Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Sunday, Tampa Bay. Happy Easter Sunday, Tampa Bay. If
part of your Sunday Easter routine is listening in for
some real estate news, and I've got some great insight
for you today. Hopefully your home, spending time with your family.
Maybe you're out on Easter egg hunts, or you already
did it and now you're helping your kids eat your candy.
(00:22):
But nonetheless going to talk about some real estate stuff today.
And the first thing that I want to get to
today again, this is Andrew Duncan, the Duncan duo team
at LPT Realsy here every Sunday at ten on WFLA News. Today,
I want to talk about a stat that I saw
this week that was pretty mind blowing. And it's no secret.
(00:42):
Through the last few years, the real estate market hasn't
performed as well as it did at peak. You know,
we're probably forty to fifty percent off of peak transaction numbers,
depending on which part of Tampa Bay you're talking about.
We cover a really broad geographic area when we talk
about stuff on the show, and my team does as well.
So first and foremost we've seen a drop in transactions.
(01:06):
But the thing that surprised me most about looking at
some statistics recently, was that seventy five percent of real
estate agents didn't sell a house last year. In other words,
they they had no income, they sold no homes, they
didn't help any clients. And it's it's remarkable to me
(01:26):
because time and time again, right now, we are getting
calls from frustrated home buyers and home sellers working with
real estate agents that are that are failing them, you know,
that are that are not able to get their home sold,
their home comes off the market, or they're working with
them as a buyer and stuff falls apart, And it's
(01:47):
amazing because you don't realize this as a consumer. There's
no real easy way. There are some ways, I mean,
you can look agents up on some different profiles and
different places to determine how active they are. And obviously,
with teams like mine, we put all the production under
the team, so sometimes that's kind of challenging. But obviously,
because the amount of money I spend, no agents on
(02:09):
my team are selling the homes. They just we don't
keep them if they're not productive. We want the best
of the best for our clients. So nonetheless, there are
so many consumers out there working with agents that don't
even know how to navigate this this challenging market. The
market shifted, and I've been through it a few times.
I mean, my business grew fifty plus percent during the
Great Recession, so so I know what it's like to
(02:30):
work through a shifting market. And a lot of real
estate agents got into the business, and that in the heyday,
in the COVID days, when you know, money was printing
and people were buying, and you know, the market was
crazy and realistically, anybody with a pulse could probably sell
a house. Well now as the market has gotten more challenging,
those agents, because they got at the timing that they
(02:52):
got in, really didn't A lot of them didn't adapt,
they didn't get new skills, they didn't get training, They
kept playing the same playbook that worked during the easy market.
And that's why so many of them haven't sold a house,
seventy five percent of them. So chances are if you're
a consumer out there, you may very well have been
dealing with an agent that hadn't sold a house. And
(03:14):
I want to explain like the obstacle with that, I mean,
this is probably the most expensive thing that you're going
to buy or sell. And if there's no system, team, brand,
that sales experience behind the agent, I mean, what are
you really paying for? And so it's no different, you
know than if if you had a lawsuit, or if
you had if you needed a you know, if you're
dealing with a lawsuit, need to hire an attorney, or
(03:36):
if you needed to go to a surgeon and have
brain surgery, or you know, you needed to go in
and have your taxes done, would you go to somebody
that's the whole year didn't help a single client. I mean,
it's amazing to me. But time and again, right now
we're dealing with it. We're getting the calls, we're getting
the text messages, we're getting the emails from customers that
(03:57):
are frustrated, and a lot of times by the time
they've got to us, they're too spent. There. They've they've
led through money, they've they've made, you know, bad decisions.
They kept trusting their agent, and a lot of consumers, unfortunately,
know someone that's a real estate agent. Look, it's no
secret to figure out that. You know, everybody and their
brother in Florida has a real estate license. Just because
(04:19):
they have a license doesn't mean they know what the
hells are doing. Just because they have a license doesn't
mean they're going to be able to help you. You know,
that's like the bare minimum. I mean, there's plenty of
people have driver's licenses and crash every day. So my
point being that if you're a consumer and you you
you know, you went with the agent that was the friend,
the neighbor, the wife or the state, you know, whatever
(04:41):
it is, the wife of the friend of the neighbor,
of the uncle that, whatever it is. If you went
with the real estatege, you really didn't do your due diligence. Right,
Let's just say that you know, you, you know, met
with somebody, you went with them, and it's failed. It's
very likely that agent that failed you has failed other consumers.
They haven't sold any real estate. There's no easy way
(05:03):
to figure that out. Seventy five percent of agents didn't
do it deal last year. That is remarkable statistic to me.
So we specialize in helping customers sell their homes who
failed to sell with other agents. You see it on
our advertising, You hear me talk about it in our
programs and on TV. And the reason that we do
(05:23):
that is because we know, the barrier of entry to
get a real estate agent license is relatively minimal. It
is not that hard to get a real estate license.
If you've met enough realtors, you know it's not that
hard to get a license. Okay, So the point being,
there are a lot of consumers to get caught up
in working with the friend or the cousin, or the
neighbor or the ex coworker, and they don't really do
(05:43):
their due diligence to determine number one is this personal
right person that helped me buy or sell. So they
get an unprofessional experience or maybe an inexperienced agent, or
maybe an agent that didn't even do a whole transaction
for the whole year, so you know what they have.
They have commissioned breath. They're desperate trying to force you
to make a decision of pressing you all the time
because they don't do any business and they need money.
(06:05):
They haven't sold anything. So we specialize in helping customers
in no situations. So if your home failed to sell
and it is off the market, please reach out to
us Dunkin Duo dot com uh eight poet three three
five nine eighty nine ninety selling a home that's been
on the market before requires a different strategy. There are
a lot of agents to just go right back to
the same playbook that the other agent was using. There's
(06:26):
some unique things that we do when a home hasn't
sold with another agent to help get it exposure again.
Sometimes it takes the homecoming off the market and some
things getting done to the house, different photos, different marketing strategies,
certainly different pricing strategy. But there are a lot of
homes out there not selling. A lot more homes not
selling then we're not selling a few years ago, and
(06:47):
I think again, it goes back to a lot of
inexperienced agents. And I'll tell you that one of the
pain points in real estate happened in COVID. And it
happened in COVID when everybody got to go home. Everybody
got sent home, everyone's working from home. A lot of
cloud based real estate broker just blew up, including the
(07:09):
including the one that I'm with now, LPT Realty, And
they're attempting to solve this problem through a variety of means.
But what ended up happening is a lot of real
estate agents that got into the business during the boom
got sent home, and it was really easy to make
money even if they were working from home because everyone
was buying and everyone was buyer, and race were low
and anyone could qualify. Well, now that there's fewer transactions,
a lot harder to qualify, not as much going on,
(07:31):
a lot of those same agents are in the blueprint
of the same pattern. You're working from home, and you
know what that means. They're probably not really working and
they're not getting coaching, consulting and training, or they're doing
it via zoom. And let's be honest, I think everybody's
about zoomed out. I did go to enough zoom trainings
and the attention span of people today is very minimal.
(07:53):
So real estate agents have been working from home. They
got lazy. They kept following the same pattern of you know,
co COVID, and it got us used to working from home,
and they got complacent, and then they stopped coming to
the office. They stopped getting training, they stopped getting coaching.
They thought that they could zoom it in that they
thought that they could work from home and still, you know,
make it rain and the reality is it just hasn't happens.
(08:16):
You've got a lot of inexperienced, uneducated real estate agents
that have gotten into the business, and you know, it
was sunshine and rainbows during the time that they got in,
so they looked like a superstar, but in reality, when
they had to go to work and start getting gritty,
they're failing. And that's why seventy five percent of real
estate agents don't have a deal. A lot of them
are still following that same blueprint. So if you want
(08:37):
an agent that's not that. You know, we fought against that.
We kept people coming in, we kept doing office meetings.
We've continued and we've got people back in the office
and we're doing a lot of coaching and training, and
we're attracting a lot of great agents, and we're still
doing a lot of advertising. We had March was our
best month in a couple of years. And so the
(08:57):
point is is that if your home failed to sell her,
if you've had a bad real estate experience, again, certainly
you know the real estate agent could could very well
be the problem. But you also have to look at
the due diligence that you did. What kind of due
diligence did you do to pick that real estate agent,
and would you have been a little bit more, you know,
(09:18):
diligent with your efforts to find a real estate agent
and maybe find the best, find a pro, find somebody
with a strong brand and marketing and advertising experience. You know,
had it been a different, you know, a different thing
you were looking for, would you have just gone to
the first person to introduce themselves that they were, you know,
when you were looking for a lawyer. There's just a
(09:38):
lot of real estate agents. So's there's a lot of
people out there beaten down your door saying I want business,
I want business, I want business. But that doesn't mean
that they're the right experience person to help you with
this sale or the purchase of the most expensive thing
that you're likely going to buy. So customers out there listening,
home buyers, home sellers, do your due diligence the real
(10:00):
estate agent. Don't just pick somebody that you like. Don't
just pick somebody that's your friend or that you hang
out with, or a drinking buddy or a buddy's spouse. Man,
I'm telling you that I've seen people lose tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of dollars by picking the wrong agent
or the wrong strategy. Homes not selling homes ending up
(10:24):
in foreclosure, homes being overpriced, homes getting damaged. I mean,
you name it. I have seen it in my twenty
year career, and a lot of customers have frustrations about
the real estate business and about real estate agents in general.
Are unwilling to look in the mirror because the reason
that they had a frustrating real estate experience is because
they didn't do any due diligence to find the real
(10:47):
estate agent to help them. So, if you want a
great experience, if you want an experienced agent and team
behind you, we would love the opportunity to apply for
the job of selling your home. Even if your home
failed to sell, it doesn't mean that your home is
a scarlet letter. At may very well mean that you
just had an inexperienced agent one of those seventy five
percent of agents that hasn't sold home in the last year.
(11:09):
And I really can't even believe the statistic. A lot
of them have second jobs and part time jobs and
are doing uber and doing other things. But nonetheless, there
are a lot of consumers picking those agents and then
being frustrated with real estate merely because they really didn't
pick a pro. They picked an amateur. They picked somebody
that you know that they knew, not somebody that had
(11:32):
a great track record. So pick the best. Pick somebody
with a great track record. Look, we've got a great
track record. You can look at the reviews, you can
google my company, you can see the three billion dollars
in sales. We're obviously not the only great track record around.
But the reality is is so many consumers get caught
up and picking the wrong real estate agent, then have
a bad experience and then think it's a problem with
(11:53):
real estate agents or the market, and a lot of
times it's the problem is that you didn't do your
research to find a professional. You just went to the
first person, and you believe we're all a commodity and
we're all the same, and it's not even close. We're
not even close to the same as the agents the
seventy five percent of agents that haven't sold home many years.
So hopefully that helps you make the right decision with
(12:14):
your real estate needs. When we aren't on air at
the Duncan Duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, please follow us.
We're always giving away cool stuff for the lightning talking
about what's going on in the market and keeping you
up to date about Tampa Bay. And I'm going to
be back continuing this conversation after a quick break here
on WFLA News. So we're back here on the Duncan
(12:34):
Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay real estate market.
Andrew Duncan at the Duncan Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
and Facebook. The luxury real estate market in Florida and
in Tampa Bay continues to grow, and it's going to
continue to grow for a variety of reasons. But in
early twenty twenty five, and look, I've been in the
(12:56):
business for almost twenty years, or right around twenty years
actually now, I remember like homes above a million dollars
in Tampa Bay taking like three hundred and twenty seven
days to sell because there was inventory and not enough
buyers for them. Right. The market just that we didn't
have enough people buying and selling million dollar homes here,
so they sat on the market. They were hard to sell.
(13:18):
We just didn't have that audience. And boy, is it
massively changed today the number of homes above a million
dollars that are selling in our market, the how fast
they're selling, you know, I looked at stats not long
ago that homes over a million dollars took about the
same amount of days to sell as homes under a
million dollars. And so our market continues to go after luxury.
(13:41):
You see developments downtown that are that are high you know,
high end luxury establishments. A lot of our restaurants that
are coming here, winning sports teams, our climate, the tax
environment for businesses, all things pointing in the direction of
entrepreneurs continuing to move here. More and more businesses evolved
(14:04):
around tech and AI, which makes the founders and the
CEOs a lot more mobile and easier to live somewhere else.
And because of COVID proved the concept that in some
businesses working remotely or CEOs working remotely can be effective.
In the real estate business, I do not believe it's
effective for real estate agents to work remotely and not
(14:24):
get training, education, and consulting. This past couple of years
has proved the concept with seventy five percent of agents
not even doing a transaction that and most of them
working from home. It doesn't work if you really want
to be productive. It works if you don't want to work.
So anyway, back to the luxury market. Another thing out
(14:46):
there that could really pop our luxury market and probably
one of the biggest drivers. Two of the biggest drivers
during COVID that really drove up our luxury market. Number
one were people moving for political reasons. They moved to Florida.
Successful entrepreneurs, wealthy people moved to Florida because of the
stance our governor took as it related to COVID, the
(15:08):
lockdowns and all of the different things going on. The
second reason why they came to Florida and have stayed
is the lack of an income tax in Florida. That
is a big deal for people that are seven and
eight figure earners that have you know, seven eight, nine
figure net worths. When they look at their state tax
(15:31):
bills in some of the most expensive states, it is
a sunk cost for them that they see no value from.
And our real estate market, in addition to having the
you know, no state income tax, our real estate market
in Tampa Bay, despite what local people say is, oh,
we're overpriced and prices have been going up and it's
(15:52):
so expensive, our real estate market is still affordable from
a luxury standpoint compared to other markets. I met a
gentleman at the Hometown Titan speaking event this week that
owns a private equity company in multiple home service companies,
and he has a ten million dollar house in Pennsylvania,
(16:14):
and he told me that, you know, he looked at
what he could get for ten million dollars here and
was absolutely blown away at how much more value he
could get for his money. So our real estate market
is still affordable compared to stuff up north and out west.
It has gotten more expensive, of course, but it still
looks like a bargain in a lot of ways to
(16:36):
entrepreneurs and successful people that buy luxury real estate. The
other thing I'll tell you that's probably going to keep
our luxury real estate market doing well, and that is
the potential for property taxes going away. And again, even
if they don't go away, another complaint I hear from
states up north, from people that have high net worth
(17:00):
and very expensive homes, is the amount that they pay
in property taxes. And I pay a massive amount of
property taxes in Tampa. So I would love for it
to get abolished. I don't know that they'll general. I
don't know that they'll fully get abolished, but I do
believe there's going to be some pretty massive, considerable relief.
And so if our property taxes, which are comparably high,
(17:20):
believe it or not, to some of these other areas,
we're able to offset it with you know, no state
income tax and a lot of other things that still
keeps people moving here. But our property taxes are comparably
high compared to some of the other parts of the country.
So if our property taxes see massive relief where either
homesteaded properties don't pay property tax or get massively reduced.
(17:41):
And now, in addition to having affordable real estate, no
state income tax, and very you know, kind of pro
freedom political belief system, you're going to be bring people
here that are going to look at it and say, okay,
for my five million dollar house in Florida versus my
five million dollar house in Massachusetts or Philadelphia or New
(18:03):
York or California, my property tax bill in Florida is
so much less right now. It's not. If we do
see massive relief or abolishment of property taxes in Florida,
we will see another surge in our luxury real estate market.
And frankly, even if it's not abolished, even if there's
just relief, and it makes us more competitive. We'll get
more and more tech people that can move here, more
(18:24):
and more business owners, more and more wealthy people that
are looking at those bills and saying, Okay, what do
I get from my dollar from a tax perspective, and
how much is it costing me for property taxes here
versus what it would be in Florida. So I think
our luxury market in Tampa Bay is going to keep
going up. It's going to keep improving. We're going to
keep attracting wealth to Tampa Bay. That is a trend
(18:45):
that is not going to stop any time soon. Som
Be back were can continue this conversation after a quick
break here on the Duncan Duo Show. So back here
on the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay
real estate market. Andrew Duncan with the Duncan Duo team
at LPT Realty. If you you are a real estate
agent looking to improve your business, grow your sales, get
(19:06):
part of a great team that is growing right now.
My March was the best year, best month that I've
had in a couple of years. It's been in a
massive amount of advertising. It massively increased my advertising lead
generation expenses, this year, and you know, we're looking to
hire some talented people that want to work, that want
to make money, that want to learn from the best
(19:27):
how to sell real estate. If that is, you go
to join the Duo dot com, register for our career Night,
you can apply for one of our open positions, you
can set an appointment with our team, and so much
more at Joinedthduo dot Com. We are excited to be growing,
and you know, I think it's an important time for
(19:48):
people to really kind of evaluate where they are. If
they're not succeeding, if they're not hitting the numbers. Sometimes
it's the real estate agent. Not succeeding is because of
choices they're making. Sometimes it's the environment they're in. So
we can help with both of those things. And again
we are looking to grow and higher agents. So if
that is you go to join the Duo dot com again,
(20:08):
that is, join the Duo dot Com. So I mentioned
earlier and I kind of touched on this a little
bit about you know, the you know, the real estate
market and things going on and tech companies and you know,
just kind of a you know, interesting sidebar conversation is
(20:30):
is the amount of impact AI is going to have
in real estate and in all of our industries. I
think society is an evolution moves towards efficiency. Pretty much
everything moves towards efficiency. That's just part of part of evolution,
part of society and growth is you know, companies look
to get more efficient. You know the economies, you know, nations, states,
(20:54):
and so when I look at you know, the things
happening in the economy right now, and I hear the
fears over you know, tariffs and this and that, and
I don't want to lose my job, and it's moving
towards efficiency. So if you're you know, if you are
a real estate agent and you're not adapting, and you're
not using this new technology and you're not looking to
(21:14):
involve AI into helping you serve your customers, the market's
going to pass you. If you're someone in an industry
that robots have a chance of replacing, you get some
new skills. If you're somebody doesn't work very hard that
you know, like I saw this week, is driving by
a construction site and that you know, I won't blast
a company name on here because they're probably an advertiser,
(21:37):
but you know, I saw trucks that were burying you know,
communication lines, and they're doing it a lot around my
neighborhood right now. It's really kind of funny because I
always laugh when I see it because there's like four
trucks there. There's one guy working and there's like fourteen
guys standing around talking like that. That type of work
(21:58):
ethic is unfortunately not going to keep you employed if
robots come in and AI comes in, and so the
real estate business same thing. If you don't involve and
adapt with it as a real estate agent to serve
the customers at the highest level, you're going to get replaced.
So you know, when I hear these rumblings from people
about you know, protectionism and do this and do that,
the reality is is work works, and the real estate
(22:20):
agents that are successful today, it's because they're working and
they're they're they're doing a good job for their clients.
So and that's what we're looking for. We're looking for
more of those. If that is you, if you are
if you have a great work ethic, but maybe you
need a new environment, if you need the leads that
we provide, if you need coaching, if you need consulting,
you know, we would love the opportunity to help you,
(22:40):
and you can do that again at Join the Duo
dot Com again, that is, Join the Duo dot Com.
So I was at a speaking engagement this week. For
last week, I did the Hometown Titan Retreat. I think
I mentioned that once before on the show, but this
(23:01):
past week I did. I was on a panel for
real producers. Real producers to the local real estate publication
that kind of ranks real estate agents. I've been on
the cover, I've been featured in and a bunch of times,
and I've gone on several older panels, and so I
get asked to be on this panel and we were
going around the room, we were talking about what we're
seeing happening in the real estate market. It was pretty
much a consensus that the real estate market is definitely
(23:23):
better now than it was a year ago. And I think, again,
assuming no storm's hitting, it's going to be even better
when we get to the summer and fall months, as
more and more of the kind of the storm damaged
homes get repaired and relisted, the insurance claims get squared away,
(23:43):
the people get moved again. Assuming no major hurricane impacts,
so the market is heading in a positive direction just
based on all that information. But one thing that's a caution,
there's a challenge for people. And again why a lot
of people are afraid you've got you know, obviously a
(24:05):
hurricane season scares people because you know, the pain of
last year's hurricane season is still kind of fresh in
people's mind. So we were very hopeful in Tampa Bay
real estate to get through this hurricane season unscathed because
I think that will really propel our real estate market
in the summer months and fall and into the winter.
(24:27):
The other thing that I think is a wild card.
Obviously there's a lot of discussion about the abolishment of
property taxes. If that ends up happening, I think that's
going to be a huge boom for our market. There's
a lot of speculation that that will happen. I think
there are a lot of smart people getting into real
estate and investments now with the expectation there's a good
chance of major property tax reform, which would cause prices
(24:48):
to rise and it would get payments back in line
with what they were when in straits are really low.
And then of course there's pressure and a lot of
things going on around the tariffs and what and how
that that impacts the economy. So I talked about this,
and I've talked about this before on the show, and
I want to talk about it again because I think
it's it's crucial for people right now. There's a lot
(25:10):
of volatility right now with the tariffs. Okay, every discussion,
I mean, the market's up, it's down, and we're not
just talking like slight we're talking like big swings up,
big swings down. And what happens when when that occurs
is interest rates also have a big swing up and
a big swing down. It doesn't appear that there's going
(25:31):
to be any sort of wrapped all in quick easy,
you know, packaged up in a nice little, big beautiful
as as President trub calls it a big beautiful bill.
I think there's going to be a big beautiful bill
for tariffs. It looks like there's going to be individual
countries kind of negotiated one at a time. And so
without that big beautiful tariff deal and stretching out, it's
(25:56):
going to continue to be volatile and go up and
go down. And what that causes is that causes the
bond markets and the treasuries to also go up and
go down. So interest rates right now are gonna be
a bit of a roller coaster. There's gonna be periods
of time where they're up and there's gonna be periods
of time when they're down. And it's why picking a
really good real estate agent and a really good mortgage
(26:17):
lender important right now because there's a lot of money
you may leave on the table at that quarter half
point change in interust rates. If you lock at the
wrong time or you don't get a lender, they'll give
you a relock. So if you're looking at buying anytime soon,
you're gonna have to play the game a little bit.
You know, You're you're gonna have to pay attention. You
(26:38):
have to listen to your l and you're gonna have
to hope that you're l is somebody that has your
best interest in mind. You know, when I say you're
l I mean your loan officer talking real estate lingos sometimes,
but your loan officer is gonna have to be somebody
that has your best interest in mind. So that ebb
and flow of you know, rates, if you lock at
(26:58):
the wrong time, it's gonna cost you a lot of
money over a long period of time. With that loan.
So what do I recommend? Well, first off, we partner
with you know, rich Miz a Marshall Smith's Group with
a Fairway Mortgage. We can't speak highly enough about them.
They do an incredible job for us and have for
a really long time. And they are a local mortgage
(27:19):
you know, business that has your best interest in buying,
that cares about getting your business again, that cares about
helping you and your family and getting referrals. The national
mortgage lenders, you're a number to them when you go
online and you quote rates, and you go and you
find the guy with the lowest quoted rate. Okay, it's
so much of a scam because there's all kinds of
(27:41):
fine print about what you have to do to get
that rate, and people get bait and switched into this
stuff all the time. And then you get this guy
that you're talking to from New York and he doesn't
care about you, he doesn't care about your family. You're
just a number. They're a mill. They just simply want
to process your transaction, make as much as they can,
and move on to the next deal. So, if you
are going to get a mortgage in this very volatile time,
(28:04):
I strongly discourage you from working with someone that you
don't have a personal recommendation of and that isn't local,
that doesn't you know, the local person's going to care
about you and your repeat and your business. And somebody's
recommended by your real estate agent because they have a
relationship with them, they're going to be local. They're going
to be able to play that game to get you
the right rate and play the ebb and flow of tariffs, treasuries,
(28:27):
the stock market, the ups and downs of that that
cause rates to go up and down to try and
lock your interest rate at the best possible time. Experience
loan officers know exactly how to do that. The industries
that have the great big companies that quote the super
low rates, you know that bait and switch you with
higher fees. There's just so much of that that goes
(28:49):
on and consumers get duped into it. We see all
the time we get a pre call from a buyer
that's using this lender that they don't know, that they've
never heard of, and then the transactions of nightmare. The
person doesn't end up honoring they say they don't lock
rates at the right time. And while that initial quoted
rate sounded great, it sounded like sunshine and rainbows. That's
not what the consumer ended up getting. The consumer picked
(29:10):
the person based on a promise and a failed promise
and a lot of scenarios. So you have to compare
apples to apples. I see a lot of times people going, oh,
I went with that company because I had the higher rate. Oh,
they're paying two points for it. You know, they're paying
ten grand closing costs for that lower rate. The other
company that quoted you a straight rate without any points
quote have beat that rate with two points. So a
(29:31):
lot of consumers get tricked in the math. They don't
pay attention, they don't do the math, they don't ask
the right questions. That's where a great real estate agent
can come in. That's where a great mortgage lender can
come in. And it's important for you to shop that
around and compare apples to apples. We see this happening
and I'm going to talk about this after the break.
See this happen in selling homes too. We see people
say like, oh, they told me they give me this
(29:53):
price for my house. Oh did you see the eight
percent fee that they're charging you? You know, did you
see this. Did you see that? Did you see that?
They're only giving you half of the money up front
and then half of the money after they sell the house.
There's so many things out there, and consumers just don't
read the contracts, and then agents they're inexperience that haven't
done any deals. Seventy five percent of the real estate
age haven't done any deals the last twelve months, don't
(30:14):
know any better. They're desperate for a deal, and they
get this client into this deal. It's a terrible deal,
and the client ends up losing money or not putting
as much money in their pocket, or spending more money
than they should have because they got bad advice. So
right now, it's probably never been more important to pick
the best real estate agent, a great real estate team,
and a great mortgage lender that is local. If you're
(30:36):
not doing those things, you're probably losing money that you
don't realize, especially if you're not reading the contracts and
doing the math yourself. A lot of people just don't
do it. We see it all the time. I'm gonna
talk about that on the home selling side. Why you
have to compare apples to apples After a quick break
here on the Duncan Duo Show. So back here on
The Duncan Duo Show, wrapping up with our last segment.
Happy e Sir, appreciate you guys tuning in today when
we aren't on air. At the Dunkin Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
(30:59):
Facebook always dish out the real estate knowledge, keeping you
updated on what is going on in Tampa Bay real estate.
So I talked about the importance of picking a real
estate agent and the right real estate agent a lot
through today's show, and this last segment, I want to
talk about, you know, when you're selling your home and
you're dealing with cash offers or a wholesale people. So
(31:21):
there are a lot of people out there that get
duped into bad contracts, whether it's they're selling their home
to someone they're they're you know, they've got a wholesaler
that that wants to, you know, lock their house up,
they're working with a large hedge fund that advertises all
over the place to give you a cash offer, or
you're working with the real estate agent that isn't experienced
(31:44):
or doesn't explain things thoroughly. So I first want to
start off with wholesalers. A wholesaler. A lot of people
don't understand what a wholesaler is, but a wholesaler is
someone who really their goal is not selling your house.
Their goal is to sign a contract with you and
then find somebody to buy your house, okay, and they
(32:06):
want to make the difference. So they're going to take
your house to a group of investors. It's going to
get beat up, You're probably going to renegotiate multiple times.
Your house is probably gonna sit there for months. They're
going to extend the contract, They're going to put down
very little s grow. It is a bad way for
a lot of people to sell their homes, especially traditionally.
Sometimes it can work with a motivated seller. But I
(32:27):
think there's enough cash out there in the marketplace today
that you just don't need to let a wholesaler take
part of your equity. I think you can go direct
to enough investors out there today that have cash that
want to buy opportunities. I'm one of them, dunkin duo
dot com or giving cash offers all the time. But
the reality is a lot of consumers get duped and
they don't read the contract and they call us and
(32:47):
they say, oh, well, you know I sold my house
and two months later we call them and they're like,
oh no, I'm we still haven't closed. Why haven't you closed?
It's cash And then come to find out they've got
a two hundred dollars s GROW deposit and a guy
that's got an assignable contract that's you know, basically you know,
taking the house and put it all over Facebook and
Craigslist at MLS because he's trying to find somebody that
(33:09):
buys this house. He's got in a contract for two
hundred for two twenty so he can make his twenty.
All right, you didn't really sell your house. You just
basically negotiated the right a way to sell it and
gave away some of your equity. All right, So so
know what a wholesaler is. Know what a real buyer is.
Real buyer is going to put up substantial s grow.
A real buyer is going to be able to prove
that they've bought a lot of homes. You're going to
(33:31):
be able to look up their LLC and see that
they own real estate. They're going to have testimonials, they're
going to have a reputation, they're going to have a background.
You're going to be able to confirm their legitimate you know,
contracts that are wholesale driven. A lot of times it's
guys that took a class and they you know they
they took a class. They don't have any intention of
buying your house. They just want to take that paper
and flip to somebody else. So be cautious review your contract.
(33:55):
Always reach out. You can certainly reach out to us
and we'll give you, certainly some advice or opinion. You
reach out to a train, need to have an attorney
review the contract, but strong recommendation. This is a market
that's really challenging. If you're letting a wholesaler try and
flip your proper, you're giving away some equity. And again
you do the same thing in a cash offer situation.
You need a hedge funds, you're gonna you're gonna, you're
(34:15):
gonna give away some equity to them too. The difference
is convenience the wholesaler, you're not really getting the convenience
they're you're not getting a quick, clean, cash deal. You're
getting somebody that locks your house up and then kind
of has excuses to try and delay the process because
they're trying to find a buyer for it so that
they can sell it to that person for a higher
amount and they can make the difference, but you're not
(34:36):
getting convenience out of it, Whereas that that end user
hedge fund is also going to want a discounted off
the price, but they're gonna buy and they're going to
close on it, and it's going to be convenient. So
those are the two differences. Another thing I think is
important is to compare selling fees. We go out and
make cash offers all the time. We had one not
long ago. We went out on a went out to
a house and you offered, we offer two twenty for it,
(34:57):
and they said, you know, we offer two twenty, no
no costs, no nothing, literally like two twenty, no commission, nothing,
here's two twenty. So well this these people offered me
to thirty two, So I'm gonna take their offer. Okay,
Well they they they got the vanity and the excitement
of the two thirty two that they could go and
tell their friends a happy hour. This sold her house
for two thirty two. The reality was that two thirty
(35:19):
two had eight percent an eight percent selling fee. Okay,
it's like over eighteen thousand dollars. They were getting two fourteen. Okay,
do some math, people right, whip out your calculator, go
to groc type it in some use some AI. Okay,
do some math. Those people lost money. They lost several
thousand dollars because they didn't do the math. They didn't
(35:40):
realize the didn't look at it, they didn't ask for
a net number. They didn't read the contract. Okay, so
read your contract. Compare apples to apples. If somebody says, hey,
i'll give you, you know, four hundred cash right now, close
in a few weeks, and then you've got the guy
that says, you know what, I'll give you four to ten. Okay,
but I'm only going to give you three hundred and now,
(36:01):
and then I'm gonna renovate the house. And as long
as the house sells for as much as I think
because it's going to sell, then i'll give you one
hundred and ten, so you'll make ten thousand dollars more.
What if that one hundred and ten ever shows up?
Now again, For some people that second that deal that
could net them more money might make more sense. But
for a lot of consumers, they get caught up in
the net number and they don't look at the terms.
(36:21):
They don't look at the fees. You've got to compare
apples to apples. Too many people are comparing apples to oranges,
and they're saying, Oh, I got four hundred from my house. No,
you didn't. You paid an eight percent selling fee. I
would have given you three seventy five. So, and it's
the same thing with real estate agents. People will say, oh,
I'm gonna go with the guy that's cheaper, and then
the guy with cheaper doesn't spend money on advertising, doesn't
(36:43):
hire professional photos, isn't a great negotiator, doesn't have the
right syndication for the house, isn't very good, which is
why he's cheap, writes a bad description, takes some crap photos,
puts it on the market. Three months later, prices have
dropped even more, and those people going with a cheap
agent failed out lost a bunch of money, ate a
bunch of mortgage payments. Prices have dropped since then because
(37:04):
they thought they were saving money going with the cheap agent.
You know, I've always said this, I'll say it again.
Cheap work ain't good, and good work ain't cheap. The
best real estate agents in the market are not the
cheapest ones, but they're the ones that are going to
net you the most money, sell your home the fastest,
and do the best job win people in a challenging
market like today, when people co it's to the cheapest agent,
it's a failure. Man. I can I tell you how
(37:26):
many times it's like, well, would they charge you? They
charged me four percent, or they charged me this percent,
they charged me two percent, and then they didn't and
charge you anything. Didn't sell your house. They ain't charge
you a penny because they couldn't get it done. You
didn't save anything, you lost. So in the process of
picking the real estate agent today, man, it could not
be more important to pick somebody that's got an advertising budget,
(37:49):
that's got experience, it's got syndication, that has some experience,
that knows how to get home sold in the challenging market.
All these things matter. If you're going with the cheapest agent,
you're going to pay for it. And that's just the
reality of a challenging mark. That could have worked, that
blueprint worked a few years ago. That could have worked
not today. So if you want the best, you know
where to find us Duncando dot com at the Dunkin duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
(38:12):
and we hope you get back to enjoying your Easter weekend.
Have an awesome rest of your Easter weekend, Tampa Bay,
and thanks for tuning in.
Happy Sunday, Tampa Bay. Happy Easter Sunday, Tampa Bay. If
part of your Sunday Easter routine is listening in for
some real estate news, and I've got some great insight
for you today. Hopefully your home, spending time with your family.
Maybe you're out on Easter egg hunts, or you already
did it and now you're helping your kids eat your candy.
(00:22):
But nonetheless going to talk about some real estate stuff today.
And the first thing that I want to get to
today again, this is Andrew Duncan, the Duncan duo team
at LPT Realsy here every Sunday at ten on WFLA News. Today,
I want to talk about a stat that I saw
this week that was pretty mind blowing. And it's no secret.
(00:42):
Through the last few years, the real estate market hasn't
performed as well as it did at peak. You know,
we're probably forty to fifty percent off of peak transaction numbers,
depending on which part of Tampa Bay you're talking about.
We cover a really broad geographic area when we talk
about stuff on the show, and my team does as well.
So first and foremost we've seen a drop in transactions.
(01:06):
But the thing that surprised me most about looking at
some statistics recently, was that seventy five percent of real
estate agents didn't sell a house last year. In other words,
they they had no income, they sold no homes, they
didn't help any clients. And it's it's remarkable to me
(01:26):
because time and time again, right now, we are getting
calls from frustrated home buyers and home sellers working with
real estate agents that are that are failing them, you know,
that are that are not able to get their home sold,
their home comes off the market, or they're working with
them as a buyer and stuff falls apart, And it's
(01:47):
amazing because you don't realize this as a consumer. There's
no real easy way. There are some ways, I mean,
you can look agents up on some different profiles and
different places to determine how active they are. And obviously,
with teams like mine, we put all the production under
the team, so sometimes that's kind of challenging. But obviously,
because the amount of money I spend, no agents on
(02:09):
my team are selling the homes. They just we don't
keep them if they're not productive. We want the best
of the best for our clients. So nonetheless, there are
so many consumers out there working with agents that don't
even know how to navigate this this challenging market. The
market shifted, and I've been through it a few times.
I mean, my business grew fifty plus percent during the
Great Recession, so so I know what it's like to
(02:30):
work through a shifting market. And a lot of real
estate agents got into the business, and that in the heyday,
in the COVID days, when you know, money was printing
and people were buying, and you know, the market was
crazy and realistically, anybody with a pulse could probably sell
a house. Well now as the market has gotten more challenging,
those agents, because they got at the timing that they
(02:52):
got in, really didn't A lot of them didn't adapt,
they didn't get new skills, they didn't get training, They
kept playing the same playbook that worked during the easy market.
And that's why so many of them haven't sold a house,
seventy five percent of them. So chances are if you're
a consumer out there, you may very well have been
dealing with an agent that hadn't sold a house. And
(03:14):
I want to explain like the obstacle with that, I mean,
this is probably the most expensive thing that you're going
to buy or sell. And if there's no system, team, brand,
that sales experience behind the agent, I mean, what are
you really paying for? And so it's no different, you
know than if if you had a lawsuit, or if
you had if you needed a you know, if you're
dealing with a lawsuit, need to hire an attorney, or
(03:36):
if you needed to go to a surgeon and have
brain surgery, or you know, you needed to go in
and have your taxes done, would you go to somebody
that's the whole year didn't help a single client. I mean,
it's amazing to me. But time and again, right now
we're dealing with it. We're getting the calls, we're getting
the text messages, we're getting the emails from customers that
(03:57):
are frustrated, and a lot of times by the time
they've got to us, they're too spent. There. They've they've
led through money, they've they've made, you know, bad decisions.
They kept trusting their agent, and a lot of consumers, unfortunately,
know someone that's a real estate agent. Look, it's no
secret to figure out that. You know, everybody and their
brother in Florida has a real estate license. Just because
(04:19):
they have a license doesn't mean they know what the
hells are doing. Just because they have a license doesn't
mean they're going to be able to help you. You know,
that's like the bare minimum. I mean, there's plenty of
people have driver's licenses and crash every day. So my
point being that if you're a consumer and you you
you know, you went with the agent that was the friend,
the neighbor, the wife or the state, you know, whatever
(04:41):
it is, the wife of the friend of the neighbor,
of the uncle that, whatever it is. If you went
with the real estatege, you really didn't do your due diligence. Right,
Let's just say that you know, you, you know, met
with somebody, you went with them, and it's failed. It's
very likely that agent that failed you has failed other consumers.
They haven't sold any real estate. There's no easy way
(05:03):
to figure that out. Seventy five percent of agents didn't
do it deal last year. That is remarkable statistic to me.
So we specialize in helping customers sell their homes who
failed to sell with other agents. You see it on
our advertising, You hear me talk about it in our
programs and on TV. And the reason that we do
(05:23):
that is because we know, the barrier of entry to
get a real estate agent license is relatively minimal. It
is not that hard to get a real estate license.
If you've met enough realtors, you know it's not that
hard to get a license. Okay, So the point being,
there are a lot of consumers to get caught up
in working with the friend or the cousin, or the
neighbor or the ex coworker, and they don't really do
(05:43):
their due diligence to determine number one is this personal
right person that helped me buy or sell. So they
get an unprofessional experience or maybe an inexperienced agent, or
maybe an agent that didn't even do a whole transaction
for the whole year, so you know what they have.
They have commissioned breath. They're desperate trying to force you
to make a decision of pressing you all the time
because they don't do any business and they need money.
(06:05):
They haven't sold anything. So we specialize in helping customers
in no situations. So if your home failed to sell
and it is off the market, please reach out to
us Dunkin Duo dot com uh eight poet three three
five nine eighty nine ninety selling a home that's been
on the market before requires a different strategy. There are
a lot of agents to just go right back to
the same playbook that the other agent was using. There's
(06:26):
some unique things that we do when a home hasn't
sold with another agent to help get it exposure again.
Sometimes it takes the homecoming off the market and some
things getting done to the house, different photos, different marketing strategies,
certainly different pricing strategy. But there are a lot of
homes out there not selling. A lot more homes not
selling then we're not selling a few years ago, and
(06:47):
I think again, it goes back to a lot of
inexperienced agents. And I'll tell you that one of the
pain points in real estate happened in COVID. And it
happened in COVID when everybody got to go home. Everybody
got sent home, everyone's working from home. A lot of
cloud based real estate broker just blew up, including the
(07:09):
including the one that I'm with now, LPT Realty, And
they're attempting to solve this problem through a variety of means.
But what ended up happening is a lot of real
estate agents that got into the business during the boom
got sent home, and it was really easy to make
money even if they were working from home because everyone
was buying and everyone was buyer, and race were low
and anyone could qualify. Well, now that there's fewer transactions,
a lot harder to qualify, not as much going on,
(07:31):
a lot of those same agents are in the blueprint
of the same pattern. You're working from home, and you
know what that means. They're probably not really working and
they're not getting coaching, consulting and training, or they're doing
it via zoom. And let's be honest, I think everybody's
about zoomed out. I did go to enough zoom trainings
and the attention span of people today is very minimal.
(07:53):
So real estate agents have been working from home. They
got lazy. They kept following the same pattern of you know,
co COVID, and it got us used to working from home,
and they got complacent, and then they stopped coming to
the office. They stopped getting training, they stopped getting coaching.
They thought that they could zoom it in that they
thought that they could work from home and still, you know,
make it rain and the reality is it just hasn't happens.
(08:16):
You've got a lot of inexperienced, uneducated real estate agents
that have gotten into the business, and you know, it
was sunshine and rainbows during the time that they got in,
so they looked like a superstar, but in reality, when
they had to go to work and start getting gritty,
they're failing. And that's why seventy five percent of real
estate agents don't have a deal. A lot of them
are still following that same blueprint. So if you want
(08:37):
an agent that's not that. You know, we fought against that.
We kept people coming in, we kept doing office meetings.
We've continued and we've got people back in the office
and we're doing a lot of coaching and training, and
we're attracting a lot of great agents, and we're still
doing a lot of advertising. We had March was our
best month in a couple of years. And so the
(08:57):
point is is that if your home failed to sell her,
if you've had a bad real estate experience, again, certainly
you know the real estate agent could could very well
be the problem. But you also have to look at
the due diligence that you did. What kind of due
diligence did you do to pick that real estate agent,
and would you have been a little bit more, you know,
(09:18):
diligent with your efforts to find a real estate agent
and maybe find the best, find a pro, find somebody
with a strong brand and marketing and advertising experience. You know,
had it been a different, you know, a different thing
you were looking for, would you have just gone to
the first person to introduce themselves that they were, you know,
when you were looking for a lawyer. There's just a
(09:38):
lot of real estate agents. So's there's a lot of
people out there beaten down your door saying I want business,
I want business, I want business. But that doesn't mean
that they're the right experience person to help you with
this sale or the purchase of the most expensive thing
that you're likely going to buy. So customers out there listening,
home buyers, home sellers, do your due diligence the real
(10:00):
estate agent. Don't just pick somebody that you like. Don't
just pick somebody that's your friend or that you hang
out with, or a drinking buddy or a buddy's spouse. Man,
I'm telling you that I've seen people lose tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of dollars by picking the wrong agent
or the wrong strategy. Homes not selling homes ending up
(10:24):
in foreclosure, homes being overpriced, homes getting damaged. I mean,
you name it. I have seen it in my twenty
year career, and a lot of customers have frustrations about
the real estate business and about real estate agents in general.
Are unwilling to look in the mirror because the reason
that they had a frustrating real estate experience is because
they didn't do any due diligence to find the real
(10:47):
estate agent to help them. So, if you want a
great experience, if you want an experienced agent and team
behind you, we would love the opportunity to apply for
the job of selling your home. Even if your home
failed to sell, it doesn't mean that your home is
a scarlet letter. At may very well mean that you
just had an inexperienced agent one of those seventy five
percent of agents that hasn't sold home in the last year.
(11:09):
And I really can't even believe the statistic. A lot
of them have second jobs and part time jobs and
are doing uber and doing other things. But nonetheless, there
are a lot of consumers picking those agents and then
being frustrated with real estate merely because they really didn't
pick a pro. They picked an amateur. They picked somebody
that you know that they knew, not somebody that had
(11:32):
a great track record. So pick the best. Pick somebody
with a great track record. Look, we've got a great
track record. You can look at the reviews, you can
google my company, you can see the three billion dollars
in sales. We're obviously not the only great track record around.
But the reality is is so many consumers get caught
up and picking the wrong real estate agent, then have
a bad experience and then think it's a problem with
(11:53):
real estate agents or the market, and a lot of
times it's the problem is that you didn't do your
research to find a professional. You just went to the
first person, and you believe we're all a commodity and
we're all the same, and it's not even close. We're
not even close to the same as the agents the
seventy five percent of agents that haven't sold home many years.
So hopefully that helps you make the right decision with
(12:14):
your real estate needs. When we aren't on air at
the Duncan Duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, please follow us.
We're always giving away cool stuff for the lightning talking
about what's going on in the market and keeping you
up to date about Tampa Bay. And I'm going to
be back continuing this conversation after a quick break here
on WFLA News. So we're back here on the Duncan
(12:34):
Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay real estate market.
Andrew Duncan at the Duncan Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
and Facebook. The luxury real estate market in Florida and
in Tampa Bay continues to grow, and it's going to
continue to grow for a variety of reasons. But in
early twenty twenty five, and look, I've been in the
(12:56):
business for almost twenty years, or right around twenty years
actually now, I remember like homes above a million dollars
in Tampa Bay taking like three hundred and twenty seven
days to sell because there was inventory and not enough
buyers for them. Right. The market just that we didn't
have enough people buying and selling million dollar homes here,
so they sat on the market. They were hard to sell.
(13:18):
We just didn't have that audience. And boy, is it
massively changed today the number of homes above a million
dollars that are selling in our market, the how fast
they're selling, you know, I looked at stats not long
ago that homes over a million dollars took about the
same amount of days to sell as homes under a
million dollars. And so our market continues to go after luxury.
(13:41):
You see developments downtown that are that are high you know,
high end luxury establishments. A lot of our restaurants that
are coming here, winning sports teams, our climate, the tax
environment for businesses, all things pointing in the direction of
entrepreneurs continuing to move here. More and more businesses evolved
(14:04):
around tech and AI, which makes the founders and the
CEOs a lot more mobile and easier to live somewhere else.
And because of COVID proved the concept that in some
businesses working remotely or CEOs working remotely can be effective.
In the real estate business, I do not believe it's
effective for real estate agents to work remotely and not
(14:24):
get training, education, and consulting. This past couple of years
has proved the concept with seventy five percent of agents
not even doing a transaction that and most of them
working from home. It doesn't work if you really want
to be productive. It works if you don't want to work.
So anyway, back to the luxury market. Another thing out
(14:46):
there that could really pop our luxury market and probably
one of the biggest drivers. Two of the biggest drivers
during COVID that really drove up our luxury market. Number
one were people moving for political reasons. They moved to Florida.
Successful entrepreneurs, wealthy people moved to Florida because of the
stance our governor took as it related to COVID, the
(15:08):
lockdowns and all of the different things going on. The
second reason why they came to Florida and have stayed
is the lack of an income tax in Florida. That
is a big deal for people that are seven and
eight figure earners that have you know, seven eight, nine
figure net worths. When they look at their state tax
(15:31):
bills in some of the most expensive states, it is
a sunk cost for them that they see no value from.
And our real estate market, in addition to having the
you know, no state income tax, our real estate market
in Tampa Bay, despite what local people say is, oh,
we're overpriced and prices have been going up and it's
(15:52):
so expensive, our real estate market is still affordable from
a luxury standpoint compared to other markets. I met a
gentleman at the Hometown Titan speaking event this week that
owns a private equity company in multiple home service companies,
and he has a ten million dollar house in Pennsylvania,
(16:14):
and he told me that, you know, he looked at
what he could get for ten million dollars here and
was absolutely blown away at how much more value he
could get for his money. So our real estate market
is still affordable compared to stuff up north and out west.
It has gotten more expensive, of course, but it still
looks like a bargain in a lot of ways to
(16:36):
entrepreneurs and successful people that buy luxury real estate. The
other thing I'll tell you that's probably going to keep
our luxury real estate market doing well, and that is
the potential for property taxes going away. And again, even
if they don't go away, another complaint I hear from
states up north, from people that have high net worth
(17:00):
and very expensive homes, is the amount that they pay
in property taxes. And I pay a massive amount of
property taxes in Tampa. So I would love for it
to get abolished. I don't know that they'll general. I
don't know that they'll fully get abolished, but I do
believe there's going to be some pretty massive, considerable relief.
And so if our property taxes, which are comparably high,
(17:20):
believe it or not, to some of these other areas,
we're able to offset it with you know, no state
income tax and a lot of other things that still
keeps people moving here. But our property taxes are comparably
high compared to some of the other parts of the country.
So if our property taxes see massive relief where either
homesteaded properties don't pay property tax or get massively reduced.
(17:41):
And now, in addition to having affordable real estate, no
state income tax, and very you know, kind of pro
freedom political belief system, you're going to be bring people
here that are going to look at it and say, okay,
for my five million dollar house in Florida versus my
five million dollar house in Massachusetts or Philadelphia or New
(18:03):
York or California, my property tax bill in Florida is
so much less right now. It's not. If we do
see massive relief or abolishment of property taxes in Florida,
we will see another surge in our luxury real estate market.
And frankly, even if it's not abolished, even if there's
just relief, and it makes us more competitive. We'll get
more and more tech people that can move here, more
(18:24):
and more business owners, more and more wealthy people that
are looking at those bills and saying, Okay, what do
I get from my dollar from a tax perspective, and
how much is it costing me for property taxes here
versus what it would be in Florida. So I think
our luxury market in Tampa Bay is going to keep
going up. It's going to keep improving. We're going to
keep attracting wealth to Tampa Bay. That is a trend
(18:45):
that is not going to stop any time soon. Som
Be back were can continue this conversation after a quick
break here on the Duncan Duo Show. So back here
on the Duncan Duo Show talking about the Tampa Bay
real estate market. Andrew Duncan with the Duncan Duo team
at LPT Realty. If you you are a real estate
agent looking to improve your business, grow your sales, get
(19:06):
part of a great team that is growing right now.
My March was the best year, best month that I've
had in a couple of years. It's been in a
massive amount of advertising. It massively increased my advertising lead
generation expenses, this year, and you know, we're looking to
hire some talented people that want to work, that want
to make money, that want to learn from the best
(19:27):
how to sell real estate. If that is, you go
to join the Duo dot com, register for our career Night,
you can apply for one of our open positions, you
can set an appointment with our team, and so much
more at Joinedthduo dot Com. We are excited to be growing,
and you know, I think it's an important time for
(19:48):
people to really kind of evaluate where they are. If
they're not succeeding, if they're not hitting the numbers. Sometimes
it's the real estate agent. Not succeeding is because of
choices they're making. Sometimes it's the environment they're in. So
we can help with both of those things. And again
we are looking to grow and higher agents. So if
that is you go to join the Duo dot com again,
(20:08):
that is, join the Duo dot Com. So I mentioned
earlier and I kind of touched on this a little
bit about you know, the you know, the real estate
market and things going on and tech companies and you know,
just kind of a you know, interesting sidebar conversation is
(20:30):
is the amount of impact AI is going to have
in real estate and in all of our industries. I
think society is an evolution moves towards efficiency. Pretty much
everything moves towards efficiency. That's just part of part of evolution,
part of society and growth is you know, companies look
to get more efficient. You know the economies, you know, nations, states,
(20:54):
and so when I look at you know, the things
happening in the economy right now, and I hear the
fears over you know, tariffs and this and that, and
I don't want to lose my job, and it's moving
towards efficiency. So if you're you know, if you are
a real estate agent and you're not adapting, and you're
not using this new technology and you're not looking to
(21:14):
involve AI into helping you serve your customers, the market's
going to pass you. If you're someone in an industry
that robots have a chance of replacing, you get some
new skills. If you're somebody doesn't work very hard that
you know, like I saw this week, is driving by
a construction site and that you know, I won't blast
a company name on here because they're probably an advertiser,
(21:37):
but you know, I saw trucks that were burying you know,
communication lines, and they're doing it a lot around my
neighborhood right now. It's really kind of funny because I
always laugh when I see it because there's like four
trucks there. There's one guy working and there's like fourteen
guys standing around talking like that. That type of work
(21:58):
ethic is unfortunately not going to keep you employed if
robots come in and AI comes in, and so the
real estate business same thing. If you don't involve and
adapt with it as a real estate agent to serve
the customers at the highest level, you're going to get replaced.
So you know, when I hear these rumblings from people
about you know, protectionism and do this and do that,
the reality is is work works, and the real estate
(22:20):
agents that are successful today, it's because they're working and
they're they're they're doing a good job for their clients.
So and that's what we're looking for. We're looking for
more of those. If that is you, if you are
if you have a great work ethic, but maybe you
need a new environment, if you need the leads that
we provide, if you need coaching, if you need consulting,
you know, we would love the opportunity to help you,
(22:40):
and you can do that again at Join the Duo
dot Com again, that is, Join the Duo dot Com.
So I was at a speaking engagement this week. For
last week, I did the Hometown Titan Retreat. I think
I mentioned that once before on the show, but this
(23:01):
past week I did. I was on a panel for
real producers. Real producers to the local real estate publication
that kind of ranks real estate agents. I've been on
the cover, I've been featured in and a bunch of times,
and I've gone on several older panels, and so I
get asked to be on this panel and we were
going around the room, we were talking about what we're
seeing happening in the real estate market. It was pretty
much a consensus that the real estate market is definitely
(23:23):
better now than it was a year ago. And I think, again,
assuming no storm's hitting, it's going to be even better
when we get to the summer and fall months, as
more and more of the kind of the storm damaged
homes get repaired and relisted, the insurance claims get squared away,
(23:43):
the people get moved again. Assuming no major hurricane impacts,
so the market is heading in a positive direction just
based on all that information. But one thing that's a caution,
there's a challenge for people. And again why a lot
of people are afraid you've got you know, obviously a
(24:05):
hurricane season scares people because you know, the pain of
last year's hurricane season is still kind of fresh in
people's mind. So we were very hopeful in Tampa Bay
real estate to get through this hurricane season unscathed because
I think that will really propel our real estate market
in the summer months and fall and into the winter.
(24:27):
The other thing that I think is a wild card.
Obviously there's a lot of discussion about the abolishment of
property taxes. If that ends up happening, I think that's
going to be a huge boom for our market. There's
a lot of speculation that that will happen. I think
there are a lot of smart people getting into real
estate and investments now with the expectation there's a good
chance of major property tax reform, which would cause prices
(24:48):
to rise and it would get payments back in line
with what they were when in straits are really low.
And then of course there's pressure and a lot of
things going on around the tariffs and what and how
that that impacts the economy. So I talked about this,
and I've talked about this before on the show, and
I want to talk about it again because I think
it's it's crucial for people right now. There's a lot
(25:10):
of volatility right now with the tariffs. Okay, every discussion,
I mean, the market's up, it's down, and we're not
just talking like slight we're talking like big swings up,
big swings down. And what happens when when that occurs
is interest rates also have a big swing up and
a big swing down. It doesn't appear that there's going
(25:31):
to be any sort of wrapped all in quick easy,
you know, packaged up in a nice little, big beautiful
as as President trub calls it a big beautiful bill.
I think there's going to be a big beautiful bill
for tariffs. It looks like there's going to be individual
countries kind of negotiated one at a time. And so
without that big beautiful tariff deal and stretching out, it's
(25:56):
going to continue to be volatile and go up and
go down. And what that causes is that causes the
bond markets and the treasuries to also go up and
go down. So interest rates right now are gonna be
a bit of a roller coaster. There's gonna be periods
of time where they're up and there's gonna be periods
of time when they're down. And it's why picking a
really good real estate agent and a really good mortgage
(26:17):
lender important right now because there's a lot of money
you may leave on the table at that quarter half
point change in interust rates. If you lock at the
wrong time or you don't get a lender, they'll give
you a relock. So if you're looking at buying anytime soon,
you're gonna have to play the game a little bit.
You know, You're you're gonna have to pay attention. You
(26:38):
have to listen to your l and you're gonna have
to hope that you're l is somebody that has your
best interest in mind. You know, when I say you're
l I mean your loan officer talking real estate lingos sometimes,
but your loan officer is gonna have to be somebody
that has your best interest in mind. So that ebb
and flow of you know, rates, if you lock at
(26:58):
the wrong time, it's gonna cost you a lot of
money over a long period of time. With that loan.
So what do I recommend? Well, first off, we partner
with you know, rich Miz a Marshall Smith's Group with
a Fairway Mortgage. We can't speak highly enough about them.
They do an incredible job for us and have for
a really long time. And they are a local mortgage
(27:19):
you know, business that has your best interest in buying,
that cares about getting your business again, that cares about
helping you and your family and getting referrals. The national
mortgage lenders, you're a number to them when you go
online and you quote rates, and you go and you
find the guy with the lowest quoted rate. Okay, it's
so much of a scam because there's all kinds of
(27:41):
fine print about what you have to do to get
that rate, and people get bait and switched into this
stuff all the time. And then you get this guy
that you're talking to from New York and he doesn't
care about you, he doesn't care about your family. You're
just a number. They're a mill. They just simply want
to process your transaction, make as much as they can,
and move on to the next deal. So, if you
are going to get a mortgage in this very volatile time,
(28:04):
I strongly discourage you from working with someone that you
don't have a personal recommendation of and that isn't local,
that doesn't you know, the local person's going to care
about you and your repeat and your business. And somebody's
recommended by your real estate agent because they have a
relationship with them, they're going to be local. They're going
to be able to play that game to get you
the right rate and play the ebb and flow of tariffs, treasuries,
(28:27):
the stock market, the ups and downs of that that
cause rates to go up and down to try and
lock your interest rate at the best possible time. Experience
loan officers know exactly how to do that. The industries
that have the great big companies that quote the super
low rates, you know that bait and switch you with
higher fees. There's just so much of that that goes
(28:49):
on and consumers get duped into it. We see all
the time we get a pre call from a buyer
that's using this lender that they don't know, that they've
never heard of, and then the transactions of nightmare. The
person doesn't end up honoring they say they don't lock
rates at the right time. And while that initial quoted
rate sounded great, it sounded like sunshine and rainbows. That's
not what the consumer ended up getting. The consumer picked
(29:10):
the person based on a promise and a failed promise
and a lot of scenarios. So you have to compare
apples to apples. I see a lot of times people going, oh,
I went with that company because I had the higher rate. Oh,
they're paying two points for it. You know, they're paying
ten grand closing costs for that lower rate. The other
company that quoted you a straight rate without any points
quote have beat that rate with two points. So a
(29:31):
lot of consumers get tricked in the math. They don't
pay attention, they don't do the math, they don't ask
the right questions. That's where a great real estate agent
can come in. That's where a great mortgage lender can
come in. And it's important for you to shop that
around and compare apples to apples. We see this happening
and I'm going to talk about this after the break.
See this happen in selling homes too. We see people
say like, oh, they told me they give me this
(29:53):
price for my house. Oh did you see the eight
percent fee that they're charging you? You know, did you
see this. Did you see that? Did you see that?
They're only giving you half of the money up front
and then half of the money after they sell the house.
There's so many things out there, and consumers just don't
read the contracts, and then agents they're inexperience that haven't
done any deals. Seventy five percent of the real estate
age haven't done any deals the last twelve months, don't
(30:14):
know any better. They're desperate for a deal, and they
get this client into this deal. It's a terrible deal,
and the client ends up losing money or not putting
as much money in their pocket, or spending more money
than they should have because they got bad advice. So
right now, it's probably never been more important to pick
the best real estate agent, a great real estate team,
and a great mortgage lender that is local. If you're
(30:36):
not doing those things, you're probably losing money that you
don't realize, especially if you're not reading the contracts and
doing the math yourself. A lot of people just don't
do it. We see it all the time. I'm gonna
talk about that on the home selling side. Why you
have to compare apples to apples After a quick break
here on the Duncan Duo Show. So back here on
The Duncan Duo Show, wrapping up with our last segment.
Happy e Sir, appreciate you guys tuning in today when
we aren't on air. At the Dunkin Duo Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
(30:59):
Facebook always dish out the real estate knowledge, keeping you
updated on what is going on in Tampa Bay real estate.
So I talked about the importance of picking a real
estate agent and the right real estate agent a lot
through today's show, and this last segment, I want to
talk about, you know, when you're selling your home and
you're dealing with cash offers or a wholesale people. So
(31:21):
there are a lot of people out there that get
duped into bad contracts, whether it's they're selling their home
to someone they're they're you know, they've got a wholesaler
that that wants to, you know, lock their house up,
they're working with a large hedge fund that advertises all
over the place to give you a cash offer, or
you're working with the real estate agent that isn't experienced
(31:44):
or doesn't explain things thoroughly. So I first want to
start off with wholesalers. A wholesaler. A lot of people
don't understand what a wholesaler is, but a wholesaler is
someone who really their goal is not selling your house.
Their goal is to sign a contract with you and
then find somebody to buy your house, okay, and they
(32:06):
want to make the difference. So they're going to take
your house to a group of investors. It's going to
get beat up, You're probably going to renegotiate multiple times.
Your house is probably gonna sit there for months. They're
going to extend the contract, They're going to put down
very little s grow. It is a bad way for
a lot of people to sell their homes, especially traditionally.
Sometimes it can work with a motivated seller. But I
(32:27):
think there's enough cash out there in the marketplace today
that you just don't need to let a wholesaler take
part of your equity. I think you can go direct
to enough investors out there today that have cash that
want to buy opportunities. I'm one of them, dunkin duo
dot com or giving cash offers all the time. But
the reality is a lot of consumers get duped and
they don't read the contract and they call us and
(32:47):
they say, oh, well, you know I sold my house
and two months later we call them and they're like,
oh no, I'm we still haven't closed. Why haven't you closed?
It's cash And then come to find out they've got
a two hundred dollars s GROW deposit and a guy
that's got an assignable contract that's you know, basically you know,
taking the house and put it all over Facebook and
Craigslist at MLS because he's trying to find somebody that
(33:09):
buys this house. He's got in a contract for two
hundred for two twenty so he can make his twenty.
All right, you didn't really sell your house. You just
basically negotiated the right a way to sell it and
gave away some of your equity. All right, So so
know what a wholesaler is. Know what a real buyer is.
Real buyer is going to put up substantial s grow.
A real buyer is going to be able to prove
that they've bought a lot of homes. You're going to
(33:31):
be able to look up their LLC and see that
they own real estate. They're going to have testimonials, they're
going to have a reputation, they're going to have a background.
You're going to be able to confirm their legitimate you know,
contracts that are wholesale driven. A lot of times it's
guys that took a class and they you know they
they took a class. They don't have any intention of
buying your house. They just want to take that paper
and flip to somebody else. So be cautious review your contract.
(33:55):
Always reach out. You can certainly reach out to us
and we'll give you, certainly some advice or opinion. You
reach out to a train, need to have an attorney
review the contract, but strong recommendation. This is a market
that's really challenging. If you're letting a wholesaler try and
flip your proper, you're giving away some equity. And again
you do the same thing in a cash offer situation.
You need a hedge funds, you're gonna you're gonna, you're
(34:15):
gonna give away some equity to them too. The difference
is convenience the wholesaler, you're not really getting the convenience
they're you're not getting a quick, clean, cash deal. You're
getting somebody that locks your house up and then kind
of has excuses to try and delay the process because
they're trying to find a buyer for it so that
they can sell it to that person for a higher
amount and they can make the difference, but you're not
(34:36):
getting convenience out of it, Whereas that that end user
hedge fund is also going to want a discounted off
the price, but they're gonna buy and they're going to
close on it, and it's going to be convenient. So
those are the two differences. Another thing I think is
important is to compare selling fees. We go out and
make cash offers all the time. We had one not
long ago. We went out on a went out to
a house and you offered, we offer two twenty for it,
(34:57):
and they said, you know, we offer two twenty, no
no costs, no nothing, literally like two twenty, no commission, nothing,
here's two twenty. So well this these people offered me
to thirty two, So I'm gonna take their offer. Okay,
Well they they they got the vanity and the excitement
of the two thirty two that they could go and
tell their friends a happy hour. This sold her house
for two thirty two. The reality was that two thirty
(35:19):
two had eight percent an eight percent selling fee. Okay,
it's like over eighteen thousand dollars. They were getting two fourteen. Okay,
do some math, people right, whip out your calculator, go
to groc type it in some use some AI. Okay,
do some math. Those people lost money. They lost several
thousand dollars because they didn't do the math. They didn't
(35:40):
realize the didn't look at it, they didn't ask for
a net number. They didn't read the contract. Okay, so
read your contract. Compare apples to apples. If somebody says, hey,
i'll give you, you know, four hundred cash right now, close
in a few weeks, and then you've got the guy
that says, you know what, I'll give you four to ten. Okay,
but I'm only going to give you three hundred and now,
(36:01):
and then I'm gonna renovate the house. And as long
as the house sells for as much as I think
because it's going to sell, then i'll give you one
hundred and ten, so you'll make ten thousand dollars more.
What if that one hundred and ten ever shows up?
Now again, For some people that second that deal that
could net them more money might make more sense. But
for a lot of consumers, they get caught up in
the net number and they don't look at the terms.
(36:21):
They don't look at the fees. You've got to compare
apples to apples. Too many people are comparing apples to oranges,
and they're saying, Oh, I got four hundred from my house. No,
you didn't. You paid an eight percent selling fee. I
would have given you three seventy five. So, and it's
the same thing with real estate agents. People will say, oh,
I'm gonna go with the guy that's cheaper, and then
the guy with cheaper doesn't spend money on advertising, doesn't
(36:43):
hire professional photos, isn't a great negotiator, doesn't have the
right syndication for the house, isn't very good, which is
why he's cheap, writes a bad description, takes some crap photos,
puts it on the market. Three months later, prices have
dropped even more, and those people going with a cheap
agent failed out lost a bunch of money, ate a
bunch of mortgage payments. Prices have dropped since then because
(37:04):
they thought they were saving money going with the cheap agent.
You know, I've always said this, I'll say it again.
Cheap work ain't good, and good work ain't cheap. The
best real estate agents in the market are not the
cheapest ones, but they're the ones that are going to
net you the most money, sell your home the fastest,
and do the best job win people in a challenging
market like today, when people co it's to the cheapest agent,
it's a failure. Man. I can I tell you how
(37:26):
many times it's like, well, would they charge you? They
charged me four percent, or they charged me this percent,
they charged me two percent, and then they didn't and
charge you anything. Didn't sell your house. They ain't charge
you a penny because they couldn't get it done. You
didn't save anything, you lost. So in the process of
picking the real estate agent today, man, it could not
be more important to pick somebody that's got an advertising budget,
(37:49):
that's got experience, it's got syndication, that has some experience,
that knows how to get home sold in the challenging market.
All these things matter. If you're going with the cheapest agent,
you're going to pay for it. And that's just the
reality of a challenging mark. That could have worked, that
blueprint worked a few years ago. That could have worked
not today. So if you want the best, you know
where to find us Duncando dot com at the Dunkin duo, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok,
(38:12):
and we hope you get back to enjoying your Easter weekend.
Have an awesome rest of your Easter weekend, Tampa Bay,
and thanks for tuning in.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.