Agent Education

We are still seeing a lot of market volatility and with the FED meeting this week, everyone is praying that they will just control inflation! But, interest rates DROPPED. There is a window of opportunity to take advantage of as a homebuyer, and we have a program that can help you lock in at these lower rates! While you're at it, look at gas prices and go fill up, TODAY!

In a tough market flooded with negative headlines, it can be an uphill battle trying to convince clients that now is still a good time to buy! The truth is that we don't know when a recession will happen, or what the extent will be? How much further interest rates will rise? When they will fall?  How much will they fall? The list goes on and on. And it's scary, I get that. The unknown always is. But here's what we do know: Housing goes up in the long term There are refinance opportunities when rates come down Owning real estate gives you financial stability and opens up options in the future Don't forget to join Agent Ignite https://www.theruethteam.com/agents/ignite-training/ 

Inventory exceeded demand in June for the first time since the same month in 2020. Spiking 94% year-over-year and 66% month-over-month.  Price reductions, according to Redfin, increased to 40% of homes on the market in Denver.  If the story ended there, it might concern me.  Sellers flooding the market giving homes away at discounted prices. But the story is much different than that.  June ended the first half of a transitional 2022 and it did so with a bang.  Cryptocurrency is down 60%; the stock market had its worst first half of a year since 1970, inflation hit a 41-year high and housing.. well, so far this year, housing is up 16.5%. 2022 year-to-date median price growth is only 1% lower than we experienced during the first half of 2021.   With all this inventory, though, buyers and sellers “feel” like it shifted to a buyers’ market. Get the full story in this episode of The Double Comma Club, "Inventory is double last year, but it is not enough."

This is a really detailed episode about a new interactive software tool. Nicole explains here. At the end of this post you will have a link for the interactive view of this tool she discusses. Here's a bit of what is covered in this episode. Interest rates and home prices have gone up. We know that. And not only is it a question of affordability, but now it's also a buyer's discernment on whether or not that home or buying now is the right choice. Sellers are feeling this. They've been on the market for longer than we are used to. We got spoiled over the last couple of years. Sellers did with very quick turn times, very quick to go under contract. And so now, even though we're nowhere near normal with less than a month of inventory, it feels slow. So I wanted to propose a couple of alternatives and actually show the differences between those alternatives and options, both for a seller who's going to market and how do they want to list their home? And as a buyer, how can I strategize the best payment option for me right now? Whether what is more, most important to me? Is it cash to close? Is it the monthly payment? Is it the adjustment period? And then do I expect in a recessionary period that interest rates will go down because I want to start here before I get into the matrix that I'm showing you. This is a little bit of a different video that we typically send out on Wednesdays, because I want to give you a tool. This tool is clickable. You can actually open it up rummage around and look at the alternatives and request a strategy session so that we can set this up for your listing or for your specific buyer parameters. But I want to talk first just for a second on ARM, because that option is not going to be described here. I'm going to go over going through and buying a home with 10% down, buying a home capitalizing on a two, one buy down capitalizing on maybe a seller credit for a permanent buy down or discount points to pay, to reduce the rate, or should a seller have to reduce their price to get it to move. But what I don't show is ARMs simply because there are four columns and not five. So there you have it, but I do want to say that arms are going to work very similar. In fact, for the two, one buy down, category, I used the model within this tool for an ARM. So we could switch this based on the kind of ARM that you're looking at, whether it's a five-year, seven-year, 10-year ARM, and then what the parameters are for the movement of that ARM. The one risk that I want to present with ARMs, that the two, one buy down protects you against is what if, what if rates don't go down. The third number on an ARM talks about what is the maximum that ARM can go up. And a lot of times it's got a five in it or a four. So if today's interest rate for you for that ARM is four and a half, and the last number on your ARM parameters is a five. That means that that loan could go up to nine and a half percent. Would that wreck your budget? We're all counting on a recession and on lower interest rates, but do you need a plan B? So let's talk about these four options and consider a two, one, a two, one buy-down option instead of an ARM. They go hand in hand and they can trade out for one another. Want to access the interactive software? FOLLOW THIS LINK: https://bit.ly/3ucAWLj Nicole will be narrating it with the same information in this episode, but you'll be able to click some of the items to get more details as you follow along. Any questions, please call her: 303-214-6393

Strap in, this is a long one!  Last week the CPI came out not as expected. The percentage doesn't matter as much as the DIRECTION... it went up! This threw the market for a loop. Interest rates did increase and now the headlines are making you believe we are going into depression. WE ARE STILL IN A STRONG HOUSING MARKET. The likelihood of massive job loss and massive loss in the stock market is not likely... granted it may feel like it today. Interest rates increased from 5.5% last Thursday to 6.18% yesterday. As we go into FED week, the market was expecting a 50bp increase. However, with the increase in CPI, the FED may be forced to increase that rate even more. That possibility of change is what makes the market react. The market likes knowing what is going to happen. So when the possibility of change looms, it begins to move. Bottom line is that rates went up for several reasons, but we remain part of an incredibly strong real estate market. I want to talk about the interest rates first because they went from 5.5 on Thursday to 6.18% on Monday 5.5% . That is a massive jump. Especially if you are watching my live session. I said, hurry up and get under contract, take advantage of the interest rates that we have today because next week we're going into the fed. Now, even when interest rates started to go up, a lot of people are asking me how high do you think, they could go? And I was like six and a quarter, right? So we're here. We're at 6.25%. We made it, do we go much higher? I don't know. I don't know because the fed where we're at right now is a little bit unchartered. We've got this quantitative tightening that's happening and how aggressive the fed, uh, goes, is going to push interest rates. But what interest rates are doing right now is squelching demand. It's authentic demand reduction. Listen to this episode as I also cover the continuing reasons the housing market is so strong. GET IN NOW!

Historically, we are trying to determine the best direction for us individually and personally. And how do we operate? Because many want to operate out of fear. That is our natural go-to, but those that operate out of opportunity, create doors that open. We were talking about this last Thursday, when we did this ad hoc live talking about this weekend is a door that is opening. It is your choice to go through it. You don't have to, you can continue renting which people will because sales are slightly down and what's the option. Because demographics have not changed. We are still talking about the next two to three years of incredible buyer demand. Mortgage purchase applications are down yet. Demographics have not changed. So if people are operating in fear thinking that interest rates are too high, that I can't get into the home of my dreams, then the alternative is renting. The alternative is a 100% interest rate. The alternative is not building wealth, not creating financial stability and not creating the opportunities for multi-generational wealth. I mean that's it, it boils down to that. I can't say it any clearer. I get that higher interest rates make affordability a big question mark.   What we have is a slowdown today. It isn't about credit deficiencies. It's about consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is down. Yes, it's down. The cost of everything is up. Why wouldn't it be down? It costs more to fill my gas tank. It costs me more for my groceries. Yes. It costs more. My gosh. Have you been to Costco lately? That little basket of goodies is way more than it used to be and my kids are. Listen to the rest of this episode for the reasons why this window is ideal for homebuyers. 

 It's not Tuesday, but I've got news that I want to share. And I know I've got market trends tomorrow, but rates went down, and I need to know that, you know, that especially going into Memorial Day weekend, how much did they go down? Why did they go down? And are they going to go down further? I mean, that's the question, right? Because is this a new trend or is this just a blip? And it's really critical that we jump in because I know something's coming, we all feel it. And I'm going to be talking about this at tomorrow's Market Trends  Update. What are all the indicators that are pointing us clearly towards an economic slowdown? And that economic slowdown is more than likely going to come with a reduction in interest rates, which is going to give us an opportunity to refinance. But almost more importantly, it's going to spark more demand. The demand that right now is sitting on the fence, the demand that is going to get excited about in streets, dropping and get into the market still on limited supply, which is going to create another market frenzy in an increase in appreciation. So do you want to be a home buyer during that market frenzy or a homeowner? I want to own more like I want my, I want the market to raise the value of my properties, not me fighting for a property, having to put more into the offer. Because right now you can actually offer a list. Some homes you can offer at below-list. Some homes have been on the market for the last three months. That's what I want to talk about. This is going to be really specific, really quick, going into Memorial Day Weekend. I want you to know what's happening with interest rates. Of course, we still have tomorrow and I don't know what tomorrow brings until it comes. You tell me if your crystal ball's better than mine, but I wanted to talk to you about the fact that rates dropped. Now, they dropped a quarter. How big of a deal is that? I mean, rates have been going up for 10 consecutive weeks. We hadn't seen this since 1994 rates increasing this much in such a short period of time. So to have any relief to have a week when the rates went down is a blessing and we're going into a long three-day holiday weekend. So wait, rates went down about a quarter, and that quarter can save you about a hundred dollars a month. Is that a massive deal? It could move the needle, especially if you're right up against the edge of your eligibility. So locking in this weekend could get you just a little more house. So what's the inventory. What does that look like? But let's talk about these interest rates and whether or not we feel like they're going to go down or up for June, right? Cause what's, what's affecting interest rates right now. As I started this off, is this going to be a change in trend or is this going to be just a blip? And here's what I think. I think that interest rates are going to continue to be volatile through the point in time when the fed starts to pull their foot off the gas and takes a pause. Right? And that could be September-ish. In fact, one of the fed members actually said that they're thinking that they expect a 50 PIP increase at their next meeting in June. They're expecting five more increases this year with a possible pause in September. So we might start seeing things shift right about then, but until then, this is not a downward trend. This is an opportunity. This is a door that opened next week. We could see that they go back up, but that quarter, that a hundred dollars. I don't want you thinking that if you don't lock in this weekend, you've lost the opportunity because you can't time. The best time to buy is today. But can I take advantage of the dip? Of course you can, but here's where we're going. So the fed, I just talked about, we're expecting five more fed rate hikes. Those are going to impact slowing down the economy. We're going to see impacts on the 10-year treasury and on the 30-year fix because of that, they're also trying to control inflation and as inflation continues to be high, even if it comes down slightly, the core of inflation is wage-based and housing-based. And right now those two are not giving up easily. As long as inflation is high, that's going to put upward pressure on interest rates, but then you also have the geopolitical issues that are going on right now. When China opens back up again, what is that going to look like? Will we see another COVID uptick? And will they shut down again? Will the supply chain get crunched what's happening with Russia and Ukraine? Those geopolitical concerns raise the risk. They have an effect on the stock market. You have a risk-based move where people have a flight to safety. They want to move from the stock market to bonds. And when that happens, we actually see that while the stock market goes down, people move their money over to bonds. Those prices go up in bonds, which actually lets interest rates go down. So I have inflation. That's pushing interest rates up. I have geopolitical risks and concerns and the stock market risks that might put rate might push rates down. I have competing factors that are going to continue to create volatility, but those blips and that movement, I would expect to hover between 5, 5.25, and 5.5%. Now remember, we're locking in jumbo loans in the high fours right now, right? So this is an opportunity to take advantage of, but if we're volatile within this range until the point in time where the fed pauses, I want you to continue to watch for that. I'll continue to talk about that. Where's the fed going, because right now they have the most impact on rates. But did you recently sign a lease? Did you get out of the home buying experience because you don't have 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars over asking, do you not want to bid against five 10 people? Do you know that because of the higher interest rates, demand has slowed down, it has it slowed down. So this last week over week mortgage purchase application data showed that demand went down 1.2% week over week, last week, it went down 11% week over week. And in fact, out of the last, what is it out of the last 11 weeks nine have all been down, slowing down demand because rates have been higher. So that demand is slowing down. I don't know if I want to buy that second home anymore. I don't know if I want to buy that investment anymore. Now might not be the right time to purchase a home. I'm going to wait for the bubble. I'm going to wait for the recession. Going into Memorial day weekend rates dropped ever so slightly, but take advantage of it. Demand is down. I have real estate agents that are talking about the fact that they have homes that have no showings homes that have not gone under contract in one or two weekends. What does that mean for you? Opportunity to come in with an offer with an FHA, with a VA, with down payment assistance you can get in with no additional over list ask. That's brilliant. And I don't know if you knew that because demand is down at the same time. Supply is up. So active inventory was up in the past DMAR market trends report showing April data. It was up 44% month over month. Now that was active inventory and that's a little bit dated at this point next week, we're going to get made data super excited about that. But if I look nationwide week over week, we just saw 8% growth in inventory. Now, this is not going to be a continued spike in inventory in the sense that we are in the season, where more inventory comes online. This just so happens to be colliding at the same time. These rising interest rates slowing demand a little bit allowing first-time homebuyers to get in. Plus a seasonal increase in supply is giving us opportunities to not have to go over asking you to add onto that. What the roof team advantage is all about. You add to that, the fact that we're doing the TBD underwrites with eight to 10-day closings, and we're waiving loan availability. We're running automated underwriting to see if we can waive the appraisal. We're giving you a refinance certificate to give you money off of your refinance. Next year, when the rates go down, when we hit a recession and now we're partnering with agents doing a lease buyout program, and this is why it's not because I need to have a sale to get more deals in the door. I so believe in homeownership. I so believe in this is the opportunity for the 80% of Americans to gain wealth, to gain stability. And you've been shut out this whole year because rates have screamed up so fast. It's freaking everybody out. We have such a lack of inventory. When I say that inventory is up 44%. I mean that is a number that's 3,200 homes for sale, 3,200 homes for sale. I mean we have over 3 million people in the Denver market, and 3,200 homes for sale. That number is big because the actual unit count is low. Our inventory is still low. This 5% interest rate is still historically strong. So when you have a window of opportunity and you don't know about it, I'm not doing my job because this is a time that you can get in. This is the way did you know that just last week we saw record sales on art and cars. I mean a 1911 Mercedes just sold for the highest price car ever sold the rich know something. They know that they need a hedge against inflation. That inflation wall might come down is not going to go away for a period of time they need to make sure that their money is making them money. They're pulling it out of the stock market and volatile investments and putting it into solid investments like our, uh, art and classic cars. What do they know that you need to know? You need to know that you need a hedge against inflation and for the 80% of Americans, it's real estate, it's real estate. That gives you the opportunity to do that. And this is the way and with our routine advantage, the lease buyout, because if you gave up six months ago and I get it, I get it. But how do I get you back in? How do I share with you the power of real estate? The opportunity to allow appreciation to drive up your wealth, the opportunity for principal reduction to pay your own mortgage. Not somebody else's because when you are paying rent, you're paying a 100% interest rate. I stole that from Jeremy Kane, when you're paying rent, your interest rate is 100%. None of that is making any money for you. So if you lock in at today's yes,  but historically low-interest rates, you're making your money work for you. Take advantage of these. This is your weekend. This is your time we want to go to work for you. Give us a call right now, The Ruth Team, Nicole Ruth, it would be my pleasure to serve you guys have a great rest of your day. If you're an agent, catch us tomorrow with Megan hour on our market trends, update, talk to you then.  

Today I wanna talk about being busy. I have heard a number of times over the last several weeks, maybe weeks saying, "I don't wanna bother you. You are too busy," or "I can't even believe you made time for me because you are so busy." or maybe I didn't think to call you because you're so busy when you are busy doing the things that you're passionate about. This is what I'm supposed to be doing every single day. If I showed you my calendar, it might freak you out, but I love it. It is stacked with half an hour to an hour of consultations with our clients, solving problems, creating strategies, sitting down with our real estate agents, and talking about how to continue to serve our clients. And even more important to me is how do we create wealth for you as a real estate agent? Our team makes it possible because we have so many specialists to handle every aspect of a loan and the hiccups that crop up. I have a member of my team who is absolutely phenomenal at two-week closes. He can get it done every single time because he is determined and dedicated to every step of the process. It's amazing! If I have a rush, I give it to him. I have a member of my team who absolutely backward and forwards knows the non-QM loans. You have a DSCR loan that you want to be done. You have an investor loan with no income, your bank statements, or a P&L loan, which, by the way, freaks me out a little bit. I'm just saying the fact that you can buy a home just on, a profit loss statement, audited, we're not gonna go there today, but you can, right. You can do it on 12 months' bank statements, you can do it, not just having enough assets in the bank and using assets either depletion or just calculation based on the number of assets you have, you can do the DSCR where the investment itself covers its own loan, right? There are ways to get strategic and creative in this environment. And he does that brilliantly. I have another member of my team who is passionate about first-time homebuyers, as much as I am, she will bend over backward. Talk on the phone for two hours, making sure that you understand everything. I don't have two hours. I wish I did, but I can set the strategy with you one on one. And then she can absolutely take that strategy and bloom, and take you to the finish line because she has the patience of an angel. I have another member of my team that is fluent in Spanish, and he is knocking out of the park. He's called a ton of our agents who are Spanish speaking, introducing himself and talking about how he just drives to serve. He is committed to creating a path for Spanish-speaking borrowers to get to the finish line. I love having him on our team. Who's your mortgage team? We'd love to talk to you about becoming yours. There is another member of my team who is super high energy. You wanna solve a problem and you are just over it, done, whipped? He is gonna get you there. He's gonna power through and find the solutions. Nobody works harder on my team than him. Another member on my team who is absolutely the best when it comes to move-up homebuyers, taking the strategy of the equity that you have in your home and capitalizing on how to use that. Whether it's a cash-out refinance, or HELOC. I am not too busy. They are not too busy. This kind of depth in the team offers solutions to steal the slogan from an insurance company. We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. What are you doing on a daily basis? I would ask you this. If you're a client, that's bumped into this and the loan officer, who's bumped into this, a real estate agent, who's bumped into this. Are you fulfilling your passion? Are you fulfilling what you were put on this earth to do? This is my journey. I am not too busy.

What is an adjustable-rate mortgage? and the bigger question is should you get an adjustable-rate mortgage? Inquiries regarding Adjustable Rate Mortgages are picking up steam! An ARM can help buyers expand their qualifications because they tend to have lower interest rates when we are in a rising interest rate market... like today. But with a lower interest rate comes a bit more risk. So before buyers jump in and say that this is their "golden ticket," let's break down what an ARM is, highlight the pros and cons and discuss who can benefit from ARM financing. Have questions? Feel free to reach out to my team and we'd be happy to answer them for you :)  -------------------- Glossary moment: A couple of terms covered in this episode: SOFR and LIBOR. The main difference between SOFR and LIBOR is how the rates are produced. While LIBOR is based on panel bank input, SOFR is a broad measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities in the repurchase agreement (repo) market.

Interest rates just hopped up again! The market today remains an extremely volatile place and is in a constant tug of war with the FED, unemployment rates, inflation, the war and all other factors! So, is it still a good time to buy a home? My answer remains the same as the Denver market continues to build equity, financial security, and supports our highly qualified buyers. Here are a few things you should know heading into this weekend. Here's some history on mortagae rates: