Albuquerque Real Estate Talk 440 – April 1 2023

## Current Trends in the Real Estate Market
– The current trends in the real estate market include interest rates and a lack of available homes for sale.
– Remodeling projects can have a significant impact on the market, and real estate agents can network and increase their business.

## Buying a Home
– The first step to buying a home is talking to a realtor.
– A realtor can help you understand the process and guide you through it. It is important to have a realtor who is trustworthy and can help you navigate the process.
– There are many options and programs available, so it is important to consult with a realtor who can help you find the right one for you.

## Remodeling Impact Report
– The National Association of Realtors’ 2023 remodeling impact report discusses the importance of curb appeal and the increased scope of outdoor projects since the pandemic.
– Cost recovery is influenced by a gazillion factors, and the joy score is important when remodeling.

## Real Estate Professionals in New Mexico
– There are different types of real estate professionals in New Mexico, including real estate agents, real estate brokers, and realtors.
– Real estate agents are not real estate brokers, and realtors are members of an association, the Realtor Association of New Mexico.
– A realtor is signed on to say they will abide by the code of ethics and regulations set by the realtor association.
– There are two types of qualifying brokers in New Mexico – the managing broker of an office of a brokerage, and the qualified broker responsible for an entire office of realtors.
– Associate brokers are responsible for their clients and their own deals, but not necessarily the managing or qualifying broker.
– Agent is a generic term for a realtor, real estate licensee, or someone acting as an agent.
– Agency is a legal term for when someone is acting on behalf of another person.

 

 

Good morning. It is Albuquerque Real Estate Talk and not fooling today, even though it is April 1st. We’re on Episode 440 of Albuquerque Real Estate Talk. This is Tego Venturi with Tracy Venturi. As always, from the Venturi Group of Real Broker here in Albuquerque. You can always reach us if you want to talk about real estate, questions about real estate, anything real estate related. We are at 505-448-8888.

Good morning. Good morning. We love to talk real estate. Let’s talk about what’s happening in the real estate market right now.

That’s always the question is how’s the market? What’s happening in the real estate market? A couple of things just in the last couple of the trends we’re following, and I think the big one is interest rates because interest rates affects everybody when they’re purchasing, unless you’ve got cash. Now, there’s plenty of that out there, but most people do need to finance when they’re purchasing. And right now, we did see rates nationally go up over 7 %. They pulled back. They’re in the mid 6 s right now, which is better news for home buyers. But everybody’s watching that really closely and watching the inflation and a whole bunch of other data points that might affect mortgage rates. So that one’s good. I had a vendor say something to me the other day, a mortgage vendor, they said a year ago or nine months ago when they told people that their mortgage rate was going to be 6.5 %, that people were in shock because we were so used to those sub 4 mortgages for so long. But now people are going, okay, it is what it is now.

And it really wasn’t that long that they were sub 4.

But but.

In the scope of the big picture of history.

Well, we were sub 5 for a long time. Long time. 7 % is a hard hit. The other big story is lack of supply as in the number of homes for sale.

Go ahead. I would say as the feet on the street side here, you’re the street on the feet. Yeah, not enough.

Did you hear what you just said? That was pretty funny.

Feet on.

The street? Street on the feet, you said. Street on the feet. That was funny.

Anyway, not enough homes for sale. We have buyers and it’s spring. They’re looking for homes and we’re seeing homes go pending sale, but we do need more homes on the market.

Yeah. Tracy, just on the agenda today, we have different types of real estate agents that generic term real estate agent real estate agents realtor, license broker, licensee. So we’re going to talk about that. I’ve got a great report that came out from the National Association talking about the impact of remodeling, specifically talking about outdoor remodeling projects.

Oh, good timing for that. Yeah, exactly. It’s how Spring is sprung.

It’s time. Well, let me just lead off with this. This is speaking to people in the realtor community, in the real estate community, real estate professionals. We’ve got an event coming up that’s going to be on April 12 at Salt Yard West here in Albuquerque in the evening.

April 27th?

I said the wrong day. April 27th. There’s something else I’m doing on April 12. April 27th. It’s going to be a great networking event. And you know, Tracy, anybody that’s a professional, that’s in the business, knows that networking is a big deal and getting around people that are in your industry and seeing what they’re doing and what works and what doesn’t work is always a great opportunity. So if you are a real estate agent, even a mortgage lender, anybody that’s a real estate professional that wants to get involved with that, just reach out to me. It’s Tigo Venturi at 5052630566. Okay. I want to put that out there. And then, Tracy, let’s talk about first time home buyers because I think there’s… We talk about this a lot, but anybody that has never bought a home before, it is daunting. It’s overwhelming.

It can be. I actually wrote notes, Tigo. I was thinking about when I was in my 20s and thinking about buying my first home, I was a single woman working, doing okay, and I thought about buying a home and I remember driving by a house, was 95,000 in the near North Valley, and I was like, Wow, what a great location. Look at that land. I can have a garden. I drove by it a few times and there was a for sale sign out front, but I didn’t know the first thing about what to do. But it was in my area and I was excited about it. And then before I could figure out what to do, I drove by and there was a sale pending sign on it, which I knew enough to know that that meant that house was off the market. And I was like, darn. And then it was quite a while before I actually looked at houses again. And it was interesting because I did what a lot of people do. The first house I saw was perfect. It was the perfect location, great house, and I just didn’t know the market.

So I waited. I thought, I need to look at more houses to make sure that’s the right house for me. And of course, it sold before I can buy it.

Well, just on that, the thing that’s interesting is how much it’s changed since those days where you just drove around until you found a sign out in front of a house where we didn’t have the Internet, we didn’t have the multiple listing service broadcast out to all these websites.

It’s very different. But the second time when I missed out on a house, I actually had a realtor who showed the house. I knew it was right. She said, You know, this is a great house. I was like, oh, but it’s the first one I’ve seen. I can’t buy the first house I see. I have to see more houses. And so I figured that process would take time, not knowing how to be a house shopper. I didn’t know that one day you could see five houses and pick one, or that over the course of a weekend, you might see enough to feel like you know the right house, or to be even prepared for the process. So I missed out on that house. And to this day, it was in Deets Farm back to the ditch. It was a very cool, somewhat modern house for New Mexico. I still think about how different my life would be, Tigo, if I would have purchased that house versus where I ended up. My best friend came from the other neighborhood, other friends, other acquaintances, relationships, jobs came through where I was living, right?

Well, what you’re saying, it all goes back to part of the homeownership is building community.

Exactly. I actually have that in my notes. It’s like the community part, right? Yeah, the changes. I don’t want the same thing to happen to other people. But of course, getting people who maybe haven’t bought a house before or haven’t bought in a long time, prepared and ready for the process, I think is really part of our job to help them so that when they see the right house, they have all the ducks in a row, they know the process, they know what steps are ahead of them. Maybe not every step because there’s lots of little pieces in the whole process, but at least knowing generally that they feel confident they can move forward.

What would be the first step you would give somebody that’s thinking about? Or if you’re listening to the show here and you know somebody that is wanting to buy, what should they be advising their friend or family member about the first step? What should they do?

Thinking of buying a home is very exciting, right? We have a lot of firsts in our life. First going to school, first driving, first whatever, first graduating, first job, first marriage.

First kiss.

Got to say it. First kiss. There you go. See, I hadn’t even thought of that one. But home ownership is a way to have a sense of place. It’s your haven. It’s where you can make it your own. And throughout history, ownership was a relatively new concept. You think back to in America, what a great thing we have. And we have great lending unlike a lot of places in the world where we can get a 30 year mortgage. But going back to your question, I had somebody who’s in the real estate industry but not a realtor come to me about a week ago and said, Okay, I’m embarrassed. I want to figure out how to be a homeowner and how to buy a house. I don’t know the first thing about it. It was mind blowing for me because this is somebody who’s around us all the time that you would think would understand the steps to home ownership. The first step is talk to us. Get your realtor in your corner, sit down, schedule a time in person to go through the process. The steps to buying a house. And we think of it as a trifecta.

It’s us, it’s the lender, and it’s the homes. Just making sure you have everything going in.

Your favor. Okay, so let me push back on this idea because people are afraid to reach out to people many times because they don’t want to get sold. People have an aversion to getting sold something that they don’t want. We all do, and that’s natural. What would you tell somebody that’s thinking about this process? Well, I don’t want to reach out to one realtor. They’re going to try to sell me something I don’t want.

My first thought, Tigo, when you say that is I’m not that good. I’m not going to be able to sell you a house you don’t want. This isn’t like I see a cute puppy and I’m going to take it home. We look at houses and you learn very quickly what you like, don’t like about it. I’m not going to be able to sell you a property that’s not for you, not that I would in the first place.

I understand that. Let me just say you say that speaking of yourself and obviously the people on our team, our job is to advise people, be that shoulder to cry on as well as the.

Trusted.

Advisor. The advisor to bounce stuff off of and what do you think about this and what do you think about that?

Or the guide.

But I would say in general in the realtor profession, people aren’t that selling you. It’s like, look, here’s this, here’s this, here’s your options. You decide, blah, blah, blah.

Totally. We’re more of an advisor, a guide. We’re going to help with the process, but I’m not going to sell somebody something. And our code of ethics as Realtors, which we’re going to talk about later, our code of ethics is very clear. We’re making sure we’re looking out for the best interest of the people that we’re working with.

Yeah, for sure. So the whole rite of passage of home ownership, you think back, what people think of it’s like my first job, my first house. Those things are rites of passage. It’s awesome. First steps, let’s sit down, go over the process. Then we need to get a good vendor in your corner unless you’re paying cash. Even then, we want to talk about that strategy of how to best use your funds. We had somebody last year that had some inheritance and they could pay cash for a house. But in talking to them, it made better sense for them to reserve cash and use other people’s money because at the time, interest rates were still quite low and it just made sense for long term. Just talking about the whole strategy, whether it’s a loan and what type of loan and how they work, and then getting that trusted lender involved.

I’m going to chime in here. I had Chris Krupar and Joanna yesterday or yesterday, last week on the show, we did a deep dive on mortgages, which you listen to because you weren’t here. We had a great wonky talk about mortgages. But something Joanna said is 300 programs, 300 programs to pick from when you’re getting a mortgage. You have to get that advisor that can look at your complete package, your financial situation, what your goals are, and then they can direct you to the right program for you.

This whole discussion isn’t about lending, but that’s where sometimes people get online and they put their information in on an online lender and it spits out, Here’s your thing. They don’t really have that conversation with you about the different types of loans and options. So it’s good to talk to someone local.

Those are what I would call cookie cutter mortgages, many times. In most cases, people don’t just get cookie cutter mortgages. It just doesn’t work that way. Anyway, okay, all.

Right, what else? We start with putting your team together. We talk about the process. Doing an in person, preferably by your consult, so to speak, just to get you up to speed. But first, you got to pick up the phone and make that call. And like you said, that is a hard call to make to say, Hey, just like that person that stopped me last week and said, I’m embarrassed to say, I don’t really know what steps I should be taking to become a homeowner, even though I’m around it all the time.

But most of us have a, let’s say, educator’s heart in this profession. We love to talk about real estate. We love to talk about what we know and how we can help people. And so don’t get over the fact that the phone may feel like it weighs a 1,000 pounds.

Yeah, it does sometimes. So that’s the gist of what I wanted to get across today is just start the process there with the trusted resource of a realtor that can help you put the steps in place, the plan in place, and guide you to what comes next.

You said something earlier and I made a note was in the United States, obviously, we’re the wealthiest country in the world. I would argue that a big piece of that is the way our home ownership programs work and our FHA and Fannie and Freddy and VA and 30 year fixed rate mortgages. 30 year fixed rate mortgages are pretty unique around the world. I mean, we’re not the only country that has, but the idea that you can lock in what your housing cost is going to be for 30 years, and in the meantime, you have that potential appreciation, which over time it always does appreciate. And you don’t have to worry about rent going up every year, every two years.

It’s locked in. For sure. I wasn’t even going to get into the wealth building aspects of buying a home, but that’ll be one of our other topics, right?

I can’t avoid that one because I think it’s such a huge piece for people. Most people’s net worth is their home. When you.

Look back historically, absolutely true. So, Tigo? Yes. I really have to talk about some houses. Okay, let’s talk about houses. So there’s one that went on the market this week, 8923 Helmic Place NW, state 7122 for 519,950. It’s a 2,400 square foot 4 bedroom house up in the Northeast. It has an extended garage, so there’s extra room for workshop or whatever, two car garage, but extra space on the side. Really nice house up in the Northeast. That one’s available right now. Then we have another that went active yesterday on Desert View Road in Mariposa, which is Northwest Rio Rancho. You know, Teegow, a lot of people choose Mariposa that think they want Placitus or the East Mountains. It’s a nice community. Some of the lots are larger. They have the estate areas. Some of them are half acre properties, some are full acre properties. This particular one was a home built by Civage Custom Homes just in 2018. It’s almost 2,400 square feet and it’s on a half acre. I love this street because this side of the street backs to a big arroyo, so there’s not a house right behind. Across the other side of the arroyo, there’s another row of houses.

But in that area of Mariposa, it’s ridges and there’s long cul de sacs or roads that follow the tops of the ridges.

Well, I think one thing to think about as you compare what is in Mariposa to placitus. Placitus is beautiful, but Plesitis developed a little more… Random. Random, yeah, that’s a fair way to put it, versus Mariposa, if you like that whole idea of a master plan community that’s managed, a little more manicured. Some people love it, Homeowners Association. Some people hate homeowners associations, but it does give you the benefit of something that’s really managed well.

It does. And on the estate lots in Mariposa, many of those lots were master plans, so they do have long views. So this particular house has a really nice long view. Civage Custom builds beautiful houses. I toured many on this street as they were being built and finished. We sold some and really beautiful layout, beautiful house. That house that just went on the market is $520,000. So if you’re interested in that, give us a call 448 888 88. We’d love it. I’d love to.

Show it to you. I better say something in case somebody thought I was disparaging Plesitos. Plesitos is gorgeous. It’s an amazing community. The point is there’s a community for everybody, no matter what appeals to you. That’s one of the unique things about the Albuquerque area is we have such a variety of communities.

I just think sometimes when I’m showing a certain area, I’m also showing two or three other areas. T hat’s where Placitus, East Mountains, parts of.

Rio Rancho.

Corrales, North Valley, even some parts of Las Lundes and B osque Farms. It’s just sometimes when people want a little bit more space and land or long views or.

Whatever.

We’ve got great options. Two others that are coming, Mountain Valley Road in Edgewood 480,000. It’s on two acres. It’s a 2,500 square foot house. Really beautiful. If you’re looking for something on two acres in the Edgewood area. Mountain Valley is on the East Edge, so it’s almost East Mountains to Harris Cedar Crest, but it’s Northwest Edgewood.

Yeah, it’s the dividing line. Let’s see, is it the Bernalillo County? I think it is Bernalillo Santa Fe County dividing line, if I’m not mistaken.

Yeah. And then we have another speaking of Bosque Farms coming soon at 497,000. It’s at almost 3,000 square feet, four bedroom on four tenths of an acre on Margaret Drive in Bostock Farms. I really love Bostock Farms. To me, it’s the North Valley, Corallis, but it’s South. So for people who work downtown, people who want that valley to go to UNM or the hospitals or anywhere. It’s just a nice rural community.

Yeah, that rural feel for sure. I’m pretty.

Sure they have a tractor supply there, which is pretty much a requisite for me.

Yeah, got to have that. Anyway, those.

Are the houses I really wanted to talk about. Of course, there’s a lot of open houses this weekend. We’d be happy to get you a list if you’re interested. We can help you with that. It’s a big open house weekend all over the whole metro area.

That’s right. I just want to remind everybody, you’re listening to Albuquerque Real Estate Talk with Tracy and Tyco Venturi of the Venturi Group with Reel Broker. You can reach us at 505 44888. We are on KIVA 1600 AM as well as live on Facebook and YouTube. So if you’re watching this on Facebook or YouTube, give us a like, give us a thumbs up, say hi, something like that helps boost our signal. I appreciate that. So, Tracy, the NAR, National Association of Realtors’ 2023 remodeling impact report. They just came out with a summary looking at outdoor features. And the interesting thing about this is they look at it not just from a cost analysis or return on investment analysis. They also look at it from a joy score.

I was going to say, I sure hope they look at it from the enrichment in your life.

Yeah, exactly.

Joy score is what they’re.

Calling it. But a couple of takeaways here is curb appeal is important. Realtors agree, curb appeal is important. I think everybody knows that, right, for a value. The scope of outdoor projects has increased since the pandemic. People are living outside more. That happened. A lot of people were doing more home projects. They found that most homeowners are satisfied with the outdoor projects that they’ve done. It was an interesting take away there. One consideration was the actual cost of each remodeling project and cost recovery is influenced by a gazillion factors. So you say, Okay, I’m going to put in a $60,000 swimming pool. Well, are you going to get $60,000 in dollar value out of that swimming pool? Probably not, hard to say. But how much joy are you going to get out of that swimming pool? That’s the question. When they looked at this, they looked at 11 outdoor features in the report and they looked at fire features, inground pool additions, irrigation systems, landscape lighting, landscape maintenance, patios, decks, outdoor kitchen, blah, blah, blah. Okay, but here’s the ranking of the top items based on joy score, not cost, but just how much enjoyment people got out of it.

I think needless to say is swimming pool was number one.

Okay. I thought maybe it was going to be a traeger grill.

Yeah. Good.

I guess that’s not really a construction item, but I know the traeger at our house brings me great joy. Yeah.

And then another one which was really high was landscape lighting. I thought that was interesting, which is actually cool because it’s relatively inexpensive upgrade to your house and at night just bring some energy to the home. So I thought that was interesting. New patio was very high. Obviously, we live in New Mexico. We’ve got indoor outdoor living. In New Mexico, covered patio too, because there’s obviously a few months in the summer where you need the covered patio. And then outdoor kitchen was really high. Tree care, lawn care were a little bit lower. Irrigation system was relatively high too.

For joy. You don’t have to go water.

Exactly. exactly. So I thought that was an interesting report. I just wanted to share. It is.

When I think about feet on the street, when we go and we see a spectacular backyard for some reason or another, whether it’s just the way it’s landscaped or paths or elevations or just things that draw people to the backyard, it really makes a difference. You’ve got a lot of houses that are in subdivisions that are same type of house, but the backyard, the view potential, the privacy, boy, it really makes a difference when you’re going to resell it.

All right, let’s see if we can unpack this little question here, which is, what’s the difference between a real estate agent, a real estate broker, a realtor? I’m going to throw in the term licensee, which is a little more inside term. Let me break it down a little bit, Tracy, here, and then you can jump in. First and foremost, to help people with the buying and selling of real property, you need to be licensed by, in our case, the state of New Mexico, through RLD, Regulation and Licensing Division, and the Real Estate Commission. There’s a certain set of rules and guidelines you have to follow to be able to do that and have your license to help people. And they’re good rules. And it’s all about protecting and serving the public and making sure people aren’t taken advantage of in buying and selling a real estate, which back long time ago, that was the problem. But then we’ve got this term realtor. And you want to talk about that?

Sure. Realtor is an association.

And can I say one thing on that? Yeah. It’s not realtor, it’s realtor, as in real estate, as in real tea.

Anyway. Realtor, not realtor. Yeah. Realtor is an association that as a licensed real estate associate, we can join to be a realtor, which says that we are going to abide by their code of ethics and be a member of the realtor community. Yeah.

So a realtor is signed on to say, I’m going to follow these rules and regulations and code of ethics over and above what the standard real estate license law says, right? Correct.

So not everyone that could be representing buyers or sellers of homes is a realtor, right? But most are.

Let’s talk about this term broker, which is super confusing in New Mexico.

Yeah, broker. We have transaction broker versus qualifying broker versus.

Broker.

Versus associate broker.

Yeah. In a lot of those terms, like you say, transaction broker, buyer broker, listing broker. But from a licensing standpoint, there’s two categories. There’s qualifying broker, and the qualifying broker is the responsible person for an entire office, for example, or a brokerage. It’s called Managing Brokers in other states. In New Mexico, we call it the qualified broker.

Similar to a law office where there’s the managing broker or the managing partner that’s in charge of all of them. So the qualifying broker. Yeah.

So the qualifying broker is responsible for every associate broker that has their license with that person, right? Right. And so associate broker is the other classification. And so that’s that somebody isn’t necessarily the managing or… I mean, they’re obviously responsible for their clients and their own deals. And there’s a whole broker duties and all that stuff. But those are the two classifications in New Mexico.

And so what about agent? Real estate agent? We use that term all the time. We are called agents.

Agent is a term like clinics where it’s just this generic term that doesn’t… It’s just a generic term that’s used for somebody that is a realtor, a licensed realtor professional, a real estate licensee. It’s just a generic term.

Agency.

Agency is a different thing. Now, people can act as agent or agency, and that’s a legal definition where people can act on and basically make decisions for you. Anybody that knows and studied any bit of law understands agency, where both the client and the agent are basically responsible for each other and can make decisions for each other and responsible for each other.

When we are working as realtors, we are not agents, but we say agents as inventory realty group. Most people that are in our real estate community, we don’t do agency. We’re not speaking on behalf of our clients. T hat’s how I explain it to clients. I say, Well, we aren’t agent. We’re a transaction broker, or we’re an associate broker, but we throw that term around a lot in this real estate world.

The key is agency versus not agency where you’ve actually signed an agency agreement. T hat’s clear as mud now, right?

I was going to say, I’m pretty sure this conversation is not clear.

Yeah, I know. I really lost everybody. Anyway. The main point is everybody that’s helping either buyers or sellers with real estate transactions, they need to be… Or landlords helping with property management, they do have to have a license through the state of New Mexico, and that’s license. That’s true for residential, it’s true for property management, it’s true for commercial real estate as well. Anything that deals with real property, you do need to be licensed.

Real property means it’s attached to the ground.

Correct.

Well, it could.

Be the ground, too.

Or the ground. So if it’s a manufactured home that’s not attached to the ground, it’s not real property. Correct. Yeah. Anyway, it’s chattel. It’s been fun being here again.

That’s.

Another good.

Term, chattel. I love that term, chattel. Yeah. Anyway, getting a little wonky there. But anyway, just like that, Tracy, another half hour done.

April Fool’s, you haven’t done anything yet.

To fool me. I know. I know. I know. Well, I’ll have to get you something later. Today’s not over. I know. Well, just watch out. Watch behind you. I might get you some time today. It’s Tracy and Tigo Venturi with the Venturi Group of Reel Broker. You can reach us at 505 448 888 888. You can visit our website at welcomehomeabq. Com and Episode 440 In the Books. In the Books. Again, thanks for watching and give us a like on social media. We really appreciate that. Take care.