Real Estate Show Guy Giles and Hayden Homes

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Real Estate Show - Guy Giles and Hayden Homes

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, hello, Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the real estate show. So glad you could join us again today. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in Southern Oregon with John L. Scott real estate. I'm your host of the real estate show. And this week we are so excited to have Guy Giles our in house lender from Churchill mortgage back on today. He's gonna talk about some of the things that happened in the last month or so in the lending world. And it was a big month, wasn't it? So Guy comes on every month to give us our lending update and he's gonna have quite a lot to say I know. And he is also bringing with him some of the representative team from Hayden homes.

If you don't know Hayden homes, they are one of the local builders. They're from Oregon. They've been around quite a while and they have a really amazing, not only a new construction, really nice, nice home that they produce, but they also have a really amazing business proposition that helps the community that they build in.

So you wanna stay tuned for that? New construction, we don't have as much [00:01:00] of it as some of the big cities, but what we do have, we're very proud of. And so we're happy to have Hayden home on the show today with Guy Gil. So speaking of what's going on in our local market, let's talk about what happened this week.

We still have more listings coming on the market. In fact, John L. Scott did a special presentation to all of the agents talking about how many more homes there are listed this time this year as there was this time last year. And it's quite substantial. So that's really exciting. And you know, one of the wonderful side effects of that, that people forget is these are folks that may have wanted to move since before the pandemic shutdown.

And why are they choosing now? It's not all gloom and doom cuz you know what a lot of these folks are feeling comfortable putting their home on the market, because guess what they have a place to go. There's more choices now, now that everybody's started with their house on the market, there's more choices.

It makes it easier for people to say, you know what? I [00:02:00] wanted to move a couple of years ago and I didn't cuz the world was so weird who would, who would guess the world was gonna get weirder, but here we are. And you know what people still wanna move. So yeah, I know there's a lot of bad news going on, but I really want to point out that right now people are starting to sell their home, buy another place. They're upsizing, they're downsizing. They're getting investment property and they're getting second homes. And Southern Oregon has an awful lot to offer in that second home department. So yay for us. It's not all bad news. So stay tuned for the show.

We've gotta take a quick break with a word from our sponsors. We're so grateful to John L. Scott here in Ashland and Medford to Guy Giles of Churchill mortgage and to the local Rogue Valley Association, Realtors will be right back. Don't touch that dial.

Well, hello, Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the real estate show so glad you could join us today. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in beautiful Southern Oregon with [00:03:00] John Scott real estate. And today we have our monthly update from our in-house slender Guy, Giles of Churchill Mortgage. Welcome Guy.

Guy Giles: Hey, thanks. If people have trouble saying Guy Giles together.

Alice Lema: I , that was me. Oh, sorry. I've only known you for years.

Guy Giles: No, I'm glad to be back. I mean, at least, at least now we're starting to see a little bit of relief in the rates, which is kind of nice for a change. I think we've been going up pretty much since, since November. So we've seen a little bit of pull back here and there, but, but now this is, this is kind of nice that we talk to people that.

I've been in communication with, and one of 'em literally made the difference intending to buy a house or not, I spent that day. So hopefully that trend will continue a little bit. I don't think we're outta the woods yet, but one thing that we have been doing a lot of lately know, we lost what? 3,500 houses in our fire down here.

We, I have a group here that I've been doing a lot of business with that builds some really nice new houses, Hayden homes. So I gotta [00:04:00] bring them on and they can talk little bit about, you know, it's going on out there in the, in the building world. Cause you know, sometimes it's just nice to have a new house and not worry when the storm comes through that the roofs gonna come undone or your heater's gonna go out.

And I think that's just one of the biggest things that's been really nice about closing a lot of these new homes, just just the comfort. A couple of 'em on here, so it's a little new to have five of us on, but we'll do the best we can.

Alice Lema: Well, and we're so excited to have Hayden homes on today. We have Chelsea Matthews from the marketing department, Mark Keating from the sales and Jeffrey Atton from the community. And I'm a fan of Hayden Holmes. Worked with you guys off and on over the years, let's start who, who would like to start you know, some of our listeners are not familiar with Hayden homes who would like to talk about kind of where Hayden started.

Chelsea Matthews: Yeah. I can take that. So Hayden homes. Yeah. Hayden homes was [00:05:00] established in Redmond, Oregon in 1989. And slowly grew and have been building, you know, we've built over 20,000 new homes to price conscious value driven home buyers. And we're primarily in the underserved secondary markets throughout Oregon, Washington Idaho and now Montana.

We recently have gone into Montana. And we've been building in the Medford area since 2013. We've built over 400 homes so far down in the Southern Oregon area. And what started off as a little, little town home builder has really grown into being, we're now the largest private home builder in the Pacific Northwest.

Alice Lema: Wow. Wow.

Guy Giles: I didn't even know that. That's pretty cool. And that's yeah.

Alice Lema: Well, and one of the really amazing things about doing business with Hayden Homes and maybe Jeffrey you might wanna address this, is how Hayden homes puts back into the community.

Jeffrey Addington: Yeah, we really do. We put back through the, the, the community for, with our [00:06:00] first story charity. Chelsea is actually really versed in that, but it is a, it is a beautiful thing. All the, all the, the charity dollars that are given, are redistributed in our local community. So it is a pretty, it is a pretty cool thing.

Chelsea Matthews: Yeah. From, from the beginning, I mean, the spirit of generosity has really been instilled in all of our team members and throughout the community also. We, we're passionate about investing in the communities in which we build, and we're grateful to be a part of the Medford community. We've been honored and proud to support various nonprofits throughout the I five. And you know, one specifically in the Medford area, Casa Access the children's advocacy center of Jackson county.

And every time that somebody chooses to purchase a Hayden home, they are providing a family, the opportunity for home ownership without government assistance and putting and changing the trajectory of family by breaking that cycle of poverty. And what I really mean by that is that there's a charitable covenant in our [00:07:00] contracts.

And First Story was thoughtfully planned with a sustainable funding source to ensure that the good nonprofit would continue in perpetuity. So every time somebody purchases a Hayden home, one eighth of 1% of the sales price is then generously donated to First Story each time that home is sold. So right now we're looking, you know, about 450 to $500,000.

That donation is about 500 to $575 depending on the home purchase. And that charitable donation is given in the name of the buyer. So Hayden homes puts that donation in the name of the buyer. And then when that buyer decides to sell their home, that charitable covenant is always in the contract. So it goes forward in perpetuity.

And so it's a never ending cycle and the donation's made on every home sale. They go back to the nonprofits in the same county in which the home was sold.

Alice Lema: And it's not really a lot of money. And I remember the first time I worked with Hayden that, that was a surprise cuz we [00:08:00] didn't know it. And then to find out it's deeded and it goes into the property permanently and it gets recycled over and over again. And it really, it really isn't much. How much would it be? Let's say on a $400,000 home.

Jeffrey Addington: It would be 500, $500.

Alice Lema: Yeah. So that's really a minuscule amount and it's automatic. So, but it really adds up to the people who benefit from that charity.

Guy Giles: Yeah, sure. If you just did the, on that over 10,000, hopefully thousand, not that here, that's about 10 million like dollars. I'm a math guy, so I can't help. When I hear something like that, I, every time I turn around, I go to a fundraiser. I go to something Hayden, sponsored it, and it's just, it seems to me like they really are vested in the community and that's, what's important. Yeah. I, well, for obvious reasons, you know, we're a, we're a small, small town here. And, you know, it was just kind of a cool thing, cuz like I said, I see their name everywhere.

Alice Lema: [00:09:00] Yeah. So let's talk to Mark about sales. How, how are things going with you and, and the I five and Hayden homes with the interest rates and the weird, weird economy.

Mark Keating: Yeah. There's definitely, it is weird. Weird's probably the best word for it right now. Honestly, there's been lots of changes, lots of ups and down. Honestly, this is the part that we're good at is Hayden homes is just fantastic at, riding through the low points, at excelling during the high points and meeting everywhere in the middle.

You know, we've seen definitely some challenges and we've seen a lot of people who have you know, maybe had some fears about the weird market. And you know, one of the best things that we can do is to partner with trusted lender, Guy, just having somebody who's an expert and who can really explain, you know, there's, there's really something for everybody that you can do out there depending on what your financial needs are.

So the best time is, is always gonna be now. And having those resources like Guy to be able to back that up is really helpful. Especially when you have customers who either aren't super well versed on those things. You know, they're really just looking for the home. Aren't super familiar with all the [00:10:00] financing details or if it's just, you know, someone who's, maybe this is their, their fifth home that they're buying, or it's an investment. The lenders have been great partners in helping with that kind of thing.

Alice Lema: So are the Hayden home projects allowed to be rentals? Like, can somebody buy them as an investment?

Jeffrey Addington: They can, they can buy them as an investment. We do try to keep them within limit, so we don't ever want it to be more than, you know, 20 to 25% of them to be rentals. But we do offer them as rentals, not short term rentals, however.

Alice Lema: Right, right. But yeah, cuz we do have a, a rental shortage as well, but not all subdivisions, you know, have that option. Yeah. So Mark, going back to what you were speaking to, what, what was the reaction from your buyers to the huge sudden interest rate increase?

Mark Keating: Really it's affordability. They really wanna know number one, how are my monthly payments changing? And is this still gonna be affordable? And so that's where [00:11:00] you know, we usually tell people that, you know, we're, we're well versed in, in the financial aspect of things, but the real mortgage expert would be someone like Guy.

So, you know, getting them in touch with this third party and saying, hey, this is a great resource that you can use to figure out how has my monthly payment possibly changed. And if it has, are there ways to either reduce it to where it was at before with some of the, we have a really great limited time offer that we have right now, it's called summer savings program.

That gives you the ability to use some of that money towards buying down your interest rate. You can use it towards closing costs, so that's cash in your pocket. So there's, everyone has a different situation, whether it's, you know, I want a lower monthly payment or I want more cash in hand. I got a new, big screen TV or a new couch I have to buy. So there's always something, but it's, it's figuring out what they need and then just adjusting based on that.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's interesting. So Guy, how does that work? When you know, somebody wants to, to buy a brand new home and they come to you. Cause new construction is different, isn't it?

Guy Giles: Yeah. Well, one way we've kinda used it in the past and [00:12:00] it's, it's funny. Jeff and I first started having this conversation and, and they'd already had this, this summer, this, this limited offering for a little while. We actually used it to buy down some of rate recently that was and do a nine month lock and just, it covered pretty much the whole cost for everything and got them into a house.

So we, we did that along with our, you know, kind of our long locking program. So. I think anybody that's in the business, doesn't anticipate at some point in the next eight months, six months for rates to drop down again, just, just kind of a cycle with the fed that I can get into but you know, if, if the rates are lower at that point, we can float 'em down to that rate.

Then we don't have to charge anything extra, but at least they're kind of buffered. And every time you get on, you know, turn on the news and somebody talks about inflation, you're not worried that piece going up at all and again, being in a new house and you're not having to budget for, you know, again, heating system going on or new paint on the outside, you have a brand new, nicely built [00:13:00] house that you know, is ready to go for a lot of years.

So you can, you can just kind of again, buffer yourself against the inflation and, and just the cost. And I think just to have a clear example of what you're getting into in the beginning, there's a whole lot of comfort in that too. So anyway, it's, that's how I've used it basically, to, to kind of buy down rate a little bit, which, which helped you know, in the next segment, we can talk a little bit about, you know, even in this challenging market with rates going up a little bit, how, in some ways it's actually better.

It's not just a tease event. It, it literally can translate to something better than what we were doing before.

Alice Lema: So did I hear you correctly that you were thinking that interest rates might go down?

Guy Giles: They will, they will. The Fed's got a very well, we have a really kind of a weird fed right now. Hasn't actually helped, so it's a little bit of a unique situation, but they right. Now, they're just putting bullets back in there for lack of a better word. You know, they've bought about [00:14:00] $9 trillion worth of mortgage back securities. So they have quite a bit between selling that off and just basic inflation. You know, people have been a little bit more reluctant to get into something for 30 years. So the rates have been going up.

What 'll happens after we get thrown into this recession for a couple quarters. And so it'll start dropping down the rates. So it'll start pumping some money back into the mortgage back securities. At that point, we had a system rate getting, getting better.

Alice Lema: Well, that would be stellar, wouldn't it folks!

Guy Giles: Oh yeah. It's a very predictable pattern over, over the last seven years. So I can come up with some graphs so we can show at least on YouTube part of those.

Alice Lema: Yeah. So we have a break coming up, but we have a, a couple of seconds. Mark, I wanted to just ask you when people come in and talk to you about purchasing a Hayden home, how long does it take for them to actually get one built?

Mark Keating: That's a great question. Yeah. You know, typically the cycle time we call it from say, start to finish. So Alice, you come in, you meet with Jeff today and you're ready to, to [00:15:00] buy a home. You'd be looking at about six months from start to finish before we hand over the keys .

Alice Lema: Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Well, we've got a lot more questions. We're talking to Guy Giles of Churchill Mortgage and Hayden Homes, Jeffrey Addington from community, Chelsea Matthews, marketing and Mark Keating from sales. So please stay tuned. We've got lots more great information about Hayden Homes. So don't touch that dial. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors.

Well, hi again, everybody. Alice Lema here, broker John L. Scott, Southern Oregon here talking to Hayden homes and guide Giles from Churchill mortgage. We're so happy to have the crew from Hayden Homes. We've got Jeff Addington who's sales and community. We've got Chelsea Matthews from marketing and Mark Keating from sales management.

And right before the break, we were talking a little bit about the building process and how long it takes. But Jeff what happens if someone comes running into your office and they just can't wait. They can't wait to get a home.

Jeffrey Addington: You know, usually [00:16:00] usually the vast majority we have are gonna take about six months out.

But the time right now we actually have some really good opportunities where we have some homes that are gonna be finishing up end of summer. I actually have a home that's gonna be finished in 45 days. So there are some good options there as well for, for people that need to get in quickly and, and, you know, be able to lock the rates immediate.

Alice Lema: Wow. That's awesome. So 45 days, that's about an escrow. Like that's about how long it would take to close on a house.

Jeffrey Addington: Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's the great thing is you can get a brand new home. Oftentimes the, a little bit of the trade off is you have to wait longer for a new home. There's a lot of benefits with the new home, obviously with the warranty you know, with being able to, you know, have everything brand new and not have to not have to fix anything as soon as you move in, just like guy talked about before. So often the trade off is you have to wait a little bit longer right now we do have those opportunities where you can get right in within that 45 day time period.

Alice Lema: Wow. That's amazing. And [00:17:00] when I drive by the subdivisions that you're creating, they're not only beautiful, but they're easy to get in and out of. Can you speak to any of the planning and organizing that you guys do?

Jeffrey Addington: So, yeah, I mean, for the most part, yeah, we're always gonna have multiple exit exits going out. You know, we, our larger community is gonna have three or four exits going out. We do have we're building in Delta Estates. That's like a 350 home community.

Alice Lema: Wow. Where, where is that?

Jeffrey Addington: That's right off of well, it's off of Springbrook. We're off of Owen. So if you go down. Oh, okay. Yeah. And it's, it's nestled back there. It's a, it's a really awesome community. We're gonna be having, we have about a hundred more left there and you know, great views of Roxanne.

It's just, it's a really cool place to be. It feels a little bit off the beaten path, kind of out of town. In fact, a lot of people that live there. Have told me that they didn't even know it was there because it's kinda stepped back. So it's a really it's a really cool place to be.

The other community that we have going right now, we only have about six [00:18:00] home sites left there. It's a 22 home site community Carrera Hills. And that's gonna be right over by Donahue front Meyer park. Yeah. And that's another great location as well. So yeah, we got a lot going on in, in Medford and we're looking for more, if you, if you know any.

Alice Lema: You mean you want more land?

Jeffrey Addington: Yeah, yeah. We can do more land.

Alice Lema: Okay. You hear that? Listeners, anybody have large, lots to sell. Hayden wants to talk to you. so going back to the actual sales portion, have you, how many of your clients that purchase in Medford. How many are from the area? Cause I get asked this all the time. Yeah. You know, for new construction, who's moving in here. And are they locals or did they come from out of the state?

Jeffrey Addington: I would say, I mean, really we have a really good mix. Chelsea might have a bird's eye view of it, but I would say. It's almost 50, 50, probably 60% from Oregon and 40% from, from other places.

 Surprisingly, and I don't know why this is, but the majority of the people that I get if I [00:19:00] was looking at one destination, it would be Sacramento, California. I don't know why. I see so many people coming from Sacramento. But yeah, it's,

Chelsea Matthews: I was just about to say that. So we, we do all sorts of digital tracking on our website and Sacramento is definitely the number one place in the, the California area that we're seeing folks coming from. And the Bay area also. Yes. We're seeing people from the bay area wanting to come up because the weather's so similar to certain parts of California. Yeah. And homes are a lot less than they are in California.

Recently we have seen a few people from like Colorado and Arizona. But Jeff hit it right on the head is about 50% is, is still local, which is great because that's who we're really, you know, we're wanting to build affordable homes for people in the underserved secondary markets. And so we definitely love to still see the local community purchasing versus, you know, all the Californians.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm well, and there's nothing like a brand new home. Oh my [00:20:00] gosh. So so when someone is purchasing a home, how much influence do they get over the floor? Plan, the materials, the size, you know, how does all that work when you're purchasing from Hayden?

Jeffrey Addington: So really the nice thing is we, we're not a custom builder. We don't say we're a custom builder, but the beautiful thing, especially if you're building, we call presale, is you do have the, you have the choice of home site. You have the choice of plan and you have the choice of all the different amenities that go within that if you want. And so so, depending on which cabinets you want or which countertops or those type things we can, we can make all those selections right at contract. So, and then it gives you the flexibility too. So if you are trying to get into a certain price point, you know, you don't have to take the fireplace if you don't wanna fireplace. So, you know, you can, so you can. You can kind of get into a budget that you're looking to get what into by, by selecting those different features.

Alice Lema: Oh, that's awesome. So you get a little bit of influence either [00:21:00] direction. Yes. Wow. That's great. A lot of builders don't do that. They say this is it. Take it or leave it yeah.

Jeffrey Addington: If you don't want a fireplace too bad, you have a fireplace and you're paying for it. Yeah. So us, yeah, that, that choice is really, really an important factor of who we are.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm and how many what's the ratio of single story to two story.

Jeffrey Addington: That, you know, that is an interesting question. And it has changed since the pandemic you know, originally has it really, it really has originally we were a single story kind of development.

We try, you know, we, we worked hard to sell those two story homes, but they, they were, they were a little bit harder to move. At as of late people wanting more space.. People wanting, you know, the, the zoom rooms or, you know, that extra space . Even, even even more so what I've been noticing is multigenerational living is a thing. I've been, you know, the last, probably seven homes that I've sold, maybe five of them have been multigenerational setups.

And the nice thing [00:22:00] is we have floor plans. We are you know, 2,400 or 3000 square feet plans that actually have dual master setups. So they're really they're really nice setup to be able to, to offer, you know, people that have multi, multiple generations living in one home.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm . And since you're such a large outfit, Hayden home, such a big company Chelsea, you mentioned that you were tracking some of the data. So did Hayden decide to start adding larger floor plans and multiple.

Chelsea Matthews: So we, we have about 42 home plans that we can choose from with any given community that we have. And usually we try to have anywhere from five to seven home plans in each community that we build. And so some of the home plans that we have already had, like main level master. Or main level living and then upper junior suite or the option to do two dual main suites. And it's really easy for us to add those into a community. So for [00:23:00] instance, with our Carerra Hills community off of Springbrook, that only had four home plans in there. And there were two single story, two multi-story and then we noticed this multi-generational families coming in and needing, needing more space needing multiple main, main suites.

And so we added in the stone Ridge Encore, which is almost 2,500 square feet and they have the option to either do a loft, playroom on one side of the house that, convert that into a junior suite, which we, that has a walkin closet and a big living sleeping area and an on suite bathroom with the vanity, the toilet and the tub shower setup.

So it's really been easy for us to be able to add those in, as we see the market shifting it's something that we can easily add and with the, the way that the market is right now and the shift in the market, we're also leaning on the other side too. How can we bring, bring in more affordability and bring in maybe introducing smaller square footage plans [00:24:00] and seeing if that brings in, you know, those more first time home buyers and just to have another product offering that's more affordable for those first time home buyers.

Alice Lema: Well, and I think that's very sensitive of. Hayden homes as a corporation. And again, just your sheer size allows you to be more nimble and more accurate with your data collection. You know, people complain about, you know, the data collection, but here is good data being put to good use. Right. And I think that it just speaks so highly of Hayden homes. So that brings another question to Guy, as a lender, if somebody goes into escrow on a new construction project, and then they start changing things halfway through, how does that affect the financing or does it.

Guy Giles: Well, it, it hasn't really been an issue with us because you're, you're really looking at, at them appraising, appraising the house. So, I mean, obviously if you're, if you're doing something that's, that's so outlandish, you know, that, that doesn't really compare to anything else around you, going into trouble that just doing some modifications [00:25:00] and additions. We've had no trouble where I don't think ever with Hayden home appraising at all, because they do try to do this kinda the, the, the, I, I don't wanna call it the Costco approach. But you go in and it's really, it's what 90% of the people want is what is what they're building.

 And and it feels better for everybody, so it's gonna comp out really well with other houses. And plus they generate their own comps. It's kinda like making their own weather in there cause they build some of the houses, but they're just, they're just, I don't know, just ones that kind of fit, fit everybody. And we had, we got no trouble at all, as far as them doing any, any kind of issues or anything like that to the houses.

Alice Lema: Well, and that's a really good point. If they're creating homes that appeal to the majority of the buyers out there, then the risk to the lender is like nothing really.

Guy Giles: The next, the next thing is they're always thinking ahead. I mean, I've been dealing with, I don't even know how they long. Just now, when she's talking about a little bit smaller house, you know, [00:26:00] they're, they're analyzing things and they're, and they're doing things to, to look forward. So they don't really get caught behind that, something that is not gonna appraise because they're just they're forward thinking in every way.

Alice Lema: So how do you lock in a rate when you have a three to six month project? How does that work?

Guy Giles: We just do it right off the contract and, and we just, we just do an extra long lock. You know, it costs a little bit more to have an extra lock cause we who knows gonna happen with rates.

I do think probably on some of these long locks, by the time this thing happens, we're gonna be pleasantly surprising to people with rates are actually lower than, than they're locking into. Right. But it's, it's just like with anything, we talk about six months to build a house. I mean, it's pretty good ,six months to build a truck. You walk down and try to order a new car and then you go buy an asset that's just depreciating the whole [00:27:00] time. You know, it's just, I don't know. I mean, the rates going, you know, upward down the general direction, they're gonna go, people are gonna need a place to live. So I think it's just always a good investment to, to do that buffer yourself. Just all the rising costs of rents. I think they average about 7% . Probably lot more than that with the buyers that we've had. But it's just, I don't know. It's kind just works out. We just, we just lock 'em in and there's, it's not a whole lot to it. then if rates are lower, we give them the lower. Look, I'm the guy that's been on the radio forever.

Jeffrey Addington: But I do think that's a, I think that's a key point what Guy is making is you. You know what your, your limit is gonna be with like, okay, this is the payment, but if rates are lower in six months, then you get that free float down. So it's, it's it's a pretty cool option there.

Alice Lema: Yep. And we've got a quick break coming up. We're talking to you Guy Giles, Churchill Mortgage, and Hayden homes. Do not touch that dial, we'll [00:28:00] be right back.

Well, Hey everybody. Welcome back to the real estate show. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in Southern Oregon with John Scott real estate. And we are having a fabulous conversation with the crew from Hayden homes. One of our local new construction home builders. We've got Jeff Addington, who is the local salesperson, Chelsea Matthews of marketing and Mark Keating of the sales management. And of course Guy Giles our local in-house lender here today from Churchill Mortgage.

And right before we were switching into this segment, Mark, you were talking about, a lot of the questions you get asked are timing. What kind of questions are you getting from people about timing?

Mark Keating: Yeah. Thanks for asking that. A lot of people right now are asking us, you know, is it still a good time to buy a home?

You know, you guys are the experts. What do you think? Should we wait? Cuz maybe prices, they can't keep going up forever and maybe rates can come down and you know, there's always gonna be that question, even in the, the hottest markets and there will always be some uncertainty. [00:29:00] You know, I heard something from a financial advisor of mine that helped me a few years ago that's really stuck with me. Everyone probably on this team has heard me say it, or we can speak intelligently about it. But, you know, he basically said it's kinda like trying to time the stock market. I mean, you can try and get at that low point where you're at the best spot where you, you know, you won't avoid the higher point, but historically real estate is one of the safest investments you can make, especially building a new home. And so you're building instant equity as soon as you, you start going. And so there's, there may be slightly better times than others to buy, but in general what this, this person told me was, you know, when you've got the money, that's when you should do it, that's when you should invest in it.

You know, there's, there's always gonna be questions on your mind. And that's what, you know, people like Jeff are able to help with when you come visit the community. But once you're able to do it, you should go for it because you you'll usually see a return in the long run. And that's, what's really important to people.

Alice Lema: I totally agree. You know, trying to time things, even investors don't do that well. You know, and it's just, you need a home, you need a place to [00:30:00] live. So and who, who doesn't want a brand new house for goodness sakes?

Guy Giles: Even if you go back six months. I mean, think about the environment we were in. I meanyou know what, I mean, other than house price is going up, which is, which is a big factor. If you have four people going in and bidding for a house, next thing you know, you're 20, 30, $40,000 over where you started because you're bidding against everybody else. The rates might be lower, but think about how much time it would take to, to get that early $50,000 in equity.

Even if your house appraised and everything is good, you still pay 50,000 more than where that thing started. So having a little bit of a higher rate, isn't necessarily the worst timing in the world because now you're, you know, you're able to, well catch these guys in their, in their summer, you know, sale, as far as that, you know them talk about that afterwards, but you also are not bidding up against everybody.

And if you're paying just a little bit higher in rate, [00:31:00] again, you're gonna be a lot better off, you know, without waiting years and years and years for that thing to appreciate out, then you would, then you would be getting into a big, big war. A lot of ways right now is a really good time to, to jump in when it's not that kind of a frenzy.

Alice Lema: Right. Right. And the prices are coming down, at least in the, what we call the resale, the existing homes. What's going on with the prices in your subdivisions, if that was delicate enough.

Jeffrey Addington: Yeah so, so we we've actually been holding prices steady, but we do have the incentive that we talked about before the summer savings incentive.

And like I said, I haven't cleared this with marketing, but it is, I like to call it 10 K your way. So that's $10,000 anyway, that you would like to use it. If you wanted to use it off, you know, towards upgrade, you can do. If you want to buy down the rate, you can do that longer locks. So, so it is a pretty good situation.

Like I was saying, where, you know, before people were paying [00:32:00] $50,000 over asking price to get into a home, now you can actually get the $10,000 summer savings, put that toward the rate, get, get down lower. And so I, I do think that in that way it is a really good time to buy 10 K your way, and that can go toward closing.

Alice Lema: What else? Part of the house itself.

Chelsea Matthews: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But really the buyer can use it however they need it. What do you need the most and where will $10,000 help you the most, whether that's closing costs, upgrades, whether you, you know, you want that third car garage. And this 10,000 will help you get there locking the rate really whatever you need it for you.

Alice Lema: Can I go for countertops or tile showers?

Chelsea Matthews: Yeah. And you can split it too. So say maybe you only want $5,000 to go towards upgrades and you can use the other 5,000 to lock a rate or put towards closing costs.

Alice Lema: Wow. Wow. So you can use it to buy down a rate as well. Yeah. Wow.

Guy Giles: Going back what [00:33:00] Mark said about, you know, the, the perfect time or not, I bought this house up on Hillcrest years ago, $137,000 I thought, man, this is a bad time. Think we doing this right now. You know, I had every excuse in the world to maybe not buy that house. I did, and I owned it through the biggest crash. And now, you know, it's a $480,000 house. I don't say that to mean that I'm super wise. I say that to say that I was scared when I bought that house.

I didn't know if that was the right time. I didn't know, you know, if I could afford it, whatever, I've got a hundred of them for that price, knowing that I had it through some of the toughest years in the housing industry. And it's still, you know, whether it dips and goes up really fast or not, it is always on a trajectory where it's going up with value. Getting in is you really have to go. You just, you guys gotta do it.

Alice Lema: So, you know, what's so [00:34:00] interesting about that story Guy is I'm really curious, why did you go ahead and pull the trigger when you weren't sure if you could afford it when you weren't sure it was the right time. What made you decide to buy that house that many years ago? What was the tipping point?

Guy Giles: To be honest, it was a neighborhood that my wife and I used to drive around, like right outta high school. And it's like, someday we wanna live in this neighborhood. And it was the first house of everything within the neighborhood. So honestly, it wasn't like a well thought group plan. It was just, I, I don't know.

Alice Lema: But I think it helps for people to hear those stories because you know, we're all in the same boat when we're buying, we all have the same anxiety, even if you've purchased 39 homes in your lifetime, we still have those sleepless nights, you know, asking the same question. Should I do it? Should I do it now? Am I spending too much money?

Guy Giles: yeah. And you know, and then you definitely don't wanna go outside of what you can afford. And thankfully with the lending standards, the way they are right now, you really won't. You know, we can, we can work with you there instead say some different ways to [00:35:00] buy down rates with the money due, whatever.

But ultimately I think if you just look back, I don't think there's many people that would look back and say, now I wish that, you know, I'm really glad I didn't buy 10 years ago because it's just always something that's gonna be an asset for, for 20% of something. So you put a hundred thousand down on a $500,000 house instead of trying to get 42 cents in the bank by having a hundred thousand and then they have $500,000 growing over there, plus gives you place to be, I mean, really at the end of the day, we all have to have a place to go. So if the numbers work I think it's just a good time to be in your own house.

Alice Lema: And, but even if you don't have a hundred thousand dollars down can't you purchase a brand new Hayden for less of a percentage down.

Guy Giles: Absolutely. That was just the, kind of the first number that popped into my head.

Alice Lema: As far as that, for those of us who don't have a hundred thousand , what's the, what's the minimum. We've just got a few seconds left.

Guy Giles: If you're, if you're a first time home buyer, minimum is 3%, you know, [00:36:00] if you can get to at least 5%, it's gonna be kind of the best deal.

We have some actually grant programs and some different things that we can talk to about people also, but that'd be getting into the weeds probably a little further than you guys wanna do.

Alice Lema: Well. We're just gonna have to have you all back. This is really great. I love Hayden homes, Guy Giles, thank you for bringing them on. Guy Giles Churchill mortgage. We've got Jeffrey Addington who's our local Hayden homes rep. We've got Chelsea Matthews of marketing and Mark Keating from sales management. We will repeat this broadcast on Sunday. 6:00 PM. Have a beautiful Southern Oregon weekend. Bye folks.