. The you know, the bank ended up charging my high interest rate on the car, get the payment down, got the debt to income ratio exactly where it need to be at when we and the underwriter approved the loan. So that's just just one, one deal that we recently had.
Speaker 3 18:10
Okay, I had one few years ago where the buyer came in and got in touch with a lender, and he didn't get it pre approved at first, so the lender was real good about it. She said, hey, look, you're not pre approved. Now, his income was good, his DTI was out of whack, but the lender told him, all right, if you take care of x, y, z, and come back in a couple three months, I think we can get you pre approved. So he did exactly what the lender asked him to do. So once he did that, he was pre approved for almost a half a million dollar house, and they were tickled pink, right?
Speaker 1 18:52
Yeah, that's awesome. And the story I was going to tell was, before I became a realtor, we flipped houses, me and my business partner and both you guys have come and checked them out for us and helped us and helped us out on that side of it. But, uh, I remember our first one. I mean, we were obviously in over our head. We were kind of learning, and the inspection report came back and me and my business partner, I mean, we just, we freaked out. I mean, it was, you know, 40 something pages, and we were both like, we were just mad about it. Honestly, we thought we had put a lot of work into this house, which I think that can even if you're not flipping houses. I mean, if you're, if you're selling your house, you selling your house, you know, you may be kind of emotional about about the things people are saying is wrong with it, but you really have to. That's where I think a realtor is a very good resource and a help, because you can sit down and like, look, you know, this, this loose doorknob is not a big deal. This, this outlet cover, you know, it's not a big deal. We can fix those things. So having somebody that you know, kind of talked us off the ledge, really walked us through all that. I thought it was a really big advantage for us, kind of calmed us down and walk us through it.
Speaker 2 19:46
And it ended up being pretty smooth. It's good point. And Anthony, these, these home inspections, like they're they're there, they're gonna find something. So, right? The buyer is essentially paying a home inspector go out here and find problems. Right? So. And a lot of times they're not licensed. They're not a licensed contractor, they're not a licensed septic inspector, they're not a licensed HVAC so they put the stuff in there that says this, and it really not, may not be much wrong with it. So you know, it's our job as agents to make sure that buyer, we go in there and say, Look, even though the inspector flagged it, let's turn around and get a licensed profession, professional in that industry to go out here and look at it, because they're actually licensed. Because they're actually licensed in that one thing, the home inspector is just going to flag it just, and nothing wrong with home inspectors, but they're going to flag that to make sure that you, you do your due diligence as a buyer, to get those things looked at. And then it's up to us as agents to coordinate and ask, you know, as seller, or we can get somebody out there on your behalf to look at those different things. It's actually licensed in that field, yep.
Speaker 1 20:44
So just running back through that real quick, like I said, the lending process, that's just making sure that you are getting, you know, you can afford what you're buying, right? The home inspection, somebody's coming out to take a look at the house, making sure everything is fixed the way it needs to be for you to buy it. In the appraisal process, you know, if you're going through any kind of loans, that's just the bank basically protecting themselves. They want to make sure that what you're purchasing, you know, is worth their investment. So just wrapping all that up, I do want to talk about, I see a lot of things on social media about, you know, why do I even need to use a realtor? And we've kind of hit on that a little bit, but I'll be honest, before I became a realtor, I didn't think you guys did as much as we do now, I thought it was a lot of, you know, just kind of showing up, showing houses, and you go home, and when I first got into it, Brandon told me, like your phone not gonna stop ringing, like you better be able to answer the phone, so I'm sure you can touch that as well. Jerome, so you guys talk a little bit about just, just the value that having a realtor on your side can can provide you. Well, first
Speaker 3 21:41
of all, you have someone that would stick by your side. Do you have someone that will be able to go over the contract with you? You have someone that that is not he's not only responsible for you, he responsible for himself to make sure that everything is done correctly and the way it should and legally.
Unknown Speaker 22:05
So big advocate, Right
Speaker 2 22:07
exactly and what? And that's so true, Jerome. And one thing I like to always ask my clients when they even if it's a for sale by owner, for a seller even, or a buyer that says, I can do this, you know what the law, or the law, the real estate rules, it changes daily. The market changes daily. So if you're not doing this every single day, then that that's, that's, that's what, that's, what's wrong. You may what we did last year is not the same process as we do this year. It's always evolving. So one question Jerome has always asked, and he's kind of got this in my head now, is, if you, or if you had got, if you had got sued for something that was wrong, that was wrong, that you got accused of doing wrong. Okay, would you go to court without a lawyer? And that's a very big question. And I know my question was, No, I'm gonna have a lawyer. Why would you have a lawyer? Well, the lawyer knows the law well. Guess what? Why would you want to buy a house without a real estate agent? Right? Why? Because the real estate agent or the realtor knows the market knows the house has though, can you mentioned it while ago, Anthony, they we have those connections, right? We have all that stuff. So we are like the buffer. So you think of us as a fire firefighter, right? We're always putting out those fires. We do so much stuff behind those scenes that you don't even know, those phone calls, those little things that we do that probably that you know, to keep the situation at bay and not so you're not stressed out. And plus, mean, this is the usually, buying a house is the most, biggest financial decision that anybody can ever make in the in in their lifetime, right? Not in the southern world, but in their lifetime. And that's why I mentioned AI, because that's the big thing on the internet. Ai, ai, chat, GBT. Then we got Gemini, we got all this stuff, and then you got these home buying sites. You go in here and type of stuff. That's all good and well, but guess what? When it comes down to it, and you're at 11 o'clock at night and you're stressed out about something, those people are not gonna have a human touch, or those, those those bots ain't gonna have a human touch, like your realtor. I'm available all the time. You can ask my wife, she's probably sick of my phone at this point, but I'm available, and I try to make myself available, so when you're looking so that kind of kind of circle circles us back here. Make sure, when you're interviewing an agent, that you ask them, do you answer your phone at nighttime? Because that's our on the weekends, because a lot of times, especially on the weekends, people get to thinking about stuff, and they just want that, that person to call that, just that person to talk to, and that's what we're here for, right? So, so, yeah, so that's the I call that the invisible, the invisible value that you don't really see that you that you need, but you just don't know you need until you actually correct to see it.
Speaker 3 24:34
And also, we have resources. We where, if you can google something, they would give you 1000 you can prompt whatever you want to, but they're going to give you 1000 resources. We have someone, we have a contact person in that field that we have on speed dial, so you won't have to wait a few days. You can almost do it instantly. So you asking what we do as a real. Tour, we make sure things happen and happens correctly.
Speaker 2 25:03
And, you know, we talked about Anthony, like, connections with Home Inspections the fields. But you know what we didn't talk about that I just like, hit me was like the ability that if you have a good, experienced agent, and they're always in the market, they're always going to have the houses that's off the market, right? So if you're looking for the special house, that agent may have almost say the word secret inventory, because it's not, you know, it's not really a secret. But they may have like things that's off the market that the seller necessarily don't want to list at that point, but they can get you access to it and do like a one time showing type deal. So that's always somebody, because I'm always hearing like this, a seller saying I don't really want to put on the market, I don't really want to sell. But if you go, anybody, just let me know. Right? We all have it as agents. So, and I keep a list of that stuff. So as a buyer, you come in, you're looking for a certain thing. I always look at that list to see if that person, you know, they may be willing to sell. They just don't want to put it on the market. So, you know, the agents got those connections, not only in the in the repair industry, in the home inspection industry and stuff. We also have those, those seller connections too, in the local market too, which is big.
Speaker 1 26:02
And I thought, when you just said that, I thought was really good analogy about the lawyer. I mean, you know, I'm, I'm not, you know, talking about anybody that wants to, you know, not use realtor. But I just want to highlight the value we can bring. Because, like you said, if you go to court, you're going to bring a lawyer, because it's going to set you up the best for success, right? And he's going to have your best interest in mind, you know. So I thought that was a really good analogy. Because, like I said, I mean, you can do the work, but it's a lot of work at one time. And also, I think he sets as realtors, we can set you up for success. You mentioned the market. What is a I feel like we have a very unique market in the Golden Triangle. We got the Air Force Base. We have all the plants Starkville, with the campus and everything Columbus is growing. So what is something that, um, maybe a misconception about the market, or maybe just an update on the market,
Speaker 2 26:46
you know, is, and I can start this out. It's funny, you asked that, Anthony, because a lot of people don't know that Columbus was actually featured years ago on 60 minutes. I didn't know. And, and that's, that's big. That's a big show, CBS. So that's, that was, that's awesome. And a lot of people don't know, like, even from people that comes from, like, I'm gonna say up north, or down, further down, stay off. That's not in this area. They come here, they say, We can buy, we can buy anything here, because this is, like, this town. That's that's not worth much, that's so inaccurate. Like, we have so much going. I get passionate when I talk about this, Andy, but we have so much going for us, the Columbus Air Force Base, the Oklahoma tire in West Point. We have all the industry here. Adi, huge billion dollar investments that's making out here. We've got the Airbus, then we got the aluminum plant, and we've got pack car engines and and they're all everybody's adding on, and it's just like all this industry that's that's taking place, and it's really big. Then you got starvel, this is 1520 minutes from here, and all the industry that's taking place over there, college campus, Mississippi State. So it, you know, the market, you know, maybe in a strange market, but we're actually the Golden Triangle is set up for success for a long time. So if you're, if you're buying a house, I have seen when I first started, about nine years ago, I always, you know, knew that Housing New Hope was $80 a square foot, 85 like, when you do your analogies, those houses are going for like 160 150 560 square foot, depending on the square footage, of course, but it's like, that's a big jump in nine years, right? What does that mean for a buyer? That means you invest now you're going to accumulate that value. Now, this disclaimer, I can't promise you won't accumulate value depends on your investment that you buy, right? But you're going to accumulate that value. So the market in this area don't ever have the conception that that that is bad or it's a bad area and stuff, because we live in a great area that's really thriving right now.
Speaker 3 28:42
Yeah, this is something else. The buyers a lot of time asking for the perfect rates, the perfect price, the perfect house, the perfect interest rate. You're not, you're not going to get it right then, if you if you have something that you really passionate about or something that you really want, let's say I'm going to just throw up a number. Let's say you can get a house right now at 7% okay, and if you love that house, it's a couple years from now, even you can refinance in six months to a year, depending on your lender. So you can go back and say, hey, look, I want to refinance this house, and you, you will have equity in that house, and you will have a lower monthly payment. So the time, let me ask you. Let me tell you this, the time is never perfect. The time is always depending on the buyer.
Speaker 2 29:35
And I'm glad you mentioned this. You talking about the time is not perfect, and this is a huge, huge, huge misconception in the market right now. So back in covid, Anthony, we had low interest rates. Like, and this is no joke. My lowest one, I logged in back in like, 20. Was it 2020? 2120 22 area was 1.99% like, that's freaking crazy, right? So we've said all that to say, like everybody since then has been in this. Mindset, that's where rates should be, and that's not where rates really is, and historically has been. We're now seeing rates come start to come out under that 6% mark of depending on your credit and different factors and stuff like that, which is, is set to where, where I think, I think, you know, between five and 6% if you can buy a house, that's great. And some buyers are saying, like, that's just too high. But let me say this rates the feds are meeting. There's a lot of stuff, and not nothing to do politics here, but there's a lot of stuff that's moving within the United States, the Federal Government, housing, housing programs coming out, and as we look forward, all the economies are saying, like, the rates are going to start decreasing. The market store will start adjusting down. So what does that mean? Anthony Jerome. Jerome can probably tell you exactly what it means. It means if you buy now, even if you're at the higher rate, a lot of people says, well, let's just wait, right? Let's just wait. We'll wait till the rates come down. But what happens? What happens at that point when the rates come down, that means not only you, but 10 plus more people that the houses you find is going to be putting offers on that house, right? So what does that do? That in returns, drives that rate up? I mean, not the rate up the price of so yes, you're getting a lower rate, but once the price goes up, is the multiple offers, you're gonna be actually paying more at that point than you'd be paying right now. So it's always the I wrote down the thing here, Mayor, the house date, the rate. You can always get read of the date, but you mayor that house, and in six months, when the rates do go down, you're not in multiple offer situations. You got your house and you can refinance that house and get your lower rate. And guess what? Refinance, there's no down payment to it. There's no down payment. You pay some closing costs because there's not a down payment. So if you had to put a down payment down originally, there's not gonna be one on a refinance, which is great. So don't have that misconception. If anybody's listening this podcast here, don't have that misconception that that you can't go ahead and buy because of interest rates. Go ahead and buy now and then, then, um, get rid of the Get rid of the rate a little bit later and you're not in multiple offer situation, or are overpaying for the house. We've seen a lot of people overpay for some housing in in the covid because their rate was so cheap. Now they got a really good rate, but, you know, I will say overpaid for the house, you know, with accumulated value over the years. Of course, since then, substantial value, but they, you know, at that time, some people was paying over market value, over the appraisal price. I even had that to get into those houses.
Speaker 3 32:18
So actually, what Brandon was saying, Would you rather be in competition with two people or 100 people? Because once you get in competition with 100 people, you're going to drive the price of that house, I mean, substantially. So I would rather just be just if the rate is six and 7% I will. I would just bite the bullet on that right kind
Speaker 1 32:41
of bringing all this together. I do want to brag on I'm not even saying this as like a as a pitch, but, like I said, I got my realtor's license about a year ago, and we're my next question was going to be, you know, if you're looking for a realtor, what was a what was something you would be looking for in that realtor? And I just want to say everybody has been super helpful. And something we have sales meeting every Tuesday at 830 and something we really drive home is we always put the client first. Client first. Whether it's a $40,000 you know, lot, or a $400,000 property, I feel like we're really good about doing our due diligence on all that. So with that being said, you guys can give a different answer. But you know, if you were going to pick a realtor, what would be one thing that you would look for
Speaker 3 33:21
someone that's concerned? Consistent, someone that will listen, and someone that will think of his client before himself.
Speaker 2 33:33
Yep, and I am going to answer your question, Anthony, but I do want to say that my view of that since I've been a realtor, has changed. Because even though I'm a realtor, I see there's always in every industry, there's good people and there's bad people, right? So I've seen the really good realtors, what said there's what sets those apart, right? And we've seen, I've seen some really bad realtors and what sets them apart, okay? And so my view has changed. That as a new buyer, you don't really know what you know, what you're getting into with an agent. I think what Jerome says is good and you know, and I appreciate you talking about the sales meeting stuff. And one thing we do at the office preach a lot is customer service. And even though, if we're wrong, like, you need to make sure that that agent can admit they're wrong or or they're able to be very transparent with you, like I am. I'm probably the when I say the most, I can't sleep at night if I know that I did some something wrong, right? I have a very guilty conscious personally, everybody knows me knows that about me, and I I'm going to even know if it costs me money, I'm going to do what's right, period, all right? And so that's, that's like, that's a non negotiable tool for the even for the agents in office, we're going to do what's right, even though it costs somebody money, we're going to do what's right, and making sure that agent has a good reputation is if they tell you what their word is, you know, making sure that that they stick to their word. And so I think to answer your question is consistently, and it's about picking the phone and making sure. Or text messages are great. Don't get me wrong, I will text you all day long. However, there are some things in life that you need to pick up the phone and call and that agent, your agent, needs to be available to take those phone calls on the weekends. Take those late at night. I'm not talking about, you know, midnight, okay? I'm talking about, you know, you know, after five at a normal job, you know, just be able to do that, right? And so I even when we talk about lenders and stuff, I always say, Look, this lender here, she'll, she'll, she'll call you after hours. Because a lot of people, I mean, they work all day in the day, and we have to be available when people was off, right, correct? And so I think, for an agent, is just just making sure that they have a good reputation. Look at reviews online, make sure they have good online presence. Because if they have a good online presence, they probably have a really good connection. Base from home, inspectors, appraisals, repairs, houses off market. They have those because they got really good online basis. It's just interview them. I mean, I think that's the biggest thing. And my personality, drones, personality, yours may not fit everybody's right? That's why there's a there's several different agents. So if you interview them, you're gonna immediately know if you can trust to somebody like that if you just interview them. So if you're so, the biggest advice I say is, you go on Zillow right now. You hit inquire. It's gonna send you to whoever's paying for that lead right now. I'm just gonna be honest with you, same word, ruler.com, so you don't just because it sends that person the lead. Don't mean you have to work with that person. So just say, Hey, before we go this house, do you mind if we sit down and just have a conversation and talk?
Speaker 1 36:27
Because really, do your research, get to know us. I mean, we'll go eat lunch with you. You know, we love to eat one more question, and then we'll kind of, we'll kind of get into the outro and wrap it up. But I don't want to sound redundant, but I just want to drive these points home. But these points home. So I'll give each of you a question. I'll let you take the buyer and you take the seller, Brandon, but if you had one thing to tell a buyer, if they wanted to start looking tomorrow, what would that be?
Speaker 4 36:55
You want to short us or long? You can go you can go medium. Okay. All right.
Speaker 3 37:02
All right, I'm approved. Mr. Buyer, you approve for next amount. Now do not go and purchase anything. Do not get anyone to pull your credit and make sure you don't change jobs that is detrimental to this loan?
Speaker 2 37:24
Yeah, I agree. On this other side. You've got so many sellers. They Zillow, merler.com, has made it so easy for people just to put stuff on the market, right? But what they don't know, even Pacifica about air area and Anthony, you may know this, I know Jerome does, is our MLS does not release like sole data to the public. So the sole data on the Zillow the only people only how they really get that. So date on Zillow is a, is the agent manually puts that in, or B, if it's for sale by owner, and it's and they'll ask the question, did it, you know what? It's so far, and stuff. But sometimes those, those soap prices, don't a lot of times they're not extremely accurate on the low so you have the Zestimate stuff. And so the seller in this area now, other markets are completely different. With sole data in this area, they look at the Zestimate, or they look at the think, really.com, every site's got their own evaluation model, right? So I'm not knocking those evaluation models whatsoever, and if you want to use those, that's fine. But what I am saying, for maximum experience and for this area, is they're not accurate. A lot of times. Some markets they are. This market is just the simple fact they're not accurate. And so the seller could be losing money by listing it less, because it's all computer based bottle and and an agent is going to physically pan handpick those comparable data and look at your houses, the condition of the houses, and make sure you're getting the highest, best price for it. In return of that you could be listing it way too high. Sets on the market 180 200 days. And then, then it, then you're having to lower it down below, with the market value even on a brain, because it's been sitting on the market, staggering somebody saying something wrong with it, never something wrong with it. So just, I mean, yes, realtors will get paid. Everybody gets paid. But just take the time out. And don't have enough. Have just have that little bit of like you want the most for your house, and we want the most for your house too. Just contact an agent, ask them for a free market they don't charge you, you know, they don't charge anything. They don't charge anything they don't charge anything for a free market analysis. So just let them come out, do a market analysis and get the get the price. Like, I'm gonna say it
Speaker 1 39:26
works out in 100% of cases, but I feel like a lot of times, you know, even if the money's tight, we have ways to work around that. You know, we've talked about everything being negotiable. We can negotiate, you know, the price on a lot of different things. So I just think it's really, do your due diligence, look into that. With that being said, this been awesome, guys. I appreciate you guys coming on. We got some more stuff coming up, but I wanted y'all to be on to kind of really hit a brief overview, because I know you are the experts. Again, it's Brandon Jerome, brokers from cry like, I'm Anthony, I'm a realtor at cry like as well. Up next we will have a lender coming on. Woman. We will introduce her in the next podcast. Also, huge shout out to Josh and everybody at Kathy Shelley, do you need to record? Record anything? Podcast? If you need a place to practice your instruments, they do all kinds of different lessons. Can't say enough about them. So you you.