Southern Oregon Radio Show Lender updates Sept 2021

Full Video Transcript Below

[00:00:00] Alice Lema: Well, top of the morning to you. Alice Lima, Pete bell Castro. Welcome to the real estate show. We're both brokers here at John L. Scott and Southern Oregon. And we're here with the only weekly radio show discussing housing, Southern Oregon lending investing tenants. We have a lot to talk about with another strange week in real estate land here in Southern Oregon.

[00:00:27] Pete, how are you doing?

[00:00:28] Pete Belcastro: Yeah, doing fine. You know, 600 plus shows over 12 years of just never, you've never lost anything to talk about, you know? Oh all the time and it, and it changes from week to week, but this is a crazy week. This is, this is labor day weekend. That we're we're in right now, which is traditionally a very exciting time for so many of us.

[00:00:48] It's football seasons back. The beavers andducks are going on. High school football's backs. School's back in session. People are excited about the year. I don't know about you. It doesn't feel that way to me this year. It feels I don't even know. I don't know what, how to describe it. But mandates and mask and schools and people are divided over this thing Alice. And emotional emotions are taking place. Businesses are being forced to do things that they don't want to do. And it's just a mess in so many areas. And yet real estate continues to do well. It continues to sell and but not as much. We've had a great change. It's slowed down. Listings are down this week.

[00:01:29] Pending sales are down this week. Closed sales are down this week in Jackson county across the board. Days on the market are up. We know So the market is definitely in the fall beginning of the fall trajectory downward, which it does every year. Today we're going to talk with Guy Giles, Mutual of Omaha Mortgage about what that means for lenders and what that means for buyers getting lending to be able to do this correctly and do it well, and do it first and be successful.

[00:01:58] Alice Lema: And it's going to be another opportunity I think for a lot of our sellers that did not get on the market this last summer or last year. It's an unexpected shortage again. Unexpected shortage for people reacting to the second wave of, of COVID and our medical facilities being kind of full.

[00:02:19] I think that's, that's given people pause. But again, every time we have a chaotic or uncertain situation, it does create opportunity. And you can see by the numbers, Pete, you just said it, the numbers are down because of inventory. So this creates opportunity for sellers. If you want to get out there, you probably won't have very much competition.

[00:02:38] Pete Belcastro: It's the same in business in general, the supply chain. Oh, I mean, businesses are really suffering in a lot of ways. There's not enough workers and things like that. So it all affects real estate. And we're going to explore that today and see where it's taken us. As we began now we're going to slip into the fall selling season here now. And we'll see how it takes us. And we'll find that journey beginning today.

[00:03:01] Alice Lema: And Guy Giles, Pete Belcastro, Alice Lema. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

[00:03:08] Well, welcome back to the real estate show folks. I'm Alice Lemahere with my cohost Pete Belcastro. We're both real estate brokers here in Southern Oregon with John L. Scott. And today we get to speak with Guy Giles, one of our sponsors Mutual of Omaha mortgage, talking about what he is watched occur in a last few weeks. Welcome back Guy.

[00:03:29] Guy Giles: Hey, thanks. It's good to be, I guess, out of the smoke seems to be. Feeling like fall out there a little bit. So I think we're going to at least move towards a little bit nicer outside.

[00:03:41] I don't know. I'm glad to be back. I glanced outside and lost my train of thought.

[00:03:46] Pete Belcastro: Well, look Guy, the temperature hitting the thirties over here. So maybe this was before labor day. So maybe it's a sign that fall is going to come quickly, that we can get fires out faster. Maybe you'll get some, we'll get some wet weather in here.

[00:04:00] Cause that's what we're really all praying for more than anything else. I think as we do into the fall, it's a crazy time isn't it. Tell me what's going on, tell us what's going on in the mortgage world. You know, when we talked about a month ago, we were all predicting all sorts of things, you know, and yet nothing's changed.

[00:04:14] What's happened in the last month in the mortgage world that you that you go into every. Well, really

[00:04:21] Guy Giles: I mean the only thing that's really changed is we're still struggling with investments in second homes. I think I mentioned it a while back that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are only allowing servicers, meaning the guys that collect the bills for them to have about 7% of their portfolio be investments or second homes.

[00:04:40] Consequently, everybody got really careful about how they loan on those. It's been tough because the government sponsored entities don't really want them. And it feels a little bit kind of like you know, from, from the government to let everybody have an owner occupied one, I guess.

[00:05:00] So, so that's been the only real change, you know, all the investments that I do this is just a little bit more difficult for them. It's still, if you look overall historically, it's still not a bad time to buy an investment property because they used to be a lot more expensive than they are right now.

[00:05:15] But I think we're a little bit spoiled with these low rates over the last couple of years.

[00:05:19] Pete Belcastro: So if I wanted to buy a second home right now, you know, a vacation home or something like that somewhere, this is the area thatyou're talking about. So what do I have to do to do that? What does someone have to do?

[00:05:31] Guy Giles: Well, I mean the criteria hasn't changed a ton. One of the things that they kind of tightened up on was if you don't own a primary residence they won't allow you to buy an investment property. I have some successful kids that have been living at home, believe it or not and buying some investment properties over the last six or seven years.

[00:05:50] And now they're living in apartments now and some investment properties and new girlfriend wanted to buy one. And just, it was pretty much a no go that way. They did allow one of the guys to buy.

[00:06:03] Alice Lema: So you're saying that it has to be, if you're going to, you can buy an investment property as your first one, but it has to be owner occupied. Is that what you're saying?

[00:06:13] Guy Giles: Well, no, yeah, you actually have to own a primary residence. So because, because she was living at home it wouldn't allow her to do it. One of the guys that did own an investment property already, he was allowed to do it, but I still had to go through kind of what we call our non QM channels, meaning that it wasn't, it wasn't the Fannie Mae Freddie Mac stuff.

[00:06:34] So that's gotten a little bit weird. I mean, it's. Yeah. I know Alice that you deal with, you know, you're one of the best people around that sells a lot of investment stuff. So I, you know, for the rest of us, it's not the biggest part of our market, but that was, you know, one of the biggest changes that, that I've seen.

[00:06:50] They had the fed, you know, this last week he talked and, you know, as far as changes go, he said that a lot of this inflation you believes is transitory, meaning it's just for a little while. Kind of like what I was speaking to a while back, everybody out spending the stimulus money. Every time they talk, they're talking about backing out a little bit of the mortgage backed securities that they've been buying they buy about 40, was it $40 billion a month?

[00:07:17] If you really look at the, at the numbers, it's closer to a hundred million that they're actually buying, but they're rebuying the stuff that gets sold off that gets refinanced and things like that. So a lot of what we hear as far as they're going to back off on them and that's going to cause the rates to rise up.

[00:07:33] I you're talking about a portion of that, of that 40 billion, but that doesn't really account for the other 60. Hopefully this, this is kind of making some sense, but realistically then backing off, isn't going to affect the rates as bad as some people had thought in the past. So I do expect rates to raise at some point, but I just don't think we're there with inflation.

[00:07:56] That's really their function is to watch inflation. And even though everybody sees it in the store right now, everybody sees it at the gas pump. I do think it is kind of transitory. I mean, it's not going to, it's not going to happen forever, at least at this pace. So I think we're going to have decent rates for a little while still. I guess it was the bottom line.

[00:08:20] Alice Lema: So one of the areas of interest right now is the sellers putting their house on the market. Have you seen any slowdown of people coming in to write offers or is that slowing down because there's just not enough on the market?

[00:08:37] Guy Giles: I've definitely in the last few weeks seen a slow down, but I, I think it's changed a little bit. I it doesn't feel like there are a thousand people running around, you know, just in a frenzy to get a house. And then it feels more like there's a hundred of them running around, but they're all very, very serious. My conversion rate is probably close to a hundred percent right now. It's really, really strange.

[00:09:04] I don't have just a whole bunch of people looking for houses at this point. I'll get a few referrals a week and people will actually get into contract. So it's, it's just different. I'm not dealing with as many people, but the quality of the people that I'm dealing with are really ready to go and still really ready to make a strong offer.

[00:09:20] Pete Belcastro: You guys know that in terms of the listings in Jackson county, you know, we do this every week, you know, two weeks ago, so there were 468 of those stick-built listings available this last week that dropped to 407. And, and it's not like we're at the end of the month, a lot of contracts come up at the end of the month, by the way.

[00:09:44] So that may have something to do with it, but that that dropped quite a bit. For the first it had been climbing up a little bit, you know, every week went down by quite a bit.

[00:09:55] Alice Lema: So do you think that this is our what used to be normal cycle? You know, we'd have a little bit of a change when school started.

[00:10:04] I I'm just trying to decide, is this in reaction to the second mask mandate and all the turmoil in the world, that there's a little bit of a slowdown, but, or is this like, Pete, you like to say the six cycles, is this just one of the normal cycle?

[00:10:19] Pete Belcastro: don't think so anymore. I, I, that the cycles have kind of seemed to be this whole thing has changed so much because of what school's doing.

[00:10:25] I'm thinking maybe the things people have decided, okay, school's going to start again. We got extreme. We're getting we're stopping. We're going to pull them off the market right now. And we're going to stay put again. Maybe we're going to see that happen, like we saw in last year. I'm not sure Alice, no one really knows.

[00:10:39] That's what's so weird about it guy, is that we're in such uncertain times. Everything around the market that we, that we deal with, everything around us is just seems like it's upside down.

[00:10:52] Guy Giles: It does, you know, and then, you know, if you talk about your cycles and then we have to add the new, you know, smoke season into our, our life from now on. It looks like it's, I don't know. It's kinda like fall and right before fall, we have smoke now. So I think everything kinda, kinda kinda changed, but I think what's going to really keep driving our market is I still see more and more people that are able to work remote. I'm having them move here from different places. So I, I do believe there's a little bit of a slow down.

[00:11:23] I mean, obviously when school gets back, you know, people don't like to move their kids around during that time. So I think that is definitely part of it. People are trying to see where this, this thing's going to land. You know, now that the Supreme court has ruled that it's, you know, you can't have these memorandums forever where, you know, at some point someone's going to have to start paying their rent.

[00:11:47] I haven't really done the research to be honest, to see what, what our lovely governor has done. You know, fix or not fix that at all. But really, I think it just boils down to, there's still uncertainty, like you said, you know, there's, there's people wondering, you know, are things going to tighten down? Are they, is this really short-lived?

[00:12:09] Is it going to kind of loosen back up? Which is my feelings on the thing. But we are dealing with people going back to school. We were at such a expensive place that, and everybody felt that. And, and I did see a lot of people coming in here just saying, you know, we're at the top right now. And it has to come down a little bit.

[00:12:28] So I think that there are some buyers out there that are just kind of you know, hey we're going to wait this out just a little bit. And see if I get any kind of a reduction or at least maybe get $3 of my closing costs paid for, by a seller.

[00:12:42] Alice Lema: Well, and I think if we had that was funny if we had continued our normal process of recovering from the shutdowns and not had the second mask mandated. I'm not being political or saying right or wrong. I'm just being observant and saying that when we have these additional overlays from the government, then it starts to slow people's behavior down. But again, all of this creates opportunity and I really cannot stress enough that I feel like we have a second chance here for people to sell their house.

[00:13:18] And in an environment where there's hardly any competition again, when we were well-prepared to have a real tsunami of listings come on the market. And now that seems to be kind of slowed down. So I still think there's a great opportunity.

[00:13:32] Pete Belcastro: And Alice you're absolutely right. It, you know, you talked about the cycles. I'm sorry that I did, because that labor day was always where that cycle tipped over and we started seeing a lessening of fewer listings all the way through winter. Remember what goes in it, backed it up here because we're down, we're down quite a bit. Now, as we, as we go into the labor day in school has started.

[00:13:54] We're already seeing that, but what makes it so hard and you're absolutely right about now is the time to sell it because we're already starting the downward cycle with little inventory. Remember last year we had six. Now we're at 400, so we're starting 200 down. And again, you always have to look at where the, where the listings are coming from.

[00:14:17] We still had 85 of those 400 are luxury homes. That's down you see? So. I think we're starting you're right though. It's a great time to sell but we're starting from a lower position than we even did a year ago with fewer listings.

[00:14:34] Alice Lema: And this was not predicted because we weren't really seeing another kind of mini shutdown. The uptick that we had in the COVID cases in our area was, was really, really high. I just don't think any of us were ready for that. So I mean, we all figured there'd be some kind of something that happened, but now that it's here and it's in full force, again, it creates an opportunity if you're willing to put your house on the market. Boy, you will have hardly any competition, especially if you're under that $800,000 mark. You'll sell fast and you'll probably get really, really good offers. But remember, where do you go to find the replacement property or where do you go? Many of our people doing exactly what you're doing, they're leaving.

[00:15:20] Pete Belcastro: They're not coming up with replacement property. They're not moving within our community. They're leaving our community.

[00:15:26] Alice Lema: Or they're finding some temporary something. So they can get out while the getting's good and then get another place at their leisure.

[00:15:36] Pete Belcastro: Hey, try to find a rental. There you go.

[00:15:38] Alice Lema: Well, yeah, we'll have to talk about that too, so, okay.

[00:15:44] Well, we're talking to you, Guy Giles mutual of Omaha mortgage, one of our sponsors. Pete Belcastro, Alice Lema, we'll be right back after a word from our other sponsors, rogue valley Association Realtors and John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon. We'll be right.

[00:15:58] Well, welcome back to the real estate show. Alice Lema, Pete Belcasro,your host here today. We're both brokers, John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon. And we're having a great conversation with GuyGiles Mutual of Omaha Mortgage, who's also one of our sponsors.

[00:16:14] And, and Guy right before the break, we were kind of starting to talk a little bit about tenants and the laws and how that affects landlords. And you had another quick point you wanted to make.

[00:16:26] Guy Giles: Yeah, the, the main thing I was talking about it, I really do believe that our, that our governor is trying to do what she thinks is the best to keep everybody safe with the mask mandates. I was speaking more towards the I can stay in my house forever if I don't pay my rent ,piece of the thing, which kind of got struck down by the Supreme court.

[00:16:45] So I guess we'll kind of see where that one lands. I was thinking that, you know, maybe that could open a few rentals here and there, if people feel like they can, they can move around on that. So I'm just seeing people that are, that are going to sell their house and we end up, you know, kind of getting all the way to that point.

[00:17:05] And then for one reason or another, they're deciding to rent it out just because rents are so high right now. So that that's something that literally just happened yesterday with a buddy of mine. And he ,all intent to sell his house. And the next thing you know, he said, Hey, I'm coming in with 15% down instead of 30% down.

[00:17:24] You know, what are the numbers look like? And by the time we factored in the rents that he's getting for the house, it just made more sense for him to rent the thing out. And now he has another big asset that's appreciating for him. Plus. You know, I mean, when it's all said and done, he's in a new house and he's really not paying any more than he was for his old house.

[00:17:45] Alice Lema: Wow. This is so good that you brought this up because people don't realize you can change your mind in mid application and do a different direction in situations like this. But you have to explain to your lender what you want to do. And then Guy, can you kind of tell people the mechanics, if you do want to keep your house, how does that work? If you want to use it as a rental and still buy something?

[00:18:09] Guy Giles: Yeah, we'll basically give you 75% of the rent. So if you're going to rent it for a thousand dollars a month, we give you about $750 credit for it. The good part is that so many people are in their house that have, that have been there for awhile and rents have gone up so much, that even though you lose a little bit on that, on that occupancy factor that we have to use while qualifying you, it's, it's still penciling out to where people are making money every month. And, you know, to be honest, even if they're breaking even, or losing a hundred bucks a month, the appreciation and, and what you can do with your CPA, with an investment property, it actually pencils out pretty well a lot of the time.

[00:18:51] Alice Lema: Well, and you have somebody else buying you a house, which if you're a tenant, listen up, don't do that. Buy your own house.

[00:19:01] Guy Giles: Yeah. I mean, you know, hundred percent financing that we can fit in for anybody. It comes with a second mortgage and if are under the medium income, that second does not have to be paid back. And if you're over it, it does. But that is that actually it's a program that I haven't looked at for a couple of years, because it did get weird right at the start of COVID. But some of these programs are coming back around where they are actually viable options.

[00:19:31] Other than maybe USDA we're the only place you can live is three blocks out of Butte falls or something. So there are some good things going on.

[00:19:41] Alice Lema: Well, and actually the, the USDA area is bigger than that, but that's kind of funny, cause it is hard to find property. Isn't it? Pete. And in the USDA category?

[00:19:52] Pete Belcastro: Well the area has a lot. It's only the urban areas of Medford, Central Point, in Grants Pass, really that are restricted in USDA loans. The problem is that sellers don't want the USDA loans. They want a conventional loan from guy and not a USDA. When, when we started this show back in 2009, if it was not for USDA loans, towns like Roseburg, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls would have fallen off the maps because that was the only kind of lending that was even selling anything back in 2009 and 2010. But USDA, but you don't even use it any more.

[00:20:36] Guy Giles: If you're talking about an income limit, and I apologize, it kind of broke up a little bit. So I'm having trouble tracking. If you're asking me what the income is. I mean, if you have a few people in your household, you could be up over $90,000 a year. So it has gone up. It is probably the most conservative program out there as far as debt to income ratios, consequently their default rate isn't bad.

[00:21:02] I would think that, you know, that the sellers, probably their apprehension with accepting a USDA offer are it's under some of the same guidelines as the as the FHA and the VA, as far as a little bit. You know, then all of a sudden, you know, you might, you might run into trouble and, and delay your closing, set a domino effect that you don't want to do.

[00:21:22] That that's usually the downfall with with the USDA one.

[00:21:26] Alice Lema: Well, and also they don't correct me if I'm wrong. They don't lend on manufactured, construction on land, which is kind of popular.

[00:21:36] Guy Giles: Yeah. They have made some, they have made some changes where they are allowing some manufactured housing.

[00:21:42] I think one of the problems that you run into with the USDA, though, If you have an outbuilding, which you tend to have when you have rural property, they will take the value of that outbuilding right out of the appraisal. And I actually lost a deal on one of those a couple of years back where it had a decent barn on it and the house appraised just fine with the barn.

[00:22:05] And then the appraiser had to back out the, what that barn was worth. And at that point, the house did not appraise. So there's just some little nuances with the thing, you know, having to do it, how many people are in your house? You know, as far as the income limits go, do you know, do any of them have any income?

[00:22:23] And so it's just this weird formula, but, but that was one of those workable ones with the outbuildings that you have to be really careful of . The idea, I think for the USDA, even though that the name always sounded to me, You know, you're going to go live next door to a bunch of cows or something. I think it was really designed for small towns.

[00:22:49] There's actually one other thing that that can really help. I mean, a lot of what we've been talking about is low inventory, you know, and just a lot going on in the market. One thing that we're doing just to kind of get away from that other subject is full credit pre-approvals. I'm finding that my conversion rate is a lot higher right now.

[00:23:09] And I think a lot of that has to do with the minute I meet somebody where we're acting like they are in contract. So while they're looking for a house my turn times are a day, two days at the most where we're fully credit underwriting, everybody that comes in. So instead of just the preapproval letter, we have a signed off from an underwriter. The same underwriter that will underwrite when they get their house. So being able to send out letters and call agents and tell people that, that these guys truly are ready to go. I think that might be kind of a nice thing to, to set people apart. Cause it's, you know, I thought it would be good when we started it and it's actually, it's actually really helped get, you know, get offers accepted in this crazy market.

[00:23:52] Alice Lema: Well, and real estate agents, I think need that. We talk a lot about how the consumer needs to be able to count on the lender, but real estate agents need to as well, because you don't want to be having things go wrong in the middle of your escrow because the lender wasn't thorough. That's a really bad situation, especially in a market like this.

[00:24:10] Guy Giles: No. And, and, you know, in the old days, you know, a lot of times there was just so much of everything. You just go take your backup offer. And, but, but there's, there's a lot going on, you know, you're just trying to sell your house or rent it out or do whatever you're going to do with it.

[00:24:25] And everybody has plans and it's not as simple as, oh, let's just extend this escrow a little bit because the borrower didn't want their credit pulled before. You know, before we started this process and, and we're just adament with everybody that we're gonna, we're going to get everything done. And I'm putting, you know, my name and reputation and my company's name and reputation on this pre-qualification letter.

[00:24:48] And now I'm putting it on a preapproval letter. So barring something going crazy in the middle of the transaction it'/s good. You know, everybody's already looked at this thing, so really all you're waiting on is your appraisal. And as long as your inspection period and your appraisal go, okay, you're ready to close. And I closed the jumbo loan in three weeks last week because we were ready to go.

[00:25:09] And we had had everybody underwritten. I did call on a little bit of a favor on an appraiser to get the appraisal back really quick. Cause that's, you know, that could potentially be a holdup sometimes. But it's a good feeling all the way around for everybody to know that they are approved. Not just, you know, you put in some numbers in Quicken loans and, and they said you are.

[00:25:29] Pete Belcastro: I think that's one of the best things that mutual of Omaha you've got done Guy, is to have that program. It's perfect for so many buyers. And I really do think buyers need to look at that because it gives you a little bit of an advantage over the competition. Who's, you're up against, and many of these in many of these sales that we see.

[00:25:46] So that's a brilliant way to do it. And I think you're going to be really successful with that. Obviously the other one that you've also done, which I think is still in play is if I could buy purchase, my new home without a contingent offer on my current home. And you have some of those loans as well.

[00:26:04] And with those are really two huge things for consumers, for buyers to really get an advantage over the competition.

[00:26:13] Guy Giles: Yeah. Every, every, you know, just kind of every little thing that you can do to set yourself apart is a good thing, because I think the days of even writing a letter are kinda over.

[00:26:25] So, I mean, I would break my heart if, if somebody literally did not accept the offer for, you know, for bad reasons. But it was kind of nice to just be able to say, you know, especially when somebody would come in excited after seeing the house and you know, I'd say, write a letter and tell him how much you loved that front room.

[00:26:43] But yeah, that's, that's not going to happen anymore.

[00:26:47] Alice Lema: It's actually illegal. Now in the state of Oregon, this is a brand new law. What he's talking about, everybody listening do not write a letter to seller. And you know what else? You're not as an agent really supposed to say much. Even verbally now you, you have to be super careful.

[00:27:01] About explaining who the people are and why they want your house. They just want to know what the offer is.

[00:27:11] Guy Giles: Yeah. And, and, you know, it probably should just come down to numbers, you know, cause it is a business transaction, so it's, it's probably not a bad thing.

[00:27:20] And again, you know, I mean, any little thing we can do to just make the play and feel fair and.

[00:27:28] Alice Lema: Yeah, and it's all about discrimination and possible perceived discrimination. So that's what that law is all about. No love letters.

[00:27:38] Pete Belcastro: We had the oregon association of realtor lobbyists on with us a few weeks ago, and we learned a lot about what went on in the legislature in some of these decisions and things. And thank goodness that they're there up in Salem because they kind of more or less can keep the train on the tracks in terms of lending and all these kinds of things. And the buying and selling and real estate stuff, because they can go off the tracks at a, you know, in a minute and things are really messed up.

[00:28:04] Guy Giles: It is easy when you're trying to legislate everything. And then all of a sudden something that sounds really good on the surface, on the real estate side, but hey, let's just go make that a law. But you're right. To have some, you know, people up there, you know, lobbyists is a bad word and has been for a long time, but people that do really understand they can get the ear of the people there.

[00:28:25] And say, look, you know, this might sound really good on the surface. But in the long run, you know, there are other ramifications or you're actually gonna hurt this. And it is good to have people like you're talking about Greg, probably.

[00:28:36] Alice Lema: But we have a breakcoming up, with guy Giles mutual Omaha mortgage. We'll be right back.

[00:28:42] Well, here we are again, a real estate show brought to you by John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon Mutual of Omaha mortgage, Guy Giles who's with us today and Rogue Valley Association of Realtors, Pete bell. Casto Alice SEMA. We're both brokers here at John L. Scott .

[00:28:57] And Pete and Guy, and I were just talking about how to get offers accepted and some things you can do to be a stronger buyer on paper and some statistics. Pete, what else do we have to talk about for the last few weeks in our valley.

[00:29:15] Pete Belcastro: I want to ask Guy one question here before we do that. What about, are you seeing in your, any of your loans regarding fire insurance that is changing. Because I mean the whole west is burning so many homes again have burned. Look at south lake Tahoe, close to there.

[00:29:29] We've lost them here in these fires at Oregon. Are you seeing any changes in that Guy, in terms of fire, insurances, premiums going up or what what's happening in that? And for people who are getting loans right now.

[00:29:41] Guy Giles: It was kind of strange. It felt like it was going to start to be a big deal a little while back. You know, fires and everything happened.

[00:29:50] And I'm not, I'm not seeing crazy, crazy premiums at all. And to be honest, it kinda fell off my radar a little bit because we were definitely starting to see it. And I would hear that this insurance company doesn't want to insure in a certain area. And it really hasn't come up for me a lot lately.

[00:30:12] Pete Belcastro: I'm glad to hear that because I I'm like you a year a month ago, I mean, it seem like it's going to go crazy and maybe that's, that's a good thing. As far as the market goes, and this is what so interesting in Jackson county, Alice. You talk about that. The cycles of the selling season, you know, usually labor day, which is a holiday, of course, that we're in this weekend.

[00:30:32] It's usually the time when we start to see listings go down and we start heading into winter, which is the low point of the real estate market of the year. And it looked like it's following our way. The two weeks, just as an example, two weeks ago in Jackson county, we had 468 stick-built homes on the market.

[00:30:50] 468. This last week, it had dropped to 406. And it wasn't that we had all sorts of new pendings and closed sales happen. I think it was went off the market, whatever, but Jackson county, the reason the market has changed two weeks ago, we had 104 homes go pending.

[00:31:09] Closed sales two weeks ago, we had 86. This last week right this last week, there were a 61. So we're seeing a slow down. Days where the market has increased from 45, 2 weeks ago to 58 last week. So things are beginning to change a little bit as we go into the fall.

[00:31:33] Alice Lema: Well, and it feels like we're going backwards. You know, what did you say the other week? Pete was almost like we were starting in March, 2020 again, and that's how this, this second slowdown feels. And I'm still on the fence of if it's oriented to the season or if it's having to do with people just putting the brakes on about moving because of the increase in the Covid.

[00:31:58] Pete Belcastro: I don't know, but the COVID has certainly made a big deal out of what we're doing with schools and people are not, if they are stopping to move anyway. We'll keep watching it, you know, week after week as we go along here to see how this goes, but we've definitely seen a change. And so that change also means that the prices have not gone down.

[00:32:15] I think that's the other thing. Now, the median price last week was $526,000 for those 61 homes that sold. Yeah. Thousand for three of the last four weeks of August Jackson county. So affordability and all those things are still out there and playing. And that's why that the opportunity that Guy is telling us about with rates, the way they are, with opportunities to be fully you know, vetted for closing and things like that.

[00:32:43] That's really an opportunity that buyers need to work on. And I guess I don't know how much time we have left Alice, but hey Guy, how long have you been with us. How long have you had Mutual of Omaha? You started with different companies, but how long have we been doing this show together? It's been what, five years.

[00:33:02] Guy Giles: At least, it's been a long time. I'm glad I finally landed at a company that didn't close down. Because it seems like every now and then, thankfully, you know, this company's been around for a long, long time and everything's still going.

[00:33:18] Pete Belcastro: Yeah, well, mortgage companies were like airlines and banks, you know, they were coming and going as they work, but you certainly landed with the best one at least since I've known you in doing this show with you with Mutual of Omaha mortgage. And so that's really good. It's also, you know, I'm at that age where I'm at the retirement age and this may be our last show together, as far as I know. Because I'm you know, retiring from the work from from this. But it's been wonderful with you.

[00:33:42] I've learned so much about lending from you. I know our listeners and viewers have too, and your great insights into how to do it right. And how to get the best opportunity for you as as the lender for your client. And I have learned that a lot from you, and I think you really do a great job. You've helped me personally.

[00:34:01] You know, it's worked out great and I really appreciate all the help that you've given and all the effort to have to be on our show for so long.

[00:34:08] Guy Giles: Well, I appreciate everything about you. My first show was your last live show where people would actually call in and ask questions. I, I fought a bunch of Marines one night and I was less scared at that moment then going on the air with you.

[00:34:25] And I lost that fight by the way. But literally man, it's, it's been a real blessing to be with you.

[00:34:33] Pete Belcastro: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And your carry on and we'll keep selling houses. And, you know, we have to build more houses. We need more for people who, especially in rural communities, for housing, is so short. This issue wasn't going to go away.

[00:34:45] And you guys, you and Alice and people like you, who keep working in the business, have got to keep bringing these issues up to the people who make these decisions. Because our housing situation is really, really critical and rentals and everything. And it's, it's not gotten better in the 12 years of doing this show it's gotten worse, to be honest.

[00:35:03] Guy Giles: You know, it looks like you can do a little bit of an ADU on some rural land now up to 900 square feet or something. you know, maybe that'll get a little bit of relief. I don't think you can really rent those things out. Maybe you can stick your kids out in that instead of inside your house.

[00:35:18] Alice Lema: Wow. It would be nice for the elders too, to have them close by. And so, you know, have their own space if they're capable of living like that.

[00:35:26] Pete Belcastro: I want to come back in another life. I'd come back as a builder and I would build mostly in rural communities. Because you tell them, I mean, if the migration that we're seeing from the cities to Oregon, to Idaho, et cetera, in small towns, well there's just no housing.

[00:35:42] New housing and small towns, so that's where the critical need, because people want that rural life and we just don't have it available right now, right.

[00:35:52] Alice Lema: Unless everybody puts their house on the market, or at least a third of you put your house on the market, then we'll, then we'll be able to make it happen.

[00:36:03] Guy Giles: And then if Pete's retiring and at least give Alice a call, find out what your house is worth. I mean, it's pretty, it's pretty enlightening. And you know, if nothing else you're going to go to sleep feeling pretty good.

[00:36:13] Alice Lema: Yeah, it's been an interesting market. And just so that the listeners don't worry, Pete is, we're in conversations with him to keep him coming back as a consultant, giving us his opinion from time to time.

[00:36:25] Pete Belcastro: But you'll find the market isn't going to change, and I think opportunities still exist for that. I've learned that I'm still out there trying to find stuff and in work and can do different things, but yeah. It's quite a market. I can't wait to see what September is going to do now with school starting football's back and all the things we talked about at the beginning of the show, how's it going to affect real estate?

[00:36:46] We're going to find out the next few weeks. Really what the fall might look like.

[00:36:52] Alice Lema: Well, Pete Belcastro thank you so much for all your years. And we are going to hit you up for consultation on a regular basis. Guy, Giles Mutual of Omaha, one of our sponsors. Thank you for all the great information today.

[00:37:05] Also the Rogue Valley Association of Realtors and John L. Scott, Southern Oregon, both the sponsors for us. We're very grateful and this program will air again tomorrow at six. O'clock have a beautiful Southern Oregon weekend and we'll see you next week. Bye now.