Real Estate Show Lender End of Year Updates with Guy Giles

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Real Estate Show End of Year Lender Updates with Guy Giles

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, hey, there's Southern Oregon. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show. So, so glad you could join us for this last real estate radio show for 2022. This is our New Year's weekend episode, and it's gonna be great. We've got Guy Giles coming on in just a little bit. He he's with Mutual Mortgage. He's gonna answer some questions. I am gonna ask him about 2023, make some predictions. Love doing that this time of year. And also kind of unpack what happened to our little housing market here in southern Oregon for 2022. It's gonna be a great show, so hope you'll stay tuned.

In the meantime, I pulled some early numbers. for 2022 for all three counties. Just a reminder that MLS in a couple of weeks will publish the official 2022 numbers, but since we're already done with our business days, I thought I would grab some early results and run 'em by you and I think you'll be [00:01:00] surprised because all three counties made money in real estate, at least single family home residential real estate.

This year we've got 4% for Jackson County, Jackson County for 2021, the average price was 483,000. This year it's 5 0 7, 507,000. Average is the early, early number for Jackson County. We're up 4% in spite of everything, and that's the smallest gain we had in southern Oregon.

Josephine County. 5% from 2021. The average in 2021 in Josephine County was $436,000 per single family residential. It's up to four sixty two, four hundred and sixty 2000. Dollars is the average price. Early results for 2022. Josephine County.

Klamath County had the biggest gain. You know, they're doing a lot up there. Klamath County is 8% for 2022. In 2021, Klamath [00:02:00] County was averaging $295,000 per residential home. It's now averaging $321,000 per residential home what a year. In spite of all the price decreases and the volatility and the interest rates, homeowners made money in Southern Oregon, 4 to 8% those are the early numbers. Again, we'll have to wait for the MLS to publish their official reports in a couple weeks.

Well, there you go. Let's take a quick break and say thank you to our sponsors all year. We love you. Thank you Guy Giles mutual Mortgage. Local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors and our own John L. Scott, Ashland, medford. We appreciate you enormously. It's an educational program here. Listeners get a lot out of it, so thank you for your support. In the meantime, we're gonna take a quick break and be right back with Guy Giles. Don't go away.

Welcome back to The Real Estate Show. I'm Alice Lema, a broker, John L. Scott Real Estate here in beautiful Southern Oregon, and we're talking to Guy [00:03:00] Giles from Mutual Mortgage. One local lender also sponsors the show. So glad to have you back, guy.

Guy Giles: Hey, thanks. It's good to be back.

Alice Lema: So our last, oh, I'm sorry, , the last, last show of the year, and I'm so glad that it gets to be you because there's an awful lot that happened again.

Guy Giles: Yeah. Well I think finally, you know, we may not feel it at in the stores or places, but, you know, I think inflation, everybody's just kind of thinking that, you know, we may finally be turning that around a little bit.

As far as the Fed's been really aggressive, you know, I've never been quiet about, I wish they would've got aggressive a little earlier. But that said, they're morons, so it is what it is, . So anyway, but I think the, the ship's kind of turning around at least as far as the mortgage rates. You know, everybody's anticipating first quarter second quarter at the very latest.

The, that we're gonna see, you know, rates maybe down in the mid fours again. So I was trying to look up some Fannie Mae projections right before I got here, [00:04:00] and I didn't quite get 'em open, but the last time I heard that's what they were predicting.

Alice Lema: Well, and didn't they go down to the low sixes? Can we, can we talk about that? Yeah. Because I don't think everybody understands how big the swings have been.

Guy Giles: It has, I mean, just between, I was, was looking up some information just between, you know, housing not going up and maybe it just correcting a tiny bit, even though it is still 3.4% year over year. It's higher than what it was, you know, a year ago.

Sales all the way across the country, everything averaged $200 less a month, believe it or not, between the rates coming down a little bit. Wow. And that just the average payment, you know, so like I said, they're looking at everything, everywhere. But, you know, that's, that, that is significant as far as that goes.

And if you add that into, you know, maybe doing buy down, you know, having the seller instead of, you know, reducing their price, maybe pay for buying down your rate a little bit you can actually get, you know, not where we were, don't, don't [00:05:00] get me wrong. We're not there yet. But but definitely it's we, we've had some relief as far as that goes.

So you know, the, the other thing is though, there is still Credit, credit hits. So, you know, if you're thinking about buying a house, come in and see me. I don't charge anything to run credit scenarios. You know, the time to kind of work on that stuff is not when you're in the middle of a transaction.

It's, it's now. So if we can kind of get you ready, I can do this with a soft pull where I'm not, I'm not actually pulling your credit, you're not getting a credit hit on it, and we can basically qualify you from that. And I, I have a guy right now that owns a few restaurants in town and his credit's bad.

But getting it up just a tiny bit will actually save him about $4,500. It really was not that much to, you know, for him to tweak a little bit to get his score up and you know, that little ways like that kind of mitigate some of the issues we've had with everything going up lately. .

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. . Well, it's, you can feel it in the market when you're [00:06:00] out talking to buyers and sellers. There's a little more optimism and there's a little more confidence, I guess that would be the word. People are still worried, but they're not as worried as they were. They're still wanting to sell their house, buy the other house. And it's a good time to do that. The prices are still up.

That's the part, you know, the, the interest rates are down and. The prices are still up year over year from where they were. They're just off their highs. And it's just hard sometimes to explain that to people that we just don't see a big crash coming. No, but there's a lot of projections all across the board.

Guy Giles: We've, you know, I mean, I, I think the, the big difference in before and now is, We haven't done bad loans for a long, long time. I mean that it is nothing like the last time when everything crashed and everybody was doing what they call stated loans where you're just telling them, you know, telling your lender what you make. You know, it's you, you, [00:07:00] you are qualifying and or

Alice Lema: make up what you make . Yeah. That was what people were doing.

Cause you didn't have to show that you actually made money. You just had to say.

Guy Giles: Well, definitely. And if you had a six 80 credit score, there wasn't even a pricing hit for, for doing a stated loan back then. And why in the world would a W-2 employee ever need a stated loan? I mean, it's so,

Alice Lema: well, there's a good question because those are for

Guy Giles: for self-employed people.

And it was, it was, it was for good reason because, you know, I mean, if you, if you know, if you can write some things off and pay a little bit less in taxes, it doesn't mean you're not making money. And it was, it was designed for self-employed people and everybody just got really greedy and kind of opened it up for, for everybody and it was just, it was a time, I don't want to go back to, but, but it is definitely a different market right now and people still need houses. Even though it's not as low as what it once was I know that my first house, I paid more than where [00:08:00] rates are right now, and I'd go back and buy a hundred of 'em right now if I could.

Alice Lema: Yeah, the only we knew then .

Guy Giles: Well, yeah, and I think the biggest thing is rather than going and, and I see this daily now, instead of going in and bidding 30, $40,000 more for a house, just praying that you'll actually get it and then removing all contingencies and not, you know, I mean I've seen saw some pretty loose deals going in before this thing turned around a little bit, where you're just like, God, hope.

How's it even gonna appraise for this and mm-hmm. , you know, now it's, it's just more reasonable where, you know, sellers are coming in. They're not, they don't have expectations like they did before. Some of 'em probably still do, but they'll, they'll come around or they'll stay put. I guess would be the answer, but, Instead of paying way more for a house than, than what it's listed at now, you could actually pay less for it.

And when you look at the whole, the whole net, it takes a long time to make up 30, $40,000 that you [00:09:00] overpaid for a house. And I don't mean overpaid, cuz eventually it will catch up. But, but it's just, you know, it's, it's not as bad as, as it all looks. You know, if you, if you really take into consideration the whole picture right now, you might actually be able to get a deal on a house and have those sellers that are willing to bargain with you a little bit.

Alice Lema: Well, and just to be nice and I'm not saying that people were not nice before, but when you get in those frenzy market, like Lennox Scott likes to call it and. What you were saying, overpaying, not doing inspections and things like that. It creates some animosity in the transaction that we just don't have right now.

Because it's a more normal, neutral market. And that's not to say you still don't have to fight a little bit especially if it's a great, great house for a great price, but it it, I just look at this combination. It's just perfect. The prices are down, the interest rates are down, there's houses on the market.

And do you know that people are still listing their house even through the holidays? We're still getting [00:10:00] new listings on the market and some of them are really sweet.

Guy Giles: No, it's, it, it's cold and especially after everybody, you know, kinda gets to the first of the year and they wake up outta their Turkey coma or whatever, and it's yeah, it's time to time to go, you know, get on with my life. And really that's what we just have to do. I mean, to, to just stay in, in a rut. I mean, people move around for jobs. They have families, they do things and they're going to still be moving around. And you're right, right now is a good time to, you know, to just be there and it's just a math thing at the end, you know?

Let's just, let's just look at the thing and you know, I mean, if it get, get a good budget for you and just have your eyes open. You know, get hooked up with Alice as your real estate agent and just, I don't know, just, just be looking because that right one just might come along right now, and I've seen it a lot lately. We've put quite a few in contract where we really weren't doing it a few weeks ago like this.

Alice Lema: Here we go again. I mean, it was, remember how busy it was last year? Let's talk about that going [00:11:00] into last January. We were as busy as we usually are in the summer. It's, do you remember that?

Guy Giles: Oh, yeah.

I mean, honestly, I, I felt like that for, I felt like that, Seven years, eight years, up until about a month and a half ago, was about October or something, and everything just came to a screeching halt right then. And I, I mean, I, I had definitely felt that there was no, there was no no letting up for a long time.

So this, you know, is as scary as it as it is on the surface, it needed to happen. I mean, there's just too many young people out there working, trying to get into a house. That if, if that had kept on going like that, it would've just been unattainable for them. And you know, you don't wanna have to wait for mom or dad to die. So you have a little bit of money for a down payment. And I know it's morbid, but God, I'm like a Christmas cheer here, aren't I? anyway.

Alice Lema: But well, but we're, you know, real estate is life. [00:12:00] Life events do drive. So we're not, we're not being morbid, morbid, insensitive. We're just having a practical conversation and, you know, to, to be doing this radio show around the holidays, people are with their friends and family a lot, and it's a good time to have those conversations.

What are we gonna do at the house? What are we gonna do with mom or dad? You know, so-and-so got married, so-and-so got divorced.

Guy Giles: How cool would it be to have that grandkid around your year around just gift, gift the kiddos a little bit of money and you're not making anything on it in the bank right now. Anyway. There's some really good ways to get your family closer to you. So I don't have any grandkids yet. I can't wait, brittany . It's about time, but anyway, it is just, that's the one thing. This time of the year does kind of bring around, you know, the importance of family and, and that is by far the, the biggest reason that I see definitely people moving here, moving, you know, just doing, just getting closer to family because in the long [00:13:00] run that's what counts.

Alice Lema: Mm-hmm. Well, and you know, people joke that they come to southern Oregon for the holidays to visit and then, and then they stay. It happens so often. It really, really does.

Guy Giles: It is, and this is a rare place where you can just get all four seasons. I have two friends that bailed down to Texas and one to actually a third one went to Florida this week. And I was like, how could you go do that? You mean they moved both those states? No, they didn't move. They just went for, oh, they just

Alice Lema: went to visit

Guy Giles: I'm like, it may not be snow, but if we don't at least have some fog and some freezing cold, it just doesn't fill right. So, you know, a couple months we'll have the leaves back on the trees and there's, every spring here I'm just blown away. Thinking it couldn't get any prettier than last year. And it's just, it's a rare spot to be.

Alice Lema: Well, we're, we're really so lucky. We have what I call our own little private utopia, but now everybody knows about it. It was so interesting during the shutdown when [00:14:00] nobody was supposed to be moving or leaving their home.

We had all these people discover small town America, and we were on that list, and that's partly why. We got such an influx of relocation people. But also it was the, it was the remote worker. I mean that, that remote worker thing, this whole year has been a game changer for our real estate market.

Guy Giles: I've had a couple of people, I, I think we got the first exemption through Facebook to have one of their executives move here. And she was, she was cramped up in a little, Well, they had three kids. They, they lived across the street from a park that they were not even allowed to go to in the Bay Area, and she thought that she had it the greatest in the world.

They'd bus 'em in. They had massage people there on this big campus and it was just, it was really weird. But she actually got the first exemption to come. And anyway, they were just like, we're never gonna let everybody work remote. And they decided we're a lot of really good people if we don't let them work [00:15:00] remote. So, I dunno where it all landed, but we did get that one through.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Well, we're talking to Guy Giles of a mutual mortgage and we're gonna have to take a quick break so that we can have a sponsor announcement from Mutual Mortgage. So thank you so much for being part of the show all year. It's been great. We're gonna be back in just a quick minute. We're also brought to you by John L. Scott. Ashland and Medford and our local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors will be right back.

Well, hey everybody. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show. We're talking to Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage, our in-house lender, and we were talking about some of the changes since last year, but also some of the surprises because I remember last year at around this time, early 2022, we were trying to guess what was gonna happen. And I am, I was wrong on several of my predictions. My big one was I thought we were gonna have a much bigger [00:16:00] number of transactions. Because of the interest rate increases I was predicting there'd be a lot more listings. It would open up, you know, that whole clogged market stuff of not having enough houses. And we still are down in the number of properties we've sold in all three counties. However, we're up higher in the dollar amount.

Guy Giles: Yeah, it's I think we're still nationally like three, 3.3% over what it was last year.

Alice Lema: Okay. So everybodys still making money on their real estate.

Guy Giles: Yeah. I mean, media house price in here is in America, put everything together, it's still $371,000, which may not seem like a lot around here, but if you factor in, you know, Georgia and little places down in the south and you know, that just aren't as expensive as up here, that's not a bad average. Especially considering, like I said, that house that I bought for [00:17:00] $137,000 and I thought, man, I'm paying way over paying for this guy, years ago.

It was a long time ago, but they're definitely going up and people are, you know, starting to settle back in and, and maybe buy some investment properties too. We have some pretty cool tools where we're, look, we're showing people, you know, I mean, over time, you know, rents are still going up. They actually didn't go up quite as fast as they have been lately, but they're still, you know, if you're gonna pay somebody's mortgage, you're gonna pay yours or you're gonna pay somebody else's.

So, you know, if you have the means to do, it might not be a bad time to talk to Alice about investment property or you know, just just being in the game. Like I always say, I've done a lot of dumb things with money, but I've never really gone wrong with real estate.

Alice Lema: So Well and Mutual mutual mortgage has some, some nice ways to get investment property. And also do you, do you still have that bridge? Yeah, let's talk about that. Cuz you, you don't always have to sell something to buy [00:18:00] something and mutual mortgage can, can help with that.

Guy Giles: We do have a decent bridge loan. The funny part is, is I still don't actually do them. I mean, everybody thinks it's a great thing, but just, it seems like every time I get one right to where we're getting ready to do it, their house goes in escrow or something and people are a lot nicer these days about a lot of, which is kind of cool. But it, it's a great program and literally we got one accepted because of it. And then they actually, at the, at the last minute decided to keep their house and just do a refinance on their house there and pay cash for their one up here.

So you know, there's, there's a lot of different avenues that we can look at. I don't want to be that guy that when you come in with your idea, you know, it might be the right idea, but it might not be the right one. And we've, we've tried to troubleshoot these for years and years, just finding out what the best deal is for somebody and even though that is a good product and if you're gonna lose that dream house at the right price for it you know, you, you would definitely do the bridge loan, but [00:19:00] it can be a little bit more expensive. Not, not a lot, but you're, you're dealing with just, just a little bit more headaches.

And the funny part is, is as excited as I was to have this program, we still haven't done, really haven't done them. So it's, it's just kind of funny. I know there's other people in the company that have. But it's just kind of worked out with our markets to where there's has been a, a different option. But there, there are a lot of different things that we can, we can look at.

Alice Lema: So how does that work? Like what are the mechanics say I need to buy a house before I sell my house. Like what actually does the bridge loan do?

Guy Giles: Well, what it does is it uses the equity of the house that you have currently. So you're encumbering or doing a loan on both houses. So we'll, you know, if you have a house that you're selling in California, one thing when I had this program before, I could not do it across state lines. But actually can now, which is kind of cool.

So if you have somebody that maybe, you know, bought their house a long time ago in [00:20:00] California, this actually, this last one was in Davis and they actually didn't owe anything on it at all. So there's $900,000 of equity right there. So it actually, you're qualifying for both. If you have the, you know, your taxes and insurance and this, in this case, you, you still have to hit them with that liability. But you you just think, like I said, you encumber both. And then when your house sells you know, they don't say you have to do it in 30 days. There's just an expectation that, that you're going to, but that said, when your house sells, they will release that that piece off, and then pay this loan down to whatever you want to pay it down to.

And you're, you're going, but that way you're able to write a non contingent offer without you know, there's just a little bit more title fees and things like that because you are encumbering that other house. It's not cost-prohibitive.

Alice Lema: But, well, it can sure be convenient just for your lifestyle. It's complicated and hard to, have to time the moving out of this [00:21:00] one with its set of circumstances and moving into this one with that set of circumstances. You know, and God forbid somebody else is selling something, it just gets to be, so these bridge loans gosh, can really be a godsend.

Guy Giles: Yeah. I mean it's just, it's just another tool in our, in our belt. You know, recently just other things have worked out to where. We haven't , I'm sad to say I haven't even actually done one, but there's, you know, we're, from what I understand, the ones that go through are, are pretty smooth and I'm pretty familiar with the product and, you know, we, we just, again, we just try to look at, at the whole picture and just find out whatever's best for You know, for the person, and it is anyway, but it, it is there and ready to go if, if somebody needs it.

But people are accepting contingent ones lately, so it hasn't, I don't know. I think that's the main thing that we didn't end up doing one, but it also takes some of the pressure off if you, I. You know, if you wanna move. When I, when I moved five years ago, I can't believe it's been that long now, but I didn't sell my house.

I just, I kept it. So I took my time moving out of there and throwing stuff away and going through it and [00:22:00] getting it ready to rent. And it was nice not having those deadlines to just get everything done so it could actually, if it relieves the pressure, there's a lot of people, that's the most stressful thing is coordinate everything together. If that's a factor, then the bridge loan might be a, might be a good idea, and then you can sell your house at your own time and you're not in some kind of a rush to reduce your price or, you know, do something if it doesn't have to one

Alice Lema: Hey, that's that's such a good point. And even in a normalizing market or moderating or whatever you wanna call it, stabilizing. Boy, that sure gives you a lot of power if you have a pre-approval letter without a contingency but yeah, we are seeing a lot more sellers accept these contingent sale, just so that they can bridge the gap.

Guy Giles: May, maybe it's just the Christmas season, but definitely the sellers are a whole lot nicer right now.

Alice Lema: Feel a little more, more generous. So what other kinds of product [00:23:00] loan. Possibilities. Does Mutual Mortgage have.

Guy Giles: Well, one thing, and it's not, it's not exclusive to us, but they're, they're changing some, some rules around the home ready home possible. And what those are, they're first time home buyer programs, you could actually own it.

Alice Lema: Oh, they're bringing those back?

Guy Giles: Well, they've, they've been here. It's just the, the problem is the median income. You can't really make more than $65,000. In this area. And so, I mean, usually that doesn't buy you a house. So it's just been one of those things that that we haven't seen a lot of, but from what I understand, and we don't have the numbers yet, they're going to, they're gonna raise up the limits on those and get rid of a lot of the, what are called LLPAs or loan level pricing adjustments for those.

So I think that's gonna be a good first time home buyer product. Coming into the new year, they're Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have actually added a couple pricing hits for cash out refinances for next year. And once we have all of [00:24:00] those, all, I, I think it'd be worth taking a segment to to talk about what it is.

But, but they're doing away with some of them for some of the first time home buyer programs. And that's one thing that didn't go away during this. You know, during this kind of setback as far as the rates and, and just everything over the last few months, it's the first time home buyers have stayed strong.

They're, they're still out there buying and, you know, I think it's, it's more so the people that have something they have to sell that, you know, has slowed people down. You know, or they're getting out of 2.8%, you know rate and now staring, you know, what was a 7% rate, you know? So I think those people slow down, but the first time home buyers are still around and I think anything they can do to make that program more viable.

It's cool. You can have. You can have people help you co-sign for it. There's, it, it is just a program that I need to get into a little bit deeper you know, face-to-face with somebody. But I think that's gonna be kind of the push going into the new year, some of these first time home buyer programs.

Alice Lema: Yeah. And you and I have been talking about [00:25:00] doing like a little, a first time home buyer seminar or talk or something at one of the local restaurants. So, I mean, we jokingly call our working title is Pie and Pre-Approval. Yeah. So, but yeah, I think the first time home buyers are the ones that help the market move forward cuz they buy the starter homes and then the people that have the starter homes can buy up.

So yeah, there's certainly an important part of the market and gosh, we have so many tenants in southern Oregon and a lot of the landlords, at least in southern Oregon, Are not keeping their, their properties. So helping those folks get their own digs is super important.

Guy Giles: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and it just helps out everybody. I mean, there's, there's a lot of data showing that if you, if you own your own home, you, you tend to stay on your job longer. You're just, it's more stable. You're more vested in the community. And, and I, I think it could be good for the economy all the way around, [00:26:00] you know? Like I said, it's just a numbers thing, you know, we just sit down and talk and if the thing pencils out, you know, it might not be a bad time to start looking.

Alice Lema: So when you're talking to first time home buyers, what is their biggest obstacle?

Guy Giles: Well, depending on the person I mean the, the, the biggest one that's hard is if somebody has something that they've been renting for $1,100 a month and, you know, so that's, that's really scary going into, you know, a $2,300 payment.

So what we'll usually do is figure out, you know, about kind of where they want their budget to be and say it's four or $500 more than what they're paying right now. Have 'em pay themselves that while they're looking for a house. So, you know, a couple months into this while they're, you know, doing it, a they're saving money for one thing, which never hurts, and b it's a nice way to just kind of try it on where you're not really obligated yet.

Alice Lema: Yeah. See that is such a good idea. Yeah.

Guy Giles: Yeah. And so we, we've actually been doing that for a long time with people and they [00:27:00] might come back and say, you know what, that was easy. You know, we used to go out to dinner five times a week and now we don't. And not only is that $400 not a big deal, but we could actually look at, you know, maybe even going up a little bit in our purchase price, but it's just, it's scary to pull the bandaid off.

But I'm a big proponent of just, you know, let's just look at this thing. And, you know, a lot of times it's a, not as bad as it looks or b, you know, people are pleasantly surprised. Surprised if you put together a budget. It's almost like getting a raise cuz you know where every dollar is going.

Alice Lema: Yeah. Plus you have more, more down payment. We're talking to Guy Giles of Mutual Mortgage. Our in-house lender comes on the show once or twice a month to bring us up to speed of what's going on in the financial world. Just a reminder that this broadcast will be repeated again tomorrow. Six o'clock.

And also just a reminder that KC M X is moving exclusively to fm. 99.5. We're [00:28:00] on there already. But we're not gonna be on the AM eight 80 anymore, so don't touch that dial. We'll be right back.

Well, welcome back to the Real Estate Show folks. I'm Alice Lema, I'm a broker here in southern Oregon with John L. Scott. And we're talking today to Guy Giles of Mutual Mortgage our in-house lender. And right before the break we were just talking about how important the first time home buyers are. And a lot of us are gonna be doing some special things for 2023 to help people get ready cuz it's hard once you become a homeowner it's easy to keep that going.

But we were talking before the break about obstacles for first time home buyers and, and you mentioned they're scared to make a payment cuz their rent is low.

Guy Giles: Yeah, yeah. But, but it, it is amazing if you can, you know, I never had fancy cars when I was coming up, but it is amazing if you might even be able to get a pretty good price for your used car right now.

You know, maybe get into something that's a little bit cheaper there. I would just rather have my money in, in [00:29:00] an appreciating asset. Something that you can have tax write offs, something that's going up in value. Buffers you against buffers you against rents. You know, it's just, it's just a good move.

If, if, I mean, if, like I said, I always go back to if it pencils out because we want to look at the numbers and make sure you're ready. I don't want to ever put anybody in the house, you know, before they are. . But in order to get ready, sometimes you just need to have a conversation.

Alice Lema: How does that conversation sound? If somebody comes to you, they've never owned a house they don't know much about the process, where do you start the conversation with them?

Guy Giles: I, I generally start it with You know, depending if you're living with your mom, you know, I want them to understand that now you're gonna be paying your electric bill.

And so again, it just comes down to a budget. And so if, if they're really a first time home buyer, a lot of times I'll encourage them, you know, if they're really young, to bring in a family member, just an extra set of ears because lot to talk about and you know, maybe that person in your family has gone through this before and [00:30:00] there's no part of me that's ashamed to look them in the eye and tell them about my rates and fees because I'd go up against anybody with that stuff.

So I don't have anything to hide and I just assume, you know, get an extra set of ears on the thing and, and you know, they might have input also. Like I said, a lot of times that family member may have a story. Just like mine as far as when they bought their first house, they were scared and, you know it's just, it's just, just getting 'em prepared.

Just just letting them, you know, understand that, you know, you're, it is a little different if they're, well, you know, if the AC goes out, I mean, a lot of times you guys wanna negotiate a home warranty so people don't really have to worry about that stuff for a while. But, you know, it's just, it is just a little different level.

But I definitely don't ever miss turning in what I paid for my taxes to the tax guy at the end of the year. So, you know, I mean there's just a lot of, of blessings and I mean, I know just like even people are willing to deal right now, Hayden Holmes, I think they came down $20,000 on their [00:31:00] base house and I think they're offering $20,000 towards buying down your rate and doing things.

Alice Lema: So, and that's a really big market moment when subdivision contractors are lowering their price that affects the whole subdivision. They just don't do that. The some of the homes in east Medford over by that Albertsons down there, there's a couple of subdivisions that are going in over there.

Same thing. Their prices are going down. But that's a big deal. So when I see that, it makes me think, well, if the builders are making deals, then I think we're bottom. Because builders just don't do that.

Guy Giles: No, I, I a hundred percent agree. And it's not that, that, you know, like, just cause I, cause I mentioned Hayden, that they're greedy. I mean, my gosh, nobody could get any wood for a while. Nobody could get any parts, you know, and then

Alice Lema: you could get half of a plumbing. Elbow, but not the other half. still that, that actually was happening. So do you know, actually just a side note that the power company, pp and l, their transponder, when you're [00:32:00] doing a new electrical set up for a new house, you need power, right?

Uhhuh, , they're, they're delayed until March. People. People are trying. Yeah. Yeah. People that, oh, well I, I got through all the RMA roll with the particular municipality and I'm all ready to go. And it's like, maybe not. You better call the power company immediately if you're gonna be adding yeah. Adding addresses.

Guy Giles: I would've thought some of that would've, would've eased up a little bit. And I think it did with some building materials maybe, but not what, whatever the change. Well, can

Alice Lema: you imagine the supply chain for those things? I mean, what does, I didn't even ever think about it, but the power company has a supply chain.

Guy Giles: Yes. I, yeah, there, there's some things, you're right. You just gotta take for granted

Alice Lema: that, it's like, what the heck, ?

Guy Giles: I, don't know. I'm still truckless because, you know, they, they quit building the truck that I wanted to get for a year. And I've never [00:33:00] bought new cars in my life, but I finally got to a point where I just, you know, we want to travel a little bit.

And it's been, it's been terrible. Just, just trying to buy a truck of all things. So, you know, but I, hopefully some of that stuff's easing up also. And, you know, I don't know. I'm just, I'm looking forward to another, another year, just very, very soon here.

Alice Lema: And maybe it'll be a little more normal, at least housing market-wise. You know, we'd like to see the rent stabilized. But, you know, Oregon has a rent control, in the state of Oregon. But this year, the allowable rent increase is really high. It's, it's over 14% that landlords can legally raise the rent.

Guy Giles: Yeah, because its tied to the appreciation, right?

Alice Lema: It's a 7% cap, but they also, the state of Oregon allows the landlord to add on cost of living. So they call it ccp, C P I, consumer [00:34:00] Price Index, and the state of it's regional. So 2023, Oregon C P I is 7.5% and. Oregon lets the landlord put those together. So your 7% cap plus the cost of living increase, allowable for 2023 by the state of Oregon. Seven and a half percent. That's 14 point a half percent.

Guy Giles: Wow. They really helped everybody by putting that in, didn't they?

Alice Lema: Everything has consequences, you know, but this is another reason why you and I and a lot of other people in the housing industry are really wanting to reach out to the first time home buyer people right now, because it's gonna be hard out there if you're a tenant in Oregon.

Guy Giles: Yes, you're gonna be paying somebody's mortgage. It might as well be your own. I mean, honestly, if you have the wherewithal to, you know, buy some investment properties, that's great. I have a couple myself, but [00:35:00] if you can be in your own, in your own house, if you're renting, you're, you're paying somebody else's. And if you're, Owning your own house, you know, there, there's just a lot of benefits to it, so.

Alice Lema: And didn't you tell, tell me there were some pretty good, good numbers with the investor purchase market. Like landlords were still buying.

Guy Giles: Yeah, there's, they're still making up about 14 to 16%. What, what hurt people on my end, the people that are financing those houses.

And, and then again, just on another number, 26% of the houses that are selling are cash still. So there's still a lot of people just paying cash, but 14 to 16% of the houses that are selling are investment properties what the GSEs or the government sponsored entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they've made it incredibly expensive to buy investment properties.

So, you know, that seems like they're maybe backing off of that a little bit now, but it's a second home was used to be priced just as a first house. Now it's priced basically just like an investment [00:36:00] property. So they kind of tweak some things behind the scenes sometimes, and it doesn't necessarily help the overall, you know, situation.

Alice Lema: Well, we're gonna have to talk more about that next year. Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage. We appreciate you, your wealth of information and very funny.

Guy Giles: My wife doesn't think so, but I try.

Alice Lema: Well, happy holidays and we'll see you next year.