Grace Townsley
January 28, 2022
Happy Friday (finally)!
This business can be tough sometimes. Wait, what are we saying? It’s tough ALL THE TIME! But that’s why we’re here to give you some much-needed inspiration, because even we could always use some of that.
Here’s a story about one of our recent sales: the sellers were having a rough time offloading their house. They’d gone through two listing agents before coming back to us. But they didn’t want to lower the price… they wanted to RAISE IT! Well, we were up for the task. We changed the marketing, cut down all the trees to open up the view, and… yada yada yada… we sold the house for even more than they had previously listed it for.
That goes to show that anything is possible when you have persistence, determination, and also good landscapers.
- David
In today’s work-from-anywhere environment, investors with an extra property or two available for short-term renting are cleaning up. In Q3, nearly 50% of nights booked through Airbnb were for stays of at least a week. A whopping 100,000 guests booked a stay for three months or more. And longer rentals mean greater profit. The average new host in 2021 received their first booking within four days and raked in $9,600 last year.
According to Airbnb, these are the most profitable areas where to list a stay:
There’s obviously a lot of money to be made in the short-term rental market. If your buyer wants to get into this space, we have three strong recommendations:
In typical years, the housing market follows a predictable cycle: interest rates rise and home sales level off. But the 2020s have been far from normal. We’re currently facing a shortage of 5.2M homes. And while builders are doing their best to catch up, home prices keep climbing, climbing, climbing.
What’s the cause of all this chaos? The short answer is… well, a lot of factors. Builders are still struggling to complete their projects, sellers don’t want to become buyers, and inventory has never been so low. Inman expects many of this year’s would-be buyers to get priced out of the market before rising interest rates start slowing price growth.
Right now, sales are happening faster than ever. Do everything you can to land as many listings as possible while homes are flying off the MLS. Grab a buddy and go door-knocking. Send your mailers. Check public records to see who bought low and stands to earn a major profit by selling now. Then go talk to them! We don’t know exactly how long this market will last. Make the most of every day!
On Wednesday, in a not-so-surprising turn of events, the Federal Reserve again suggested it could raise interest rates as soon as March. What does that mean for the real estate market? Well, it all has to do with bonds. To put it simply: when bond prices go up, mortgage interest rates go down, and vice versa. This is because mortgage lenders peg fixed interest rates to Treasury bond rates.
Right now, it looks like the Fed is going to raise rates, meaning bond values will go down and mortgage rates will go up.
As we predicted earlier this year, mortgage rates are going to rise because the Fed is going to increase interest rates throughout 2022 . As bond yields rise, expect mortgage rates to rise soon too. It’s not exactly science, but that's a good indicator of what’s to come.
The news that just missed the cut
Advice from James and David to win the day
Here are five factors to consider when picking a brokerage:
You asked, we answered!
Q: How do you get sellers to be more realistic with their asking price when they’re asking way over market value, have expired twice, and are now listed as for sale by owner?
A: Do several showings. Provide the seller with real, unfiltered buyer feedback. It’s hard to explain to an emotionally invested seller that they’re just priced too high. But if they hear unfiltered feedback they are more than likely to get the message.
What’s on your mind? Drop your own question here. We answer them every Friday.
Keep the latest industry data in your back pocket with today’s mortgage rates:
We can't believe the first month of 2022 is almost over. Where did the time go? Let's not talk about it, haha! Have a great weekend everybody and we will see you on Tuesday!
- James and David
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