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.