Read the blog below:
Anthony Lamacchia: Hey, everybody, I’m here to do weekly updates on Crush It In Real Estate. This is Anthony Lamacchia going to be talking to you about a whole bunch of things. This is like a roller coaster ride. Many things are changing, many things have changed. As you guys know, I’ve committed to doing these updates every single Wednesday at 11:00 AM until this thing is over, which unfortunately is not a week or two away.
This is obviously a very unusual situation. I’m going to be talking to you about the state of Massachusetts. We just got deemed essential. What does that mean? What should we change as realtors? Then you’ll look at, okay, should real estate companies open offices, I’m going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about FHA. FHA, it has some rumors swirling, many of which are not true. I’m going to be talking about that.
I’m also going to do a recap on the money changes that have happened in our industry in the last week or 10 days. It’s unbelievable. I applaud so many people for jumping on this and making things happen. In addition, I’m going to talk to you about a new resource page that we’ve created for realtors. I’m also going to be going over the market. What has happened in the real estate market over the last week, two weeks?
What’s going on right now? What do I expect in the weeks to come? The president making the change from the 15 days to the 30. Now we’re going till April 30th under this advisory to social distance and all these other things. I’m going to talk about all of this, what I expect, how I expect it to impact the market. I’m going to talk about this with you guys for a good solid 45 minutes. Then I imagine I will jump into a Q&A as well. Not I imagine, I will jump into Q&A as well.
I’ll answer all of your questions and talk to you. I can see that we already have several people logged on. I know that that list will grow. There’s people out there starving for information and all I’m trying to do is just help the realtor community navigate this. Guys, this is confusing for just a person with a regular job. This whole scenario, never mind someone who works with the public, serve the public. On one hand, we’re dealing– As an owner, just to give you my perspective.
I’m dealing with some clients who are reaching out to our company directly saying, “Hey, Anthony said on a video that you guys would help people buy or sell, but the realtor at your company doesn’t necessarily seem to want to put the home on the market now.” Then we get people, “Hey, don’t put my home on the market at all.” Then we have some realtors who want to be doing business the normal way, many who don’t.
I will tell you though, the list of people who don’t want to do business across the industry is growing and it’s obviously growing because of all the things that have been going on. We’re going to be facing a sad couple of weeks here in our country where there’s going to be a lot of deaths, unfortunately. The president and Dr. Fauci and all those great people who are dealing with this have made that clear. I’m here to talk to you about, I’m trying to break it down to a realtor perspective. What does this mean? How do we deal with it?
I’m going to start with essential. All right. Last night I put that post on Facebook for those of you that are friends with me and it talked, it was an e-mail from the Mass Association of Realtors and I thought they did a great job. Now remember, the Mass Association Realtors, they’re trying to help realtor positions, help realtors as a whole. They’re our advocate. They’re also the messenger.
They put out a great e-mail that said earlier today, “Governor Baker made two important announcements concerning real estate as an essential business. The essential business list has been updated and now includes residential and commercial real estate. This means that in addition to continuing regular practice within current health and safety requirements, realtor may open their brick and mortar offices on April 1st to workers, clients, and the general public.”
Then they highlighted, “MAR urges members to exercise extreme caution in doing so and to continue practicing remotely as much as possible. Please note that just because you can open your business office on April 1st does not mean that you have to and you can remain practicing remotely.” I applaud MAR for that. That’s a great update. It’s good of them to get that update out and we are complying with their recommendation.
We at Lamacchia Realty are not opening our offices. We are waiting at least a few more weeks. We have been operating very well remotely. Our staff has adapted. Fortunately, we have a lot of technical, logical tools just as other real estate companies do that enable us to do things online like I’m doing with you right now. You’re all going to be very familiar with the third floor of my home here within a few weeks but we are not opening the Lamacchia offices to the public, to our staff.
People are going to continue working remotely, but we’re making it very clear that we are open for business. We recognize that there are buyers and sellers who still want to make things happen. We are seeing sellers who, some of which are like, “No, no, no, call me in a month. Let’s list in a month.” Then some are like, “No, no, no. I want to list my home now.” I will tell you what I think.
The reason I think that’s happening more, I wouldn’t say more, I’ll say the reason I think that’s happening with some is there are starting to be some people that think the market’s just going to tank and they just want to get out. They were already planning on selling anyway, so they’re like, “Just put my home on and get rid of it.” There’s some of that going on. I’m here to tell you, sellers, if you’re watching, even though this, I talked to realtors in this video, prices are not going to tank, and if they are do-over, if they go down in a period of time, which may happen, they’re not going to tank in the next month.
You are not harmed if you tell your sellers if they wait a few more weeks to list their home. Now, if that turns into three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, six weeks, seven weeks we get into summer, they could be harmed but right now inventory of home for sale is very, very low. Let me jump back to the government and MAR, Mass Association of Realtors, National Association of Realtors. I want to talk to you guys about this a little bit because it bugs me a little bit.
First of all, on Saturday, the Department of Homeland security put out an advisory with a list of what they consider to be essential businesses. Real estate was included on the essential list. Okay? Now some of you may disagree with that and that’s okay. You can disagree with it, but I think we as realtors need to be very careful to not be hating on one another or hating on the Governor or hating on, there’s no reason for it.
Okay. We have a massive effect on commerce. I talked about this last week, I talked about this Monday. We are in many ways realtors, real estate, the tip of the spear. We are the ones that have a sale and then many things happen related to the sale and after the sale down the supply chain, painters and home improvement companies and window companies and attorneys, mortgage brokers, many things happen because of real estate sales.
Our lawmakers recognize that if they stop real estate, they’re pretty much going to be in a position where everything shuts down. Now you could say, “Well, what the hell is the difference? Everything else is shut down.” I hear you but the financial consequences to people can be massive. What they’re trying to do and I frankly thought that Governor Baker and I want to applaud the Mass Association of Realtors and the folks there that are working, trying to get things right.
I thought what they did last week was pretty darn good. Have essential functions. You can do X, you can do Y, you can do the important things. Great. Okay. Now they take it a step further. Governor Baker did that. Now someone said on Facebook last night, a realtor I know that I love. I think she’s great. “Well, they’re doing that so we can’t collect unemployment.” No, there’s no connection. The unemployment rules come from the federal government.
They are administered and paid out through the state. Okay. When the federal government came out on Saturday and said real estate among other businesses is essential. Part of the reason they’re doing that is everybody is realizing, “Hey, this isn’t going to be a one or a two-week thing.” I said to you guys from the beginning, if this is two or three weeks, it’s going to be a massive bump in the road.
Maybe a crater after that, but we’ll get through it. Well, it isn’t two or three weeks. Okay. That is not happening. We’re looking at, if they’re talking four more, that’s four on top of the three we already had, right? The market’s going to take some punishment. Everybody’s going to take a bit of a financial hit from this, but what are you going to do? We’ve got to deal with it. Because of that, the government that there are certain businesses that they have to leave somewhat essential so that we can operate, but here’s the truth and here’s how I look at it.
We can sell homes and we can serve our clients most of which and a lot of which remotely without having the offices open. We don’t need to do it. At Lamacchia Realty, we’re not opening our offices. Now, I can’t tell you that I’m going to wait a month, but I can tell you that I’m at least going to wait a couple of weeks. We have people checking the offices every day. We have people picking up checks. We’re making sure to get money deposited.
We’re looking at taking in wires when we didn’t before. We’re telling a small list of our realtors who weren’t on direct deposit, “Hey, you need to get on a direct deposit,” because I’m trying to eliminate paperwork. I’m trying to eliminate how many people touch checks, envelopes, pass them around because guys, guess what? I don’t want this thing spreading either. We all have a social responsibility.
As realtors, we should be, and we are leaders in our communities. We can serve the public that has an absolute need to buy or sell right now and be leaders and be socially responsible and participate in getting rid of this God damn horrible virus. This thing is horrible and we need to be working to do that. I wanted to give you guys some background on that because I don’t want people to thinking, “Oh, well, the Governor did that so we can’t get unemployment.”
No, no, no. Thanks to the National Association of Realtors that’s literally working 22 hours a day right now. The lobbying team down in DC, I’m pointing like it’s right there. The lobbying team in DC, all of those folks are busting their asses right now for us and for our homeowners, our clients. One of the things they got in this bill, which I don’t believe has ever happened before, is 1099 independent contractors can collect unemployment. They can, and the unemployment is going to be a larger amount.
Now, it might not match up to what you were making, but for many of you it will and they’re doing a larger amount of unemployment for, I want to say, it’s 12 weeks.
One thing I want to mention about the unemployment. For those of you that are going to take advantage. The Governor did say, and he’s right, the California governor said it, this is a first, where 1099 people can do it it. The federal government says who can get it? They give the money to the states, the states administer the program and pass the money out.
The states don’t have the darn system set up with a dropdown that says 1099 but they’re almost there and they’re saying they’re going to have it solved. By the way, guys, I get a little surprise for you at the end. I’m going to show you something we have that’s going to make it easy for you guys to find all of these resources. We made it easy on you. I think I already mentioned to you we were creating a resources page, so I’ll go over that in a little while.
I really ask all of the realtors that are listening, which is in the hundreds right now, and it’ll be in the thousands in the next couple of days. Guys, let’s work together. Let’s not shame one another. If you see a realtor out doing a showing, well maybe they have to do a showing. Maybe there’s a reason. Also, remember, and I said this last week, I said, “What do you want, a medal?” There’s some realtors that are grandstanding, “Oh, I don’t need a check. I don’t care if I don’t sell for three months.”
Well, not everybody is in that position. They’re not, okay. I’ve seen people a week and two weeks ago that said, “Two weeks, whatever. I’ll be fine.” Well, now they’re talking six or seven, their attitudes change. Many of we buy and flip homes as well. A week ago, contractors are like, “Ah, I’m staying home.” Now they’re like, “Well, I’m not saying home for a month.” everyone has different wants and needs and everybody needs to remember that.
I think that we realtors should rise up and be professional. Not talk badly about our association and not say horrible things like, “Oh, they’re contributing to it getting worse. They’re murdering people.” That’s insanity and it shouldn’t be said. If it wasn’t for our association, we’d be in a terrible position. Now I know that’s a select few that are talking that extreme, but nobody should be saying it. We should be grateful to our association for representing us and doing what they can to help us.
Let me move on. FHA. Lots of rumors going around the FHA has changed the guidelines. They have not, that is not true, not true. Last week they made one little change and that change was, and they put a mortgage letter out on it and they made it very clear that they are loosening the guidelines around employment and reemployment. Now, remember, FHA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac are basically three buckets from the government that back mortgages, insure mortgages and put out guidelines for lenders to lend on.
When lenders get those guidelines, they don’t have to follow those guidelines exactly. They can make their own guidelines to protect themselves from essentially being seen as one of those government-sponsored enterprises, as being seen as a company that has a lot of defaults. What do they do? They add what they call overlays. They put on things like, well, if FHA minimum credit score is 580, a month ago they were willing to do the loan. A lot of them at 580 to 600.
Many now are saying we’re not willing to do the loan at 580 or 600, they’re adding to their overlays. I want 640, I want 660 and some of the companies that are like brokers and not lending their own money are having a little bit of a harder time with it. Doesn’t mean they’re not good mortgage companies. Doesn’t mean they’re not good mortgage brokers, but when the system starts to get really strained and have signs of breaking down, that’s the thing that can happen.
I want to make sure that you guys understand the differences. Really, there’s three buckets that lend money. Banks, mortgage lenders and then mortgage brokers. The mortgage brokers are the ones that are having a little bit of a harder time right now, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to get through it. If I’m a realtor, I’m checking with the mortgage broker to say, “Hey, is your company adding to the requirements for FHA?”
Now, many people have asked a good question, “What the hell are they making FHA tougher for?” Why are they making it so that it’s harder to get an FHA loan and for those of you that remember, FHA is the one that saved our industry 10 years ago, nine years ago, eight years ago. They saved us. If it wasn’t for them, market would’ve got worse. It would have went in the toilet. The reason they did that is FHA mortgages are a bit more prone to having problems and having defaults. Why? Because the average income for FHA loans is usually lower.
The average credit score tends to be a little bit lower. The average down point payment tends to be less. Those loans have a tendency to be more susceptible to default. That’s why some of these companies, and in some cases, guys, they’re smart to be saying, “Whoa, Whoa, let’s do those mortgages but what do you want to make it a little more strict?” For those of you that have heard rumors that the FHA or the VA is no longer writing mortgages, that’s not true. That is not true. I will tell you, I’m willing to bet, and I already know this, our national association of realtors is on top of this.
They’re going to work with FHA. I’m sure the Mortgage Bankers Association which is a smaller association is on it as well. I’ll bet you in the next few weeks they come out with some kind of relief to make this a little bit easier and make mortgage companies less nervous about writing those loans because guys put yourself in a mortgage company shoes. If they all of a sudden have lots of defaults on their mortgages in three months, six months, ten months, the investors starts to say, “Whoa, what’s going on? All of these mortgages you guys are doing are falling through.”
That’s a big, big problem and we’ve got to be very careful for that sort of thing. They have to be very careful for that sort of thing. I just want you guys to be thinking about that and understand that. It doesn’t mean that we should demonize any of our mortgage broker friends who are struggling with this or anything but I wanted to get the right information out and the right information is FHA hasn’t changed it.
Another thing that I want to review, and I really just say this to applaud our whole industry and to update all the realtors on here, the amount of changes that happened over the last 10 days, some of these I reviewed last week. It’s amazing to see and it makes me proud to see how many people have stepped up and how many organizations, how many companies, how many governmental bodies have stepped up and made dramatic changes to things across our industry.
Take a look at appraisals. Fannie and Freddie are now saying under a certain set of circumstances, no problem with drive-by appraisals. They’re saying that on most of them, that’s really good news, that enables appraisals to still be done. Appraisals are wildly important. Appraisers are wildly important. I want to mention that. Smoke certificates in Massachusetts, they’re now allowing smoke– This remember was the responsibility of the seller for decades.
As long as we can remember to get your smoke detectors updated, mine, one of mine’s up there and then go out and get their certificate. Well, in Massachusetts, many cities and towns have said, “Well, we’re not doing smoke detectors right now. We don’t want our firefighters going into homes.” Some have already turned the switch back on. City of Boston on Monday said we’re open to do smoke inspections. That’s okay.
That’s good that they’re doing that because now they won’t get a huge backlog. The governor came out, signed a bill and said 90 days after the state emergency is over, or 90 days after closing, whatever comes sooner, the buyer can get that inspection, the buyer can get that certificate. I think that’s smart. We’ve got to make sure that when properties are passed hands that the homes are safe. My recommendation to sellers and to realtors. If I was in your shoes and I’ll tell you we’re doing it in our company.
We made up a specific e-mail that we tell sellers about the new rule, but we also are saying to sellers, “Hey, we recommend you still get the home ready. We recommend that you get the home ready to pass the smoke inspection even though you’re not getting it.” I think that that’s important to do because you don’t want to run into selling a home that isn’t safe. Also, remember many buyers that haven’t signed the purchase and sale yet, they’re going to say, “That wasn’t my responsibility. I want to be reimbursed for that.”
You got the buyer together, you get the seller and you guys negotiate it. You do some sort of closing costs credit for it. If the seller takes care of the work, it’ll bring down that closing cost credit. That’s my recommendation. Anyway, that was number two. Number three, home inspections being done without realtors there. Guys, I’ve been teaching this for more than 10 years. I did it when I sold. If it is your listing, you should not be attending the home inspection anyway.
I will admit, I’m happy to see home inspectors and homeowners say, “Realtor, don’t come.” You shouldn’t have been going anyway. This is your perfect excuse to start not attending these home inspections because you do not need to. Okay. It puts you in a tough spot. If you’re attending the home inspection, you could hear about things, learn about things that you might be required to disclose that the seller is not required to disclose and it puts you in an odd situation.
They’ll also ask you many questions that you would never hear. I’m thrilled to see that that’s becoming common. Also, closings attorneys, they’re telling realtors don’t come to closings. I’ve been saying that for years. Realtors should not be going to any closings. Attorneys are not for closings, closings are for attorneys.
Now I’m hearing about attorneys going in suits and in gloves. I really hope that the Governor signs the bill that has been proposed, which is to allow not just for e-closings, those are already happening, but virtual notarizations. I really hope that gets signed. It’s caught up. There’s a lot of other interest groups that are jumping on the bandwagon saying, “Hey, if they can do it in real estate, why not in insurance, why not in this, why not in that,” and that’s bogging it down. We need it to pass.
What if we get stuck for two months, three months more. People need to be able to sell homes, mortgage brokers, attorneys, everybody needs to be able to close these homes. Again, real estate is the tip of the spear in commerce. We have a massive impact. If homes can’t be sold and that shuts down, it adds a massive problem. It adds massive problems and issues all the way down the supply chain. I really hope the Governor will sign it.
If you know someone that’s in the house here in Massachusetts, or you know a state senator reach out and push them on it. Monday, we had heard it would get done today. Last night, I heard it’s not going to good. Another change is our MLS, MLS pin agreed and said, if you’re not willing to show the home, you can still leave the home on the market. I thought that was brilliant. I recommend people leaving the home on the market.
Guys right now, there’s only 10,700 homes on the market in Massachusetts. Normally right now there’d be 13,000-ish, based on the way we were tracking. It’s a tough one, even though there’s less buyers out there. Well, there’s less sellers too. Remember for the market to crash, the amount of sellers has to go like this and the amount of demand has to go like that. We’re not there. I’m going to talk more about that in a few minutes.
Anyway, I just wanted to applaud our entire industry, because I mean, wow, did people adapt and adapt quickly. Unemployment for realtors. I want to talk about that for a few minutes. As I said, National Association of Realtors did a phenomenal job getting the unemployment in for 1099 realtors and unemployment is going to be a bit higher for about– He had Tom I swear sometimes, for about 90 or 120 days. I believe it’s 12 weeks so 120 days.
It is possible to get it. There is an NAR fact sheet that we’re going to post a link of but what we’re also going to post right now, Lindsey or Cole is going to do it is we have launched a realtor resource page on crushitinre.com. If you go to the homepage, you’ll see there’s a banner across the top that says realtor resource page, click on it. If you go in, you’ll see there’s a letter in there for me if you want to read it, you don’t need to read it. You’ll see plenty of resources.
You will see my weekly video updates that I’ve done all along and there’s a scrolling bar to see them all. All the way back to three, four weeks ago when I was in Las Vegas and life was more normal. Then there’s also client resources. You’ll see our text. We were careful here, guys, because I don’t like promoting things from my company on this channel, as you guys know, but we’ve had so many people reach out and say, “Well, how are you answering things for clients? What are you showing clients?” That we decided to launch this page.
You’ll see, it says, “To assist your clients, click here to review some of the blogs that Lamacchia realty has published.” Guys, look at the blogs, use some of the content, you want to use the blog with your client? Go ahead, if you’re at another company, I don’t care. You want to rip off some of the information, cut and paste an e-mail to your client. Go ahead. Just make sure guys that you are the source for your clients. Make sure. You need to be there for your clients right now. It’s very, very important.
In addition, if you scroll down further, we also put a link to the buyer and seller videos that I’ve been doing on Lamacchia Realty Facebook page every single Monday at 3:00 PM. Again, I don’t normally like to show that stuff but this is a crazy set of circumstances. I know you’re all starving for information and starving for ideas. Go watch them, learn some of the talking points. If you don’t agree, change them. Take the ones you agree with, take the ones you don’t agree with, come up with what you don’t agree with. I don’t care.
Then there’s a whole section on Realtor Association info and advocacy. I can’t emphasize it enough. The Mass Association of Realtors, National Association of Realtors, and then we put the states that we’re licensed in. Rhode Island Association, Connecticut, New Hampshire, National, we put them all in here. If you guys click, there’s some really, really good information in here. A lot of times realtors like to complain about their dues.
Well, go look at all the information in there and you might not complain about your dues when you see it. That’s in there. We also put mortgage servicer information. If you’ve got a client who needs to quickly figure out what the best phone number is to call for their mortgage company. We had three things people last week, go through every mortgage company, every major mortgage servicer, look up the information the people who call when they’re having trouble paying their mortgage, or they think they might have trouble paying their mortgage.
We had staff call the numbers and make sure they were legitimate. That’s how we built the page, that’s all on there. We’re also going to have a link, I don’t see it yet but I know our marketing people are literally working on it right now. We’re going to have a link with information about unemployment. If you go on the page, it’s actually already there because you can scroll down to the realtor advocacy button, the FAQ, scroll down to the second page, and you will see all realtors eligible for unemployment. There you go. It answers it all.
Use that as a resource to help you get through this God awful unusual time. In addition, now I want to talk about the market. What I see for the market. What I’ve seen over the last week. What I’m seeing this week. What I expect for the weeks and months to come. I don’t have a crystal ball guys, but many of you know I study the market obsessively. I don’t know many people that watch it at the level that I do. I normally look at homes listed, homes pending, homes sold, percentage of homes under agreement every Monday.
I look at the last seven days in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire. We have changed homes listed and we also track temporarily withdrawn to looking at it twice a day. Jay Philip Real Estate, you’re damn right buddy. He said FHA saved our asses back when the housing market crashed. You are right. Wasn’t for them prices would have went down another 50%. Back to what I was talking about the market. Now, I’m watching it daily, morning and night because I’m trying to see what’s happening with inventory.
Number one, everybody has to remember, we are in a supply and demand business. In order for the market to crash or even for prices to begin to slide, the supply of homes for sale has to go up dramatically. Not going to happen right now when there’s 10,000 homes on the market in Massachusetts when normally there’d be like 13. Normally they’d be 2,500, 3,000 homes a week going in the market. Last week, 1,176 homes listed for sale. That’s down from about 2,400 the week before.
Normally that week before would have been 3,000. We’re down to about a third of the amount of homes getting listed. There are properties that are getting temporarily withdrawn but here’s what’s interesting. It’s less than 100 a day, it’s 40 or 70 or 60 or 30 a day that are getting temporarily withdrawn. We’ll do the math; 1,176 a week getting listed, that’s 100 and something and only some getting temporary withdrawn and some are going under agreement. That’s why inventory of homes for sale is literally stuck right around mid 10 thousands, impossible for the market to crash there.
Now, do I think that’ll change later? I do. I have to be honest with everyone. That’s what this page is all about. One thing, I am real. You guys know that. I want to explain a couple things that I expect. Now that the President– I told you guys from the beginning. I was in Las Vegas, and some people criticized me. Some of them were right. They said, “Anthony, this thing’s going to be way worse than you think.” They ended up being right but we’re taking the information as it comes.
I do not think– Well, I’m pointing like when I was in Las Vegas because it’s that way, Southwest from here. I do not think you’re going to see prices do this. Do I think we’re going to see an adjustment? Do I think we’re going to see things slow down? I do. I think it’s impossible not to. Unemployment is going to go to a very high rate. Last night I read an article in Goldman Sachs and they said this is going to be the worst unemployment we’ve ever seen, then it’ll be the fastest recovery we’ve ever seen.
The St. Louis Fed, many major cities have Federal Reserve, he seems to think that unemployment could go to 40%. I don’t believe it. I don’t think it would be that bad. Certainly won’t be that bad here in Massachusetts. Is it going to get bad? Yes. Is it going to have an impact? Yes. Here’s what I expect over the next few weeks, follow me here. We’re going to see bumpiness in the next three to four weeks before things get back to normal.
We’re going to see some sellers listing, some buyers buying, some holding back, some going on the market, coming off the market. I think that in the next seven days, we’re going to see it get a little bit busier than it was the last seven. The reason is, many people a week ago said, “Well, if it’s two weeks, I’ll just wait.” Heck, I told that to our sellers. I said you’re in no harm if you wait two weeks. Well, now, when the President said April 30.
Now yesterday, Governor Charlie Baker said May 4, there’s people that are saying, “Well, I was willing to wait a week or two. I ain’t waiting.” Yes, with that attitude, that Boston accent from my New York friends that are listening. “I ain’t waiting till May.” We’ve heard that from people. I think that in the next week, you’re going to see it get a little busier. I think you’ll see more people list their homes, a little bit more activity, especially now that we’ve been deemed essential because remember the consumers see that we’ve been deemed essential too.
We’ve had some sellers point that out to us. Not everybody’s that educated on it, but we have. I think you’re going to see it get a little busier, but when we get to tell a week away, here’s the sad part. There are thousands of people dying a day which looks pretty inevitable which is absolutely horrible. It’s horrendous. Sad as could be. When that happens and that’s hitting the news every day for a couple of weeks while we peak, which hopefully we’ll peak in the middle of April. I think you’re going to see a little bit of a slower market.
I think that you’re going to see less buyers wanting to buy, less sellers wanting to lease. Then when we get on the other side of it come the beginning of May, and hopefully, I know some smart people that think it’s going to go further than May 4th but hopefully when we get to May 4th and the governor says, “All right, we can start to get back to a essential normalcy.” The president says it, “Use caution, use social distancing,” blah, blah, blah.
I think you’re going to see a wave of busy-ness that’s going to be almost to the point of being crazy, just psychotic the way it’s going to be. For about a month or two. Then we’re going to get into summer and I think a little bit of reality is going to set in. Now, it’s possible that, and it all depends how bad unemployment gets. It’s possible that since we’re losing about a month here, that instead of things slowing down late summer like they would normally do in a fall with an election year, maybe it’ll stay pretty busy till early September.
I will tell you that I am certain. We’re not going all the way to the end of the year without saying, “Damn, it’s slowed down. What’s going on here?” I think that’ll be later in the year. Now, if you’re a home buyer, and I’d be saying this to buyers guys, I know we have realtors watching, but tell them the darn truth. “Hey, guys. If you can buy when there’s less people out there buying, do it.” What does Warren Buffet say, “When everyone else is being greedy, be scared.”
You know what that means? That means buyers shouldn’t buy in February and March. When everyone else is scared, be greedy. That’s the time to buy. At some point in the fall, I think we’re going to see that and that’s where I think we’re going to see a settling down of prices. I don’t think this year you’re going to see prices completely decrease. I don’t. Now if unemployment goes to 40% and things get substantially worse, could that happen in time? Of course, it could, but we realtors should be explaining the benefits of homeownership to our clients, telling them the truth.
If they still want to buy great. If they don’t, then they wait. I mean, whatever. People want to wait till it’s a crazy circus again and everybody’s competing, go ahead. I’m going to take questions in a few minutes, so start posting your questions if you guys want me to answer them. A couple of other things that I want to mention. Tonight, I’ve been invited by some top team leaders and top broker-owners in the nation. One of them is friend Dan Bear out in San Diego to be on what’s called be different, mastermind.
They have a closed group. There’s about 5,000 realtors on it. It started Saturday and they invited several speakers in and several folks like myself in to talk about things and what I agreed to speak about tonight at 6:00 PM is what you should be doing right now to get yourself ready, to prepare and be there for your clients right now and to get yourself ready for a changed market because guys we’re going to experience some kind of change.
I don’t want to dumb that down at all. Next year at this time, we will not be as busy. There will not be as many offers on homes as much demand as there were three and four weeks ago. There won’t be. People aren’t going to lose jobs for three months, six months and then have as much demand. Now, the saving grace that could get us through it is there was so much demand that if the demand even goes down to 30% less or 40% less, there’s still a lot of demand, but I think it’s probably going to be cut in half.
I think that those of you that have been getting used to 10 offers on every property, well, get ready to hope to have two. That’s where you’re going to see. There might be an initial burst in May when we get back at it because people are going to be like– It’s like letting the dog off a leash to go out and play when they’re cooped up, that’s how we all feel.
I was talking to a friend last night about, “How much do you miss just going out for dinner?”
This is just crazy. Think about those things, be ready and make sure your skills are ready. I’m going to talk about that tonight on the Be Different Mastermind. If you guys want to go and watch me tonight at 6:00 PM, just search Be Different Mastermind on Facebook. I’m not going to go look now. I don’t want to screw this up. Be Different Mastermind, ask to join. I’ve already alerted Dan, they’re going to approve everybody. Go ahead and join.
I’ll be on tonight at 6:00 PM and let me tell you, there’s several other really good speakers. A lot of my realtor friends from around the country. A real estate coach of mine, Jon Cheplak, best recruiting coach in existence. He’s going to be speaking Jay kinder from Oklahoma. Kyle Whistle. Dan Bear. There’s going to be people that are ballers in the real estate industry speaking on that forum all day today. If you want to get in and take a look, go ahead. You could watch it before. I’ll be on tonight at 6:00 PM.
I wanted to mention that. Now, I’m going to jump into– Thank you, Lindsey. Thank you for sharing guys. Look for Lindsey for vases comment. Lindsay’s is our director of marketing at the Lamacchia company. She shared the link for the resources page that we have launched on crushitinre.com, that will help realtors across the country. Make sure to look at that. Jeff Williams talking about– Jeff’s an old friend. One of my closest real estate friends in the country, the man who taught me how to advertise on television.
This is a comment from him, “Just attended a great call concerning the pay tech protection program. Everyone should apply to get 2.5 months’ worth of payroll for their staff so they don’t have to lay them off. SBA program being offered through local banks.” 100% right Jeff. We are doing that as well, and that is smart of you to mention that. Other broker-owner friends should be paying attention to that. If any of you are listening and you’re like, “Where can I get information on that?”
You guys want to e-mail me, go ahead. If you go on the resource page, there’s a letter from me. Right on the bottom of that letter, it says, “E-mail me directly.” Click the button ‘e-mail me’, we’ll get you the information. Jeff, also saying people have a lot more equity now than they did in 2008. He’s right about that. It’s going to get ugly for a while though, guys, I’ll tell you that. Let’s see, Kathy, Ricky printing trillions and cash is not going to create a fast recovery. How could it?
Kathy, love you. I’ve known you my whole life. A great realtor out of Cambridge, don’t totally agree. I think that that’s going to help the recovery because many people are going to be able to stay employed. I could be wrong. I mean you could be right. You’re smart as could be, but that’s my opinion. Are realtors deemed essential throughout the country or the state? John is asking, I don’t know John. John, here’s my answer. Department of Homeland security said it, they put out guidance, but States can adopt it if they want to.
Massachusetts decided to adopt it and say we’re essential. State of Michigan will not adopt it, they said realtors are not essential. State of New Hampshire stuck with realtors have essential functions, but they said no one in New Hampshire can do an open house. If you do one, you could be charged with a misdemeanor and the brokerage could get charged a $20,000 fine. I made it very clear to our realtors today that no one had better be doing an open house in New Hampshire.
Let’s see. Mark Styles, a good friend from the Southshore. Good man, hello sir. Lupita, hi. You think it will help for people already getting– Sorry, I don’t know what that means. Oh, Dan, I’m excited to be on tonight. Craig Sinclair, what was the page I mentioned? Okay. Crushitinre.com. Crushitinre.com. Go in, there’s a banner. Click on it. It says COVID-19 resource for realtors. Let’s see here, any help from the government or banks to help people buying homes to hold onto their job for a few weeks?
I don’t think they can come out with that kind of help, that’s outside of something that the government could do but I do know of buyers who have gone to their employers and said, “Hey, I’m supposed to close in three weeks, can you keep me on for three more weeks? Then lay me off after that?” Because remember guys, just because people get laid off doesn’t mean they can’t afford their home.
I mean, look at the rents around here. I live in Watertown, the rents are like 3Gs a month. You go buy a home, your payments is 3,000 a month. What the hell is the difference? There are people who can do that. 136 new comments, yikes. I’m going to keep working these. Thank you, Lisa. A lot of comments from people I don’t know, but I appreciate. Hey, Anthony, where do you see the secondary homeowners market, for example?
Got to be honest. I don’t know you, Karen, but I appreciate your question and I appreciate you tuning in. It’s impossible for secondary markets not to get hit worse. The first thing people do is they pull back on disposable income. When people buy a Cape house or people buy a condo in Florida or a place in Vegas or something, those are the first things they get rid of. Thank you, Mackenzie, for posting that. I appreciate that, thank you, Bernie. Appreciate that.
Yes, those markets are going to get hurt worse. Guys, here’s the deal. You’ve got to be a resource for your clients. The biggest thing you should be telling your clients, I talked about this in company updates an hour ago, is don’t delay. If you realize, if you realtors or you have a client that realizes, “I’m going to have trouble paying my mortgage in a month.” Get on the damn phone and call the mortgage company, don’t waste time. You got to make sure to be in touch with them because they are doing a lot of things that are creative.
They’re allowing people to delay paying their mortgages. In many cases, they’re not hurting– I’m reading comments, I’m getting distracted. They’re not hurting people’s credit. Many things. Also, think about it from– Kathy just mentioned tenants. We have a property management company. It’s a fine line to walk because you don’t want to invite tenants to ask not to pay but I’ll tell you this, communication beats anything. People should be talking, landlords and tenants should be talking.
We have a commercial landlord somewhere, I don’t want to say which office, but they sent out the payroll protection program. They sent out information from SBA and they said, “Hey, we have bills to pay too, so please don’t not pay your rent but here’s some resources to help you.” I thought that was smart. Better to be proactive, better to be on top of things and reach out to people. Liz, you’re absolutely right. We look at all the money people have saved from not going out. Guys, I want to buy a new computer cord for my son’s Chromebook and I can’t buy it anywhere.
stores are closed. We can’t spend money. There is going to be a lot of pent up demand and that’s why I think that when we get past, when we get May, hopefully, it’s May, people are going to be going out like crazy and that’s going to give everybody the perception that things are good and then we’re going to go over this with no harm. I don’t buy it. It’s going to be busy for a few weeks. Market’s going to slow down. Sellers are going to need to get more realistic. If they don’t, they won’t sell. That’s what you’re going to see.
I can’t take more questions. Kevin, thanks for the kind words. I love the American flag you put there. Buddy, I’ve said it a hundred times. We will get through this. I will bet on America every single time. Already, look at what we’re doing. We’re testing faster than anyone in the world. We’re doing more tests. We’re getting results of tests faster. We have companies now Ford, Tesla, GM, many companies are making ventilators.
They said we’re going to make so many ventilators, that we’re going to make sure that we have more than enough in the United States and then we’re going to sell them overseas in time. Other countries aren’t doing this, and that’s why I’ll continue to bet on America. Let’s see. Two more comments. Thank you, Andrea. I appreciate the kind words. I know that many realtors, this is me, not Andrea, but many realtors are feeling passionate right now. I just want to remind everyone what I talked about in the beginning.
Just because the Governor went along with the federal guidance of calling us essential, doesn’t mean that everybody has to open their offices. I will tell you, those who do open their offices should not be shamed by fellow realtors. Maybe they have a reason, maybe they do property management. Maybe they’re not using technology as well and they need to be open. I don’t know. We realtors should not be shaming one another. We should be professionals. We should be adhering to our code of ethics and making sure that we support one another during this difficult time. Think about that.
Let’s see. Bauer is making masks. That’s right. I buy my suits from a company named Tom James. They shut their factory down. They’re recalibrating their manufacturing equipment and they’re making masks by the hundreds of thousands. We’re going to beat this thing. There’s no doubt about it. It’s just when and how much can they decrease the loss of life. That’s really what would be great if they could do that. I’ll take a couple more questions and then I’m going to wrap it up.
Thank you. Lisa. I don’t know you, but you’re right. Shaming helps no one. My Pillow. That’s right. I see their ads all the time. They’re making masks now. Everybody’s doing it. Guys, that’s a wrap for this week. If you have more questions, make sure to submit them to us. Message us, e-mail us. I’m putting my own e-mail that comes to me in the letter that I’m putting on crushitinre.com in our realtor resources page. Make sure to look at that page.
Our marketing people posted the page. Click in. There’s a lot of very valuable information and we’re adding to it. We’ve been working on it for five days. Marketing team’s been working day and night. We will add more to it. If you think we’re missing something. Tell us. We’ll put it in. We want this to be a national realtor resource page and I think it will be. If you want to hear from me again today, tune into the Be Different Mastermind Tonight. It’s a Facebook group. Click in and ask to join. Thanks, guys. I’m out.