Why Plan Your Estate  - with Attorney Milan Hanson

Full Transcript of Video Below

Southern Oregon RE Show Estate Attorney Guest

Alice Lema: [00:00:00] Well, good morning, Southern Oregon, and welcome to the real estate show. So then Oregon's one and only weekly housing update for our local real estate market I'm Alice Lema here with my cohost Pete Belcastro. And we're both brokers at John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon. Good morning, Pete.

[00:00:27] Pete Belcastro: [00:00:27] We're here with mid-July right now. Smoke is that we, we got smoke again. We got fires, we got no water and somehow some way people are still searching for homes and buying and selling property. Our market continues to, I don't want to say defy logic in many ways, but it continues to be really strong, but demand is pretty high.

[00:00:48] Listings are up in some categories, you know, things like that. It's been, we've been, we've been like this for almost a year now from the pandemic, this kind of demand listings are coming back. But still slowly climbing in some communities. Here in mid summer, we're we're poised depending on the weather I think Alice, what's going to be in a July and August before school starts. Again. I think the weather and smoke is going to play a big part in what real estate is going to do here in the next few weeks.

[00:01:17] Alice Lema: [00:01:17] It's going to be interesting cause it's an unusual market cycle, because we were disrupted last year. But one of the sources of homes for sale continuously through the shutdown were estates. And when there is a person who passes away or needs to go to another location to be taken care of a lot of times there's issues that the family or the person themselves was not prepared for. So today we're lucky to have Milan Hanson of Southern Oregon Law and an estate attorney and a real estate attorney who's going to be chatting with us about some of the idiosyncrasies and pitfalls of estates and probate and real estate.

[00:01:58] Pete Belcastro: [00:01:58] You can leave everything up to their family or somebody. I don't even care about that. I think that's really a wrong, wrong approach. Take this important to do it the right way by getting a will or some sort of a trust for yourself, which really makes so much sense, especially with so many complicated rules and laws.

[00:02:17]If you have heirs it's one thing, Alice, if you don't have heirs, it's another thing. But we're gonna hear

[00:02:23] Alice Lema: [00:02:23] It matters if you're married or not in the state of Oregon. So be aware of that.

[00:02:34] Oh, sorry. Can you say that again? Your audio went out

[00:02:38] Pete Belcastro: [00:02:38] And there's also how much you own with property. Do you own any. And so we'll hear what Milan has to say about that. It's a big topic and people shouldn't poopoo it because it matters so much to your children or to your spouse, that you do this the right way.

[00:02:56]Alice Lema: [00:02:56] And it doesn't make you die sooner to talking about it. Doesn't.

[00:03:00] So, anyway, we got a break, Pete Belcastro, Alice Lema, we'll be right back with Milan Hansen Estate attorney. Do not touch that dial.

[00:03:07] Well, welcome back to the real estate show folks. I'm Alice Lema here with my cohost Pete Belcastro. We're both brokers John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon. And we're so excited today to have estate attorney Milan Hansen with us.

[00:03:21] Welcome Milan, so estate and real estate and planning and life events is a topic very near and dear to my heart. Real estate can sometimes be complicated if you don't document your situation properly with your estate. Isn't that right?

[00:03:40]Milan Hansen: [00:03:40] That is, that is very correct. And, you know, it's probably a bigger, it's probably a bigger problem than most people realize.

[00:03:51] Cause so often, you sometimes don't see the result of what's going to happen. A lot of people you know, it's, I get sometimes mixed, mixed feelings from people because even starting to make a plan, sometimes triggers just a lot of these innate fears. And that a lot of people sometimes think that planning for what's going to happen when they pass away is somehow gonna acknowledge it, you know, acknowledge their own mortality.

[00:04:22] And I have absolutely had some men come up to me and like, Nope, not going to do it. And you know, they could have been, you know, in their sixties and had three motorcycles, but you, I want to talk about, they don't want to talk about what's going to happen to them.

[00:04:40]If something. It did realistically a lot of people kind of just really like, you know, you know, risky activities. Or a lot of macho people just say, you know what, I'm going to live forever. And you know, God be damned, I'm going to live my life. Whatever happens to me on the back end or to my stuff whatever I won't be around.

[00:05:04] Pete Belcastro: [00:05:04] I see Milan, thank you for joining us. I both Alice and  I have clients who, who that react that same way when you say to them about an estate. I'm curious as to what you're tell people about, because I've got clients just say, you know, I ask them, do you have an estate plan? Do you have anything you like this?

[00:05:21] And whether they say no or whatever, but what they say, I don't have enough money. I don't have a big enough estate to worry about that kind of thing. Or what, so tell, tell us just about when someone would use the service of getting an estate. Cause some people say don't need them. And some people do. I don't know what even tell them. So what are you saying to him?

[00:05:40] Milan Hansen: [00:05:40] Well, there's a lot of, there's a lot of ideas. There's a lot of myths and you know, some of these myths are just what people kind of talk about amongst themselves. Sometimes there's even like very professional, big celebrity financial gurus that say, Hey, you know what, You know, this, we'll tell you how to do this, go to legal zoom, go to this.

[00:06:02] And, you know, some or all this advice, I mean, it kind of comes from different areas. But a lot of a person can really get confused really quick or oversimplify it, and just cause maybe they don't. Maybe if it's not the death that they're really scared about. They're really just scared of kind of complexity and sometimes thinking about really, hey, what would happen?

[00:06:27] But it's a common, common myth that says, well, I don't have enough. I don't need one. And do you know what? I'll take it on a case by case basis. I mean, I had a client come in and say, well, isn't it true that if I, you know, if I have over $300,000 that I should have a trust. And I said, well, I don't like to put a, quite a number on it.

[00:06:47] I want you to think about, about what would you like to happen to you? Or even then sometimes we're not just planning for, what's going to happen to your stuff when you pass away. But I really want you to think about what's going to happen to you and that's while you're living.  Most people just completely don't even don't even know the right questions to ask. Haven't even thought about that far, because they aren't really considering.

[00:07:13] That was about an 80% chance that most of us will spend at least two years of our life in some kind of assisted care facility.

[00:07:24] Alice Lema: [00:07:24] Two years!

[00:07:27] Milan Hansen: [00:07:27] Those assisted facilities can cost $5,000 to $10,000 a month here in the Rogue Valley. And so many people think it's all about that, that, that, and it's like, no, no, no.

[00:07:38] Well, what about everything that happens in between. And especially if you're alone, if you're unmarried or if you don't have like a really, really great support group here, like with kids that are really going to step up to the task. You aging alone almost puts you at more risk than other people.

[00:07:59] So putting some kind of plan in place is probably more important, even if you know, what happens to your stuff when you pass away is, you know, we're, you're not even worried about it. I'm really more concerned with what's going to happen to you during your lifetime .And how are you going to be treated? And who's going to step up.

[00:08:17] Because we had an attorney here in our office that did almost nothing but adult guardianships and conservatorships.

[00:08:25] Alice Lema: [00:08:25] Oh, wow.

[00:08:26] Milan Hansen: [00:08:26] And what that is is, and God bless God, bless God, bless America. I love, I mean, I love that free land of the brave. And sometimes I've seen some of these older people that come from this generation of, you know, I'm going to pull myself up by my bootstraps. And they, you know, they do, they just, you know, I'm going to do it on my own until the day they end up in a hospital. And the doctors are saying, we can't release you.

[00:08:57] You're not gonna, you know, we, you know, you're physically going to be okay. But now we don't know if you're going to be able to take care of yourself when you get out. And I've had so many clients be absolutely like Mr. Milan Hanson, you're gonna, I'm gonna, I'm going to pass away in my sleep and I'm going to go quick.

[00:09:20] And I've said, okay, you know what? That's a, that's a great goal. Okay. That's a good, but let's, let's step back here and kind of think about it because if you get into that situation, it's going to be, it's going to be very scary.

[00:09:37] Because of guardianship and conservatorship hearing is basically, sometimes it's initiated by the state.

[00:09:46] I mean, the doctors have some attorneys on call say, oh, we can't release this person. But the guardianship and conservatorship is kind of suing you to take away your right to make decisions for yourself.

[00:09:58] So if you haven't made it if you haven't made a plan for yourself already. And I mean, a very easy way of doing it. And I still don't like durable powers of attorney. I have a whole big deal about that, but that's a whole other spiel at least putting in plans in place who would be my durable power of attorney to take care of my finances if I couldn't do it.

[00:10:21] Alice Lema: [00:10:21] So is that what a durable power of attorney is, is specifically for finance?

[00:10:25] Milan Hansen: [00:10:25] It most, all, most, all of them are just for finances. So this would be a person that could get access to your bank account, write your checks, pay your bills. I don't like the durable powers of attorney as much. It's kind of a quick fix. It's kind of quick and dirty. A lot of the banking institutions aren't liking them because there is a lot of elder abuse.

[00:10:47]Some people that get that power, we really haven't told the kids like, hey, you know, this isn't your money. You know, you are here to, you know, take care of your parents or take care of the elder person. And there's not a lot of oversight. There's not a lot, sometimes you just kind of handing away the keys to the kingdom.

[00:11:07] But the alternative is, if you do not kind of have this transition of power, transitioned to somebody who maybe start to take care of you. When you've really kind of groomed this person, you've told them, hey, I would like you to, you know, Step up if I, if I need it. You're going to end up in this. If you don't do it voluntarily, if you don't immediately say, Hey, I will, you know, I'm gonna talk to my friends or my family, figure out who, who might be around and available to help me should I ever need it?

[00:11:38] That it's going to happen involuntarily through the court system. And it's going to be in other words, the line is what's going to do it for you if you don't plan ahead and have it down written for yourself, correct? Yep. If you don't have a plan, the state has a plan for you.

[00:11:59] Pete Belcastro: [00:11:59] I would suspect that as you talked about families have changed over the, over the years that we're going to see more and more of that. I mean, I see more and more clients of just, you know, one child, maybe people without children, we're seeing smaller family unit. So I would suspect that it's going to become more important as that as we age again, with single people or couples without children we're going to see more of that.

[00:12:22] And so having to plan you're absolutely correct, or someone's going to do it for you and you're not going to, you may not may or may not even like. But gee be smart and get a plan together. If you're talk about a plan and these complicated things. I mean, I just went through this myself. My, my mother had, you know, a loving trust.

[00:12:40] There's all sorts of different names for them. Do they all do the same thing?

[00:12:45] Milan Hansen: [00:12:45] You know, a lot of people are going in when they come in and they say, I  want a simple will, or I want a simple this. I try not to let a person kind of make that decision until they get educated on what are the options available to them.

[00:13:02] Because if they really want something simple, I say, Hey, you know what, go to legal zoom. I mean, if that's really what you want, because that's going to be it's just going to be a form. I mean, a lot of people think it's like, I just need that piece of paper and you're going to get it. And once you have it, then you're going to put it on your bookshelf and kind of forget about it.

[00:13:20] And you're like, oh, cross that off. I, you know, I did, I did this responsible thing. The problem is I see is every family is different. It is. Every family is different. Every person is different. I do not want to put them in so much of a box and so much of what some of that planning is is kind of a cookie cutter, one size fits all. And you were trying to get a person to kind of fit in these parameters.

[00:13:46] It's like, Hey, you just did it. You, here you go. But we aren't really taking a look at what they own. I always ask title questions. How much property do you have? I mean, how many bank accounts do you have? And sometimes it doesn't matter how much you have. I mean, because very easily I think that one person said, oh, I wish I should have a trust after 300,000.

[00:14:07] I said, well, I mean, I mean, maybe it's the trust will be easier to administer it. Then sometimes having to go through probate. So we all these wills, a lot of, a lot of people have a will. And they still don't understand that the will does not avoid probate, this kind of court process, where you're going to have to divide a person's stuff.

[00:14:31] I, I mean, I call probate, suing yourself for the benefit of your creditors.

[00:14:40] Alice Lema: [00:14:40] That's accurate though, isn't it? I don't think people realize there is a probate AF if there's a will.

[00:14:45]Milan Hansen: [00:14:45] But with all these trusts, I mean, you're talking about these loving trusts. I mean, they can all be the same thing. I mean, I call it a revokable.

[00:14:53] I mean, it means you have the most of the power during your lifetime. That trust is you, but there are sometimes a lot of fancy things that we can make that do, or even for tax planning and here in the state of Oregon there's probably a little bit more tax planning that we can do if depending on where your assets are at which state they are.

[00:15:14] I mean, here in Oregon, we have a million dollar debt tax exemption. We're one of the few states that has its own death tax or state tax. Some people call it and it's probably one of the most restrictive in the nation and it kicks it over a million. So yeah, go ahead.

[00:15:33] Pete Belcastro: [00:15:33] Hey, coming up. So hold those thoughts there because that's what people really are confused about probates and the kinds of things you're talking about there.

[00:15:40] We need to delve into that more in the next segment because people don't know what to expect is you're right. We put this topic off all of our lives until you know, we're dead. So it really has very good information. And we'll look, we'll look forward to more of that here.

[00:15:55] Alice Lema: [00:15:55] So Pete Belcastro, Alice Lema, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. We're speaking with Milan Hanson, the Southern Oregon law state attorney real estate attorney extraordinary. Do not touch that dial. We'll be right back.

[00:16:08] Well, welcome back real estate fans, Alice Lema here, broker John L. Scott with my co-host Pete Belcastro. We're both brokers at John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon.

[00:16:16] And Milan Hanson is our guests today from Southern Oregon law. And we're having a really interesting conversation about a ,state's guardianships, wills probates, and that, and I'm Milan right before the break, we were talking about some of the finer points of taxes and what the state of Oregon has to offer. Want to finish your thought on that.

[00:16:37] Milan Hansen: [00:16:37] Sure. Well, because the state of Oregon has this estate, state tax that kicks in. I mean, you have an exemption of up to a million. It means if you have a million 0.2, you're only going to be paying the state taxes to the, to the state of Oregon on everything on you when you pass away on anything above that 1 million.

[00:16:56]So when you have a married couple, you get kind of an exemption to there's a little bit more we can play with. And we can structure this trust so they do some interesting things to preserve each person's exemption, even on the death of the first spouse. But if you're aging alone, you only got your one exemption.

[00:17:11] You only got your one, one, $1 million. So which a lot of people. Yeah. I mean, they say they want simple wills, but they aren't even like thinking about what they own. And I always go through this process of saying, Hey, you know what? You might not. A lot of people do not consider themselves wealthy.

[00:17:29] But I have gone through their assets spreadsheets when I do my planning with them and I say, and I add every, make them add everything up and say, what are y'all on? What's your house in there? And I'll say I'll there's a lot of times I add it up and I say, congratulations. And they say, well, what part? And I said, did you know that you're, you're technical, you're a millionaire.

[00:17:53] I was like a schoolteacher. What are you taking about? I didn't know. I had some money. And I said, well, I mean, look at you. I mean, you, your house here is, is worth a good, good, good amount. It's got a good resale. It's been continuing to appreciate your retirement accounts have been doing really well. And you know, you've got a little money in the bank and a lot of times, a lot of good hardworking folks don't realize that they've never, they've never stopped to think about it.

[00:18:24] Alice Lema: [00:18:24] I mean, they've never stopped to add it up.

[00:18:25] Milan Hansen: [00:18:25] Yeah. Because they'll go in as like, oh, like, you know, I have somebody do my taxes for me. And I'll say, yeah, but the tax person is always going to ask you what your income was, but they aren't taking a look at everything that you have. And I've had some people, just their eyes kind of open just because they're like, wow, I'm glad. They didn't think they would have anything to give to their kids.

[00:18:49] And now all of a sudden, instead of a whole new thought process.

[00:18:52] Alice Lema: [00:18:52] Now it's a problem. So does that include stock accounts? Retirement accounts. What about are there pensions, is that added into it or does that go away when somebody dies?

[00:19:03]Milan Hansen: [00:19:03] No, there's going to be so anything that's just going to be passive depending on the type of the pension, because pensions are going to have all these weird rules and these are going to be some pensions are transferable, or you can, you know, heirs can inherit.

[00:19:20] Typically spouses, but that's, our pensions are going to be its own deal. And so that's going to be, well, that depends. I've seen on a pension that sometimes the surviving spouse gets the right to the pension. So it gives them a comfortable life, but it will go away at the death, of the death of both spouses.

[00:19:44] So sometimes pensions are not inheritable and that's just written into contract.

[00:19:50] Alice Lema: [00:19:50] So one of, one of the things you mentioned was if people are married. So for unmarried people, because this is what brought me into the world of estate planning very early on in my life, because I was so worried when I moved to the state of Oregon, about how different it was from the other states I lived in.

[00:20:07] So can you give a little thumbnail about what unmarried single people can expect if they die?

[00:20:16] Milan Hansen: [00:20:16] If you don't have a plan, as I've said, the state of Oregon has a plan for you. And so even if you have a will, if you have a, will you have a little bit more power over that process. You've kind of picked, who's going to be there to who's going to be there to kind of be the key person to get everything order, pay off your debts and then deliver what's left the inheritance, whoever you want to inherit.

[00:20:42] And you'll get an opportunity to kind of say, well, these are the people that I want to inherit. And you can specifically say, well, I want to disinherit some people that might have may have, are probably in line to get something from you. If you don't even have a will in place and a will, we'll still go through probate.

[00:21:01] If you don't have a will, we're going to go through probate still, but you just don't have that option anymore because you didn't write it down in the proper way while you were living to what you wanted.

[00:21:12] You're still going to end up in probate, but now we're going to go by what's called intestate laws and the intestate laws. This is your plan for if you don't have one, it would typically go everything to my spouse. And then sometimes even with blended families, if you have a spouse itwould go half to your spouse, half to your kids from another relationship, I call that the trophy wife or cabana boy effect. It's kind of like there, if you don't, sometimes the kids will be like, oh, you know, we don't want our step-mom to get everything.

[00:21:48] And so the law, you know, knows that the stepmom or stepdad might inherit everything, take it from those kids. And then they're not going to inherit from that their step-parent when they pass away, because they're not the biological kids. So with mixed families, I always say it's a little bit more important to do planning.

[00:22:05] When they really  have no spouse and then it's probably going to go everything to your kids in equal parts, regardless of whether you want it. I mean, the default rules, everything to the kids.

[00:22:18] Alice Lema: [00:22:18] What if your kids are minors? So I know children under 18. Yeah.

[00:22:22] Milan Hansen: [00:22:22] Then this is, this is another big issue because minors of children came out minor children until they're 18 they cannot open their own bank account. So if there was another parent for those kids, maybe another unmarried, a girlfriend or a boyfriend back in the day they have your kids. They are going to have to go through, what's called, they're going to have to go through the custody. I mean, not the conservatorship.

[00:22:54] So we talked about adult conservatorship, which is trying to do, you're gonna have to make decisions for an elder person who cannot make decisions for themselves anymore. Same thing happens with minor kids. So they're going to be too young to receive that money. I mean, I mean, if there's just, even if a person has one house, I mean, let's just imagine that there's going to, and there's one kid there's still a hundred thousand or something, right.

[00:23:17] Easily, a hundred thousand to give to that kid. And so the conservator would have to go through, or the guardian, whoever the parent of the kid is, or maybe there's another guardian out there. Somebody that's going to step up an aunt or an uncle. They're going to have to go through this court process. It's going to cost extra money for them to go through it, to then be able to get the money for the kid and they have to hold it.

[00:23:38] That conservator is usually it ends up in a restricted bank account and the conservator can kind of pull some of the money out to say, well, I'm spending on the kid. I mean, maybe they have to go every time they want to like, get the kid braces or something. They're like, oh, well that's going to be $5,000. And I don't want to pay for that.

[00:23:55] But the kids got a hundred thousand over here. Maybe I can dip into that. They're going to have to go through  get court permission almost every time they want to take that money out to get it. And so that's going to increase a lot of the legal fees.

[00:24:09]Pete Belcastro: [00:24:09] Yes, Milan, but the word, the word probate just scares a lot of people.

[00:24:15] I mean, when you just say, are you gonna have to go to probate and people freak out and get very nervous about it? Can you explain what, what causes that or how you avoid probate for a lot of us, because I know people don't want to do it. If you don't have to cause it's money, it's costly. It's separate. So what are the triggers or how can I avoid that? Or what do I need to do to not have to go through probate?

[00:24:38] Milan Hansen: [00:24:38] Well, in that instance for if you did have minor kids, you'd have to go through probate. And then because they were minor kids, you'd still have to have a conservatorship. Somebody appointed as a conservator to receive that. Because there's going to be men filing when the kid turns 18, they can have to release the money over them to immediately. And they're going to get suddenly a windfall of money.

[00:24:59] And I kind of feel a little hesitant about children receiving money outright, especially if all of a sudden it's, it's a large amount of money because there's this lottery effect that if you get 200, $300,000 very early on most likely that money isn't going to be there in five years time. I mean, the kids are probably, I mean, there might spend the money to impress their friends or they're going to get married right away with another interested partner. Who's going to say, oh, I know how to help you spend that money.

[00:25:37] Alice Lema: [00:25:37] Or they're going to buy Corvettes.

[00:25:41] Milan Hansen: [00:25:41] I mean, probate is this process of going through the court system. And if you don't have awill, like if they have to, the person that's going to be in charge of the probate is going to be appointed by the court. They're going to be called a personal representative and some states would call it an executor.

[00:25:59] But I like, I mean, here we in Oregon, we usually use personal representative and they call it a PR. That person's going to have to round up all the assets, maybe get the house, sell off the house. If they have stock, they can sell the stock. Sometimes they'll just say, well, we want to hold it here and just give it to the kid as stock, without, you know, getting all these transfer fees.

[00:26:19]But probate one, person's going to be appointed to get these assets, get them ready for the kid and go through this process. We have to take out a publication in the newspaper to say, Hey, this person's passed away. If they owe you money, this is your last chance to get it. So we have to have there's a four month window for creditors to come forward and to make themselves known.

[00:26:44] So anybody, if you pass away, anybody that's been waiting to get paid. This is their time to get paid and you have to pay. I'm always telling people, Nope, you have to pay all these people. That comes up because your inheritance, the legal word for an inheritance is called residue. And that means once you get, once you pay everybody off, you pay off, you pay off the creditors, you pay up the, the PR can take a PR fee.

[00:27:11] And usually that's between a thousand.

[00:27:13]Alice Lema: [00:27:13] The personal representative to get paid. People don't realize that.

[00:27:17]Milan Hansen: [00:27:17] Because they're kind of working as a glorified accountant and make sure everybody's getting paid. So it is, it is job. It is a job. And I tell people they can take that PR fee,. If there's a family situation, usually they say, no, I don't need to take more than my brothers and sisters.

[00:27:34] I don't need to do it. A lot of people waive it, but it's there. And then we're going to pay, if there's estate taxes, we're going to pay any estate taxes. And then finally lawyers, you're going to pay us lawyers where in fact, we're almost first in line to get, get the money. And then whatever's left after everybody's been paid.

[00:27:54] Whatever's left. Good stuff. Then this is where finally, and this is why a probate can take six months, takes at least six months I'd say realistically.. Then that support going quick. If it's simple and everything's lined up and good often if we have to sell a house and we're trying to get a house ready, I mean, that can be three, four months just to get that going.

[00:28:18] And that causes delays. Realistically, I'd say probate takes a year. And whenever you file it, even if you have a will, that becomes public. And when we file it in the court now, it's, I mean, not only is it now public, but there's other big institutions out there, including the state of Oregon, which are looking at all these probate filings. And they're saying, oh yeah, Hey, maybe that person they owe money.

[00:28:47] I often see a claim from the state of Oregon for, I mean, if you have Medicaid fees, wow. The state of Oregon has been paying for your doctors. Occasionally they, the state of Oregon makes a claim and I've seen them get up to a hundred thousand dollars from one.

[00:29:05] Wow. Did

[00:29:05] Alice Lema: [00:29:05] not know that. And you know, we've got another break coming up, Milan.

[00:29:08] We are just going to have to have you back. There's so much more to talk about. We so appreciate your time Milan Hansen. SouthernOregon law give him a call. He is an amazing estate attorney. Amazing real estate attorney. Thank you so much for your time.

[00:29:25] So Pete Belcastro, Alice Lema we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

[00:29:31] Well, welcome back to the real estate show folks. Pete Belcastro, Alice Lema. We're both brokers here in John L. Scott and Southern Oregon. And we just had an amazing conversation with Milan Hanson, estate attorney here locally, Southern Oregon law. And Pete, you know, one of the things that Milan mentioned was if part of your estate includes a house you may not be prepared for how long it might take to get ready. And, and probate and all of that. And, you know, we have quite a few estate sales here in, in our area.

[00:30:02] Pete Belcastro: [00:30:02] Well, there's, there's a lot going on in that field. And Milan is absolutely right. If you don't have a plan, the state is going to do it for you. So I, my clients would always talk about that.

[00:30:13] Do you have it? You got to have something. Because otherwise someone's going to do that for you. So planning ahead of that, and you're right, you have, I'm involved with one where we have a personal representative going on. And it has to be approved through an attorney. It slows the whole process down, but it eventually clears up.

[00:30:28] Eventually it goes. There the personal representative was in charge and, and signing the documents and trying to make sure the thing goes through. So it's out there all the time and it's not going to go away. And I think that people really need to be prepared for those things.

[00:30:43] Alice, I mean, I've got, I just did this myself in the trust. You know, my family has done pretty much all of that. We've all kind of gone through that because we had an experience years ago where we had to go through a probate and things like that because we weren't prepared. So it's really good advice there.

[00:30:59] Hey, the market this week, Alice has just been really interesting. Hasn't it a lot going on. I just wanted to give you one interesting stat that we talk about sales. You know, we talk about the luxury market and how big it is and how many is 25% of the market. This is an interesting stat though. $350,000 in less is, is a real popular price as you know. It makes up just 10% of the listings of Jackson county right now, but it also makes them 50% of the sales last week.

[00:31:28] Alice Lema: [00:31:28] Wow.

[00:31:29]Pete Belcastro: [00:31:29] Isn't that interesting. You're coming off and go off real fast. Yeah, but 10% of the listings and 50% of the sales come out of that $350,000 category.

[00:31:45]Alice Lema: [00:31:45] That is so interesting.

[00:31:48]Pete Belcastro: [00:31:48] You know luxury, luxury sales. We've talked about those, those seem to have plateaued. There's now 91 of them in Jackson county last week, even.

[00:31:57] So they've that slowed down. Have we seen that plateau? Are we there? I think we're there. I can't see things going up.

[00:32:06]Alice Lema: [00:32:06] Yeah. I definitely think we're leveling off.

[00:32:09]Pete Belcastro: [00:32:09] As they have any faster or anything. And there in, there are more listings still coming on this last week, 304. I don't either. It's still, you know, 60%.

[00:32:20] It's just a way down from where it was before, but they are coming back. They're going fast. The hottest market still remains in Josephine county, Alice. Price last week average, almost $500,000. Again there on, 15 sales. So sales have slowed down a little bit across the counties.

[00:32:39] Pending sales are down a little bit from where they were a few weeks ago. So maybe we've hit that plateau there and things may be settling, then we're going to see.

[00:32:47] Alice Lema: [00:32:47] So it's super exciting to have so many of the lower priced properties. That's a game changer for the market. It also gives a lot of breathing room for people who are trying to sell their house and buy a more expensive one.

[00:33:01] That's what we've been waiting for. Super exciting.

[00:33:05] Pete Belcastro: [00:33:05] Well, we're a bit, you're only talking about a very, very tiny fraction. I mean for the, for the demand, that's there in the housing. It's still not even close to what we need. And we're still seeing people leaving here, our communities are selling their places.

[00:33:19] They're leaving because they simply have no other place, no replacement property here. That's still probably the biggest issue with sellers who want to remain here. And those who leave it's a big difference. If you're leaving town, that's easy. If you're not, and you're trying to stay here, where do I go?

[00:33:36] And that's still been a big issue now for well over a year.

[00:33:39] Alice Lema: [00:33:39] Yeah. And it makes it a trickier negotiation when you're out writing offers because you know, you're contingent on selling the house you have. And even if you're off, you are in escrow. If another buyer comes along, you know, competing on the house that you want and they don't have a house to sell.

[00:33:54] Pete Belcastro: [00:33:54] All right. I throw this and you've got these fires that are around us again that are destroying homes and destroying properties. We've got no water and irrigation things. So there's lots of issues out there that people need to be aware of. Where am I going? Is it going to slow our market down? It has to.

[00:34:11] These types of conditions can not just, it can not be around us so extreme and not having the effect on real estate. And I think we're beginning maybe be that, especially if the fires and smoke continue, Alice,  we're going to be in for another really long, next few months. And I hope that I hope that's not the case.

[00:34:30] Alice Lema: [00:34:30] Yeah. It's such a bummer to see all that smoke again. We were kind of hoping to escape through this year.

[00:34:38] Pete Belcastro: [00:34:38] That's that's that's any more, absolutely fantasy thinking. It's the same way with water. It's just, we're we're hoping that's the only thing we have to go by as hope they can't even put that fire out.

[00:34:49] That huge fire that's now gone from Beatty Oregon. They're in the Lake County, Alice it's 40 some miles at that fire has traveled. So. Real estate our, our communities are changing. Our beautiful forests are being destroyed and you know this is the place we call home, so beautiful that we always talk about is really under attack right now. And it's very sad to see happen.

[00:35:14]Alice Lema: [00:35:14] Yeah, and I worry a little about our farmers. You know, some, one of the ditches got shut off. I think TID got shut off this week. And so now there's well, and people knew that was gonna happen, but it just means the extraordinary circumstances we've had here in Southern Oregon going on two years you know, coming out of the big spike and then the Corona spiked again, and then the fires.

[00:35:35] And now, now here we are without enough water. So it's just been very, very difficult, but people still want to move. And a lot of them are estates and that's why it was so good to have Milan Hanson here talking about that.

[00:35:49] Pete Belcastro: [00:35:49] Yeah, it defies logic sometimes. But with the biggest,

[00:35:56] Alice Lema: [00:35:56] you know, just speaking of defying logic I have somebody who is selling a tier two cannabis license. And what's interesting if you don't know about those is you can buy those there, commercial grow license for cannabis. And you can apply it to a different property. And so we have somebody who's selling that for $350,000.

[00:36:15] And even in a drought people want to buy it. So it's it's yeah. It's, you know, we don't have it sold, sold, but it it's just, like you said, such an interesting time.

[00:36:28] Pete Belcastro: [00:36:28] Everything will sell. A lot less you know, hemp growing this year because of water. We're, we're pumping ground water out irrigation around our, Southern Oregon right now. How much is out there? How much is it so left that we're not using? You're right. But you know, when you have farms and you have people that rely on that, we're seeing this a lot of them wells that were dug production .Wells that were dug, you know, years ago. And they're being used right now because it's a, it's a big mess, you know?

[00:36:56] Hey, the fairs on this weekend, Jackson County, other fairs are coming up. Hope people get a chance to go out and enjoy those a little bit with that, with the smoke. I know it's kind of hard. But these are big events in our community trying to get back to normal and hopefully people will take advantage of them and can go back and start that and enjoy that again.

[00:37:12] A lot of kids in four H and animals have been preparing for two years for this, because everything was shut down last year.

[00:37:19] Alice Lema: [00:37:19] So, oh, that was so sad. Wasn't that just so sad last year?

[00:37:23]Pete Belcastro: [00:37:23] Well, let's hope we would hope and pray that, that it goes well. Let's hope and pray. Also, Alice, I mean, we've talked about hoping and praying that we get some relief to this terrible weather and get some, you know, We're in trouble here.

[00:37:36] And I think we all got to face that and let's go and see what we can do and be strong and be smart about what, what we do in the future here.

[00:37:44] Alice Lema: [00:37:44] Well, thank you so much for listening to the real estate show. Be repeated tomorrow. Six o'clock. Thank you to rogue valley association of realtors, Guy Giles, Mutual of Omaha Mortgage and John L. Scott Southern Oregon. We appreciate our sponsorships immensely. Pete Belcastro, Alice Lema saying have a beautiful weekend. Bye.