All Forum Posts by: Aaron Caddel

@Courtney Hopson I say knock on doors AND come hang out with @Zach Crews, @Robi Schreckhise etc! Such a good group of folks around the area and one of the best ways to learn, grow and develop. Hope to see you at the next meet-up (first Wednesday of the month)

I'm struggling to find SOMEONE who isn't talking about low inventory and how strong the market is. Blogs and family gatherings are brimming over with real estate market predictions and let me first make this clear: no one knows what’s going to happen. But isn't it a LITTLE strange that:

• An historic pandemic has put the world on hold for months now. Yet the stock market is continuing to climb and real estate has gone up 10%.

Remember the phrase, “You’re just taking money from Peter to pay Paul?” The reason our current gov't response is unsustainable is because the government does not HAVE trillions of dollars to provide stimulus to all people/businesses/industries as it's currently doing. Making matters worse, we’re actively loaning the economy money we do not have for no profit (ie. low interest rates).

Some believe we’re already living in atop a house of cards, while others believe we can bury more bodies before anyone starts to care. Let’s toss out scenarios so you can begin to perform your own internal game theory and then I’ll wrap up with my own take on what’s to come (fwiw):

• What reaction will the real estate market have if the Dow Jones plunges from 28,000 to 10,000 in January? And what if that 10,000 is the new norm for the next 5 years?
• What correlation will an increase in interest rates have with property demand?
• When the federal eviction + foreclosure moratorium is lifted, will the increase in [insert market you're interested in] inventory be moderate or massive?
• Many private lenders and loan servicing companies are in a tight bind right now. If any of the larger names collapse, will the government response prevent large impacts on the real estate market?
• If inflation results from all our printing of money and debt creation, how much is the USD going to be worth anyway?

My 2 Cents

Will 2008 repeat itself? Not exactly; we have much better loans than before. And those loans aren’t misrepresented in financial markets through various mortgage-backed securities.

You’re going to see a large wave of foreclosures and short sales. It will not be anything close to 2008, but that increase in inventory and eventual interest rates will produce a sudden drop in home prices when the gov't cannot continue propping up the economy. As long as private lenders and REIs are liquid and excited to invest still out there, (which they will be, presuming interest rates aren’t monstrous and the stock market doesn’t entirely crash over the next 12 months) then the real estate market will be just fine.

However, if inflation takes off, all bets are off and every simulation out there needs to be thrown in the trash.

Alternatively, if the world economy allows us to get away with keeping interest rates low and printing cash for as long as possible, it could be enough to prevent a real tailspin.

Today, everyone’s happy, more stimuli to come and real estate markets are skyrocketing while the world is in the midst of a pandemic.

Whatever happens, I'm sure we can all agree that this situation is a little bit fishy and we don't all really believe that our homes are going to maintain this appreciation rate for much longer.

@Joel Florian, I appreciate the comment; plenty of good points here. And you are totally right: most people choose an agent according to trust, but I'm not sure that's the right filter for decision-making. Eg. if my aunt is an agent, that doesn't mean she's a good agent or can meet my needs as a home-owner.. It just means she's an agent. You argued that not everyone is trying to get top dollar, and that's understandable (and a personal motivation) but even if you don't care what price your home sells for... selling a home is usually the most valuable transaction of someone's life and I hope folks aren't listing with someone simply because of a connection on a family tree.

Re: blog, I'm reading into that "content.. to monetize" part :^) Ultimately, I make money in real estate, but probably like yourself I do that by adding value to people as often as possible. Sharing knowledge with real and potential customers is usually a good idea. Hence, here we are on a very profitable website that monetizes on our involvement for the good of the community (said differently, capitalism can be a win-win).

@Irene Nash super grateful, thank you! and just for a listing agent. If you're ok with it, I'd love to quote you as well to use it on a blog post! :^) just let me know and if you'd like me to backlink you if you have a site.

@Irene Nash If you weren't a realtor, which interview questions would you use to get the best agent in your area?

@Irene Nash Hell yeah. Phenomenal comment and I completely agree. Thank you for not listing any soft skills in this value proposition :^)

@Kristin Kiddy YES. This is up my alley. Not so much the reference to soft skills (truthfulness), but alluding to an important value-adder which is that a listing agent should know what improvement investments dollars will churn the largest ROI in your market

I was just reading through the recent post asking for the TOP quality they look for in a real estate agent. The comments that followed were extremely depressing. They looked more like a list of soft skills most would consider basal expectations for a virtual admin: "Responsive" "Hard Working" "Communicative" "Reliable" etc. Remember that for most people, this is the LARGEST TRANSACTION of their lifetime.

After soft skills, the second trend is throwing out the all-mighty word, "Experience." It's a fun, hard to define (and unfalsifiable) word that is hard to challenge when the card is pulled. Often, this merely points to another shallow value proposition. I know plenty of contractors who have tons of experience but I wouldn't let bid a job regardless of the price. Contrarily, I've known agents, contractors etc who became juggernauts in their market within a year or two by being smarter and harder working than everyone else around them.  Experience alone isn't a value proposition that draws a necessary correlation to results.

So... what is it then? For a listing agent, I believe the greatest goal here is NOT just convenience, legal knowledge, etc. It's about maximizing home value, so how should you choose a real estate agent to achieve that goal? 

(before you respond, please make sure your response describes the agent, not the brokerage: eg. marketing reach of keller williams still doesn't mean a agent is good at their job)

If you're talking about a buyer's agent, it's all about quality off market deals. But the greater challenge is identifying the qualities of a superior Listing Agent. As I read through the comments, it's as though most people are describing a soft skills for a minimum wage job (reliable, responsive, hard worker, etc). 

The game-changing components of a great real estate agent is their ability to maximize the price of your home and negotiate non-monetary concessions after the inspection report comes back. For maximizing value, this is about understanding the neighborhood and which small/large improvements can be made to get top dollar against the high end comps in your neighborhood.

@Oscar Calle I'm new to the setup but for my bad contacts, I just push into Lead Sherpa which has the best skips out there. I haven't seen a better/cheaper way to do this out there. I have unlimited texts through lead sherpa and unlimited skips from Mojo (with 15¢ for the ones I need to re-skip on LS). I'm in heaven haha