Preparing For The Spring Buying Season – ABQ REAL ESTATE TALK EPISODE 432

Jan 31, 2023 | Albuquerque Real Estate News, Albuquerque Real Estate Talk

Preparing For The Spring Buying Season – ABQ REAL ESTATE TALK EPISODE 432

Tego
I understand we’re seeing multiple offers again, bidding wars again. Is that true?

Tracy
You’re like, stealing my thunder, Tego? So, yes, it is true.

Tego
I just love that softball.

Tracy
Yeah, right? Busy weekend, real estate.

Tego
Yeah, for sure. A lot going on. I just got to say. We’re on show 400, or let’s say let’s call it episode 432.

Tracy
Wow.

Tego
432.

Tracy
When you think shows about 52 weeks a year and 432, we’ve obviously missed some weeks here and there.

Tego
We’ve missed a few.

Tracy
But we’ve been over eight years doing this show with Eddie. Wow. No wonder you’re so smart with all your stats.

Tego
People ask us about the radio show and say, wow, you’ve done over 400 shows. We’re like, well, yeah, it’s great, but this is what we do.

Tracy
We talk live, eat, breathe real estate, right?

Tego
Yeah. In a lot of ways, it kind of forces us to be educated, stay up to date on what’s going on in the real estate world.

Tracy
Let’s be honest, though. Forces you I mean, this is your passion. You love to know about the market and the stats and in depth, the whole country, even nationally. I mean, internationally.

Tego
You have to admit that.

Tracy
Exactly. So, Tego, I’m going to deviate. You didn’t see this yet because you had your back to me. But I have all my beads here, I’m sure.

Tego
Your valentine’s beads.

Tracy
My Valentine’s beads. I just wanted to make sure that our listeners I mean, you wait, Valentine’s.

Tego
Day is coming up?

Tracy
Yeah. So Valentine’s Day is coming. Do you know it’s the last Saturday in January?

Tego
If you guys are just tuning in and you haven’t heard us before, we are married for 25 years.

Tracy
Almost 25 years. So Valentine’s Day is coming. And, you know, chocolate is probably not what your sweetheart really wants, right?

Tego
They want a house.

Tracy
They probably want a house. So if you want to help your sweetheart find the dream home for Valentine’s Day, call us and we can help with that. Or if you’re thinking it’s time to sell your property, we can help with that, too. Make that sweetheart stream come true, right?

Tego
Yeah.

Tracy
And Tego, it is Valentine’s Day coming soon.

Tego
Hint it is. Well, can I give a quick rundown on just some market data? I put something out on my Facebook. If you follow me on Facebook, it’s just Tego venturi. You’ll find me. I put a lot of market data out there. That’s really all I do on Facebook.

Tracy
There’s not a lot of Tego venturi out there in the world.

Tego
No, there’s not. And then also, I put stuff on Twitter as well, so you can find me there. But if you’re just interested in following and keeping up on what’s going on, just follow me and you can see it there. Or you can check out our YouTube page. I’m looking for more subscribers on our YouTube channel. So you do that and give us a little subscribe that would help boost our signal.

Tracy
Is it called subscribe or follow?

Tego
It’s subscribe on YouTube.

Tracy
Interesting. Okay.

Tego
And again. You’ll just find us. Just Google Albuquerque Real Estate or Venturi team Albuquerque on YouTube. Okay.

Tracy
What are the stats? Big news this week, right?

Tego
Yeah. Well, a couple of big things this week. First off, the thing that really hit yesterday was the National Association of Realtors released their pending home sales data for December. And so that’s obviously nationwide, not just here in Albuquerque, but it showed a two and a half percent increase in pending sales in December. And that was a surprise. They were expecting actually a decline.

Tracy
Right.

Tego
The first time there’s been an increase in pending sales in six months. Yeah. In six months.

Tracy
Saw that.

Tego
There’s all these housing economists that I follow and pay attention to and read and all their substacs and all the stuff that I watch. The big conversation now is, okay, is the US. Housing market hit a bottom? I think, you know, most people that have been paying attention know that the housing market since June has been kind of declining. Prices have pulled back in a lot of markets, substantially.

Tracy
The increasing prices has pulled back.

Tego
Yeah. Prices. Well, in some markets, prices have actually declined. Here in Albuquerque, they’ve kind of stayed flat since then. There’s usually a little bit of seasonal pullback, but this year there was a little bit more. And we had mortgage rates that shot up. They were up over seven. But now mortgage rates are back down in the low sixes, which I know for people that are used to fours and threes on their mortgages, six sound tough, but really low sixes is pretty good. And they’ve kind of stabilized there now. There was a lot of fluctuation for.

Tracy
Their if you look back historically, low sixes is low, of course. Yeah. Over the 30 to 50 years back.

Tego
Yeah. So the big conversation out there has the US. Housing market bottomed and is it starting to turn? And there’s a lot of questions about that. The supply of homes is still a challenge in just about every market in the country. And that’s meaning the number of homes that are actually being listed for sale. And that’s absolutely true here in Albuquerque right now. I think as of today, there’s maybe 1200, 1250 homes for sale in the metro Albuquerque area.

Tracy
Which is very low.

Tego
Which is very low historically, anyway. So, Tracy just kind of more of the anecdotal like feet on the street. You’re dealing with our team. You’re talking to our agents. You’re working with them. You’re helping them through all this stuff. I understand we’re seeing multiple offers again, bidding wars again. Is that true?

Tracy
You’re like stealing my thunder, Tego? So, yes, it is true.

Tego
I just love that softball up.

Tracy
Yeah. Right. So I was reading a story from Simplifying the Market, and they were talking about the spring selling season and why it might make sense to move before spring. And all of the things that we’re seeing here are what this story is talking about. Right. So it’s saying spring is usually the busiest season for home buying and selling for New Mexico here in our area, we know that’s usually March, April, May, we really start heating up in March when it starts getting warm out. Right. And people are going, well, the kids are out of school in May, I need to start now kind of planning, if that’s what they’re timing around. But we’re seeing sort of since the first of the year, it feels like spring has sprung for buyers. To me, we are seeing the gem houses on the market getting multiple offers. We had one this week where we had a buyer and they were competing with 15 other offers on a house. We know the gems, the homes that are compelling to people that are priced right for the location and condition. We know even during the fall selling season, the winter season, those houses were still hot.

Tracy
Right. If they’re right for the market, we were still seeing competition. But in the last two weeks it’s gotten a lot busier. It might be the spring season bringing extra buyers in in March, April. Right now they’re saying it’s probably a better time to be a home buyer, a little less competition than once things really heat up. And one of the things that they say, and it’s a quote, is expect sales to pick up again soon since mortgage rates have markedly declined after peaking last year, which is what you just said. So it says if you’re ready to buy a home, right now is probably the best time before the competition grows and more buyers enter the market. So for today’s sellers, they might want to put their house on the market sooner or later, but whenever it makes sense for them, of course.

Tego
I agree. And what I’m seeing, Tracy, in the data, you’re looking at more of the anecdotal or the feet on the street, whatever you want to call it. But in the data, the number of homes that are coming on the market is not very high right now. There’s not a lot of people listing and that’s very common this time of year.

Tracy
Very.

Tego
But I would recommend if you’re thinking of selling this year, I would get on it earlier than later.

Tracy
I would say, honestly, if I were wanting to sell our home, which I’m not absolutely glad to hear, that I would be working right now to get my home ready for the market and doing that paint touch up, doing that cleaning up the yard while all the plants are easier to clean up, maybe getting things set, putting things away, packing up. We’d be spending our weekend packing away everything we’re going to move anyway and taking half of everything off the shelves and packing them up just to make the house like a model home. Right? I’d actually be getting our trusted Shannon from Amber Interiors in to give us a consult on how to stage our home for maximum price. And then we’d have a list from her of all the things to do because she’s so good at that. And we’d be spending time because what we know and what all our listeners know from listening to us over the years thank you is it takes us longer than we think to get our house ready for the market. So start now. So even if you’re thinking it’s March or April when you want to be on the market, we’re happy to start being by your side in that process now and getting you connected and giving you what we know buyers are going to be concerned about.

Tracy
Reminds me, Tiger, one of the things that we notice is when people call us in, really at the last minute and say, hey, I’m ready to put my house on the market. I want to be on this weekend, I need to move, or whatever. We’re like behind, right? We’re rushing, we can do it. But it’s pretty stressful for people and it doesn’t give them time to really make the house. But sometimes what we know is people are focused on the wrong things in getting their house ready for sale when they haven’t contacted an expert first to go. What’s important, sometimes they do the thing that isn’t going to help.

Tego
Right? Yeah. And I’m sorry, I’m looking down at my laptop here because I wanted to look at what the pending sales look like right now for January. So we just talked about the national numbers for December. They were strong and again, pending sales. These are homes that go under contract and have received an offer gone under contract. And so it’s kind of the they’re.

Tracy
In that due diligence, getting ready to be a closed purchase.

Tego
So they’re not a closed purchase yet, obviously, or closed sale. Yeah, closed sale. The thing that’s interesting, for December, we had good pending sales in January and last year let me back up. I’m sorry, december, I said that wrong. December, we had good pending sales. And in January so far, even though we’re not quite over, it’s about even with last year, which is interesting because last year we know the beginning of the year was Gangbusters wild.

Tracy
Wild. Yeah. Almost like you could pull those things up here next week.

Tego
I know. We’ll get there. We’ll get there. For people on video, we can get there. We’ve been playing with our little studio here in our office on Alameda and getting it better. Hey, Tracy, I think this is a good topic that we should cover, which is what’s the difference between a real estate agent, an agent, a broker, an associate broker, a qualifying broker, a Realtor, a licensee? What other terms are there? There’s a whole bunch of terms out there. A lot of terms that in many ways kind of mean the same thing, but not necessarily in the sense that everybody, all of those people are.

Tracy
Kind of doing the same thing.

Tego
Yeah. Well, they have the legal ability to help somebody with a real estate transaction. Right, because they’re licensed with the state of New Mexico.

Tracy
Let me start with the top two. Okay. There’s all sorts of terms transaction agent, transaction broker, but listed broker. Let’s talk about the top two, realtor and agent.

Tego
Yes.

Tracy
Okay. So Realtor means we’ve joined the can.

Tego
I make a point on that? It is real. It’s two words. It’s Real.

Tracy
Two syllables.

Tego
I’m sorry. Two syllables. So it’s real tor and real ty. So it’s just two syllables because a lot of people do the Real La Tor in their app. Make it three in there.

Tracy
Just anyway, just a real late, right?

Tego
Yeah.

Tracy
So it’s real tour. Real Tor. So Realtor means I’m a licensed real estate not agent. No, I’m licensed, but I’ve joined the National Association of Realtors, so I can use that designation and say I’m a Realtor and I am following their code of ethics. And you wanted to say?

Tego
Yeah, I just wanted to say so in New Mexico, you can get licensed to be a licensee. And what that means is you’re licensed to help people buy and sell real.

Tracy
Estate, lots of categories of real estate.

Tego
Right. But that doesn’t mean you are a Real Tour. A Real Tour is somebody who has joined the National Association, like you said, they’ve taken all the code of ethics training. They’ve agreed to abide by the code of ethics, which is a higher level, a higher standard than what the state license law requires. And just understand that you can be a licensee and you can help people and you’re legal and all that stuff in the state. But a Real Tour, again, it’s a higher level of higher standard service.

Tracy
Yeah. And you can’t join to be a Real Tour unless you’re a licensee, unless you have a valid real estate license. Right. So then there’s agent. We always say real estate agent. Well, agent is a hard one because we have such a long history of saying real estate agent, but we don’t really do agency, us personally. Maybe some people in the state do.

Tego
Can I say it this way?

Tracy
Yeah.

Tego
The term real estate agent is kind of a generic, like Kleenex. Right?

Tracy
Right. It’s like, okay, it’s not facial tissue. It’s clinics.

Tego
It’s clinics, but it’s become a generic term in the sense of a real estate agent. But there is a very specific, very defined legal definition of agency, and that’s where it came from. In New Mexico, we generally don’t practice agency, and we don’t want to go and get into that. But just understand, just because somebody’s saying they’re an agent doesn’t mean that they’re representing you as an agent, which means they can make decisions for you, which most people wouldn’t want, which is what.

Tracy
I usually explain to people. We don’t do agency because it basically says if another realtor calls me and says, hey, will your client take $300,000 for the house? If I’m their agent and they’ve given me permission through agency, I can speak for them. Right. And I don’t want to speak for them. So that’s sort of the difference between some of those terms. Right. I think those are the two big ones.

Tego
Well, the other one is broker.

Tracy
Broker.

Tego
I think we need to address broker because okay, what’s a broker?

Tracy
Well, it depends on is there a word before or after broker?

Tego
Define that. Yeah.

Tracy
So qualifying broker is in New Mexico, and it’s different in all state.

Tego
New Mexico is very specific.

Tracy
We use the word qualifying broker in our market here. And qualifying broker is the realtor that’s in charge of all the people in that office. Right. Responsible for all the other licensees. They’re the one that’s responsible for them.

Tego
They’re the ones that’s generally called the broker, meaning like, the managing person. In other states, they call it the managing broker or the responsible party, responsible broker, different things like that. In New Mexico. Qualifying broker. Then there’s associate broker.

Tracy
Right. So I’m an associate broker under a qualifying broker. Correct. What’s interesting is I think a lot of people, when we’re explaining this to our clients, we can relate it to, like, the legal profession. There’s the managing broker of a law office, or there’s the managing partner managing partner. Partner of a law office. And that makes sense. They go, oh, yeah. I mean, we all used to watch Law and Order and all those other legal shows. I don’t know what they are today. I don’t watch them. But I’m sure they all have that same hierarchy.

Tego
I think the takeaway I know this is kind of wonky for people, but the takeaway is there are different levels of licensing, but then there’s over and above that, there’s different levels of qualifications. I’m trying to think of how do we say the realtor thing? Basically, the realtor thing is I’ve agreed to do something over and above what the license law says. For example, right. There’s all these different layers. And just the last thing I want to hit, Tracy, is listing broker versus buyer’s broker. And let’s just talk about that really quick, because that’s more of a term we use internally just to kind of keep track of who’s the who are we realtor or agent that’s helping the buyer and who’s the realtor or agent that’s helping the seller. And that’s pretty much the only difference. And those are a different specialty. And so realtors agents, brokers can do all of that, but you really want somebody that understands that part of it. For an example, would be we specialize in residential real estate, right? We’ve done thousands of transaction residential real estate. Somebody came to me and says, hey, I’ve got this high rise building I want you to sell.

Tego
I’d go even you would say, if.

Tracy
You really need me, I’m going to partner with somebody else to make sure you get the highest level of care. Right?

Tego
Correct. Because that’s part of the code of ethics. And the license law is that you don’t help somebody if you don’t know what you’re doing. And so that’s part of the deal. And there’s so many different specialties, so it’s just important to understand that.

Tracy
Yeah, good stuff, too.

Tego
I think we got two into weeds on that, but I think it’s kind of interesting.

Albuquerque Real Estate Talk #432 – Jan 21, 2023

Jan 21, 2023 | Albuquerque Real Estate News, Albuquerque Real Estate Talk

Tracy
Great weekend for homes. There’s a lot of houses open this weekend, more have come on the market. I know the ones we put on the market are already under contract.

Tego
Well, let me give you some data.

Tracy
Do you have any stats for us?

Tego
Of course I do.

Tracy
My stato matic.

Tego
Of course I do. You know, 260 homes received and went under contract in the last seven days, which is pretty strong. Wrong number for this time of year. So we’re seeing I can look at the data and tell you what’s going on, but you’ve got more of a feet on the street, boots on the ground, whatever you want to call it.

Tracy
All of those terms are fine. No, we’re good.

Tego
Yeah.

Tracy
So we know that many of the houses that went into pending in the last, actually, since the first of the year have had multiple offers. And one house this week that we had a buyer for that house, had 15 offers on it. A house we listed on Thursday, overnight, by noon the next day had five offers on it. So, once again, don’t listen to national headlines that talk about doom and gloom and bad time to buy or sell a house because there’s buyers out there and houses are getting above price offers when they’re the gem, the special house that shows great and is in the right spot and the right price.

Tego
So the thing we’re still dealing with, Tracy, is just not a lot of homes on the market, you know, right from a historical standpoint. So right now we’re at, let’s say, 1200 homes on the market at any given day, which is a lot more than last year at this time. But last year was such an anomaly that you can’t really compare. So to put it in perspective, if we go back to 2019, same time.

Tracy
Of sort of normal year yeah.

Tego
Let’S put it this way, at the beginning of 2021, we’re about double the number of homes on the market from then. The thing that worries me right now, Tracy, about the housing market is there’s a lot of people out there that want to buy homes. There’s still relatively high interest rates compared to what we’ve seen over the last five years. However, the good news is rates have now come down. In the last month or so, we were up over 7% at one point, and now rates have kind of settled in at this kind of low sixes range, which is good. But we’ve also had a lot of appreciation over the last few years. So affordability is definitely a challenge for folks. And I think there’s a lot of concern that maybe, well, I might be buying at the top or the market is still going to go down or whatever. And right now, with the lack of supply and still steady demand, I don’t see a big shift in home prices other than potentially up.

Tracy
Well, all the national forecasters are predicting up, I believe, for our area during the year. And I’m sure you’ve got hard stats. I’m the feet on the streets and we know that there’s a lot of buyers and not enough houses on the market.

Tego
Well, let me give you some real time.

Tracy
I’ve been waiting data.

Tego
If I look at what closed in the first 20 days of January last year and look at the homes that closed in the first 20 days of this January now, it’s not a huge data set. It’s about 340 homes in metro Albuquerque, but median price up 5% over last year, same period. So at this point we’re still seeing year over year price appreciation now in the single digits, which is actually more healthy than what we were seeing, which was we had what, 15% there one year or 2021. So yeah, I think just data wise things are steady. The thing is there’s still people that need to buy, there’s still people that need to sell and we’re here to help them, whatever is going on in the market.

Tracy
Totally. So, you know, tigo when we have homes listed for sale, not just us, but over the holidays, a lot of times we’ve told people if your house doesn’t sell between Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, then maybe you want to take it off the market when all the kids go back to school. Because we usually see a pullback then of activity. So that’s right now kids went back to school, what, two Thursdays ago, and we did not see that pullback once the kids went to school. We’ve actually seen in the past week. It almost feels sort of frenzie ish like people that were pent up are trying to buy houses and we’ve got a few sellers who were waiting till after the holidays to put their home on the market and I don’t know, I feel some real energy and makes me think the spring market is going to be pretty strong.

Tego
Well, we did a few videos that we sent out or a few people on our team did some videos talking about that come time schools out, it’s going to be very different than market than right now. So if you are thinking of buying this year and this is a year to find a home, it’s time to start looking right now because come March it’s going to be a frenzy. I really like that is going to happen every year.

Tracy
We see that though, in March. As soon as it’s like the sun, it gets warm, it’s like everybody’s ready to buy. We know and all of our listeners know historically we’ve been saying this forever, march, April, May, that’s our busiest season of the year. Sure, yeah. So if you’re going to buy, don’t wait till then and have all the other buyers competing for the same house that you want.

Tego
Yeah, it may take time. Like it’s limited number of homes on the market. So you want to be a ready buyer, Tracy? So let’s just talk about that. What does that mean to be a ready buyer?

Tracy
Well, one of the things that’s probably not on your list that I’m going to cover first is let’s start looking at houses like you said, because we helped the first time buyer last week, and the very first home we showed him was the right home, but he didn’t know it. And so in the process of thinking and wanting to go see a few more houses to justify that, yes, that was the right home. The house sold. And so let’s go ahead and start looking earlier than you think you need the house. Just so you are educated and you know, hey, this is what I get for this much money. This is what my payment is. And when you see the right one, you’re ready. And you don’t doubt that it’s the house you should move forward on. But otherwise, the traditional things, right. Let’s make sure that if you’re paying cash, we know if those funds are readily available or if you’re borrowing from a 401, how long does your 401K take for those funds to be available to you? If you’re getting a gift, let’s make sure if you’re getting a gift for the down payment, that we have the right paperwork in order that we’ve got you with a good local lender, if you’re going to be using a loan, that we get the right loan program for you.

Tracy
There’s all sorts of different loan programs, and a lot of times folks get online and they get an online lender that’s not in our area, and they don’t really get that consultation about the local programs that we have as well as what program might be best for them.

Tego
You didn’t listen to our show last week.

Tracy
No, I didn’t. That’s right. I was off last week. You had Lee Smith here.

Tego
You were out showing home.

Tracy
I was, and I sold that house.

Tego
So Lee Smith with primary residence mortgage. If you want to go back and find that show, lee did a great job just walking through the loan process. All these different terms that you’re not familiar with, like piti, all these kind of things we throw around, we take for granted. And he did a great job on that. So you can look for that show. That was show 430, and it’s on YouTube. If somebody wants to go back 431. 431. You’re right, because we’re on 32.

Tracy
I have to keep you on this.

Tego
Well, I know you do. Well, that’s your job. But I just want to say something about that pre approval thing is going to be critical. And if you’re competing for houses, which it looks like that’s going to be the case again, I mean, we’ve already seen that. We’re already seeing January 1 in January. And so you want to make sure that you’re pre approved, you’re solid, you’re ready to go and doing it with a local lender does give your pre approval letter a little more credibility than definitely maybe a national lender.

Tracy
Even some of the big banks tigo aren’t looked as honest favorably as other local lenders that specialize in mortgages because a lot of the big companies or the big banks don’t even do the mortgage here. You’re not really working with the person that you know in the branch as soon as you apply your loan goes to their processing center somewhere. So even some of those big banks aren’t really the ones that most listing agents of properties are interested in seeing. So otherwise right. Being ready. So knowing the market, knowing what you can buy, getting a comfort of your monthly payment, as well as what are the utilities and things involved in that and having that lender in the process ready. Because a lot of times we find the house and then we start the lending process and what we know, and I’m sure your show last week talked about the process is detailed. There’s a lot of t’s to cross and I’s de Dot and I said that backwards.

Tego
No, you said it perfect.

Tracy
Yeah. So there’s a lot of paperwork involved in getting a loan. And when you’re in the process, and very often it’s only 30 days getting some of that paperwork done before you find the house. So that when you have that lender letter, it’s a pre qualified not just pre, maybe they will there’s that whole they’ve checked everything or they haven’t checked everything letter. So you want the strongest lender letter you can get, right?

Tego
For sure, Tracy. For sure. The reason we’re talking about this and kind of beating it up a little bit is that if somebody is thinking of buying, they need to be ready to go. And they don’t want to miss the opportunity because we do see, if we look at our crystal ball, that it is going to be pretty busy here in the next few months for buyers, and there’s going to be some competition for homes.

Tracy
Yeah. One of the things that I just thought of for the first time buyer that missed out on the house last week because it was just the first house they looked at. It’s interesting to me because sometimes when people miss the house that they think is the right house, they end up with a different house and they go, oh my gosh, this was really the one we were supposed to buy. You go through that grief period of missing out on the house, but then it seems like they’re always like, oh, I’m so glad that that one didn’t work out because this is the one we really were meant to be in. Speaking of all these fun things we do in real estate, I saw an article that said in 20, 22, 21,434 people joined in real estate professions last year. Over 21,000 people, we think it’s a great profession, right? It’s been great. We’ve loved it. Helping people with their financial goals in their homes, with buying, selling or investing in real estate or land. Obviously land is real estate, but year end we tend to send things out to past clients and things and seeing their names and knowing what a great financial picture some of those people are in right now because they got into homes.

Tracy
I can think of just off the top of my head, so many first time buyers who were stretching themselves in the last ten years to buy that first home and how much that has changed their lives. It’s just so heartwarming to be in this profession and know I had a little piece in that to see them or to see them on Facebook and when they were buying that house, it was them newly married, and now there’s like the Facebook photo with them with their three or four kids and things have changed. There’s a few people that I saw this week that you actually helped also, and I was like, wow, I should have showed it to you. Anyway, if you’re interested in a career in real estate, I’d be happy to chat with you about what it’s really like because a lot of people think I like houses, I like to go to open houses. It’s a profession, it’s a hard job. So if you’re interested, give me a ring, I’d be happy to sit down with you and talk about it. And I know some ways you can get real estate school paid for free.

Tego
Can I just say, when you talk to people about real estate careers and being a realtor, it’s not a sales pitch. No, you’re giving people the honest truth because nobody needs to jump into something thinking that it’s all going to be rainbows and unicorns and then realize like, oh, this is a lot of work and it is a lot of work, but it’s very gratifying, like you said. So yeah, nobody’s interested. And by the way, it’s a Venturi Realty Group with Keller Williams Realty and you can reach us at 448-8888.

Tracy
Yeah. So I talk more people out of real estate careers than into them when I actually meet with them, because when I tell them what it really is like and the start up time and things, I think it’s important so that they have best real expectations are realistic.

Tego
Sure.

Tracy
So speaking about homes, new construction homes, we’ve had guests from Pulte, DR Horton, Twilight, just different sales reps from different new home constructions in. At our weekly team meetings with Venturi Realty Group, we bring in guests and we’ve had a lot of new home sales reps in lately, and there’s a lot of really good new homes ready to go right now with some fantastic incentives. And obviously as Realtors we can help you with new construction. A lot of times people kind of are out for a drive and they see a new home sales office and stop in and kind of buy the house. They don’t realize that maybe there’s another new home builder right down the street. Or they might not know to ask for certain incentives because the new home sales rep works for the builder and they don’t have to bring up things that you should ask about. So best if you give us a ring and we can help you with new construction. But I noticed in Las Lunas right now there’s some newly built homes, energy efficient, green built homes in the mid two hundred thousand s. And one that I saw was 1484 sqft, like around 258, 259.

Tracy
The tesoro at Fiesta, which is right at I 25, right off the exit at Las Lunas. There’s one right now at 299. Most of them are in the mid threes, but there’s some great incentives with a locked interest rate in the high fours, so they’re doing that. Plus they have some other things they’re throwing in right now. So if you’re interested in new construction, give us a ring. We can do a search and talk with all sorts of different builders to find options for you. Obviously, there’s new builds everywhere. Whether it’s west side, Rio Rancho, Voltera, east side. There’s even some So we’d be happy to help you with that. I just thought the interest rate being lower and all the other incentives they’re helping with is pretty phenomenal right now.

Tego
There really is. Anyway, if you’re thinking of new construction, which if you’re thinking of a home, you should be looking at new construction. There’s a lot of options out there and navigating all those options can be a little bit much. So reach out to a realtor us and we’d be happy to help you look at a lot of different new construction neighborhoods, not just one in particular.

Tracy
Right. One of the things that I think is overlooked with new construction or newer homes is the homes that have built in about the last ten years since the Build Green initiative. Your utility bills are going to be less right, because they’re more energy efficient, but also the newer the home is, the less maintenance issues that should come up. So when we talk with first time buyers, we love to try to get them into those newer homes if it works for them, because a lot of times they’re stretched financially after they close on the house. And we don’t want that water heater or furnace or the roof to leak or things to break that are extra expenses. Right. So sometimes that’s a better route, but obviously there’s a lot of resale older homes that have been updated, the systems have been updated. So it’s good to make sure that when we’re evaluating a house, it’s not all emotional. Sometimes it’s let’s look at the mechanicals, let’s see how old the roof is, let’s make sure you’re going to be okay after you buy this really cute, updated older home. Right? Tigo, we’ve had some questions this week about 72 sold.

Tracy
I know you weren’t in on what we’re talking about today, so I’m just running with everything I knew you’d have stats ready?

Tego
Yeah, I think 72 sold is perfect. It’s a great thing to talk about because it’s unique to our real estate market. And people that have been in Phoenix maybe have heard of the 72 sold program, but we’re an area director for 72 Sold for Albuquerque and actually all of central New Mexico, and it is a home selling system. It’s a program that works very well if you follow it, and it gets people get their home sold quickly for top dollar.

Tracy
Right. It’s the new, better way to sell a home. And we’ve been running the commercial here on the station, and it’s a simple explanation of how the program works. We’d be happy to talk with you about it. Just give us a ring. We can explain it. We can get you the price of your home pretty quickly. It typically does involve the program does require us to visit the property. So 15 minutes walk through or whatever when it works. And there’s ways we can do that if we need to do it on Zoom or FaceTime or something like that, too. Anyway, we’d be happy to go into depth on it. 72 Sold is a great program. There’s over 1505 star reviews on Google. It’s got three independent studies that show that it’s 8.4% to 12% netting sellers more than the MLS’s. And we’re believers. It’s a great program, and we’re really honored to be representing it here in this area.

Tego
So, Tracy, if somebody wants to have more information on that, it’s best just to reach out to us direct at.

Tracy
The there’s a national website, but no telling who you might end up talking to if you go there. So best to call us directly or send us an email from our website, which is welcome homeabq.com.

Tego
A couple of things that happened this week just kind of in the news. In real estate, there’s been some changes in mortgage qualification rules. I don’t want to go too deep into it, but it’s actually good news for home buyers. And so that’s one thing you can talk to your lender about if you’re in the process. But it does open up some potential opportunities for folks.

Tracy
Yeah. So what I learned to go from reading an overview of some of the lending changes that it’s really good for people buying in the lower prices. Right. Not just benefiting some, but it might be a little more expensive for the higher priced loans.

Tego
The other thing that’s in the news here locally, obviously, the 60 day session at the legislature started this week, and there is a lot of housing stuff there. Really, I’m not going to go into the, you know, all the nitty gritty details because you never know what actually is going to come out in the end, right? But there is a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff on affordable housing and help for first time home buyers, some programs there, there are some rules changes, especially in the rental world, that could be very impactful on property owners that are landlords. There’s a proposed bill out there that is quite concerning for property owners. And that’s something that if you’re a property owner or landlord, you have rental properties, you probably need to look into it and understand what’s going on there. I went to a meeting with the Apartment Association of New Mexico, and it’s concerning because it’s going to affect not just the ability of landlords, but it could affect well, in most cases, it’s rent control. I should sorry, let me talk about this. Yeah, it’s rent control is what we’re talking about. And there’s some potential legislature about rent control.

Tego
There’s not much to say on it other than if you Google search and just find analysis of communities that have done rent control, it never ends well. It sounds good on the surface because you’re like, okay, well, rents can’t keep going up and going up. Well, what happens is investment just dries up and it could really, really put a damper on our entire state economy, because people that that want to develop and, you know, bring bring money into our economy would just say, yeah, no, even the idea that we’re talking about it is going to negatively bear some development away. Now, to be honest, I think there’s people in the state that don’t want development, that don’t want that money coming in, but I think most reasonable people do. So anyway, that’s out there and that’s something just to be aware.

Tracy
I’m sure we’ll be talking about this as a 60 day session, right, this period. The other thing just to bring up wasn’t on my list, but if there are people, you know, or you are in trouble with your mortgage and unable to pay and are headed to foreclosure or you’re behind, bernalio county for sure has programs to help with that. Obviously, we can help you if you need to get some advice and if you are trying to keep the home and don’t want to sell it because you probably are in a positive equity situation where you could sell it. There are some programs out there, but you need to be really careful. If you Google it, you’re probably going to have a hard time finding the legitimate programs because there’s so many people if you Google foreclosure, Bernalio or Albuquerque, Bernalio County, Albuquerque, all these other things might come up. So making sure that you’re with Bernalio County or Sandoval County, because I saw a few different things this week about some programs that are out there. Obviously with COVID there’s been some rental help for paying your rent so that you don’t get displaced.

Tracy
And I think there’s still some of that out there, too.

Tego
It’s interesting you bring this up, because I did see a story, and I don’t remember it was one of the national recognized national news sources just talking about that. All of these help programs in housing, and there’s tons of them, have become a cesspool of scams, too. People taking advantage and saying, oh, we’ve got this, we’ve got that, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, definitely you want to make sure you’re navigating that properly. So, yeah.

Tracy
Well, there we are, another half hour quickly come and gone.