Real Estate Show Lender Updates for March 2023

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Real Estate Show Lender Updates 3/2023

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Full top of the morning, Southern Oregon and welcome back to The Real Estate Show. I'm Alice Lema, broker here in beautiful southern Oregon with John L. Scott Real Estate and your host of the Real Estate Show. Today we're lucky to have Guy Giles from Mutual Mortgage Back. He's our in-house lender. He comes on once a month and tries to explain to us what the Federal Reserve Bank is trying to do.

He's also gonna talk to us about what's going on in the world of mortgages, and I heard before the show that he's got a new program that is no money down. In addition to the regular VA program in the U S D A, he's got some great news about a new program for people that are not buying in the countryside like the U S D A folks do. And if you're not a veteran, they've gotta third option for a no money down home mortgage. So Guy Giles is gonna be coming in here and we'll get to interview and hear all, all the good things and explanations that are going on.

In the meantime, I do wanna give some [00:01:00] local stats cuz you know, Rogue Valley Association of Realtors and Southern Oregon MLS put out these fabulous reports quarterly and annually, and we just got our updated numbers and a lot of people in the news are talking about a crash. And so I thought I wanted to take a minute and today talk about the short sale and foreclosure activity in our three counties versus what we had this time in March between 2009, 2010.

So check it out. Back in Jackson County in 2009, between 2009, 2010, Jackson County had 211 short sales. This last year, I'm sorry, this last quarter, we have our foreclosures in Jackson County back between 2009, March 3rd, 2009, 2010, our foreclosures were 725. Today we have eight. [00:02:00] So yes, we're starting to get some short sales and foreclosure activity, but it's nothing like what we had before.

Josephine County short sale activity between March 3rd, 2009 and 2010. Josephine County short sale was 44. Today is zero. Josephine County foreclosure activity between March 3rd, 2009 and 2010. Our foreclosure activity was 194 houses in, in Josephine County. This, this time right now we have four in Josephine County.

So you can see there's a huge difference. Klamath back then had one short sale. Today has none. Klamath County back in oh nine had 16 foreclosures and this time now they have five. So we don't think we're having a crash, but we're tracking the numbers folks. Okay, so stay tuned. Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage coming, coming on. It's gonna be a great interview. [00:03:00]

Well, hey, Southern Oregon, welcome back to the Real Estate Show. Guy Giles is joining us today. He comes on the show first of every month from Mutual Mortgage Guy. Thank you for being on the show again today.

Guy Giles: Yeah. Thank you. I'm glad to be back. I wish we were talking, you know, a little happier on the home loan rate side, but pretty soon I, I do think that some of that stuff's gonna turn around.

We got a little bit of relief in January and then some, then some numbers came out on jobs reports. I think, well we talked about this just a little bit before the, before the break.

Alice Lema: But yeah, let's talk about that again cuz that was a super point that you were making?

Guy Giles: Well, we had a really strong jobs number, at least that's kind of what it came out and that's what it was told to all the media and I, I had to do some digging into it cuz just something didn't smell quite right. And when I [00:04:00] got was that there were some adjustments made to the numbers that came out in February. And this will end up with a good, you know, some hopefully good news at the end of the story. But right now it's just a little bit uglier on the home loan rates. Not terrible, just still around probably where, where the average has been for forever.

So even though it feels a lot like doom and gloom, like the rates are through the roof and, and they are compared to where they were, but they were unnaturally low for a long, long time. Right. And a lot of people bought at double and triple these rates. Not that anybody wants to, but it's a good investment.

And I think we kind of went over some of those numbers on, on the last show, and I can put some together because it's, you know, if, if we wanna talk about that a little more later on because it is, it, it is still a, a good thing to do as far as buying a house. But these, but you know, kind of back to the numbers what we had was an increase of 894,000 [00:05:00] jobs in February. 600,006 of those were part-time and nobody in the media decided to Yeah decided to really talk about.

Alice Lema: That's like three quarters. So three quarters of the new jobs were part-time.

Right. So, so we're talking about having the lowest job numbers in 50 years, and it's, it's skewed. So that said, you know, who really cares if people want to take a victory lap over a, you know, a jobs number, whether it's right or wrong. But, but it, it does affect our home loan rates because the perceived thing is that everything is, is going as planned and we have a real strong job market.

Guy Giles: So, you know, a little bit of inflation isn't the end of the world and, and really the inflation is what's driving, driving our rates. We had something that I'd never heard of before called the population control adjustment, which sounds, I don't even know what it sounds like, but I mean, it's something they should be writing a [00:06:00] movie about it.

Alice Lema: A population control adjustment.

Guy Giles: Yeah. And it took me a little bit of time to figure out what it was. And basically there was there were a lot of illegal, you know, undocumented people. I don't know what politically correct is, cause I don't really study that. But either, either way, these were a bunch of undocumented workers that that got, that had jobs, so they decided to count those in, even though those jobs happened, you know, over a year ago, they decided to count them in February of 2023 and call it the population control adjustment.

So it artificially inflated, you know, between the part-time jobs and between some of the adjustments that they had made. We probably only should have had about 84,000 jobs created rather than 894,000 jobs. I do think on March 10th that some more realistic numbers will come out because how often can you adjust for something that happened a year and a half ago?[00:07:00]

You know, for, for part of this, and hopefully investors are smart enough, which I think they, to realize that, you know, a bunch of part-time jobs, if you have two part-time jobs, that doesn't mean that everybody has a job. But, but that, that all said, politics is gonna be politics no matter who's in the office, no matter what's happening.

And as sad as it is, I do think that there's going to be some relief in the next, you know, in the next week, maybe even as soon as Wednesday. And I can't say it for sure. You know, I've been, I've been calling for lower rates for a little while and I can't adjust for people making things up, to be perfectly honest with you.

So we just do the best we can and, you know, the inflation, finally the Fed is done what the Fed had to do, which is their only mandate, which was, was control inflation. There are a couple rogue feds out there right now you know, saying that we need to raise rates all the way into 2024. I don't really see that happening.

That's just a couple of [00:08:00] ones that out of outta all of them that there are. I'm thinking another rate, hike, maybe two more, and then, and then we'll see some sanity. But I'm hoping to see a little bit of relief, like we did in January. We were starting to see things before these jobs numbers came out. You know, to help us out.

So, you know, in, in the meantime what we're doing is we're just, we're starting to really look at, at buy downs and, you know, because there, there's nobody saying rates are not gonna go down. I mean, Whether or not, or when the Fed is gonna start relieving some of this other stuff. And, and I wanna make sure I'm, I'm clear on that.

When we're talking about what the Fed does, the Fed has control over second mortgages, over credit cards, over car loans, things like that. They don't directly, you know, they, they don't directly impact the mortgages. Those are traded on the mortgage backed securities. People are looking at a lot longer term investment.

If you're looking at, you know, lock in a [00:09:00] rate for 30 years. Granted, people don't usually have loans that long, but that's, you know, what, what they're looking at. And, and overall, you know, if, if you can make money doing something on a shorter term, why invest for, you know, three and a half percent for, for the next 30 years potentially.

So again, we're, we're not tied directly to the Fed, but it is inflation that, that drives it, you know, the 10 year treasury. I don't expect this to mean a lot to somebody, 70, 75 basis points since that jobs report came out, but you have to figure that 75 is a number out of, what was it? Three point, you know, 360 is is where it started.

So I mean, it, it's proportionally, it's a big jump that we went up in February on the ten year treasury. And again, people, it just, it's a matter of what people are gonna get over time. And that you know, where, where our home loan rates are right now. [00:10:00] Nobody wants to, well, investors love getting, you know, six, 7%, but to be honest, they all know that rates are gonna go down also.

So people are just looking towards some all, you know, some alternatives and some of it is buy downs, where the seller will contribute basically the interest for the next two years to buy down that rate. Instead of overbidding on a house, what, what you could actually do when it's like this, you know is, is maybe talk about them contributing that way to buy down your rate until somebody has a chance to or an opportunity to refinance rather than lowering, lowering the price on the house.

Alice Lema: So, or taking, or crediting closing costs.

Guy Giles: Yes. Yeah, so we're, we're definitely seeing that a lot. We're still thinking mid-year that we're gonna get some, you know, decent relief in rates. Fannie Mae isn't quite as low as what [00:11:00] they were thinking, but we're still talking mid-low fives, and historically that's still a really, really good rate.

And when you factor in inflation as far as at least your home prices and the tax write-offs that you get, there are a lot of really good reasons to buy. for sure.

Alice Lema: And you know, and we do have more inventory, at least in our market in southern Oregon than a lot of places in the United States. I was talking to somebody yesterday, back east, and they're actually going into a second round of the hyper accelerated seller market that we experienced a year and two, two years.

So some of the bigger real estate markets in the United States are starting to see multiple offers again, prices going up. We don't, we have some multiple offers happening here, but not [00:12:00] like it was. And we do have 23 to 43% more houses than we did this time last year. However, it's still not enough. So, when, when your borrowers are talking to you about getting pre-approved, are they are they saying anything about that?

Guy Giles: Well, I think I think kind of speaking to what you just said, they're on the right house, you know, It's there, there is a lot of competition for, for the right house. You know, I think there's, there's some inventory out there, but, but they are, yeah com complaining that there's just not a lot to choose from, especially in different, in different price points around here. I've had a couple of them in the last couple of weeks say, well, we're just gonna kind of lay back, save a little bit more money and kind of stay put, you know, un until we're ready, even though these first time home buyers, which is kind of what I'm talking about on these couple of buyers.

You know, they're, they're probably the [00:13:00] biggest demographic buying houses right now. All, all the way around. So we definitely don't wanna ignore the young people. You know, again, they're not all home playing video games and acting dumb. A lot of 'em have , you know, have got good careers, and they're, and they put things together.

They're just, they're just looking for that one little thing to tip 'em over the edge to, to pull the trigger and, and they just don't see it as a rate as a rates kind of tick up a little bit. And again, that won't be forever. But when they do decide to finally commit and pull the trigger on a house, you know, there, there has been a couple multiple offers on, on some of those houses around and, and rightly so.

They're, they're priced well. So, I mean, if you're, you know, searching, you know, with Alice or somebody right now, just keep your eyes out every day because, you know, sometimes somebody needs to move or they're downsizing and when that one pops up, you really do wanna be ready to go.

Alice Lema: You really do. You really do because there's still a lot of good, good properties on the market.

But [00:14:00] I am noticing the same thing you are Guy, that people are possibly trying to save a little more money. Cuz that is a way to influence your monthly payment, right? If you have a little more down payment.

Guy Giles: It, it always helps for, for sure.

Alice Lema: Yeah. But but what we really need is, I think this is a great opportunity for people to get their house sold while we still have a nice amount of buyers and not as much competition and take advantage of the lower prices.

Because here's what I'm afraid of, is if we go into another bonafide seller market because of we don't have enough houses to sell, then the prices go up. And right now it's kind of nice the prices are a little bit lower and it's really kind of buttering everything up so the buyers can afford the monthly payment even with the higher interest rate.

Guy Giles: [00:15:00] Yeah, it's, it's, it's changed a little bit on my side. When somebody writes a decent offer I think that there's a lot of optimism that it's actually gonna get accepted right now. Because in the past, I'd say I'll ship you off a letter. And by the way, I'm available this weekend in case you don't get that one.

And you, you know, you find another one. So, you know, I mean, we've, the ones that we've been getting accepted have been decent offers, you know, so definitely it's good to have a, a good real estate agent that knows what he or she's talking about so that you can write that, the correct offer for what's going on out, you know with that particular house. And there's no reason that you can't get an accepted offer and get the seller to help you out a little.

Alice Lema: Yeah, see, I'm looking at the market more as a perfect storm, but I, but I totally understand. There's a lot of opinions out there. But gosh, we still have people getting some great deals and, and they're getting a home. And they're gonna get to keep that appreciation. We're talking to Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage. Thank [00:16:00] you by the way, being one of our sponsors. We are gonna have to take a quick break here but we're very thankfully brought to you by Guy Giles of Mutual Mortgage, John L. Scott, Ashland, and Medford, and our local Rogue Valley Association of Realtors.

Ava, thank you so much. We appreciate your support. We also wanna remind you, we're gonna be on again Sunday at 6:00 PM We'll be right back after this quick.

Well, welcome back to the Real Estate Show folks. I'm Alice Lema. I'm a broker here in beautiful southern Oregon with John L. Scott Real Estate and the host of your show. Thank you for joining us again. We get to be interviewing Guy Giles again today from Mutual Mortgage, our in-house lender, and we were before the break talking about first time home buyer's, interest rates and the housing shortage we still have. So Guy talk a little bit more about first time home buyers and some of the loan program [00:17:00] updates that you have for them.

Guy Giles: Well, first time home buyers, what we're doing a lot of is we have one of our investors that will do an an FHA hundred percent financing. Which, Yeah. I, I, I don't get out much, I guess, so I I haven't, I haven't really mentioned it. So it's basically, it's a, it's a second mortgage behind it.

Alice Lema: And really on an FHA, let's, let's back up just a quick hold, hold that thought. Tell people what the f h A program normally is, because this is a super big deal.

Guy Giles: Well, well, what changed on the fha, the actual F H A, was that they had lowered some of their mortgage insurance. So say on a $350,000 house, your mortgage insurance, instead of being $247 a month would be about $160 a month.

But that's actually something a little bit separate as far as any changes with the [00:18:00] FHA. It's just, it's just a program we have where you can have a second mortgage for the difference in your down payment. So it's a little bit higher rate, which if you're gonna give up something, you know, no matter what. But we actually got somebody approved that had finished school, making a great deal of money, but she decided to spend all our money the last year or so moving and pay off her all of her debts.

So she just didn't have a lot of cash, but makes a really good living and is just wanting to get into a house. What, what we'll do is again, just do a second mortgage that covers the you know, that, that covers the down payment. And then if you have some sellers contribute to the closing costs, you can basically get in for about nothing.

And please don't mistake this for the terrible loans that were going on in 2006, 2007. It's, it's nothing like that. You're fully qualifying for this and you know, you probably not gonna be in this [00:19:00] loan forever because things will start going up and, you know, you can get out of it. So but, but, but it's a good way to get in and get in the game if for some reason you hadn't been able to save a down payment.

You know, I mean, you know, you guys know I'm a little bit more conservative when it comes to money, and I would really like to see, you know, somebody actually have a down payment. But this was a really viable option for this, for this gal that moving to town. Physical therapy, great job, and just didn't have that because she was trying to be responsible with her other things, but now she doesn't have to wait.

So it's, it's really not a bad deal. The other thing that's kind of cool about it is a lot of these first time home buyer programs, like, like the Fannie Mae you know, HomeReady program, you're limited to about 80% of, of what the median income is, which brings you down to about 60. Oh, bear with me one second, $61,000 of income. Well, it's hard to afford a house on that income. This program [00:20:00] will go to 160% of the median income. So for Jackson County, that's around $81,000, 81,400 to be more specific. So if you were to run this that brings you up a little bit over $130,000 of income and you can still qualify for this, for this program.

Alice Lema: Wow. That's, that's kind of cool. Yeah. And it's certainly appropriate for the market we're in. So FHA, no money down. You're doing a second mortgage on the backside to cover the down payment. And this is for people who have a lot of income. But not, yeah, I mean, not cash saved up in the bank.

Guy Giles: Yes. Yeah. So it's a better way than going to buy a motor home, I suppose. At least you'll have something that's worth something down the road.

Alice Lema: I'm sorry. Why would somebody buy a motor home?

Guy Giles: Oh, I'm saying it's a better idea than going to do, you know, just buy a bunch of recreational vehicles.

Alice Lema: Oh, oh, you mean for like toys, boats and stuff? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should [00:21:00] definitely buy a house before you buy boats and, and motor homes, but that's just our opinion as old people.

Guy Giles: The other part that people just don't think about enough a lot of times as first time home buyers, I mean, I sit across from 'em all the time where I educate them on some of the tax write-offs that they'll have on their house and, and they don't even realize it until we're sitting down here face to face.

And if you do have a high income, You know, that kind of offsets your, your payment. So, you know, and, and I haven't done that math with me right now, but you have to figure whatever you're paying in that interest, you could basically take off of, you know, and, and, and make that, what are you paying for rent right now versus what would your new mortgage be?

It brings 'em a lot closer together. And if you go beyond that and figure that rents on average go up about 7% per year, it's not long before you're paying a whole lot more in rent. Then you don't have any equity in, in a house that you didn't buy, [00:22:00] and you're actually paying more, even if it doesn't look like it at the, you know, the first of every month when you get paid.

Once you reconcile all those taxes at the end of the year though, that is real savings that you get by writing off, depending on your income, the mortgage insurance, but you can write off your taxes, you write off your interest. So there's still some really good deductions that it's, it's easy to get caught up and rates are a little bit higher than they were before, but just couple in that you're not bidding in a bidding war, that you can ask them for some contributions to help you.

You could ask them to help buy down your rate. And you can permanently buy down your rate too. It does not have to be one of these two one buy downs. You get a little yeah. I mean, you'll, you'll get a little bit bigger bang for your. Immediately on the two to 1, 2, 1 buy down. But I just like to, to talk about both options with people. But then you realize the appreciation on top of the tax write-offs. Mathematically, it's, it's still a really good time to buy.

Alice Lema: And we're still making money [00:23:00] on our real estate in southern Oregon. And I don't want people to be confused because the prices I just said the prices are lower, but there's still so much equity.

So if you think, you just think of the market went way, way up. It came down and settled a little bit, but there's still a big chunk of equity and we're up from this time last year, Klamath County, 8%. Josephine County, I think 5%. Jackson County, 4%. So and we still don't have enough houses. And what I'm discovering is with programs like this Guy, a hundred percent financing for an FHA buyer, in the right circumstance, they can get a home and the sellers are not so resistant right now because the sellers wanna sell and, and they're being more moderate with their demands. And that just wasn't the case a year ago, two years ago, where, you know, we'd have buyers in [00:24:00] tears, grownups because they just kept losing out on all these properties.

Guy Giles: Oh, I know. It was, it, it was heartbreaking. And then they'd come in and it'd, it's, they'd tell me, hey, I want to go offer, I want to go offer for 40,000 over and I'm just like, sadly, the thing will probably appraise in this market, but what, what are you, what are you thinking? I mean, it's just, it, it was, it was tough. It was really hard. Like you said, heartbreaking to watch these people over and over and over do that. Just from what you said a minute ago, what do you think the average like house is around here, right now?

Alice Lema: Klamath is in the $320,000 to $350,000. Jackson County is over five as an average. And then Josephine County is in the High Fours. It's kind of bouncing around between four 50 and four 80. Yes, but those are averages. Those are not median, no people. Those are averages. If you run the medium, [00:25:00] then it's a different number. ?

Well, if, if we just went with the $500,000 and say you were putting 10% down, which would be $50,000. So if you have that thing sitting in a bank account or sitting in, I'm not saying necessarily cash out your investments to do this, but if you just had it someplace working for you, I don't think you'd be anywhere near $22,000. And that's at the lower 4.5 where we are right now. And that's what I mean, mathematically it still makes sense. You have a, you have a half a million dollar asset appreciating a 4.5%, or you have a $50,000 bank account depreciating because of inflation.

Yeah. I mean, and it wasn't even worth the 50,000 when you, when you put it in there, because if you, if you adjust for all these things, , you might as well have something that, you know, even if it, even if it breaks even, you're not going in the hole, but.

And you have a place to live.

Yes. A absolutely. And, and that's, that's not even 25% [00:26:00] of what things have been going up around here. So I mean that's, that's actually where we are right now is more of a historical number. If you go back 80, 90 years, about 4.3, 4.5% is where you're at least gonna get, and that's compounding. Now, next year you have a $522,000.

I just ran the calculation. We're thinking the same thing. Yeah. Even at of 4%, which is kind of a slow role for Southern Oregon, only because we are the lifestyle location, so 520 and one year your house could easily go up $20,000. Oh. All day long. But your mortgage is static. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, yeah, I think you're right, Guy. I think people are not running all the numbers. They're not adding in the tax benefit. They're not adding in you know, the appreciation.

Guy Giles: And well, yeah, and, and the sad part is, I, I, I know exactly where they're coming from. It's like, Hey, I thought to talk to you a year ago. I would've been [00:27:00] here. Well, if you weren't ready a year ago and you weren't in the market, it doesn't matter.

And I completely understand where they're coming from, you know, because the payment will be up from where it was. But what's the alternative? You wait for rates to come down a little bit. And like you said, you're in a bidding war again against everybody else. It's a seller's market and, you know, if it doesn't pencil, that's fine, but I think it's definitely worth a little bit of time to see if it does.

And I know I helped, you know, my kiddo out when she bought her house, I had a little bit of money sitting there that I had kind of ready for that and it, I think it did a whole lot better doing that than it did sitting in my bank account. Not really doing anything right now.

Alice Lema: Yeah, and we don't want in Oregon, being a tenant is hard. Now, there's times in your life where being a tenant is appropriate. There's always that element in our community and people go in and out of rentals because that's appropriate for their lifestyle. But to make it kind of a [00:28:00] career for your lifestyle to be a tenant year after year after year. Look what they've lost. And being, it's very hard to be a tenant in Oregon because the laws, the landlord, tenant laws are they're just restrictive. I'm not being judgmental, I'm not being political. They're just restrictive by design. So then there's this adverse effect where the rents go up. And if people don't wanna be landlords, there's a lot of those landlords selling these, these buildings and they're not being purchased by other investors. So I think we're helping our first time home buyers and tenant community. Community, by getting them into a house.

Guy Giles: Yes. Yeah. I mean it's, it's just, it's just a good thing to see. I mean, I don't know how much time we have left in the segment, but parents paid $118,000 rent when I was growing up, and you gotta figure I wasn't growing up right now. I'm older than that, but that was a house that was paid no more than probably [00:29:00] $22,000 for when the landlord bought it and my parents paid. 118,000 and I'm sure they're still renting it out.

Alice Lema: They probably bought that Guy two times over. Right.

Guy Giles: Probably five or six, to be really honest with you.

Alice Lema: Yeah. We gotta take a quick break. Hold that thought. We're talking to Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage, our in-house lender. We're gonna take a quick break so don't touch this dial. We've got more great information from Guy Giles. We'll be right. We also wanna remind you, we're gonna be on again Sunday at 6:00 PM We'll be right back after this quick word.

Well, hi everybody. Welcome back to the Real Estate Show. We're talking to Guy Giles, a mutual mortgage. And during the break Guy, you were talking a little bit about mortgage insurance again, and it was a really good point. Let's bring that out to our listeners.

Guy Giles: Well, there, there's I, I guess people just, just assume that if you have less than you, 20% down that you're going to have mortgage insurance.

And although that is a true statement, there are [00:30:00] some, some ways to kind of work around it a little bit. And I don't think people talk about that a whole lot. They just kind of plug in, you know, especially a lot of the big online lenders and things, they'll just plug it in and see who's got the, the best rate for that day and then just give that to you.

And it's like, oh, this is your mortgage insurance. I but the reality is that we can shop around. We have about eight or nine, I haven't really counted them, to be honest different places that it spits out each one. And somebody with a lower FICO score might, might like Arch, or Arch might like that better. Or somebody with a higher FICO score,

you know, there could be another one that that is a little bit better. So we shop on like that, but we can also look at split mortgage insurance where part of it is paid up upfront. If we have a little bit of extra seller's contributions you know, that, that we didn't spend or asking for them, or we could go where it's all lender paid, where it's paid up kind of upfront. Or just there, there's a lot of different [00:31:00] variations that we can look to get people's payment a little closer to where they want it.

You know, working, you know, in conjunction with the, the buy downs or, or things like that. Anyway, I just, I just thought it was something, well, that we were talking about a little bit that we can, we can mention that there's, there's a lot of different things if you take the time to sit down rather than just plugging your stuff in online and hoping for the best.

We'll generally beat, beat those guys on rate and fee anyway. So we might as well just come in local. And this was just another way that we could actually lower people's payments. That I don't know, some, some other people seemed, forget about, or not even not even know about.

Alice Lema: Yeah I don't I don't know because the, I think that's an excellent idea and I didn't even know you could split the mortgage insurance payment. So yes. Yeah, I think this is great. It's, it's mutual mortgage being creative, trying to [00:32:00] come up with ways to still help people buy houses in this kind of environment, this kind of economic environment.

Guy Giles: To be fair and I always will try to do that even though it, you know, part of me is cringing right now. There are some other local companies around here that I've seen doing a pretty good job of that, you know? So anyway, I just, it, it is not something we invented, it's just something that, I don't even wanna say people get lazy, but a lot of people just don't really haven't taken the time to dive into looking at the different things.

If you were You know, working at Hooters last month and now you're at, at one of the online lenders you know, you may not have had the training to get deep into some of these things. And a lot of these people are just order takers and we have to live in the community here that we work in. So we try to you know, be experts on, on what we're doing. And that may not happen all the time online.

Alice Lema: [00:33:00] Yeah, yeah. But it's kind of an exciting time. The getting through the, the covid and the housing market reaction to that. And now we have hyperinflation and the housing market reaction to that. And, you know, they're talking about all these layoffs, but then the, the job numbers went up and we were discussing a little bit why that report might have been skewed.

Guy Giles: Yeah. And, and not even might have been skewed honestly, it was skewed. It was skewed, intentionally skewed. Let's just, let's just say what it is. You know, I'm, I'm kind of done. I'm the guy that has to sit and apologize for all this stuff in front of people, tax paying people, and I would like to see some real stuff come outta Washington, and I don't know if anybody, anybody in Washington is capable of that anymore.

Alice Lema: Do you, do you personally think that there's going to be a recession?

Guy Giles: I personally think it's, it's, if you look at it from a [00:34:00] definition of a recession, I'll let somebody, anybody on, you know, just, just go do the research yourself. And you could tell us if we're in a recession or we have been, yes, absolutely.

You know, that should actually bode well for us and, and, and the rates and all. But things just need to get correct on a real scale. It, it can't correct itself if we continue to make up the numbers for whoever's agenda that needs that done for them in that, in that quarter. So, you know, eventually the truth does come out and I do believe that we will see some lower rates.

Everybody's calling for recession, so I assume they'll admit it at one some point. But, but if you just look at two quarters of contraction, right. Know, I mean, if you look at the definition, you just keep changing the definition. I mean, come on, at least come up with a better name.

Alice Lema: Well, and we had those two quarters. Yeah, we had those two quar quarter [00:35:00] retraction last year. Mm-hmm. , and then it stopped and then, , you know, and now here we are. So, but either way, my concern, I guess is the job loss because the housing market is propelled mostly by people getting mortgages who have jobs. . So I don't know how the layoff situation is going in southern Oregon, most of the reports are talking about these giant layoffs on a national scale in the big urban areas. So I guess we'll just have to kind of see, but Southern Oregon seems to be plugging along sort of.

Guy Giles: Yeah, and, and you know, I mean, I, I, I'm have, I'm still having a lot of people move here that are tech type people that are working for Tesla or working for google different places like that. That have remote jobs now and I mean Yep. So I, I, I do think we are a little buffered here, you know, in our, in our little area. Sadly for the regular kid, you know, it is, it is hard [00:36:00] to save up and buy a house, but I, but I see it every week and, you know, it's, it's just, it's still, it, it is still a really good thing to strive for and, and to try to do.

And, and these numbers will, like I said, they will get reconciled and we will see some lower rates. But get in there before, you know, don't wait for. Because again, you don't wanna be in a bidding war down the road.

Alice Lema: Well, don't also look at what's been lost if you didn't buy a house in the last even 18 months, right? You know, this, this little bit of appreciation that we're reporting every week. You know, if the house you purchased was 500,000, 4%, one year is 20,000. So I really like the point that you made, Guy, that you've gotta run all the numbers. It's not just your monthly payment and your debt to income. It's the taxes, the appreciation, the lifestyle and all that. Not only wealth building, but security of being a homeowner and not being [00:37:00] a tenant. Yeah. I mean, especially an Oregon.

Guy Giles: Oh, absolutely. And if you're thinking about it or your kids are thinking about it, obviously I'd love for them to come talk to me, but find somebody that does this, you know, well, for a living and sit down and just, just do the math.

And if it doesn't make sense, you know, that's fine too, but, but you don't really know until you go and, and have a real conversation about, about everything.

Alice Lema: So yeah, I just don't think they're running all the numbers. I think that's what's happening. Yeah.

Guy Giles: Or maybe they are and, and it's not the right answer for right now, and that's, that's okay too. But at least, you know.

Alice Lema: And it's data driven. Right. And that's what we like and you can make whatever decision you want, but we just really want everybody to be good consumers and have the facts.

Guy Giles: Yes. That. That, that is the goal for sure.

Alice Lema: So Guy if somebody wants to get ahold of you, what's your cell phone?

Guy Giles: 541-944-6987. And I pretty much answer that all the time.

Alice Lema: So he pretty much does. And he also will [00:38:00] text if he can't answer.

Guy Giles: God, I hate texting, but I'll do it.

Alice Lema: Well, that's it for the show today. Thank you, Guy Giles Mutual Mortgage. The show will be repeated tomorrow on this same station, 99.5 KCMX. And thank you for listening. Hug those you love. We'll be back again next week. Bye now.