Category: The Industry

What Does 1/4% Increase in Interest Rates Mean to You?

With the Fed raising interest rates for the first time in almost a decade this week, there are a lot of questions about what it means to home buyers.  People want to know how much that kind of increase might impact their anticipated mortgage payment and how much it might affect the amount they can borrow.  I’ll attempt to give some guidance in those areas in this post.

First, understand that this is a tiny increase.  The Fed didn’t want to shock anyone.  They wanted to signal that we are beginning a period of gradual increases.  Most experts believe we will experience several small increases in the rate during 2016, which should be a motivating factor for anyone thinking of buying.  Every time the interest rate inches up, so do anticipated mortgage payments; and as payments rise, the amount one can borrow decreases.  Add to this the fact that prices are slowly rising and soon many may find themselves priced out of the market.

1/4% is not much; but to give you an idea about how this small bump up affects payments and the amount you may be able to borrow, I prepared the following chart.  You can see just how small the increase is:  at 3.75% interest, a 30 year fixed rate mortgage costs $4.63 per month per thousand borrowed.  At 4% it is just 14 cents higher, $4.77 per thousand borrowed.  I’ve shown the principal and interest payment at 3.75% and 4% for 4 different mortgage amounts and the difference.  You can see that a $500,000 mortgage will cost $71.50 more per month after a 1/4% increase in rates.

Continuing with that $500,000 example:  what if the $2,315.58 payment at 3.75% was the most you could afford?  What if the increase in rate meant you needed to decrease the amount borrowed to keep that original payment?  That’s what’s on the next line down:  $485,447.  So if you were looking at houses based on a $500,000 mortgage (probably in the $650,000 – $700,000 price range), this little 1/4% bump in rates may have cost you $14,553 in purchasing power!

increase

I realize the type is a little small but if you’ll click on the chart, it will open in a larger view.

 

What Is Full Service In Real Estate?

Ordinary real estate brokers and agents are fond of saying Help-U-Sell Real Estate is NOT a Full Service Company.  They always seem to add at least 3 exclamation points at the end of any sentence that disparages our service! But the truth is:  we are.  We do everything ordinary real estate professionals do, but we do it extraordinarily.  Here is a sort video about this issue:


Help-U-Sell Brokers, if you can use this video in your marketing or on your website, just drop an email to support@helpusell.com and we can take care of it for you.

Help-U-Sell for Agents

Real estate agents are a funny lot.  Most don’t make much money.  I know:  with commissions as high as they are, that’s hard to believe; but it’s true.  In fact, most do so poorly that they leave the business within 3 years of entering.  It’s not that agents are generally mediocre that causes so many to fail slowly, though.  The problem lies in how the real estate industry structures the agent job.  Many who struggle along, day after day in ordinary real estate offices could thrive under different circumstances.  Here’s a short video about the alternative.  If you are working for Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Keller Williams, ReMax or any other company, this will be worth your time.


Help-U-Sell Brokers, if you’d like to have a copy of this video to put on your own YouTube Channel, you’ll find it in the Download Library in OMS.

How is Help-U-Sell Real Estate Different and Why is it Better?

“There has never been a home seller in the history of real estate who has been happy paying 6% to sell their home. No matter how much they love you, no matter how many glowing testimonials they write, when it comes time for closing and they look down at the commission line on the HUD-1 Closing Statement and see 6% – $30,000 – they ghasp inside.  What the heck did I get for my $30,000?”

This is a 12 minute encapsulation of my presentation at the Help-U-Sell meeting in Hawaii.  Help-U-Sell Brokers:  you might want to share this one.

Gearing Up For Summit

The Help-U-Sell Success Summit takes place next week in Las Vegas.  It’s an annual event where family members from across the country gather to energize and plan.  I love this meeting because it is the time when I get to interact with a sizable group of really good real estate people.

I’ve been working on my opening comments and it seems this year I have a lot to say.  I believe we are on the verge of big change in our industry.  I can see everything shifting rather quickly leaving all but the bravest and most forward thinking out in the cold.  I believe what happened in the securities business after Charles Schwab and what happened in the travel industry after Expedia Orbitz and Travelocity is about to happen in the real estate industry.

Empowered consumers, armed with information that used to be available only to Realtors and with increasingly intuitive tools are doing more and more of the job for themselves.

When Schwab put information and tools once reserved for stock brokers online for anyone to use, he also slashed commissions.  Because his clients were doing a lot of the work on their own, he started charging a Low Set Fee for trades.  The industry was transformed.

Not so in real estate.  Consumers have the information, they continue to get the tools and today do more and more of the work that goes into buying and selling on their own.  What hasn’t changed are the fees ordinary brokers charge.  My yoga teacher said it best:

I don’t know what our agent did.  We found the house, we negotiated the sale, we did all the running around.  She opened the door and collected a commission check that was bigger than our down payment!

I’m not saying Realtors aren’t important.  In truth, they provide a good and valuable service.  It’s just that the service provided is not worth 6% of the sale price.  With consumers increasingly able to do the work themselves we’re just moments away from the tipping point where they decide the good and valuable service real estate agents provide is not worth the price.

It  is then that ordinary real estate agents will become irrelevant.

Add to that dynamic the fact that affordability is becoming a huge issue . . . and you have a near perfect storm.

Affordability?  Yes.  Today, fewer Americans can afford to buy a home than in years gone by.  Prices have continued to slowly rise while median household income as fallen.  Yes, it has.  Today’s families earn less than they did 5 years ago and that fact has pushed many out of the housing market and  into the rental market.  In parts of California, fewer than 30% of the population can afford to buy the average home.

So on one hand we have these dinosaurs, these Realtors, clamoring for their 6%.  On the other hand, sale prices (which include that 6%) are getting out of reach of consumers. Something has to give.

My guess is that the guy who can’t sell his $300,000 house and  pay his $18,000 real estate commission will opt to get rid of the ordinary agent, drop the price to $285,000 and list with a Help-U-Sell broker charging, say, $5,950.  That’s how we make homes affordable AND restore the value-for-value relationship between real estate services and fees.

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