Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Home Story with Veronica. I'm Veronica Dicus, and today we're diving into the people, places and decisions that make a house a home. You're watching now Media Television.
Welcome to Home Story with Veronica. I am Veronica, and today I am getting into a question that is sitting in the minds of buyers, sellers and homeowners all across the Carolinas and the US for that matter. Are we actually in trouble in this real estate market or or are people reacting to the wrong signals? My guest today is Trent Corbin. He is the owner of the Redbud Group, a longtime Charlotte real estate leader who has been in the industry since 2009 and has built his reputation on an analytical approach to housing decisions, not emotional headlines. Through his work in one of the most closely watched housing regions in the Carolinas, he has been helping clients make sense of affordability, pricing pressure, supply and buyer behavior in a market that feels noisy and uncertain. So in this first segment, I want to start with the confusion itself because people are hearing about rates, tariffs. Yes, I said it. Tariffs, inflation, and just a bunch of things. And the Fed every day, but they still do not know what is actually driving the market where they live. Trent, first of all, welcome so much. Welcome to the show.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: The thank you for having me, Veronica.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Absolutely happy to be here. It's a pleasure to have you here. Now, let's immediately clear the fog. A lot of people are frozen right now, not necessarily because the market is collapsing, but because they do not know which economic signals truly matter. This conversation helps me separate media noise from the indicators that actually shape buying power, pricing, and decision making in the Carolinas trend. Let me start here. Should everyday buyers, sellers and homeowners in the Carolinas actually be scared of this market right now, or are they being overwhelmed by all the noise of all the things that are happening?
[00:01:59] Speaker B: So, great question. I think you hit the nail on the head where the average consumer, and they're not alone, is just confused. Right.
There's a lot of things happening in the market and the one thing that consumers hate more than anything is uncertainty. And so right now we're in an environment of there's a lot of uncertainty, both just globally and also in the housing market itself, interestingly so, and we will likely get to this at some point, but I do not see that we are looking at a 2008 like collapse.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: That's probably one of my questions. Yep.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: And, and, and so what's interesting is that it might actually be that 2008 is part of the reason we're not looking at Another collapse. Collapse. And, and that's because following 2008, a lot of builders exited the market and they never really caught up from an inventory standpoint. And so as people have continued to build and add inventory, we've still had this gap. And so you have all this demand for home buyers that, you know, people who want to buy homes, but you don't have the supply that's kept up.
Couple that with all of the crazy things that happened between Covid and interest rates and all of that, we are left with a situation that we're finally starting to see some what I would call price stabilization in the market.
And I think the end result is going to be that we're in a relatively sideways market for some time.
I wouldn't be surprised if we see some price declines. But again, as far as being scared of any market, I never think that's an appropriate response. I think if you talk to anyone who is a seasoned investor, be it in real estate or any market, there's always opportunity. And so if prices are going up, there's opportunity for people who own real estate to sell at a premium or to get into the market at the right time. If prices are flatlining and stabilizing, depending on what else is going on and how the broader world responds to that, that's also an opportunity. It's an opportunity to catch prices while they're not moving so quickly, because back in 21 and 22, it seemed like every day prices jumped 2 or 3% and you just couldn't catch up to the market. So I think the next couple years offer a great opportunity for people to get in, into a more stable environment and experience some of the. You know, they say you make money when you buy, not when you sell.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: So the opportunity to buy at this stage is actually really attractive, in my view.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: I agree with that. Now, a lot of people are blaming interest rates, tariffs, and the Fed for everything.
We're saying that a lot. When you say those are not the real drivers people think they are, what do you mean by that? In plain English?
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Yeah. So the Fed has a job to do, and the Fed's job is a dual mandate. And so they need to balance unemployment with inflation.
And it's.
They're tasked with that job. And it's so complex because it's literally an impossible thing. As you pull one leverage, it shifts everything in the other direction, and then you have to correct for it. And it's designed to be balanced. It's very hard to maintain that balance. And so as additional inputs occur, Other decisions get made from other branches of the government and geopolitical tensions rise and fall.
Interest rates are going to do what they do. The Fed can only control the Fed rate. And the Fed rate effectively is what banks are able to borrow at. But things like mortgage rates are actually determined not by the Fed, but by what kind of uncertainty the market feels is associated with borrowing at the time.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: And so what we've seen in, in recent weeks, as geopolitical tensions have risen again, rates have gone back up. And the reason is because people are less confident in the US they're less, less confident in the short rate term, short rate, short term rates. And so you're seeing mortgage prices react despite the fact that the Fed hasn't changed anything.
That's one of the big misconceptions about what the Fed can and can't do. And so even as they lower rates and people say, well, why isn't my mortgage going down?
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: It doesn't really depend on what the Fed does. So the Fed might continue to make decisions, there might be other decisions that get made.
My belief is that there is a broader market cycle that really can't be avoided.
And that's the 18 year real estate cycle.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: Yes, 18 year real estate cycle, that's right. I want to make sure people understand what you're saying. Yes.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: So generally, if you go back in history 100 plus years and look at what has happened to home supply and price, it kind of follows this 18 year cycle. And it's not perfect. It might be different by six months one way or the other, but in general, things tend to follow a certain cycle. And if you kind of rewind from where we are today, 18 years, it just so happens to be exactly 2008. And so the coincidence.
That's right. And so the idea that we are somehow going to be immune to a market cycle, I think is misguided. And so that's one of the reasons I kind of say, despite the levers that the Fed has to pull, despite what Congress might do or the President might do to try to influence things one way or another, there are some economic forces at play that generally just can't be avoided.
And so you're starting to see that show up. Because even as we're back in a rising rate environment, but even as rates were coming down, that tends to act in two different ways, because you have rates coming down in a way that inspires buyers to, to go out and look for homes, but it also inspires sellers to put their home on the market. And go out and buy their next home. And so when that happens, you're really not moving the supply and demand curves because you're adding both inputs at the same time.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Right. So we balance this out.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: So it balances out. So again, you're not seeing, you know, everybody's like, oh, lower rates. All these buyers are going to rush back in. What they don't account for is the fact that also sellers are going to rush to put their homes on the market, and so price doesn't get affected.
Again, the benefit that we've seen from 2008 really is that there's still such a shortage that even as some of these things are playing out, we're not seeing sharp price declines in the broader market, which, again, is why I think you're really just seeing a softening of price and more of a sideways movement right now.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: And you're talking nationwide, or are you talking specific to a Carolina?
[00:08:49] Speaker B: I'm talking nationwide.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: Nationwide.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: We have drilled down in our markets both in Charlotte and in Asheville.
Asheville has already seen what I view as sort of an inflection point, meaning they hit a peak price, peak median price last summer, and the prices this year are down from where they are or where they were in Charlotte. We've not seen that yet. Price continues to climb. I think the real the two data points that matter the most will be January or, sorry, June of 2026 and June of 2027 after Spring Market.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: After all that.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: Yep. And what's interesting and consistent is that every April contract activity picks up. It's the busiest month for new contracts, and that results in June being the busiest month for closings.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: And so the reason I choose June is because June consistently is kind of the high watermark when it comes to median price.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: And so if the median price in June is higher than it was last year, I view that we're still in an upward trend. If the median price in June is lower than prior year, then I think we're in a situation where prices are declining.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: It's hard to tell month to month because there's so much seasonality, as you know.
And so looking for those kind of big, bigger macro signals is kind of what I'm trying to keep my eye on.
What ultimately causes that?
Who knows?
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:20] Speaker B: But I would argue it probably doesn't matter. And depending on what side of the aisle you fall on, you'll have different people you can blame.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: The reality is.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Oh, the blame game.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. So the reality is the market's going to do what markets do, follow cycles.
And so I think we're right at a very interesting place. And the next couple years should provide good opportunities. And then we'll probably find our way out of that sometime in the late 2000s and be back to the races. On to the upside.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, real quick, before we go on a break, in your honest opinion, for buyers right now freaking out about the rates and buying at this rate, are the rates really high comparison to historical data?
[00:11:07] Speaker B: So short answer is no, the rates, obviously you can go back to the 80s. That's one everybody likes to talk about when rates were 15, 16%.
More recently, my first condo that I bought in 2007 was at six and a half percent. So it was very normal at the time. I felt like I was getting a great rate.
The other thing that I think will prove interesting is that whether in the next couple years, if we see this inflection point play out on the back end of that, we will either have lower rates or higher prices or something will have changed. And the people who are then getting into the market will all be saying, I wish I bought two years ago.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Yes, like they are saying now exactly when they bought two, three years ago.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: And that's what we see over and over again. And I think like Warren Buffett said, there's, there's really no bad time to buy a house because if rates are high and they go down, then you refinance, then you refinance and that's it.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: But you have the house already and you didn't wait for the price to go up.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: I don't want to cut you off, but I have to. Now coming up next, I am going we're going to go straight to the fear that everybody still carries from the last housing collapse. Is this shaping up to be another 2008 or is this a very different cycle? We already sort of talked about it, but we're going to go more in depth about that. Oh. We'll be right back. Strategies and inspiration to help you write your next home chapter. This is Home STORY with Veronica on NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Veronica Dingz and you're watching Home Story with Veronica on NOW Media Television. Let's jump back into today's conversation.
Welcome back. If you want more episodes like this and more of your favorite Now Media television shows, you can watch Now Media TV live or on demand anytime, download the Now Media TV app on Roku or on your iPhone on iOS and catch the podcast at NowMedia TV welcome back to Home Story with Veronica. I am here with Trent Corbin of the Redbud Group. And now I want to take on the question that has been hanging over this market for years. Are we heading towards another 2008 style crash? We already talked about it a little bit, but I know that the fear is real. People still remember the foreclosures, evaporating equity and the sense that the floor could fall out at any moment. But Trent brings in a framework that most viewers have never heard broken down clearly on television. The 18 year real estate cycle. We already talked about it a little bit. And in this segment I want to test that against what people are feeling right now.
So this is the fear segment, let's call it that way. But I do not want it to, to stay fear based. I want to challenge the reflexive comparison to 2008 and help the audience understand what is actually similar, what is completely different and where the real caution signals are today. This is where the conversation becomes, becomes sharper and more strategic. Trent, let me go directly to the question millions of our viewers are going to be asking every month. Are we actually heading into another 2008 housing crash?
[00:14:22] Speaker B: It's a great question and I will certainly give my opinion, although I recognize that I could very easily be wrong.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Disclaimer.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: We cannot predict the future.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Don't go out there and make bets on this by any means.
I say that although I'm making bets on it myself, and I'll explain that in a minute. But I don't believe that we're set up for another 2008. I think there's a few things that are happening for any of us who bought homes between 2004 and 2000, late 07 or early 08, the underwriting process was insanely simple.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Tell me about it.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: As a matter of fact, the first condo I bought, it was 100% financed. I put no money down.
And I asked my realtor on the day of closing because I had no cash and nobody cared to check.
I asked my realtor, is it possible for me to pay my closing costs with a credit card?
[00:15:27] Speaker A: No.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: And he had the same, the same response to me. Yeah, he laughed in my face. And there I was, 23 years old or something and no idea. No, you know, no liquid cash.
But I managed to scrounge together whatever it was to close.
But interestingly, they had approved me with no documentation, no anything.
[00:15:56] Speaker A: Same for me.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: And they approved me for like three times more than what I had actually bought. So I think if you were, I don't want to give myself too much credit here. I was just scared of that kind of money.
And so the fact that I bought by default, bought smart, saved me, really. And I ended up, if you think about the timing, 2007, when I bought months before everything collapsed, all of a sudden the home I bought was worth 70% of what it was two months ago.
And all of that actually influenced my desire to get into real estate. And so what was going on back then is people could issue these loans and they could package them. And I was in the investment bank at the time, and I wasn't doing it with mortgages, but we're doing it with corporate credit. So the movie the Big Short does a great job of kind of explaining it in a. In a fictionalized way, but that's exactly what was happening. People were packaging these loans, and so there was no real risk on the banks because things were getting packaged up, tranched out, and resold to other investors. And some of those investors were buying from each other, and it was just a incestuous mess.
All of that caused a big part of the collapse because people were issuing loans to people who never should have been borrowing to that extent.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Like me.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, same. And, and I got, I got lucky because I was able to keep that property and rented it out for many years.
And that's one of the things that I tell people today is like, in a worst case scenario, if you get to a point and you can, you can keep that as investment property, you don't have to. Nobody's requiring you to sell when the market's down.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: And so with the asterisk that as long as the rest of the economy is good and people have jobs, because job loss can exacerbate all of this.
But long story short, all of that that happened set us up for a massive failure. That massive failure also contributed to the fact that we now are short somewhere around 3.5 to 4 million homes in the United States for the demand to balance out with the supply.
And. And you could kind of give credit to 2008 for that. So I don't think that even. Because even if prices were to come down, the reality is buyers would pile back into the market.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Because there are so many people, as you know, on the sidelines looking for a deal, looking for the right opportunity. And it's interesting that you bring up this idea that are we looking another 2008 today? Because I remember when I got into this business in 2013, I had clients asking me about that back then, back Then every, every year somebody's like, I
[00:18:39] Speaker A: don't know, everybody was so traumatized.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: They were. And that tends to be what happens in markets, is that markets will climb the wall of worry. And so the people who sit there and fail to act when things feel the most scary tend to be the ones who miss the opportunities.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: And then you have something happen, like happen from 2020 to 2023, and people that bought back in 2014 and 15 are like, holy cow, I just made a ton of money. And then the people who sat there waiting are like, well, now I missed the opportunity. And by the time they decide to pull the trigger, well, now we are at a place where the market's probably slowing down and going to flatline a little bit. But if they, if they, those who have sat and missed the opportunity. Learned anything.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: The opportunity is when things look most scary to buy.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: Exactly. Now on this 18 year cycle that you're talking about, you have pointed out to increase searches around mortgage stress and mortgage help. When you see that kind of consumer behavior, do you read it as concern or as a serious warning sign?
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, So I think that it's hard to tell. I think what you can use as a data point to kind of understand what might be motivating people to search for things like mortgage help and their options if they're facing a challenge.
You can look at unemployment. Unemployment is really kind of the metric that we want to pay the most attention to. And unemployment is relatively stable. Now. I think when we first, when I first kind of gave this talk back, I don't know, that's probably six or seven months ago and, and we were looking at it and unemployment was climbing.
Unemployment still climbing, but it's, it's a little, the pace has slowed and inflation seems to be, at least up until a few weeks ago, largely under control.
We do have these kind of one off economic inputs like the situation in Iran that is influencing fuel prices significantly. That can contribute to rapidly rising inflation, which the Fed's only tool to combat is rates. And so if the Fed ends up in a situation where they have to raise rates again, then you see additional economic pressure. People lose jobs. Right now, I don't think that the unemployment rate is at a place where I'm overly concerned that we're going to see so much job loss that it's going to make people lose their home. Yeah, I think for the most part people are feeling like we talked before, they're feeling uncertainty, they're feeling a lack of clarity and what they're saying Is, well, what if things get bad?
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: What am I going to do? Because we haven't seen a ton of foreclosures and short sales.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: No.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah, not at all seeing that.
And part of that's because we did have such low rates. Like most people refinance into a low rate or bought with a low rate.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Yep. And they still have that low rate.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: And they still have that low rate. So again, unlike 2008 when, when, when the market shifted and values started going down and people started losing jobs, their payments, because they had been issued loans that they never should have had in the first place, their payments were overwhelming. They had the resetting arms and all the things and all of a sudden they couldn't afford it. And that's what kind of collapsed the whole thing. I think today what you'll see is people say, I, you know, this doesn't make sense based on rates or I'm, I'm going to have to find a new job. But I've got some flexibility because I've got a 2 1/2% rate or a 3% rate and I'm not so overextended like, like people were in 2008.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Yes. Now, I've had a few clients and this has happened, that they want to sell the house, but they only bought two or three years ago. So if someone bought at the top of the market in the last two or three years, like I just said, how should they think about equity risk without spiraling into panic?
[00:22:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Not the end of the world.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:22:36] Speaker A: You just got.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Yes. So there's a few things, I think one of the big things, and I'm sure you're talking to them about this is what their goal is in selling.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: There's a big difference between needing to sell and wanting to sell. And so somebody who needs to sell, look, we're going to do everything we can to get you the maximum price, but if you got to move, you got to move and we're going to have to, you know, do what we can.
If you want to sell or you have some flexibility, there are some interesting ways to go about approaching the mortgage on the next property where you can turn that existing property into a rental property and offset some of that, that debt to income ratio. And so if you go down that path, you might be able to get out of that house, make it, turn it into an asset, a cash flowing asset. Or even if it's not cash flowing, pay for itself. It's paying for itself. Right. And so as a matter of fact, my condo For a few years I lost maybe 50 to 100 bucks a month on it. But that was a lot better than yeah. And I ultimately sold it for twice what I bought it for and I got to hold onto the property.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: That would be my argument today is yeah, you might not be able to extract the equity that you hope to extract because prices are. Have stabilized, but you can find a way to get out of that home and turn it into an asset. Buy your next property and have somebody else paying the mortgage on the old one until that equity appreciates again.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yes. And I think that there was also some unrealistic expectation because of what we saw happening when the rates were 3% or so, that the prices of the house, the houses were going up way too fast and people were paying 50,000 cash over asking price, like all of that. So some people bought their house and in two years they made 50, 70 grand. That's not normal.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:24:32] Speaker A: That was because of a worldwide pandemic that that happened. So don't expect that to be the normalcy. Like you had a.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: That's.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: You gotta have patience. When you invest in real estate, it's typically not a two, three year investment.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: That's right. And I think that that goes back to again, the point as to why this probably isn't another 2008. Because that behavior was happening from 05 to 08 as well. Because people were going out, they're buying things with a 5:1 arm, they're paying interest only effectively and waiting two years or a year and selling and making money because prices were going up, because people kept issuing loans and everybody was buying everything they could. People had multiple houses. None of that exists this time around.
And so unlike, one could argue that we experienced that winner's curse from like 2021 to 2023 where people were like, I'm watching prices go up and I don't want to be the last one in, so I'm just going to pile on. And yeah, maybe some people got in like 23, 24 were a little late to the game.
But unlike 07 and 8, the following six months didn't see prices collapse.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: We've just seen them stabilize.
And now here we are after end of first quarter 2026 and we're still at about the same place. In fact, in Charlotte, median prices continue to go up. It's just not as fast.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yep. On the next segment we are going to ask him where you can reach out to the Redback Group to work with his amazing agents, me one of them.
And we're going to continue talking about some amazing topics. So we will be right back. Don't go anywhere.
Strategies and inspiration to help you write your next home chapter. This is Home Story with Veronica on NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Veronica Dinkerez and you're watching Home Story with Veronica on NOW Media Television. Let's jump back into today's conversation.
Welcome back to Home Story with Veronica. I wanted to make sure that Trent shared where to contact his amazing team, one of the top teams in Charlotte, in other markets, the Redbud Group. So, Trent, if somebody wants to work with one of your amazing agents, you can ask for me.
Where do they reach out? There's plenty of other agents, not just me.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So the best place to contact us is to go to redbudgroup.com you can go there on our site. You can see all of our featured listings, you can see all of the agents on our team, learn more about them reading their bios. And then there is a contact form on there that'll come right to us and somebody will reach out to you right away. There's also a phone number, of course, if you prefer to call or, or anything. And you can follow us on Instagram, edbudgroup, redbudgroup.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: They're amazing agents. Anybody that you work with, you're going to have a fantastic experience.
All right, Trent, let's go back to it. So far, we've helped frame the fear and the bigger market signals. Now I want to get into what viewers really need, practical advice that they can use right now because this is where the conversation gets personal. Maybe someone has been waiting for prices to soften like we talked about. Maybe they need to sell, but know the frenzy of two years ago, it's gone. Maybe they own rental property and are trying to figure out whether this is a buying window or a holding season.
So in this segment, I want to get specific. This is the action segment. I want the audience to leave with real decision making tools, not vague market commentary. So the goal here is to make the difference between reactive decision and a strategic one, especially in a region where pricing, migration and inventory still vary neighborhood by neighborhood. So for the buyer who has been sitting on the sidelines, we talked about it, waiting for the perfect moment. Do you believe this is finally a time to move or do you still see reasons to stay patient?
[00:28:22] Speaker B: Good question.
So one thing that I'll clarify is that I don't think there is ever a perfect moment to buy or sell. And I don't think there's ever an imperfect moment to, to buy or sell. I think you, you are always dealing within a spectrum of slightly better or slightly worse times to buy or sell.
And within those there's always an appropriate way to do either. So the biggest thing that I would encourage people to do, if you've been on the sidelines for a few years there from 2021 to 2023, everything looked easy. You knew you had to come in. If you wanted a house, you had to bid it up, and that was the game. And you would probably have to do that times before you want a house.
That's almost the opposite of what we're seeing today.
And if I. If you're in the, if you're in the shoes of a buyer, the thing to understand is that the other side of the market, as things shift, the other side of the market takes longer to catch up.
So sellers are hanging on tightly to this notion that prices are sticky to the upside and they're still going up and they're still going to get this kind of fantasy price. The reality is that has shifted. And so the buyer who wins today is the buyer who is going to be patient enough and have the appropriate professional guidance to strategically buy. And so it's not to say you won't enter into a multiple offer situation, but as you're doing that, chances are when you're entering multiple offers, it's because the prices, the home is priced fairly and reasonably.
And if you're not in a multiple offer situation, that should signal to you and to your realtor there's an opportunity. Right. So by going into the market and looking for homes that have been on the market for 60 or 70 days, especially if you see that they've had price drops, we know statistically the longer a home sits, the further below fair market value it ends up selling for.
So as a buyer, you want to look for the places where sellers are making mistakes. If sellers have made mistakes and price too high, they're going to start to get impatient because their home isn't selling.
And they kind of create this vicious cycle for themselves by pricing too high, then they have to lower it. And when people see prices come down, then they go, something must be wrong with it. So now I definitely don't want it. And I would encourage people to actually take the opposite stance, which like, oh, prices are coming down. This person is willing to negotiate.
And there is a number in there somewhere that is a good number for a buyer.
We just haven't found it yet. And so the seller is going to either have to keep guessing or we can come with our own suggestions. This is what I think your home is worth. And if you want to buy it. And again, buying today and using this as an opportunity will set you up for success almost regardless of the direction of the market.
[00:31:18] Speaker A: I 100% agree. And it's that conversation to be had so, so much right now, overpricing a house.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: And, and, and as realtors, you have to also have the opposite conversation with your sellers, which is to say this is not the time to be aggressive. And, and we know that you can lose value if you price too high.
And so we have some strategies where, you know, we do firm exclusives or preview listings and things like that. And some of the big portals are coming out with their own ways to do that, which should be interesting to say the least.
But as like, that allows us to kind of say, you know, a seller who comes to us and says, oh, I think my house is worth $500,000. And we say, well, nothing we're seeing suggests it's more than 425, but now we can maybe test it in a firm exclusive or a preview coming soon
[00:32:03] Speaker A: model doesn't accumulate that market.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Correct. You're not, you're not hurting yourself by showing that it's on the market and sitting there. And so you test it in a way that says, put it at 475 or 500. If you're not seeing a lot of views or you're not getting a bunch of people reaching out saying, hey, when can I see it? When can I see it? Then we're kind of getting the information that we need to say, Mr. Mrs. Seller, we're not seeing it here. And really, you know, our price when we go live should be something closer to 425 or whatever. And that opportunity to educate the seller without costing them days on market as professionals gives us the ability to maximize price, because had we gone to market at 450 or at 500, we may have ended up at 400 or 375 because we'd have to keep lowering so aggressively. And you create this impression in the market that something is terribly wrong with that house.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Yep, yep. And it's funny you say that because right now with some clients, we have seen both. We have seen houses that come on the market and there's multiple offers right away. So now you have to be competing like, you know, like it was three, four years ago, that you have to be competing to get the house. That means they priced it right.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: And then we see the other homes that have been on the market for 90 days and now you can really negotiate the price down because, yeah, the seller was a little too ambitious and overpriced it. So you'll see both in this market.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. We're in a tale of two markets.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: There's there in there the sellers who are holding on to this notion that their home has got so much value and is climbing. And they are the ones who tend to be getting punished right now. Yes, they're the sellers who are taking the guidance of their real estate professionals and pricing appropriately.
And they're usually getting their home sold in the first week and for at least the value that they're listing for.
Back to a point I was making earlier in the sense of like, am I willing to bet on my own opinion here?
So we're currently building homes, and these homes are priced anywhere from 300 to $400,000. Okay, so good. First time homebuyer homes in the market scattered around Charlotte.
And we're taking the exact advice that I'm suggesting. Meaning we are not going out with the most aggressive price. We're being conservative. We just listed two last week.
Sorry. We listed three. We have two that are already under contract. Okay.
Again, like, we're, we're pricing correctly. The homes look great when we're done with them and they're going under contract quickly. On the flip side, there are builders out there who are trying to push price and maximize price and they're being too aggressive. And what happens because there's a cost capital is they start to accumulate days on market and then price, price drop. So back to the. Is this 2008? Should we be afraid? The reality is, if I was afraid of that, I probably wouldn't be building houses.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. And again, when you price a home. Right. It sells. We were looking at the stats not too long ago, and I believe the average dates on market of a house that does not need a price reduction was between like seven and nine days.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. It's inside of 10 days.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: Yes. And if you have to do a price reduction, it was in the 90s.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Like between 70 and 90, depending on what regional shower you're in.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: And sometimes over 100 days. And, and, and that, that time, you know, again, doing. Tracing back the math, the time on market cost, that person roughly 7% of what would be considered fair market value versus the person who priced correctly the first time gets about 100% of their price.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: And again, in the two homes that are under contract, we got them both done at list price. And. And because we were surprised.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Yeah. We were conservative. And, and could we have pushed it another ten grand maybe? But like, why, why bother? Because now we're, we've got two out of three sold and.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Feel good.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: Exactly. Yep. Now, when you tell people not to overextend their budget, what does that actually look like in practical family terms in the Carolinas today?
[00:35:59] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: Short answer, because we're almost out of time.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Yep. The easy way to do it is it used to be roughly a third of your monthly income.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Is what you should be thinking about being affordable.
That's become harder to do. So maybe it's 40% of your monthly income, but that should be kind of the max that you want to spend on your home that you're spending. That should be your living cost.
If you can stay inside of that 40% number, you're probably giving yourself enough room to accommodate market movements and other economic changes.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Okay. Now, coming up in the final segment, I'm shifting this conversation from fear to preparation. Because even in a complicated market, opportunity always belongs to the people who are ready for it, like this gentleman over here building homes right now. And all of you are freaking out that you're not going to invest in real estate right now. Yes, I'm talking to you. You know exactly who I'm talking to. I don't want to hear you two years from now say, I should have bought that house.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: So we will be right back. Don't go anywhere. Strategies and inspiration to help you write your next home chapter. This is Home STORY with Veronica on NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Veronica Dinkerez and you're watching Home Story with Veronica on NOW Media Television. Television. Let's jump back into today's conversation if you want more episodes like this and more of your favorite Now Media television shows, you can watch Now Media TV live or on demand anytime, download the Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and catch the podcast at NowMedia TV. Welcome back to the final segment of Home Story with Veronica. We've talked through fear market cycles, practical housing decisions with Trent Corbin, the leader of the Red Bud Group with Keller Williams. And now I want to end where smart viewers need to end, with preparation. Because the people, when the people who win in real estate are usually not the people who react the fastest emotionally. They are the people who prepare early, conserve flexibility, and know how to recognize opportunity when other people are still stuck in fear. This is where I want to leave the audience. Not X but ready. This final segment shifts the tone from uncertainty to readiness. I want viewers to understand that a changing market does not only create risk, it also creates openings. If they can identify the right signals, strengthen their financial position and stay disciplined, they can make better moves than people who assume housing only goes one way forever. Trend. When you say people should build and conserve cash for the opportunity ahead, what opportunity do you believe in is forming that many consumers still are not seeing?
[00:38:50] Speaker B: So I'll answer it a couple ways. The first is I don't know, meaning the only thing I can ensure with 100% certainty about the market is that it will either go up or it will go down. Yes, it might go sideways, but generally it's going to go one of those directions. Okay? So when that happens, there's opportunity that opens up in one direction or the other. So if, if prices are going up and you're in a position to have equity in a home, then you have an opportunity to refinance that equity out if prices come down. The concern that I have is if people don't have cash when those opportunities arise, prices are down and you want to be able to buy at that, at that time. And so the challenge that, that you'll see is people, I think some people think in the back of their mind, well, if, you know, I can always pull equity out of my home and use that to buy when there's opportunity, but if prices have come down, that equity might not be there or might
[00:39:52] Speaker A: not equity went down as well.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: So, so a couple of different things that can be done. Obviously you could, you could take some home equity out now through a home equity line or home equity loan and, and be prepared for that eventuality.
And if it doesn't happen, if prices go up and prices, you know, just stay flat, then hold on to that cash and use it for other things. Right. In all cases, if you can borrow at a low rate and invest at a higher rate, you're winning.
And so if you're building cash now gives you the flexibility to react to the market no matter what it is. And my general view is that if you're buying anything with less than a five term, five year term, you really probably shouldn't be investing in it.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:40:40] Speaker B: So looking out 10 years from now, in general, the market always corrects and gets back to where it should be in that amount of time. And a Great example is 2008 to 2018 prices. What prices did they all had recovered by 2018?
And then continued up beyond that. So people who are in the market today that might be fearful and might be waiting, the risk in waiting is that you miss the opportunity because either prices go up from here or they go down from here, but rates go up and. And so there are some different approaches or prices and rates go down, but jobs start to erode. People are losing jobs. Equity is evaporating. Now they can't get money out from their home, and they don't have income coming in because they've lost a job. And the opportunity to pursue when everybody should be excited to buy is the time when that's happening, Right?
[00:41:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: And so if they don't have cash set aside, they can find themselves in a tight spot, or they could be in a great spot but not able to execute on the opportunity.
And so that's why I think it's so important to be prepared, because the market will go one way or the other, and in both cases there will be opportunity.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: And again, there is no perfect time.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: It's like we're having a kid. When are you going to have a kid? When's the perfect time to have a kid? Never. That's right away. You figure it out. But if you can get in now, then getting now to real estate, obviously.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: And advising people to have kids here.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: That's right. That's right.
It's a different show.
[00:42:16] Speaker A: Totally different.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: Yeah. The.
Again, and we talked about a little bit. But in a market, if you own a home and the market does go down and you are. You feel like you're stuck being able to rent that asset, that's a great thing about real estate, is because it's an asset that people can live inside of and everybody needs a roof over their head.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: And so housing will always be needed.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Housing will always be needed. And population growth tends to be steady.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: In markets like we're in, we're fortunate to be in Charlotte where there's still a population of people moving in and more and more houses will be needed, turning it into a rental and using that as a way to either extract equity or go pursue the next home is a great opportunity.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. And if I want to recognize a true shift in the market, instead of just guessing what are the clearest signs that I should be watching for.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: Yeah. So a true shift. I think the. The piece that we. We talked about a little bit earlier is if you follow monthly home prices either nationally or in a local market, usually June is the peak of the median price. So you can look at the peak prices every Year. And if those are going up year over year, you're still in a, generally in a price uptrend. If the peak price goes down year over year, that's when you can say we're, you know, we're starting to see some price weakness.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:43:44] Speaker B: The other thing to keep an eye on is obviously average days on market, which we have seen in our market is around 45 days now, which is the highest it's been in 10 years. And so again, that goes back. That's an average. So what? That doesn't really tell, it doesn't tell the full story because just as we said, yeah, half the homes are priced correctly and selling in seven days. The other half are taking 100 days. And when you average them, it looks like 45.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:13] Speaker B: So the, the real thing is, you know, you can look at some of these points and these data points and you can extract some insights.
But what you have to, you have to, you need the full context because you might miss. The fact that it's not average isn't. Really doesn't mean that everybody in the market's getting 45 days. I mean, some people are getting seven, some people are getting 100 and it's averaging to 45. And all of that hinges on the ability of the seller to listen to their advisor and price correctly and be smart about what they're doing. Get the house ready to sell. You can't just stick a sign in the yard anymore.
[00:44:47] Speaker A: Yeah, no, not going to have it anymore. Now if someone starts getting ready today, some of our viewers really want to get into this. What are the top financial moves that you recommend they should be making now so that they can act confidently when the timing is right for them.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: Meet. Go out and meet a realtor. Number one, contact Redbud.
Redbudgroup.com is a great place to start.
Get to know a realtor who can, because that person generally has people in their network that can help.
Despite what kind of economic situation you might find yourself, you know, personally on a, on a microeconomic scale or just in a macro environment where things are shifting.
That, that goes from, you know, everything from lenders to attorneys to financial advisors. So all of those people are important parts of the puzzle. But a realtor is a great kind of connector of people. That's a great word for it. So if you can connect with a realtor that you like and trust and begin to build that relationship and they can help you down that path of figuring out what exactly you need to do. A financial advisor is a great place to start as well. But if your goal is to buy a house, a realtor can say, hey, let's look at the places you're looking, let's look at what you think your budget is. Let's talk to a lender about what that really looks like. And then if you need help, if you need to improve your credit score, we have access to all those people as well.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. Now, if you could give one final piece of advice, not about having kids, definitely about the other.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: I don't have any advice about that.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: To every buyer, seller and homeowner watching Home Story with Veronica today, what would it be? And it can be more than one.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: Wow. So, you know, I kind of sticking to our theme here today. I think the reality is the worst thing you can do is sit there and do nothing. Right. And so go engage with the realtor if you're thinking about buying, if you're thinking about selling, if you're thinking about refinancing, Engaging with a professional who's doing this day in and day out. Because you and I have been in this market long enough to have seen the good, bad and ugly. Right. And so we know what you know, we may not always be able to predict exactly what's going to happen day to day in the market, but we know generally how to put you in the best position to achieve the goals that you have.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: And I think a lot of people, again, the consumers biggest fear is uncertainty right now. And so a lot of people just kind of lock up and freeze up and, and people want to stabilize and feel secure and that's great. But that generally tends to be the place where you miss opportunity.
[00:47:25] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Because the people who are well informed and well capitalized and prepared see everybody else being fearful and they get greedy.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: That's when you act. Yeah, yeah. And it's crazy because if you read any motivational book or leadership book, it's going to say you have to be uncomfortable, Right?
[00:47:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:47:44] Speaker A: So you have to find that uncomfortable piece again. It's like having a kid. You're never going to be completely comfortable and confident about it.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: It's just you adapt to it and you work towards that goal and it's never going to be a perfect timing.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: So again, talk to a professional. They are going to let you know, you know, what we're seeing.
There's a lot of analysis that come before we can have this conversation.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: A lot of historical data that is reviewed. There's a lot of information.
So if you come Based from education and information, you can make a very nice, informed decision.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: And I believe you will not be watching this show two years later and say, I should have bought it.
[00:48:22] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: I should have done it. I should have gotten in.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: That's exactly right. That's every everybody that I have a lot more people in my life that regret not doing anything that I do. The people who actually did something, because it generally tends to. You're buying an asset that over time appreciates in value. And you just have to understand that there is a time element of that. And so looking one year or two years into the past or future is sort of a fool's errand. So look 10 years, look 20 years and think about owning that asset, what it does, what it does for your family and your wealth building over that amount of time.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: This is long term. I hope you guys learned something. Thank you so much.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: I know you're very busy and it's very important to have this conversation in front of people, so I appreciate it. I'm sure a lot of viewers got a lot of good information from you, so thank you so much. And you can again follow the redbud group on Instagram.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: Yep. Redbug Group.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: Yes. And then go to the redbug group dot com.
[00:49:20] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: If you want to work with some of the most amazing agents in Charlotte, believe me, they are top agents. Make sure that you go there and find your agent now. Trent, again, thank you so much for joining me today. What I appreciate about this conversation is that it did not feed fear. It actually gave people a clearer lens and I'm hoping that they're going to take this conversation and actually take action, as uncomfortable as it may be, and actually do something that's going to pay off later on in the end. Thank you so much for watching, everybody. We'll be here next week, so make sure to catch Home Story with Veronica.
