The Double Comma Club: Recent Episodes

theruethteam

Building wealth through real estate hosted by Nicole Rueth

Are you looking to purchase a home today, but wish you could have gotten a lower rate on your loan? Well, what if I were to tell you that even though market rates today are hovering around 7%, you can still purchase a home with a 3.5% interest rate or even lower intrigued? Stick around as I go through how that's a very real possibility for today's buyers. I want to quickly answer these top four questions I get asked all the time. Listen for the details and how an assumable loan can benefit buyers and sellers.

What is an assumable loan?

Is the contract written differently?

How do you know a house has an assumable loan and how do you find them?

And then how do you actually acquire it?

Example:

If I'm a buyer and I bought a house 10 years ago, and at that time I bought that house for $300,000, I put no money down, I got a VA loan and I got a fantastic interest rate. Whatever that rate was, we'll call it 3%. So I got a $300,000 loan, a 3% with a VA loan, no money down. Now, fast forward 10 years. Now I'm a seller, and as a seller, I have a loan and I want to sell that home for $500,000. And I had this original loan at $300,000. I paid it down for the last 10 years. So maybe today it has a balance of $250,000. That $250,000 still has an interest rate tied to it at 3%, and I still have 20 years left on my loan. As a seller, I then have the option to market an assumable loan, meaning a buyer has the option to purchase my home, keeping that loan intact.

Now, if I want to sell that home for $500,000 and my loan is $250,000, that implies that the buyer has to either get a loan for the difference, has to have the cash for the difference, and that's something that we're going to talk about when we talk about how to acquire the loan. But the basics of an assumable loan is the terms around that loan stay in place. They simply get transferred from the current seller to the new would-be buyer.

The cost of borrowing of a business, borrowing funds is still going up trying to slow down the spending that Americans and businesses are doing to inflict pain, right? We talked about this, that the Fed is trying to inflict pain. The Fed is trying to slow the roll to just slow down demand, slow down buying and allow supply chains to catch back up again.

The cost of everything is just not going to drop like a rock, but it's going to slowly get there where the cost of the things that we experience at the gas station, at the grocery store are going to start coming back to Earth, right? So let me point out a couple things.

So the cost of shipping; shippers have already said that they expect to realize a benefit in lower costs early 2023. So we're seeing these indexes that some of the things that's costing them, like the cost of gas is less? Some of their expenses are less. They're expecting that cost to then be passed on to the wholesalers, which will be measured in the PPI early 2023. Again, nothing happens overnight, but check out this drop. We saw 4.9% drop month-over-month, which dropped the annual percentage from 21% in September to 11% in October. Now that's a big drop given where we had been because we had seen it much higher than that, even upwards of 21%. So to see that kind of annual growth coming down tells you that the shippers are going to start passing on lower costs to the producers and the wholesalers and those wholesalers.

We saw the PPI came out this morning and it dropped from an 8.4% annualized to an 8% annualized. It was expected to come out at 8.3%. The month-over-month was only 0.2% and that was expected to be 0.4%. So all of that is showing that the annual is coming down because the month-over-month increase is slowing down. So the shipping is costing a little bit less. The cost of shipping, of getting the products from the ports to the fact or to the warehouses. That shipping cost is costing less. The wholesalers, their cost of goods, their cost of acquiring that product to then turn into the consumer based product. So that wholesale price is coming down. We saw on Thursday's report, the CPI came down, it was expected to have a month over month of double what it actually had.

The value and the equity that we have in our homes is abundant, even if it comes down slightly based on our expectation of our equity over the last two years.

We are still strong in equity. We're strong in savings. Many of us, many us still have jobs. There's still job openings. GDP is expected to be positive this fourth quarter, which says that the economy is still churning and people are still buying all of these things way towards a strong economy, which is where I'm going to land. This plane also lands to a very strong real estate market.

Listen to this full episode. The summary is That's it. That's what it comes down to is the balance of supply and demand.

Seller Concessions and Rate Buydown Explained Let's walk through how you can actually buy down your interest rate! You can save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars by buying down your interest rate. But, there are some limitations to how much seller concessions you can receive, based on your loan and down payment. Let's also walk through the numbers of buying down your interest rate.

Today we're talking about a permanent buy down or really even any kind of seller concession and a limitation on the amount that you can get in order to buy that rate down. For conventional loans, whether you're buying it as a primary home or a second home, we're going talk about investments. With a primary home or second home, it depends on how much money you're putting down. So when you are putting down less, you can get less of a seller credit to help give you that rate. Buy down advantage. Let's talk through some of those numbers.

Listen to this 5 minute episode of The Double Comma Club, "Can I Buy Down My Interest Rate?"

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Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

What does a first time home buyer today have that they haven't had for the last two years and might not have next year? The benefits of being a first-time homebuyer in today's real estate market are PLENTIFUL. In this episode I talk about some first-time homebuyer loan programs and opportunities to take advantage of... including getting a lower interest rate! Buyers today can still get a great deal!

Let's go through the loan programs first, then the opportunities.

Veterans you have by far, the best loan program on the planet, the VA loan with zero down the low interest rates. No mortgage insurance is by far the most stellar opportunity to get into a home. If you are a veteran, you should be exercising that option right now because you haven't had it for the last two years because it was so intense.

The USDA is the way for the non-veteran to get in with zero money down. Now, you're going to have an upfront fee, but the monthly mortgage insurance is lower than any other program. So the USDA loan is a fabulous program to bring families out to rural areas to buy single family homes with no money down.

Down Payment Assistance. This is a tool that has been underutilized for the last several years, and the reason why is because sellers weren't accepting it. They didn't have to. Buyers were coming in with cash or 20%, 30%, 50% down. Sellers were looking for conventional or a cash buyer with more money. Down. Down payment assistance is for those home buyers looking to expand their opportunity to financial wealth and health through real estate. It is an opportunity to get in when you might not otherwise do so. Now, I will say with a word of caution, if you are using a down payment assistance program and putting no money down or the USDA or the VA, and we see slight pullback still on our home values when you buy a home, it could be that the value of that home goes down slightly before it picks back up again. You can buy a two, three, or four unit property as long as you're going to live in one of the units with as little as 5% down if your income is less than 80% of the area median income.

A Freddie Mac loan. In the Denver market, it got very hard to qualify based on the income requirement, the 80%. So we would look for those underserved areas and we would purchase multi units in those areas. Well, Freddie Mac did away with focusing on or excluding those areas from the income requirements, and they just said, You have to fall within the income requirements.

To hear the rest of the options and opportunities, listen to this episode of The Double Comma Club, "First-Time Homebuyer Advantages in Today's Market."

As we continue to see FED rate increases to slow the economy, we are starting to feel the fear, and it all comes with a price. The price is fear, instability, and job loss. Which in turn creates volatility as markets react to economic reports without the stabilization of a Federal Reserve buying mortgaged-backed securities and treasuries. But, I want to break housing down into four buckets this month: supply, demand, affordability, and credit availability.

The housing sector is strong, well-funded and able to withstand short-term volatility. While critics continue to generate fear around instability, crisis, bubbles, foreclosures, and more, our job as real estate professionals is simply to support reality with facts. Listen to your DMAR November Denver Real Estate Market Update!

Nicole has had a lot of conversations with first-time home buyers making assumptions that aren't correct. So that's what we're talking about today. She is busting eight home-buying myths. Nicole goes through the myth, misplaced logic, and the truth about home buying. There are a couple of them that may really surprise you about being debt-free before you buy, and shopping for the lowest rate to determine your lender. Listen to this episode of The Double Comma Club, "Eight Home Buying Myths."

You must put 20% down to buy a home.
It's cheaper to rent than to buy.
It's cheaper to buy a fixer-upper.
You need to be debt-free to purchase a home.
All lenders are the same.
You should go with the lowest rate.
Spring is the best time to buy.
Find the home before applying for the loan.

what is a seller concession? I mean, that's kinda like a dinosaur these days. I haven't seen one of those in several years. So a seller concession is when they agree to provide funds that support the buyer during the transaction. You can bump into a seller concession several times throughout the transaction. Usually, it's in the beginning. A buyer might use a negotiating tactic that says, I'll pay full price, but I'm gonna ask the seller to pay for all of my closing costs and my prepaids allowing me to come to the table with less cash down. They might also negotiate a price reduction in addition to a seller concession.

Those are two separate items and can be used in conjunction or separate from one another. A seller concession can also show up during the inspection period where you might choose to not have something fixed, but inline, get money back from the seller again towards prepaids and closing costs or a price reduction. So there's sometimes a conversation right now about a two one buy down or a rate reduction, and that might be a seller concession. I wanna double click on that because a seller concession can only be used towards a fires prepaids and closing costs. There are limits to what a seller can provide, both per the loan that the buyer uses.

Learn why it's exciting for buyers for the return of seller concessions in this episode of The Double Comma Club, "What Are Seller Concessions?"

The Froth is Off The Top from the recent history of waking up one day and saying, "You know what I would like to have, I would like to have a backyard with a water feature. There's one down the street, so I'm gonna go buy that one."

It depends on who you are and what your goals are and what your finances look like. And that's always the case. I mean, there was in 2021, it wasn't the right time for some people to buy. They just couldn't compete. And so it's really, right now, if you still have the baseline motivations, you want a home for your family, you need to be in a specific school district. You don't wanna be moving your kids every couple of years if your lease is up on your rental and you maybe can't be in the same school district. You wanna have a sense of community, you wanna have a sense of safety. You need home offices and backyards and you have a dog that digs holes and you just can't get a rental.

There's things about our lifestyle that are always true regardless of what the market looks like. And when you are at a point and you're ready to buy a house, you just deal with the market that exists when you're ready. And that market is different all the time. And we all like to think we can time the market and I'm gonna buy at the bottom. Well, when you buy at the bottom, it looks like this where we have high interest rates and market volatility and nobody likes that either. So there's always nuances to what that market looks like and how it impacts each person differently.

Listen as Nicole's guest, Amanda Snitker weighs the variations of how this market is affecting people depending on wherre they are in their current lifestyle and needs.

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Find Amanda here: https://amandasnitker.com/

About Amanda:

Amanda Snitker has been a Colorado resident for more than 20 years and has lived in the Denver metro area since 2002. She has enjoyed living in the Baker Historic Neighborhood while owning a home built in the early 1900s. Amanda is a third-generation realtor and grew up with a father as a general residential contractor these relationships and knowledge have allowed her to live the Colorado lifestyle, offering credibility and expertise for the process of buying and selling homes to help her clients achieve their dream living experience.

I want to talk about interest. I want to make this all about what's going on with the fear around interest rates. When are they going to come back down? That's a huge question right now, and I'm bringing it up because I'm getting asked that a lot.

I was on a Market Trends committee meeting yesterday with DMAR and that also became a debate, whether it was going to be eight months or 24 months from now before we see some sort of drop in interest rates. We have experts on Housing Wire and on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and NAR, all confessing some predictions about interest rates.

The Federal Reserve has a single mandate at this time. They are typically a two-mandate agency working on the things that people purchase, the price that people purchase things at, which is really inflation controlling the price that Americans pay for the products they buy. And then the second thing is providing a space where those people who want to work can find jobs. This is keeping unemployment low and keeping inflation low. Right now we've got a lot of wage inflation, which is driving up our overall inflation, our core inflation if you will. We've got headline and we've got core, and I'm really talking and focusing on core because headline right now is coming down because gasoline is coming down, but core is staying strong. So as I'm looking at interest rates over the next two to three quarters, I'm really watching employment, specifically unemployment, because when unemployment starts to go up, the feds measure right now, their target is 4.4.

Headline inflation一commonly known as the CPI一includes more volatile food and energy price data, whereas the core inflation index excludes it. Headline inflation is better, but core is concerning.

There are still core components to inflation that are holding on. The biggest one is wages. The Fed wants to calm wages, they want people lose their jobs and go get another job for less money. They want people to stay unemployed for a short period of time to stop spending. They need demand and supply to come back in check that is going to control inflation and allow it to drop back down again, which is going to help our bonds and our interest rates. It hinges on employment.

I still believe that we're not in a recession yet. We're seeing manufacturing slowing down. We're seeing unemployment that went the wrong way. Unemployment has to go up all the things. That is why I think we're going to see interest rates dip at the end of next spring.

Listen to the full episode for more details on this logic and insight from Nicole in this episode of The Double Comma Club, "Focus On the Payment, Our Economy Works In Cycles."

Listen to this 4-minute episode with 3 quick tips on how to get rid of your mortgage insurance. It depends on the type of loan, and the current value of your home. But this episode is filled with good news in "3 Ways to Get Rid of Your Mortgage Insurance."

Call your servicer to talk about what you just heard in this epsiode.
If you can't reach them, reach out to Nicole Rueth at The Rueth Team 303-214-6393 nrueth@theruethteam.com

So you finally got in, but the rate is five, five and a half, six, seven. The down payment assistance is seven, seven and a half. And all of a sudden, it doesn't seem fair, but it's still locked in, right? It's still your mortgage payment that you can count on that isn't going to go up any further. And if anything go down because interest rates will go down. But when, so housing, it's a lock against inflation.

It's a fixed mortgage payment.
It's huge tax benefits.
It's income opportunities.

I can rent out a room because there are a lot of people who can't afford to buy. Could I give them access? I just had to purchase a home. I used a 7% interest rate. My payment's a little bit tighter than I would've liked. I'm going to rent out rooms, or I'm going to lock off the basement that might have stairs, and I can create a little kitchenette and create a little lounge area.

Can I get creative?
Can I add the garage?
Can I rent out the garage?

Some people are, whether they're doing a hobby, whether they're laying low, they're not going traveling, they just need extra space to do their craft, whatever that is. Or storage, maybe they had to downsize. I've got friends that rent out their garages, right? Can we get creative to offset?

You can do that with a home. You can do that with something you own. Not only can you make it your own, but you can also build it out; you can finish it out. You can create a space where you can then create income. The home has a multitude of positives. It has two negatives right now. The interest rates today and home price is going up. Let's talk about those two interest rates today. Where do I think interest rates are going to go?

I think we are going to have a volatile last quarter and could be a volatile first quarter of 2023. Many of the economists in the large banks are all thinking that we have not entered into a recession yet. That we might be in one today, but we will start to see a recession where people aren't traveling, aren't going out to eat, aren't paying for services, aren't still spending, and our consumer spending is still up. So if people stop spending, we will head into a recession. If you go back historically, during recessionary periods, interest rates go down, and in fact, homes appreciate minus one back in 1960 when they didn't. I'm not talking about inflation adjusted, I'm talking about HPI home price indexes appreciate in recessionary periods because those interest rates come down.

Where do I think interest rates are going to go? Listen to this episode of The Double Comma Club, "Using Current Market Volatility To Your Advantage" to find out.

After July's momentary celebration of 5% interest rates, August ended the month at six, then September just finished having crossed 7%. Only a few months ago, six and a quarter seemed like the absolute ceiling as the US continued its strong stance against the slowing global economy, but that didn't last. We saw European economies bear the brunt of Russia's war on Ukraine. Japan struggling with lower global demand for its manufactured goods and China's economic troubles thanks to its zero Covid policy. All of these strengthen the dollar while creating credible volatility for our mortgage bonds. The fight here in the United States is the fight against inflation. For the last few years, we've seen too many dollars chasing too few goods, pushing the price of those goods up as demand spiked.

The Federal Reserve's job now is to constrain the dollar spent. Think about this. 28% of all goods purchased are done with a credit card that doesn't even include car loans, home loans, or business loans. Buying on credit creates money, future money pulled forward, giving you access to a product or service today for payment in the future. For the Fed to control spending, they have to make the cost of borrowing higher, so it creates more pain. At the same time, the benefit of savings has also gone up as the Fed raised its Fed rate or overnight rate. So goes the one-year treasury. The safest of all investments is backed by the federal government. This rate is 4.01% today, which is significantly higher than the long-term average of 2.85% and will increase further after November 2nd.

Listen to the rest of this summary.

The Denver Real Estate Market is still up in price growth. In September, we saw a year-to-date price growth of 12.8%. I get this isn't the 21% increase Y.O.Y we saw in March, but IT IS STILL UP. We have to recognize that a real estate market slowdown does not mean a loss in value, it just means a shift in perspective. In this episode we take a look at the Denver Real Estate Market price growth and what it means for buyers and sellers.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team Powered by OneTrust Home Loans 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

CalCon Mutual Mortgage LLC, dba OneTrust Home Loans is an Equal Housing Lender NMLS #46375; 3131 Camino Del Rio North Suite 1680, San Diego, CA 92108. Corporate phone (888) 488-3807.

For more licensing information, visit https://onetrusthomeloans.com/licensing-information/. This information is to inform the real estate industry only and is not to be provided to consumers. All products are not available in all states. All options are not available on all programs. All programs are subject to borrower and property qualifications. Rates, terms, and conditions are subject to change without notice.

Just because you want a different house doesn't mean you have to wait for the perfect deal in the perfect area to become available. You can, instead, create the home of your dreams, even if it's your first home, a starter home that you will sell later. You can build a home instead of waiting.

With home prices climbing and very limited inventory on the market, it may be more difficult to find your perfect home. So, why not just build it? The Rueth Team has new Land and Construction Loans so you can skip the house hunting and build your dream home. Land and construction loans are not only a great option for Primary homes, but for Second Home and Investment Properties as well. There are several loan product options that grant you stability in your rate, while giving you the opportunity to create a home for your family you know you'll enjoy for years to come.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team Powered by OneTrust Home Loans 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

CalCon Mutual Mortgage LLC, dba OneTrust Home Loans is an Equal Housing Lender NMLS #46375; 3131 Camino Del Rio North Suite 1680, San Diego, CA 92108. Corporate phone (888) 488-3807.

For more licensing information visit https://onetrusthomeloans.com/licensing-information/. This information is to inform the real estate industry only and is not to be provided to consumers. All products are not available in all states. All options are not available on all programs. All programs are subject to borrower and property qualifications. Rates, terms, and conditions are subject to change without notice.

So while we were sleeping, we were seeing the European bonds were selling off, which we opened up Monday morning to this bond selloff here in the United States, dropping the bond prices and raising our interest rates.

Powell was just in Switzerland trying to speak to the Switzerland bank and convince them that he's got everything under control. I'm gonna debate that right now. I think they were a little late to the party.

It's starting to become habitual that he's not really forecasting what's happening because he's looking at metrics that are passed. He's primarily looking at unemployment, which isn't a leading indicator. It's a lagging indicator. He's looking at inflation, which is also looking backward.

If you also look at the CPI numbers, the inflation numbers that we're comparing year-over-year inflation to, we're going to start seeing inflation slow down again second quarter next year. And that's because of comparison inflation rates right now we're very low last year, so we're replacing them with high numbers. We're replacing really low numbers and that's keeping inflation high. As those numbers increased last year, that comparison rate is now becoming more in line. We'll start to see that happening in October.

So if rates are at seven or above seven depending on, we are seeing a little bit of the bond market revert back from its extreme yesterday. It's like, oh wait a minute, that was the European market that set our markets on fire. It wasn't even anything in the United States. It was a sell-off of bonds in Europe that caused our bond market sell-off the next morning Monday morning. So Powell goes through all of these conversations to say during the last Fed meeting, "I'm going to define what I want to see in a housing correction." A housing correction includes two things from his perspective, those two things are increased housing supply and decreased housing demand. Come on, that was a given.

Listen to this complete episode, "How Does the Global Market Movement Influence the US Real Estate Market."

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team Powered by OneTrust Home Loans 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

CalCon Mutual Mortgage LLC, dba OneTrust Home Loans is an Equal Housing Lender NMLS #46375; 3131 Camino Del Rio North Suite 1680, San Diego, CA 92108. Corporate phone (888) 488-3807. For more licensing information visit https://onetrusthomeloans.com/licensing-information. This information is to inform the real estate industry only and is not to be provided to consumers. All products are not available in all states. All options are not available on all programs. All programs are subject to borrower and property qualifications. Rates, terms, and conditions are subject to change without notice.

Are we in a recession? Can the recession just get here?! We have been talking about the looming recession long enough, and I'm ready for it to happen so we can just move on!

It seems like the more we continue talking about a recession, the scarier it gets for consumers! Unfortunately, we still aren't there yet. We know that it's coming as the FED continues to take big action to control inflation and stop consumer spending. BUT HOW MUCH LONGER?

BONUS #SHORTS

What's My Interest Rate?

The question Nicole is asked more than just about any other. The answer usually starts out the same, "It depends..."

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team Powered by OneTrust Home Loans 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

CalCon Mutual Mortgage LLC, dba OneTrust Home Loans is an Equal Housing Lender NMLS #46375; 3131 Camino Del Rio North Suite 1680, San Diego, CA 92108. Corporate phone (888) 488-3807. For more licensing information visit https://onetrusthomeloans.com/licensing-information/. This information is to inform the real estate industry only and is not to be provided to consumers. All products are not available in all states. All options are not available on all programs. All programs are subject to borrower and property qualifications. Rates, terms, and conditions are subject to change without notice.

What is happening with interest rates? Realtors' businesses are picking up steam, even though we know rates are ticking up. The 10-yr Treasury just hit a high since 2011 (3.51%), and Sweden just raised their bank rate by 100BPS last night! As the FED gears up to meet again and controlling inflation remains top of mind, they've got a .75-1% FED rate increase on the table. We know the recession is coming, and the FED is trying to fast-track it so that consumers will finally stop spending!

But if realtors are seeing a pick-up and are anticipating a solid October, WHY?

Employers calling employees back to work
Employees finding another job (getting an average 10% raise)
First-time home buyers seeing the opportunity
Investors

The text number is 855-930-0377. Text UPDATE to be added to the list

Some of what you'll learn in this 18-minute episode includes:

"If I purchase a median home last month in August, the median DMAR 11-county area home price was $579,900.

I buy a $579,900 home with 5% down, I'm putting down $28,995.

If I get a 6% interest rate and I get a 3.8% appreciation because that's what Core Logic is expecting that we're going to see for the next year forward, 3.8%, not the crazy double digits that we've seen.

Historically before the pandemic, the United States appreciated 3.6%. So we're returning back to normal.

So if I have a 3.8% appreciation in five years, I have a gain.

If that stays consistent with principal reduction every single year, knocking down my loan amount and a little bit an increase in value of 3.8% because I only put a limited number amount down and the power of leverage. I have the opportunity of that entire home value going up at the purchase price, not my down payment.

That's going to give me a net worth of $161,000.

I can't make that in the stock market in the next five years, unless your chooser is spot on because mine's broken. I can't make $161,000 in the next five years. And even if we see a dip and a slowdown, which again, because we have so limited supply, but even if the whole secret is don't sell, don't sell. Hold on through the dip and for the next five years. And that's where you're going to regain this opportunity.

In fact, year one with a 3.8% appreciation and the principal reduction based on a 6% interest rate, I actually make a 102% on my down payment.

I put down $28,995. I'm going to net out in equity gain $29,588.

That's just math, right? That's not a motion. That's just math."

Co-Signing can be an excellent option for increasing borrower qualifications and eligibility. But, it's also a big commitment that shouldn't be entered into without full knowledge of the responsibilities. Here's a breakdown of the responsibilities a co-signer carries and how a co-signer can later be removed from a loan.

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Nicole Rueth

The Rueth Team Powered by OneTrust Home Loans 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

CalCon Mutual Mortgage LLC, dba OneTrust Home Loans is an Equal Housing Lender NMLS #46375; 3131 Camino Del Rio North Suite 1680, San Diego, CA 92108. Corporate phone (888) 488-3807.

For more licensing information, visit https://onetrusthomeloans.com/licensing-information/. This information is to inform the real estate industry only and is not to be provided to consumers. All products are not available in all states. All options are not available on all programs. All programs are subject to borrower and property qualifications. Rates, terms, and conditions are subject to change without notice.

There's good news for homebuyers! I understand that affordability is being put to the test. We just saw a 44% increase in prices and a 3% increase in interest rates. We also just saw the new conforming loan limit increase to $715,000! This is HUGE! The current conforming loan limit is $647,200, meaning those homebuyers that might not qualify for a jumbo loan or need a quicker close now have the means to make it happen! Much more of the market now falls within this conforming loan limit.

Along with the good news, there is some bad news. Inventory is decreasing. But let's not panic. This is seasonal. It typically starts to turn the corner in October, but we saw that much earlier with the rise in interest rates. The opportunity for homebuyers is less demand and a higher conforming loan limit.

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An excerpt from this episode:

So the good news for home buyers today is the ability that we do still have a decent amount of inventory today that will shrink as we head towards the end of the year. And we're going to see things change. As we see the economy go into a recession and as we see interest rates possibly stabilize and, or even go down later into 2023, as we do enter into a recession, we could see that demand pick up again, putting pressure on limited inventory and increasing home prices even further. But people keep talking about this bust. What is happening around real estate? Are we in a recession? Lawrence June said that we're in a housing recession because we've seen six months of existing home sales down; NAHB, the home builders association, is saying that we're in a housing recession because they're seeing their permits and starts down.

Completions are up as they're rolling off inventory. So bad news, bad news is this inventory because as much as people are talking about a housing bubble or bust or decrease in prices, yes, we are seeing home prices. 40% of them coming off their original asking before they sell, becoming more realistic on their opportunities to sell that home, right? Not for what their neighbors sold for two months ago, but for what the market is calling for today, while we're seeing home sellers, reducing prices, we are not seeing loss in value. We are seeing those values come back in line, back towards our historic numbers. Do you know that the historical average of appreciation nationwide is 3.6%? Our average price growth here in the DMAR Metro is 6%. We've been well above that for a long time. We just put out a post yesterday that talked about the fact that even if I have a 3.9%, which is what it ticked up to 3.6 to 3.9 after 20 twenty's appreciation even higher than that after 2021.

But even if we saw a 3.9% historical appreciation for the next five years, we're still talking about equity growth for homeowners over the next five years of close to $150,000 real estate is a long-term play. It is an equity opportunity that continues to be around. Knowing that short term, we've got a little opportunity to buyers to get in with a higher loan limit, to squeeze in with more inspection items possibly on that objection, right? Getting it at or below is good news for home buyers. Affordability is obviously the bad news for home buyers, but homeowners continue to have the best news. Unless you have a homeowner who's looking to sell and wants top dollar, the top dollar they could have gotten in April and don't wanna become more realistic about what the numbers look like today. That might be bad news for home sellers, but homeowners have nothing but equity gains.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team Powered by OneTrust Home Loans 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

CalCon Mutual Mortgage LLC, dba OneTrust Home Loans is an Equal Housing Lender NMLS #46375 3131 Camino Del Rio North Suite 1680, San Diego, CA 92108. Corporate phone (888) 488-3807. For more licensing information visit: https://onetrusthomeloans.com/licensing-information/. This information is to inform the real estate industry only and is not to be provided to consumers. All products are not available in all states. All options are not available on all programs.

All programs are subject to borrower and property qualifications. Rates, terms and conditions are subject to change without notice.

Historically the best forecasters have been able to consistently recognize that we are in a recession. Once we are actually in one to preemptively determine its onset has riddled economists for decades. Yet, an AR is Lawrence soon called a recession in August when he said, "In terms of economic impact, we are surely in a housing recession."

A recession is defined by Oxford is a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced. This is generally defined by a fall in GDP for two consecutive quarters. This definition has then been further clarified by the National Bureau of Economic Research to a significant decline in economic activity.

Active listings while almost double last year, they've started their seasonal downward slope towards December by dropping 5.7% month over month, new listings peak a few months early this year dropping another 18.5%.
This month, median and average home prices have also seen a steady slowdown from well over 20% earlier this year to 6.8% average and 8.5% median year-over-year increase in August.
Days in the MLS grew from six median days to 11 and close to list dropped to 99.41%.
Year-to-date new listings and home sales are behind 2018 and 2019 by approximately 8%, showing that both sellers and buyers are moving slower, not just than the pandemic frenzy but also the pre-pandemic seasonality.

The slowing has come primarily from the rapid rise of mortgage interest rates increasing the monthly cost to purchase August saw more than its share of volatility.

Think of a child you've been giving Tootsie Rolls to for over an hour to keep him quiet during your very important meeting. How justified is the pain that child ensues as he works his way off the sugar rush? Justified or not, inflation must be tamed, and it will cause pain, but that pain is relative. It's relative to the specific household and the specific industry.

ADP's August employment report also showed pay increases nationwide for those who stayed on their job by 7.6%, and up for 16.1%; for those who got new jobs, consumer sentiment even increased this month by 13% due to a 59% surge in the year ahead. Outlook for the economy? Consumers are feeling good about inflation, getting tamed jobs secured and a quick economic recovery. All of this comes back to defining a housing recession.

Lawrence said it best, "It is a difficult market for those selling homes and for home builders. But homeowners continue to accumulate housing wealth from rising home prices."

I will concede through the definition of a housing recession by slowing the sales cycle, but with builders, not building, homeowners locked into rates not likely to be seen again, and baby boomers aging in place, inventory will not right size for a very long time. If ever this lack of inventory will keep home prices increasing over 27 trillion in homeowner, equity will keep homeowners from having to sell at a loss wage increases will keep buyers able to purchase.

This is Nicole Ruth with The Rueth Team, now the proud and excited newest member of the OneTrust Home Loans, family. It's my pleasure to keep you updated.

Listen to the full 9-minute episode to get more detailed comparisons and statistics.

We just experienced a HOT real estate market that left homebuyers who couldn't afford to pay $50,000 - $100,000 over the asking price with little chance of getting into a home.

While home prices and interest rates seemed to skyrocket, home affordability was challenged, pushing many prospective buyers out of the market. But does that still hold true today? Is home affordability gone? Can you save money and try to purchase a home?

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110

303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

What is the difference between Pre Qualified and Pre Approved? #shorts

Foreclosures are up 150%! Okay, they are but let’s take a step back. They’re up 150% from 1 year ago when there was a FORECLOSURE MORATORIUM you couldn’t even do one! They are shooting up from extremely low lows, and many are still working their way through the system from pre-pandemic! This IS NOT a cause for panic nor a sign of a housing crisis.

All hope is not lost if your appraisal comes in low! You or your realtor can do a Reconsideration of Value. This allows you to present other comparables to your appraiser to see if the value can be increased, and 15%-20% of the time, IT IS!

Headlines say that Mortgage Demand has dipped to an "all-time low." But let's tear this apart for a minute. Mortgage Applications include both Refinance AND Purchase Apps! Furthermore, the Refinance Apps are the big chunk of this, as they’re down 82% YOY, while Purchase Applications are only down 18% YOY. I understand buyers are dealing with affordability, but they’re still out there! Sellers, if your home is staged right and priced right, there is a buyer for your home.

Investing in the Denver Real Estate Market TODAY. Nicole chatted with realtor, friend and fellow investor Christie Metoyer of Live.Laugh.Denver Real Estate and Rent today about purchasing her 3rd investment property and how real estate investing has changed her life! She says what blows most first time homebuyers away is the fact you do not need 20% down to buy a home in this market. Listen to more reveals in this episode. You can also catch the video version here - while you're there, subscribe to The Rueth Team's YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ityXriu79BI

Real estate is a long-term game. Nicole says it time and time again... it's not about money, it's about options. Investing in real estate opens up doors and options down the road that can lead to stability and financial success.

While it may seem like a shot in the dark, real estate always goes up. The sooner you can capitalize on the benefits real estate gives you TODAY, the sooner you can build multi-generational wealth. In this episode Nicole compares her experience when she got started investing in real estate in 2009's market with today's. She'll tell you her story and the logic behind continuing to add doors to her portfolio.

What's Next for the Housing Market? Is it BOOM OR GLOOM? We've experienced an incredibly volatile housing market over the last two years. It was full of huge equity gains, rising home prices, and little inventory. So, what's next for the housing market?!

Is the housing market going to crash? Will we enter into a recession? What happens to housing in a recession? Is now still a good time to buy a home?

I hope this episode answers a lot of your questions and will help show you that the housing market is still strong!

A recession is always coming, it’s just a matter of time. It’s purely the nature of a cyclical economy. “Are we in a recession” searches continue to hit record levels on Google, and talk of a housing recession has some counting on the bubble to burst. With more inventory and all other numbers lower across the board, it’s starting to look like a recession, or, maybe it’s just the slowdown we’ve all been hoping for.

A recession does not equal a housing bubble. While there will be layoffs, slowed production, and a softening in consumer spending, Americans are coming into this recession with $2 trillion in savings and twice the home equity there was in 2006. Colorado is also protected by having 38% of homes owned free and clear, only 1.7% of mortgaged homes delinquent, and a current foreclosure rate of 0.1%. If home prices continue to slow, as I expect they could during the second half of 2022, recent buyers might lose a little value, some homeowners might even need to sell quickly, but most will simply not sell. Knowing that as rates drop, as they consistently do during recessions, pent-up demand will reengage with our limited supply, forcing multiple bids and yet again higher prices.

Institutions, first-time home buyers, and those who have been waiting will all be ready to buy on these dips. And since we have not yet achieved an inventory level that could comfortably sustain a surge in demand, the thought of a housing bubble eludes me.

Another question in this episode is, "What if there's a grow house in the garage?" The guidelines for appraisals vary depending on who the lender is, whether it's Fannie, Freddie, VA, FHA, or Conventional. Nicole's guest is Paul Cress, AVP of Staff Appraisal Operations for Frisco Lender Services (FLS).

Nicole asked him, "So what brings that volatility, and what eases it overall?"

Paul told her, "Lately the reason it's eased is that interest rates have dropped, demand. It's simple supply and demand. Realistically, over the past three years, property values have risen more than they have at any other time in history. That's due to increased demand and decreased supply. It's caused quite a market stir where realistically, the purchase demand can't be caught up with, and appraisals are done in retrospect, they're a flash in time. And when you're looking back even weeks or days, and trying to keep up with this market, that's increasing day over day. That's what really caused the stir in the market and values to become undervalued or, become under what the contract price was.

Nicole pressed, "If I have a buyer willing to pay an amount of money for a house, even if it's over asking price, isn't that the market value?"

You'll have to tune in to hear his answer, the issue of ADUs, grow rooms, and how much adding a rental unit can add to your home value.

Lock and Shop This is where you can hold the rate for 90 days, with the option to extend it for 30 more while you are under contract. If rates go up, you are locked in, if they go down, we can renegotiate the rate.
TBD Underwrite This goes hand in hand with Lock and Shop. We gather all of your information, submit it to an underwriter, and then you can be fully underwritten and are viewed as being the same as a cash offer. Some of these transactions are closed in 8-10 days.
Knowing Your Needs vs. Wants Once you have that defined and the first two steps handled, you can move quickly to secure your home.

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

While you're at it, look at gas prices and go fill up, TODAY!

In a tough market flooded with negative headlines, it can be an uphill battle trying to convince clients that now is still a good time to buy!

The truth is that we don't know when a recession will happen, or what the extent will be? How much further interest rates will rise? When they will fall? How much will they fall? The list goes on and on. And it's scary, I get that. The unknown always is. But here's what we do know:

Housing goes up in the long term
There are refinance opportunities when rates come down
Owning real estate gives you financial stability and opens up options in the future

Don't forget to join Agent Ignite https://www.theruethteam.com/agents/ignite-training/

I know higher interest rates are stressing affordability and pushing buyers to sit on the fence. But, what if I told you that a higher rate could actually SAVE CLIENTS' MONEY? You'd probably think it's a trick! But it's not, it's perspective.

You are marrying the house, but you are dating the rates. *CORRECTION... The comparison rate used in my calculation from March of 2021 with the $675,000 loan amount was 4.625% not 4.25%. My apologies for my error; but my position on perspective stands.

Fed Chair Powell stated the Fed is creating a "bridge period" of "demand exhaustion". This is being interpreted as the Federal Reserve is killing the housing market. I get it. But what I see is first-time home buyers getting the reset, the break they've been needing and asking for. Plus, with the housing market as strong as it is... it's hard to justify a bust coming. I guess it's all how you look at it.

Please know: The Fed Rate and mortgage rate are not sisters, but they are cousins. This is what's been happening with the greed of home sellers, the FHFA, and banks.

Buyers are struggling more so than ever before.
Cancelations have gone way up because of the higher interest rates.
Policies have come out that devastated pricing.
There is an increase of inventory - double of last year - but it's way below normal balanced markets.

We're not going to see a massive drop in prices, people will just stop selling. It's all about perspective. Buyers have to be reminded of the strength in our housing market and that there is still opportunity!

Inventory exceeded demand in June for the first time since the same month in 2020. Spiking 94% year-over-year and 66% month-over-month. Price reductions, according to Redfin, increased to 40% of homes on the market in Denver. If the story ended there, it might concern me. Sellers flooding the market giving homes away at discounted prices. But the story is much different than that. June ended the first half of a transitional 2022 and it did so with a bang. Cryptocurrency is down 60%; the stock market had its worst first half of a year since 1970, inflation hit a 41-year high and housing.. well, so far this year, housing is up 16.5%. 2022 year-to-date median price growth is only 1% lower than we experienced during the first half of 2021.

With all this inventory, though, buyers and sellers “feel” like it shifted to a buyers’ market. Get the full story in this episode of The Double Comma Club, "Inventory is double last year, but it is not enough."

There's so much strength and opportunity in our housing market today, but many buyers are still struggling to get in. Home prices are going up, along with rents, and interest rates remain in flux. But, you can't time the market! Purchasing a home is a big commitment, but buyers have to be able to see the long-term benefits that come with home ownership. Three ways YOU can get into the market TODAY are: 1) Down Payment Assistance 2) Gifts 3) Renovation Loans.

If you are looking for a property in Denver Metro to renovate, we have a few for you through our office:

13361 Randolph Pl, Denver, CO 80239 840 Linley Ct, Denver, CO 80204 14723 March Dr, Denver, CO 80239 7855 Vallejo St, Denver, CO 80221 141 Utica St, Denver, CO 80219 5102 W Custer Pl, Denver, CO 80219 2300 S Galapago St, Denver, CO 80223 3630 Niagara St, Denver, CO 80207 3038 S Gray St, Denver, CO 80227

🔥🔥🔥 Rates Down, Inventory Up, Holiday Weekend... GO TIME! The 10-year treasury surprised me this morning.

Listen to this and you will have 5 options of how to take advantage of the sudden drop in interest before the wave goes back up.

Call Nicole Rueth ASAP to take advantage. She's here all day because SHE LOVES these opportunities.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110

303-214-6393

www.TheRuethTeam.com Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

This is a really detailed episode about a new interactive software tool. Nicole explains here. At the end of this post you will have a link for the interactive view of this tool she discusses. Here's a bit of what is covered in this episode.

Interest rates and home prices have gone up. We know that. And not only is it a question of affordability, but now it's also a buyer's discernment on whether or not that home or buying now is the right choice. Sellers are feeling this. They've been on the market for longer than we are used to. We got spoiled over the last couple of years. Sellers did with very quick turn times, very quick to go under contract. And so now, even though we're nowhere near normal with less than a month of inventory, it feels slow. So I wanted to propose a couple of alternatives and actually show the differences between those alternatives and options, both for a seller who's going to market and how do they want to list their home? And as a buyer, how can I strategize the best payment option for me right now? Whether what is more, most important to me?

Is it cash to close? Is it the monthly payment? Is it the adjustment period? And then do I expect in a recessionary period that interest rates will go down because I want to start here before I get into the matrix that I'm showing you. This is a little bit of a different video that we typically send out on Wednesdays, because I want to give you a tool. This tool is clickable. You can actually open it up rummage around and look at the alternatives and request a strategy session so that we can set this up for your listing or for your specific buyer parameters. But I want to talk first just for a second on ARM, because that option is not going to be described here. I'm going to go over going through and buying a home with 10% down, buying a home capitalizing on a two, one buy down capitalizing on maybe a seller credit for a permanent buy down or discount points to pay, to reduce the rate, or should a seller have to reduce their price to get it to move.

But what I don't show is ARMs simply because there are four columns and not five. So there you have it, but I do want to say that arms are going to work very similar. In fact, for the two, one buy down, category, I used the model within this tool for an ARM. So we could switch this based on the kind of ARM that you're looking at, whether it's a five-year, seven-year, 10-year ARM, and then what the parameters are for the movement of that ARM. The one risk that I want to present with ARMs, that the two, one buy down protects you against is what if, what if rates don't go down. The third number on an ARM talks about what is the maximum that ARM can go up. And a lot of times it's got a five in it or a four. So if today's interest rate for you for that ARM is four and a half, and the last number on your ARM parameters is a five. That means that that loan could go up to nine and a half percent. Would that wreck your budget? We're all counting on a recession and on lower interest rates, but do you need a plan B? So let's talk about these four options and consider a two, one, a two, one buy-down option instead of an ARM. They go hand in hand and they can trade out for one another.

Want to access the interactive software? FOLLOW THIS LINK: https://bit.ly/3ucAWLj

Nicole will be narrating it with the same information in this episode, but you'll be able to click some of the items to get more details as you follow along. Any questions, please call her: 303-214-6393

Now I know there have been headlines that the average rent in Denver has gone over $2000. So it really just depends on what survey you're looking at. Either way, rents continue to go up. That's not gonna slow down. As investors are paying more for their properties, they're gonna be renting out for more. And those investors that bought properties 10, 20, 30 years ago are gonna keep up with the market rent. Ashleigh Gutierrez joins Nicole for this episode.

Ashleigh's rent right now is $1705. And then she pays for a garage space, which is an extra $150. With everything all in, she is paying around $2,000 a month for rent. Here are the numbers for the story in this episode.

$300,000 asking price.
She paid $331,000 to lock it in.
3% down.
Monthly payment of $1,999 plus insurance, taxes
$2,500. It's more than rent, but she's now building wealth and paying her OWN mortgage, rather than her landlord's.

Listen to this story and a few more in this episode, Buying a Home Today - Why I Shouldn't Rent.

These three shorts give a quick explanation and ways you can reduce your debt-to-income ratio. This episode covers: What is Debt to Income Ratio?, What are the debts included in your DTI?, and How to Optimize Your DTI.

We hope you find these quick explanations and suggestions helpful.

They go great with the longer episodes here:

What You Need to Know About Debt to Income Ratio Why is Debt to Income Ratio Important When Buying a Home?

You can get an appraisal waiver and you can have an appraisal waiver. I wanna give everyone an appraisal waiver. It just doesn't quite work like that. Of course, there's a lot of talk about getting appraisal waivers, especially in a competitive market like today. So what is an appraisal waiver and what do you get to do once you have one? An appraisal waiver is something that's given by an automated underwriting system by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. So that implies that you can only get an appraisal waiver on a conventional loan. And that's true. You can't get an appraisal waiver on a jumbo loan, an FHA loan or a VA loan, but if you are putting 20% down or more on a primary home purchase and you have a good credit profile, there's a possibility that you could get an appraisal waiver. It also is dependent on the property that home needs to be in either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac database, meaning that maybe the current seller or a previous homeowner of that home had gotten a conventional loan.

So if you're going out and you're purchasing a primary home and you want to know more about how appraisals appraisal waivers work and how you can get one, then you need to give me a call. We'd not only love to go to work for you. We'd love to put you in the most competitive position you can be when putting in your offer.

Strap in, this is a long one!

Last week the CPI came out not as expected. The percentage doesn't matter as much as the DIRECTION... it went up! This threw the market for a loop. Interest rates did increase and now the headlines are making you believe we are going into depression.

WE ARE STILL IN A STRONG HOUSING MARKET.

The likelihood of massive job loss and massive loss in the stock market is not likely... granted it may feel like it today.

Interest rates increased from 5.5% last Thursday to 6.18% yesterday. As we go into FED week, the market was expecting a 50bp increase. However, with the increase in CPI, the FED may be forced to increase that rate even more. That possibility of change is what makes the market react. The market likes knowing what is going to happen. So when the possibility of change looms, it begins to move.

Bottom line is that rates went up for several reasons, but we remain part of an incredibly strong real estate market.

I want to talk about the interest rates first because they went from 5.5 on Thursday to 6.18% on Monday 5.5% . That is a massive jump. Especially if you are watching my live session. I said, hurry up and get under contract, take advantage of the interest rates that we have today because next week we're going into the fed.

Now, even when interest rates started to go up, a lot of people are asking me how high do you think, they could go? And I was like six and a quarter, right? So we're here. We're at 6.25%. We made it, do we go much higher? I don't know. I don't know because the fed where we're at right now is a little bit unchartered. We've got this quantitative tightening that's happening and how aggressive the fed, uh, goes, is going to push interest rates. But what interest rates are doing right now is squelching demand. It's authentic demand reduction.

Listen to this episode as I also cover the continuing reasons the housing market is so strong. GET IN NOW!

You can now use the income on an auxiliary dwelling unit to qualify to purchase or rate and term refinance your home. Well, that is a game-changer, especially for people who have an investor's mindset. How can I optimize the home I'm living in? Can I look at buying a two-unit, a three or four-unit, a single-family, a rentable basement?

Well, those auxiliary dwelling units, those separate buildings in the backyard. They were not a legal unit. Now they do have to be permitted right and zoned properly. But those auxiliary dwelling units were just that they were an auxiliary dwelling unit, whether they were apartments above a garage or self-standing buildings in the backyard, but they weren't a legal unit. It's not like it was a duplex. It's a single-family home with an ADU. That ADU income had not been able to be used when qualifying for a purchase price or a loan amount.

Well, that just changed. That literally is a game-changer. Now I can afford more say I'm a first-time home buyer and I'm maxed out at $600,000 purchase price. If there's an ADU in the backyard and the market rents on that are $1,500. Now I'm not maxed out at $600,000 anymore.

Now I can qualify for a $711,000 purchase price by putting 10% down. Those kinds of numbers need to be explored, especially given today's market with rising and rising home prices where people know you need to get in. You need to stop paying rent and start building your own equity. And that auxiliary dwelling unit will do two things for you. Now it'll help you qualify for more and put money in your pocket so that you can save for the next one. If you want to know more information, know exactly how much you can qualify for, please call me - 303-214-6393.

With the Denver market up 123%, since its peak in 2006, we have amazing wealth in equity. How do you tap into that wealth of equity, where you can give a gift of equity to your children, or to other family members? We can transfer wealth through real estate using gifts of equity. So what does that mean? And maybe what are some of the limitations with that?

Let's say I want to sell a home for market value. That home is $800,000 and I own that home and maybe I own that home outright, and I want to give it to my kid. I want to give them a head start and I want some money out of that home, but I don't need all $800,000 and I want to give them a head start. Maybe it's a grandchild or a niece or a nephew, and you want to give them the opportunity, maybe an opportunity you never had.

You can do that with real estate. You can give them that gift of equity.

If the market value of that home is $800,000. I can sell it to them for $800,000, but then give them a gift of equity of whatever you want. 5%, 10%, 20%, a dollar amount, maybe it's $200,000. That means as a receiver, maybe as, as your kid or as your niece or nephew or grandchild, I can get a loan for the $600,000 and not bring any money to the table. Maybe I'm just starting out with my career. I don't have a lot of money saved, but I have a good job. I can qualify for the $600,000. You just gave me such a blessing and such a head start, but I need to know there are some limitations, depending on the loan program I use first off, it has to be a family member.

FHA does allow gifts that are either from a close friend or an employer, even, but in this case, a gift of equity, not just a gift of a check, needs to come from a family member.

FHA also has another hook.

If you have a credit score under 600, you cannot receive a gift of equity as your down payment. You have to still bring your down payment. So that's something that needs to be considered, and certainly may be a reason to get into our free credit optimization program. So let's talk about VA because VA has a benefit that if I can put a little money down. You get a reduced funding fee. Now, if you have any disability, you have no funding fee. So that becomes irrelevant. But if you're not disabled, you have a funding fee. And if you put 5% down or more, that funding fee is reduced. A gift of equity does not go towards that. You will still pay whatever the full funding fee is for your situation.

Conventional, conventional has a situation where the borrower typically needs to bring their own minimum funds. A lot of times that's 5% or even 3% for first-time home buyers. The gift of equity needs to be a minimum of 20% down in order for the buyer not to bring any of their own money. FHA and VA don't require that the gift can be just the minimum down, but in the case of conventional, the buyer still has to bring, say 5% down.

If the giver of the gift is only giving 10%, but if the gift is more than 20% of the purchase price, the buyer can bring no money of their own. So there are some fantastic opportunities in today's real estate market to continue generational wealth.

If you want to know more about gifts of equity, I would love to sit down and talk through a program and a solution with you. We'd love to go to work for you

Everybody's starting to look at the fact that more homes are now going are, are reducing their price before sale. I talked about this in the DMAR report that we just did last week in the video talking about the fact that those people that had to do a price reduction were on the market for an average of 28 days. That is a massively long time compared to what we've been feeling and how fast the market has been moving nationally. That number is up to 24% of homes are discounting their price before they sell. Historically, that number is at a third 33%. We are still well below normal.

And when we get to normal, it won't even feel like normal because we've been so fast for so long. Keep everything in perspective. Yes. I know interest rates are high and yes, I know home prices are high, but appreciation will continue because demand is going to continue. Existing homes cannot fill all the gaps in the past. Somebody had sold a home and purchased a home. Now they're holding onto that home and they're converting into a rental. Now they're keeping it in the family and selling it to a family member with a gift of equity. They are maintaining the home or they're aging in place. They're taking that equity. They're pulling some of that equity out and they're converting that home into a rental property and buying the next primary home with the equity that they've pulled out of it. That's what we're seeing a lot of in this market.

We need to see more turnover. Obviously, we're seeing a little more inventory. Fantastic. None of this means that we're going to head into a housing bubble. Interestingly, last week we had several economic indicators. We had the unemployment state flat at 3.6. We had ism manufacturing index came in stronger than expected. Yes, consumer confidence is down, but that's based on the price of everything.

Real estate is the best hedge against inflation. We are not headed towards a housing bust, will the economy slow? I hope so will spend slow. I really hope so. Because consumer spending is 70% of the GDP. I hope all of those things happen. I hope appreciation slows down. Would it shock me if we had a 0% appreciation next year, a little bit, a little bit, but I wouldn't be upset about it because I know that the value of my home is holding and that it is a hedge against inflation, the cost of everything. And that rents

Listen to this episode for the full summary of the impact.

Months of Inventory for May landed at 0.67% or 20 days. A balanced market, when supply equals demand, is defined by 6 months of inventory. Yet, on the street, real estate agents and buyers “feel” like we are headed towards a balanced market. Close to List came in at 105.33% telling us buyers are still paying more than asking on average. If you look at over $1 million dollar homes, those went for 107.12% close to list. And median days on market were still a hot 4 days.

Yet some listings had few to no showings their first weekend on market and the median closed price actually dropped 0.24%. 197 more homes sold and 631 more homes went under contract than last month, while 72 fewer homes came on the market to choose from.

Given these numbers it’s obvious that the active listings count pulled on the last day of May, on a Tuesday, would jump 14% from last month and 76% from last year giving buyers 3,652 homes to choose from. Right?

Buyer demand as measured by the United States MBA Purchase Index dropped 12.3% during the month of May. Mortgage purchase applications softened as interest rates hit an average of 5.62% for a 30-year fixed mortgage on May 7th per the Mortgage News Daily survey. Application numbers remained muted even while rates dropped 0.5% during the 2nd half of May. With all the graduations and holidays, did buyers not notice?

Buyers and sellers alike are trying to figure out how to time this market. A market in transition is sending mixed messages. Inventory is still painfully low. Closing 5,445 units last month means we need 32,670 homes for sale for a balanced market, an unrealistic number given Denver’s propensity for being a sellers-market. I’d be thrilled with even the 10,527 average active listings we’ve seen in May from 2008 through 2022. There is a third of that today. But rising inventory will be the tell-tale of an easing market. And we would expect to see rising inventory given consumer inflation of 8.3% and mortgage rates above 5% should cool buyer demand.

Mortgage rates are expected to stay above 5% through 2022 as the Federal Reserve kicks off quantitative tightening on the 1st of June and plans on raising the Fed Rate by 0.5% in June and again in July. We will know more as the Fed releases their Dot Plot Map at their June meeting; giving us clues as to where they see the Fed Rate going for the rest of 2022 as well as 2023 and 2024. Many economists expect rates to stay where they are or even go a little higher as inflation continues to prove less transitory and weighted more on longer-lasting wages, housing, and the geopolitical events happening around us. These higher borrowing rates on top of our 18.42% year-to-date higher median closed prices could and should yield us longer days on market, higher active inventory counts, and softer month-over-month price growth as buyers become more decerning and slower to pull the trigger.

Sellers will need to adjust their strategies to continue to attract more buyers. 8.3% of closed transactions this May reduced their asking price prior to receiving an offer. This compares to 6.9% in May of 2021. Those properties that reduced their price spent a painful average of 28.4 days in the MLS compared to 7 days for those with no price reductions. Sellers with homes on busy streets, odd layouts, or deferred maintenance might have missed their winning opportunity. But for the rest of the sellers, pricing right and staging well will continue to reap rewards given our current months of inventory and close-to-list.

Because buyers are still buying and willing to pay a premium.

Despite consumer confidence dipping 2.2 points, retail sales are up 0.9% month-over-month and 8.2% year-over-year. Luxury sales, travel, and housing are all winners in the eyes of today’s buyers. As the number one hedge against inflation, housing will continue to remain strong even as we move inches towards a balanced market. Because while the wealthy are spending $195 million on Andy Warhol prints of Marilyn Monroe and $143 million for 1955 vintage Mercedes Benz as hedges, the rest of us can count on a good home continuing to grow at a good pace providing stability and financial security as our hedge against inflation.

Until next time, that’s a wrap for this month’s Market Trends update. It’s my pleasure to keep you updated,

Nicole Rueth of The Rueth Team of Fairway Mortgage

Historically, we are trying to determine the best direction for us individually and personally. And how do we operate? Because many want to operate out of fear. That is our natural go-to, but those that operate out of opportunity, create doors that open. We were talking about this last Thursday, when we did this ad hoc live talking about this weekend is a door that is opening. It is your choice to go through it. You don't have to, you can continue renting which people will because sales are slightly down and what's the option. Because demographics have not changed. We are still talking about the next two to three years of incredible buyer demand. Mortgage purchase applications are down yet. Demographics have not changed. So if people are operating in fear thinking that interest rates are too high, that I can't get into the home of my dreams, then the alternative is renting.

The alternative is a 100% interest rate. The alternative is not building wealth, not creating financial stability and not creating the opportunities for multi-generational wealth. I mean that's it, it boils down to that. I can't say it any clearer. I get that higher interest rates make affordability a big question mark.

What we have is a slowdown today. It isn't about credit deficiencies. It's about consumer confidence. Consumer confidence is down. Yes, it's down. The cost of everything is up. Why wouldn't it be down? It costs more to fill my gas tank. It costs me more for my groceries. Yes. It costs more. My gosh. Have you been to Costco lately? That little basket of goodies is way more than it used to be and my kids are. Listen to the rest of this episode for the reasons why this window is ideal for homebuyers.

It's not Tuesday, but I've got news that I want to share. And I know I've got market trends tomorrow, but rates went down, and I need to know that, you know, that especially going into Memorial Day weekend, how much did they go down? Why did they go down? And are they going to go down further? I mean, that's the question, right? Because is this a new trend or is this just a blip? And it's really critical that we jump in because I know something's coming, we all feel it. And I'm going to be talking about this at tomorrow's Market Trends Update. What are all the indicators that are pointing us clearly towards an economic slowdown? And that economic slowdown is more than likely going to come with a reduction in interest rates, which is going to give us an opportunity to refinance. But almost more importantly, it's going to spark more demand.

The demand that right now is sitting on the fence, the demand that is going to get excited about in streets, dropping and get into the market still on limited supply, which is going to create another market frenzy in an increase in appreciation. So do you want to be a home buyer during that market frenzy or a homeowner? I want to own more like I want my, I want the market to raise the value of my properties, not me fighting for a property, having to put more into the offer. Because right now you can actually offer a list. Some homes you can offer at below-list. Some homes have been on the market for the last three months. That's what I want to talk about. This is going to be really specific, really quick, going into Memorial Day Weekend. I want you to know what's happening with interest rates.

Of course, we still have tomorrow and I don't know what tomorrow brings until it comes. You tell me if your crystal ball's better than mine, but I wanted to talk to you about the fact that rates dropped. Now, they dropped a quarter. How big of a deal is that? I mean, rates have been going up for 10 consecutive weeks. We hadn't seen this since 1994 rates increasing this much in such a short period of time. So to have any relief to have a week when the rates went down is a blessing and we're going into a long three-day holiday weekend. So wait, rates went down about a quarter, and that quarter can save you about a hundred dollars a month. Is that a massive deal?

It could move the needle, especially if you're right up against the edge of your eligibility. So locking in this weekend could get you just a little more house. So what's the inventory. What does that look like? But let's talk about these interest rates and whether or not we feel like they're going to go down or up for June, right? Cause what's, what's affecting interest rates right now. As I started this off, is this going to be a change in trend or is this going to be just a blip? And here's what I think. I think that interest rates are going to continue to be volatile through the point in time when the fed starts to pull their foot off the gas and takes a pause. Right? And that could be September-ish. In fact, one of the fed members actually said that they're thinking that they expect a 50 PIP increase at their next meeting in June.

They're expecting five more increases this year with a possible pause in September. So we might start seeing things shift right about then, but until then, this is not a downward trend. This is an opportunity. This is a door that opened next week. We could see that they go back up, but that quarter, that a hundred dollars. I don't want you thinking that if you don't lock in this weekend, you've lost the opportunity because you can't time. The best time to buy is today. But can I take advantage of the dip? Of course you can, but here's where we're going. So the fed, I just talked about, we're expecting five more fed rate hikes. Those are going to impact slowing down the economy. We're going to see impacts on the 10-year treasury and on the 30-year fix because of that, they're also trying to control inflation and as inflation continues to be high, even if it comes down slightly, the core of inflation is wage-based and housing-based.

And right now those two are not giving up easily. As long as inflation is high, that's going to put upward pressure on interest rates, but then you also have the geopolitical issues that are going on right now. When China opens back up again, what is that going to look like? Will we see another COVID uptick? And will they shut down again? Will the supply chain get crunched what's happening with Russia and Ukraine? Those geopolitical concerns raise the risk. They have an effect on the stock market. You have a risk-based move where people have a flight to safety. They want to move from the stock market to bonds. And when that happens, we actually see that while the stock market goes down, people move their money over to bonds. Those prices go up in bonds, which actually lets interest rates go down. So I have inflation. That's pushing interest rates up.

I have geopolitical risks and concerns and the stock market risks that might put rate might push rates down. I have competing factors that are going to continue to create volatility, but those blips and that movement, I would expect to hover between 5, 5.25, and 5.5%. Now remember, we're locking in jumbo loans in the high fours right now, right? So this is an opportunity to take advantage of, but if we're volatile within this range until the point in time where the fed pauses, I want you to continue to watch for that. I'll continue to talk about that. Where's the fed going, because right now they have the most impact on rates. But did you recently sign a lease? Did you get out of the home buying experience because you don't have 50,000, a hundred thousand dollars over asking, do you not want to bid against five 10 people?

Do you know that because of the higher interest rates, demand has slowed down, it has it slowed down. So this last week over week mortgage purchase application data showed that demand went down 1.2% week over week, last week, it went down 11% week over week. And in fact, out of the last, what is it out of the last 11 weeks nine have all been down, slowing down demand because rates have been higher. So that demand is slowing down. I don't know if I want to buy that second home anymore. I don't know if I want to buy that investment anymore. Now might not be the right time to purchase a home. I'm going to wait for the bubble. I'm going to wait for the recession.

Going into Memorial day weekend rates dropped ever so slightly, but take advantage of it. Demand is down. I have real estate agents that are talking about the fact that they have homes that have no showings homes that have not gone under contract in one or two weekends. What does that mean for you? Opportunity to come in with an offer with an FHA, with a VA, with down payment assistance you can get in with no additional over list ask. That's brilliant. And I don't know if you knew that because demand is down at the same time. Supply is up. So active inventory was up in the past DMAR market trends report showing April data. It was up 44% month over month. Now that was active inventory and that's a little bit dated at this point next week, we're going to get made data super excited about that.

But if I look nationwide week over week, we just saw 8% growth in inventory. Now, this is not going to be a continued spike in inventory in the sense that we are in the season, where more inventory comes online. This just so happens to be colliding at the same time. These rising interest rates slowing demand a little bit allowing first-time homebuyers to get in. Plus a seasonal increase in supply is giving us opportunities to not have to go over asking you to add onto that. What the roof team advantage is all about. You add to that, the fact that we're doing the TBD underwrites with eight to 10-day closings, and we're waiving loan availability. We're running automated underwriting to see if we can waive the appraisal. We're giving you a refinance certificate to give you money off of your refinance. Next year, when the rates go down, when we hit a recession and now we're partnering with agents doing a lease buyout program, and this is why it's not because I need to have a sale to get more deals in the door.

I so believe in homeownership. I so believe in this is the opportunity for the 80% of Americans to gain wealth, to gain stability. And you've been shut out this whole year because rates have screamed up so fast. It's freaking everybody out. We have such a lack of inventory. When I say that inventory is up 44%. I mean that is a number that's 3,200 homes for sale, 3,200 homes for sale. I mean we have over 3 million people in the Denver market, and 3,200 homes for sale. That number is big because the actual unit count is low. Our inventory is still low. This 5% interest rate is still historically strong. So when you have a window of opportunity and you don't know about it, I'm not doing my job because this is a time that you can get in. This is the way did you know that just last week we saw record sales on art and cars.

I mean a 1911 Mercedes just sold for the highest price car ever sold the rich know something. They know that they need a hedge against inflation. That inflation wall might come down is not going to go away for a period of time they need to make sure that their money is making them money. They're pulling it out of the stock market and volatile investments and putting it into solid investments like our, uh, art and classic cars. What do they know that you need to know? You need to know that you need a hedge against inflation and for the 80% of Americans, it's real estate, it's real estate. That gives you the opportunity to do that. And this is the way and with our routine advantage, the lease buyout, because if you gave up six months ago and I get it, I get it.

But how do I get you back in? How do I share with you the power of real estate? The opportunity to allow appreciation to drive up your wealth, the opportunity for principal reduction to pay your own mortgage. Not somebody else's because when you are paying rent, you're paying a 100% interest rate. I stole that from Jeremy Kane, when you're paying rent, your interest rate is 100%. None of that is making any money for you.

So if you lock in at today's yes, but historically low-interest rates, you're making your money work for you. Take advantage of these. This is your weekend. This is your time we want to go to work for you. Give us a call right now, The Ruth Team, Nicole Ruth, it would be my pleasure to serve you guys have a great rest of your day. If you're an agent, catch us tomorrow with Megan hour on our market trends, update, talk to you then.

Today I wanna talk about being busy. I have heard a number of times over the last several weeks, maybe weeks saying, "I don't wanna bother you. You are too busy," or "I can't even believe you made time for me because you are so busy." or maybe I didn't think to call you because you're so busy when you are busy doing the things that you're passionate about. This is what I'm supposed to be doing every single day. If I showed you my calendar, it might freak you out, but I love it. It is stacked with half an hour to an hour of consultations with our clients, solving problems, creating strategies, sitting down with our real estate agents, and talking about how to continue to serve our clients. And even more important to me is how do we create wealth for you as a real estate agent?

Our team makes it possible because we have so many specialists to handle every aspect of a loan and the hiccups that crop up.

I have a member of my team who is absolutely phenomenal at two-week closes. He can get it done every single time because he is determined and dedicated to every step of the process. It's amazing! If I have a rush, I give it to him.

I have a member of my team who absolutely backward and forwards knows the non-QM loans. You have a DSCR loan that you want to be done. You have an investor loan with no income, your bank statements, or a P&L loan, which, by the way, freaks me out a little bit.

I'm just saying the fact that you can buy a home just on, a profit loss statement, audited, we're not gonna go there today, but you can, right. You can do it on 12 months' bank statements, you can do it, not just having enough assets in the bank and using assets either depletion or just calculation based on the number of assets you have, you can do the DSCR where the investment itself covers its own loan, right? There are ways to get strategic and creative in this environment. And he does that brilliantly.

I have another member of my team who is passionate about first-time homebuyers, as much as I am, she will bend over backward. Talk on the phone for two hours, making sure that you understand everything. I don't have two hours. I wish I did, but I can set the strategy with you one on one. And then she can absolutely take that strategy and bloom, and take you to the finish line because she has the patience of an angel.

I have another member of my team that is fluent in Spanish, and he is knocking out of the park. He's called a ton of our agents who are Spanish speaking, introducing himself and talking about how he just drives to serve. He is committed to creating a path for Spanish-speaking borrowers to get to the finish line. I love having him on our team.

Who's your mortgage team? We'd love to talk to you about becoming yours.

There is another member of my team who is super high energy.

You wanna solve a problem and you are just over it, done, whipped? He is gonna get you there. He's gonna power through and find the solutions. Nobody works harder on my team than him.

Another member on my team who is absolutely the best when it comes to move-up homebuyers, taking the strategy of the equity that you have in your home and capitalizing on how to use that. Whether it's a cash-out refinance, or HELOC.

I am not too busy. They are not too busy. This kind of depth in the team offers solutions to steal the slogan from an insurance company. We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. What are you doing on a daily basis? I would ask you this. If you're a client, that's bumped into this and the loan officer, who's bumped into this, a real estate agent, who's bumped into this. Are you fulfilling your passion? Are you fulfilling what you were put on this earth to do? This is my journey. I am not too busy.

In the last two years, rates have been abnormally low, which has created an incessant demand, and an unlimited supply. All of that pushing home prices up higher and out of reach for first-time, homebuyers just a few months ago, the market was intense and it still is. Here's a quick recap of this episode. Listen to the full 8 minutes to get the details on the four reasons higher interest rates benefit buyers.

Demand is slowing down.
Supply is sitting on the market a hair longer - it's a bit calmer.
More supply, less demand = slower price growth. That's simple economics.
With higher interest rates you have higher savings rates.

What is an adjustable-rate mortgage? and the bigger question is should you get an adjustable-rate mortgage?

Inquiries regarding Adjustable Rate Mortgages are picking up steam!

An ARM can help buyers expand their qualifications because they tend to have lower interest rates when we are in a rising interest rate market... like today. But with a lower interest rate comes a bit more risk.

So before buyers jump in and say that this is their "golden ticket," let's break down what an ARM is, highlight the pros and cons and discuss who can benefit from ARM financing.

Have questions? Feel free to reach out to my team and we'd be happy to answer them for you :)

Glossary moment: A couple of terms covered in this episode: SOFR and LIBOR.

The main difference between SOFR and LIBOR is how the rates are produced. While LIBOR is based on panel bank input, SOFR is a broad measure of the cost of borrowing cash overnight collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities in the repurchase agreement (repo) market.

If you talk to two different real estate agents in the Denver real estate market, you will get two different stories. However, the theme remains the same, the housing market is in a constant state of flux. Just when we think we know where it's heading, it flips a 180! This episode is about a tale of two markets - Tips and Strategies to Get Under Contract.

I know buyers and agents are frustrated, but we are here to help you gain a competitive advantage and WIN your deal.

What will housing look like in a recession? A recession will be good for housing. Recessions usually bring lower interest rates which will bring on strong demand. Strong demand on top of birth rates 30-33 years ago and high liquidity brought on by the Fed. Lower interest rates when supply is challenged by "interest rate lock", aging in place, investor buyers, and builder backlog.

Headlines want you to be worried. I want you to jump in. From my seat, the sooner you get in before a recession comes, the more opportunity for equity growth, when demand spikes and home prices rise.

Want to know what you can do? Let's talk!

Slowed Appreciation DOES NOT Mean Loss of Value! CoreLogic expects a 5.9% appreciation over the next 12 months. Denver is always hotter and CoreLogic is super conservative! That means on a median price home, conservatively, you will gain another $37,000 in equity AND get to refinance with our new Refinance Guarantee!

What will housing look like in a recession? A recession will be good for housing. Recessions usually bring lower interest rates which will bring on strong demand. Strong demand on top of birth rates 30-33 years ago and high liquidity brought on by the Fed. Lower interest rates when supply is challenged by "interest rate lock", aging in place, investor buyers, and builder backlog.

Headlines want you to be worried. I want you to jump in. From my seat, the sooner you get in before a recession comes, the more opportunity for equity growth, when demand spikes and home prices rise.

Want to know what you can do? Let's talk!

Here's some of the math we cover in this episode.

As of April 2022, the median closing price in DMAR is $624,950 This means the loan is $499,060 at 5.5% with a 20% down: $2839/month principal and interest payment.

$661,822 if it appreciates as CoreLogic predicts at 5.9%, putting 20% down. The loan is $529,457 with 20% down at 5.9% interest rates. $3006/month principal and interest.

Costs more to wait if interest rates don't go down.

What if they do and you can refi and get that $1000 credit from us that we talk about in this episode?

Suppose it goes down to 4%, the payment drops to $2,528 - the home price has been locked in and it will continue to grow in appreciation. You kept the $37,000 or so and get a lower payment.

Listen to find out more.

Multiple world record breaker, and international keynote speaker Ryan Avery sat down with Nicole to continue what he started at The Next Big Thing Colorado in January. He's helping us redefine "Celebrate" - it's about the try, not the acknowledgment. He has a fantastic story about failure, that wasn't. You'll rethink the trite and terrible phrase, "Going outside your comfort zone." and so many more shifts to consider. Please do not miss this episode of The Double Comma Club with Ryan Avery.

Want to find Ryan? Don't look on social media. He has no time for that, he's too busy going in person around the globe to help people redefine success. Go to ryanavery.com.

Did we peak in February? Both average and median price growth slowed in April. Looking back, month-over-month median price growth started out flat in January, yet low inventory and strong pending home sales provided a strong close-to-list of 102%. (meaning the average buyer was paying 2% over asking) In February, prices rose a strong 6.5% in one month, as active listings stayed depressingly low, pushing close-to-list up to 105%.

March saw a swell of much-needed inventory if you can call 6,020 newly listed homes a swell, giving buyers a few more choices but no extra days. Days on market stayed at 4; while the close-to-list increased to 106.5% even while median home prices softened to a 4.8% month over month increase. April’s data reflected a slowing median home price growth again as it increased only 3.81% from last month with almost 7,000 homes hitting the market, yet the close-to-list continued to increase to 107%.

Homebuyers should hear this... NOW IS THE TIME! You do not want to be on the other side of a recession because when interest rates fall, demand will spike again! We simply do not have enough inventory to satisfy that demand once it comes. So while your rate may be lower, the competition will ramp up, the probability of bidding over ask will be higher and there won't be as many homes to choose from. Listen to this episode of The Double Comma Club, "Interest Rates are Increasing, is a Recession Looming?".

It's one thing for an expert to tell you what you should do when investing in a home, refinancing, and selling. But when you have an opportunity to hear a real start to finish story from a home buyer to held out for the full must-have list and then successfully purchased a home in the Denver market, you will be riveted. Kara Palffy is Nicole's guest. She's the Business Development Manager at The Rueth Team. Buying her second home, selling the first, and all of the hours required make for the best kind of story. Nicole asks Kara about what she had to do to prep her home, how much they actually got over asking, why they decided to NOT add to their real estate empire and sell their first house instead, and how their goal of staying in this home for many years affected several decisions.

So how old do I have to be, to take advantage of a reverse mortgage? Generally speaking, we say 62 years old because the FHA product, which is the most commonly used program today requires one of the homeowners to be 62. However, we also have non-FHA programs that will allow clients as young as 55 years old to get into a reverse mortgage. Nicole asked Gabe Bodner, Retirement Mortgage Specialist on The Rueth Team, "What's the biggest benefit to a homeowner to want to look into this further? And, what is the advantage to me and why should I look into this right now? If I'm 55 to 65 years old?"

I think that we're finally starting to see the transition and the mentality shift between our realtor partners and our financial advisor partners, where they're starting to see that, WOW!, this is such a powerful tool that it shouldn't be utilized and viewed as if I'm running out of money. Then I should look at doing a reverse mortgage. It is now being viewed as a smart financial strategy where we're seeing clients with millions of dollars of assets under management, look at doing a reverse mortgage because of the tax benefits. It is no longer the loan of last resort. This is a smart cash flow tool for anybody looking at tapping into their home equity to preserve their assets under management.

Tune in to this 9-minute episode to learn more.

And do you know which is better for you? I don't believe that one of these loan programs is 'better' than the other. However, I do believe that one may work better for YOU. FHA and Conventional Loans each bring something different to the table, thus working better for one type of buyer over the other. You don't need to know the hyper-specifics of each program, that's what we're here for. But it can be helpful to have a basic knowledge and ask your mortgage lender the right questions. Listen to this 7-minute episode of The Double Comma Club, "What is the difference between FHA and conventional loans?"

It's no secret that the real estate market, ESPECIALLY in Denver, has seen a dramatic increase in home prices. According to CoreLogic, the national median home price grew at an all-time high 18.8% year-over-year in December 2021. Homebuyers are feeling the rise in costs of EVERYTHING, and the increased home prices are not going away anytime soon. The cost of waiting is extreme! It's time to get off the fence and into a home. Be sure you give my team a call and let's come up with a strategy that begins building long-term wealth through real estate.

Nicole goes into details in this 14-minute episode about each of the reasons:

1) Artificially low mortgage rates during the pandemic

2) Low housing supply

3) Millennial household growth

4) Inflationary actions by the FED

5) Building costs & inflation

6) FOMO

You just spent a lot of time, effort, and money getting into your new home... but what's next? There are some important things to take note of in the months following closing day such as:

Your first mortgage payment
HOA Payments
Utilities
Home renovations

Buy NOW to have options later. Real estate is still the number one hedge against inflation and the potential to build long-term wealth is still there!

Although the real estate market is tough right now, you have to get in in order to build long-term wealth, earn appreciation, use the equity you've built for a renovation or a move up and you can always refinance once things calm down.

Your long-term goals can be achieved through owning a home and we want to help you get there. As always, don't hesitate to reach out if you're ready to start or complete your homebuying journey.

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

Here's some history on mortagae rates:

We've again been flooded with headlines on the impending doom of a housing market crash. As homebuyers right now, it can be hard not to fall into the trap of waiting. I get it. There's a flood of information being thrown at you, but this video will help cut through the noise.

First, there is NO bubble. We simply have too much demand, insane equity built up in our homes and a HIGHLY QUALIFIED pool of buyers entering the market.
Second, a recession is OK. A recession is defined as 2 consecutive months of GDP Decline... that's it. As prices of everything continue to rise, consumers will start to make decisions; spending less, saving more, pushing GDP down. This will allow the supply we all desperately crave to CATCH UP to demand, giving buyers more options!
Third, a Refinance is your best friend. We don't know exactly what the market will do tomorrow, or one week from now, or a few months from now! Lock in the here and the now, and start building long-term wealth through real estate.

A recession is exactly what we need right now. And it's good for housing. So what am I talking about? The two in tenure treasury yield had a small 0.05 spread as March ended. This is on the verge of inverting, which is a high validity recession indicator of five of the last six recessions that were all proceeded by an inversion. However, today we also have incredibly strong labor market. The unemployment number just came out at 3.6%, which is a post-pandemic low. In fact, unemployment has only been lower than 3.6%, three times since 1950 non-farm payroll saw robust 431,000 jobs added, which is alongside 11.3 million job.

If you remember an inventory in 2018, when rates pushed above 5%, 1,827, new listings came on the market during March that's a 44% month of a month increase, but more than half of those new listings were scooped up as pendings increased by 1039 and closed homes increased by 941.

While more inventory might give buyers a little more breathing room, they are not giving up with more inventory. We have more sales. This additional inventory is partially due to seasonality. I mean, some of it is investors taking their winnings off the table and others are looking at this intense demand and talks of a bubble and wanting to play the timing game. I think as prices rise, high prices are a bit of a cure for high prices. The appreciation much like inflation will slow down, but talks of a bubble assume high prices themselves are the tipping point and they aren't homeownership, equity of 69.2%, a vacancy rate of 1.6% and a high birth rate. 30 to 33 years ago, all starve off the bubble talks 75,000 annual equity gain for an average Colorado. In addition to a 0.01% Colorado foreclosure rate, and a 1.9% 30 day rate tells me that struggling homeowners don't have to sell at a discount just at market,

Will the housing market crash in 2022? Here is your DMAR Real Estate Market Update. The real estate market is INTENSE right now, and news headlines are doing a very good job of scaring us into thinking that we are heading towards a housing bubble burst. But the truth is, there is NO BUBBLE.

Yes, interest rates and prices are rising, but the amount of equity and demand we are seeing DOES NOT constitute a bubble ready to burst. If anything, a little slow down in market activity will give supply a chance to catch up, giving homebuyers more options.

I encourage you to always take a look at the facts, and keep an open dialogue with yourself, your realtor and your lender on your affordability and expectations in the housing market.

Nicole Rueth, The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500, Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Your Debt to Income Ratio is a key metric of analysis lenders use when you submit a loan application. It gives us a good indication of how much you can afford in relation to the debts you currently hold. In the Denver Real Estate Market there is a LOT going on... little inventory, increasing rates AND increasing prices. So, how does that affect homebuyer affordability? Well, with all this activity, what you were approved for might not work anymore... and optimizing your DTI just became that much more important. In this episode, Nicole will walk you through what is part of your monthly debt and what are the exceptions. Listen at least once. Share this with your family and friends.

Tip: The car doesn't care about the house, but the house cares about the car. Make your purchases in the right order.

Tip: how do you calculate your debt-to-income ratio?

To calculate your debt-to-income ratio, you add up all your monthly debt payments and divide them by your gross monthly income. Your gross monthly income is generally the amount of money you have earned before your taxes and other deductions are taken out. For example, if you pay $1500 a month for your mortgage and another $100 a month for an auto loan and $400 a month for the rest of your debts, your monthly debt payments are $2,000. ($1500 + $100 + $400 = $2,000.) If your gross monthly income is $6,000, then your debt-to-income ratio is 33 percent. ($2,000 is 33% of $6,000.)

AnnualCreditReport.com - free to pull your own report.

Rising Home Prices, Increased Interest Rates - What Options do Home Buyers have in 2022?

Rates are going up and so are home prices. Don't get caught (like the Fed) with your pants down. Strategies going into this previous weekend and week. It's changing fast!

In a hot seller's real estate market, buyers need an upper hand! I know it's frustrating seeing interest rates and home prices on the rise, but The Rueth Team has a TON of strategies in place to help buyer's offers stand out, grant seller security, and get everyone to the closing table on time and happy.

From TBD Underwriting, Fairway Cash Guarantee, up to $15,000 Earnest Money Guarantee, 8-10 Day Closings, AND MORE, we've got the stuff that will help you make homeownership a reality!

Listen to this 6-minute episode, "Gaining the Upper Hand to Be the Winning Offer", for quick tips.

Where are rates headed? It seems like right now mortgage rates and inflation are going hand in hand. The cost of everything is up, including housing, gas, food, etc. You see it, I see it and we are all feeling it.

No one could have predicted a pandemic and a war in a 2-year span, and the housing market is constantly responding. Interest rates are on the rise, inflation is hot and international conflicts are all taking their toll.

As real estate agents and professionals, it's important to recognize the changes in the marketplace so that we can better advise clients and be their number one supporter.

What are mortgage points? Is it worth it to buy down your mortgage rate using mortgage points? How long will it take to earn your money back if you buy your rate down?

Mortgage points are essentially a way for you to buy down your market interest rate by paying more money upfront. This can help with cash flow and even help you afford more home and a bigger loan. While this sounds great, you shouldn't assume that buying down your rate using loan discount points is the best decision for your financial future.

You need to know what fits your immediate situation, and your near future plans, as well as longer-term investment plans. Just buying the rate down may not be the most logical.

Being a first-time homebuyer in the Denver Real Estate Market is no easy feat. You're feeling it, your real estate agent is feeling it and I AM TOO! But this is your sign to not give up! We are giving you OPTIONS to get on the path to homeownership with flexible loan solutions, down-payment assistance programs, and creativity in terms of location and type of home (AKA a duplex ;D). While the first home may not be the dream home, it's a stepping stone to getting there.

Some points to be aware of if you are considering a multi-unit plan:

First-time homebuyers - be aware if you are doing multiple-unit - know all the HOA, taxes, and insurance fees.
Having property managers for rental properties can really help you only put 3.5% down.
If you are thinking you can boost your qualifying by counting that roommate income, you can't use roommate income to qualify. Only rental income from a LEGAL unit qualifies.
Having an auxillary dwelling unit, basement unit may help with your monthly income, but it cannot be used if it is a single family home. This is why a legal duplex is so much better.

As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to give my team a call!

Typically VA loans have their own acceptance problems because they are 100% loans. Rethink them and all of these options covered in this episode. VA, FHA, Jumbo and Jumbo LLC loans can give buyers OPTIONS to get into a home and start building equity; so that one day they can afford to get into their forever dream home. There are several loan options for buyers that may not have all of the ideal qualifications, money down or budget to compete in the Denver Real Estate Market. It's hard. We know that. But here is what you need to know about 4 Loan Programs that are lesser-known, but can open the door to homeownership. Let's get creative and talk about multi-units.

If any of these solutions spark your interest, or you have any other questions, please reach out to my team and me using the information below.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicoleruet Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

How much over asking do I need to go? It's an intense market. Is it necessary to bid over the asking price right out of the gate in the Denver Real Estate Market? Market trends die out before home buyers can catch up. So, whether or not you go in swinging big, this episode may help you decide. You may have to prepare yourself and ask the big question, "Can I have the last ask?"

Market trends die out before home buyers can catch up. So, whether or not you go in swinging big is really up to you! Communicate with your agent and ask:

How much over the asking price should you bid?
When will I break even?
Is that dollar amount over ask and the time to make it back worth it for you?

These are all questions you should ask yourself when deciding if bidding $100K over ask is reasonable given your specific situation.

Denver appreciated 19.1% over the last year alone. 60% of all homes are selling over asking prices. The Denver Real Estate Market came in strong and fast in 2022. That fact, coupled with Russia's global actions is going to have an impact on our housing market more than just the liquidity we see circulating. It will continue to put upward pressure on a rising inflationary market, increasing the cost of everything. 2022 housing buzz words will include terms like global impact, market velocity, inventory shortage, shifting interest rates, insatiable buyer demand, rising inflation, and affordability. So, what are mortgage rates doing and where do we go from here?

We are blessed to have the problems that we have and the problems that I'm dealing with the last couple weeks and the debilitating back pain. It just makes me start thinking about how minor that is compared to everything else that's happening. I'm gonna think about this in terms of housing because that's the world I live in and what impact this has on our interest rates.

Right now, we're watching the 10 year bond, which was up over two. Remember in our 30 year fixed rate, went over four. Now it's starting to come back down. It had come down to just below two. It was at 1.97. Uh, Russia started to invade Ukraine, uh, and there was this fear of higher inflation. So it was this tug of war of whether or not the 10 year was gonna benefit from that of this flight to a safety as people move their money away from stocks and into bonds, or if we were going to continue to go up with this risk, uh, and threat of inflation, which was pushing rates up to who's gonna win well today, today risk wins today. There continues to be a flight to safety.As we see in Russia, there's a run on the banks right now, as Russia just increased their Central Bank Rate. What we call fed rate. They increased theirs from nine to 20% overnight because of this run on the banks. People don't wanna keep their money in the savings account. So what they're trying to do is raise that interest rate on the savings account and say, "Please keep your money here". They wanna pull it out and they wanna put it somewhere. The Ukrainians are turning to Bitcoin and they're putting their money in Bitcoin today to get it out of its government currency to yield it somehow. And somehow that's the easiest access is to buy Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the beneficiary of that. It's going up, but I can't quite figure out if that's really a safety net. I mean, gold used to be, which is kind of dismissed today. And, asI look at this and try to think of Bitcoin as the answer. I can't wrap my head around that. I feel like the Ukrainians are pushing the value up and they're buying it at an increasing cost. And as they buy it at an increasing cost and they push a price up, will that price drop back down again and lose a lot of their value?

So as inflation continues to go up, this fixed cost of a mortgage payment is gonna help you offset rising rates. If, as a hedge of inflation, real estate continues to be rockstar it's at the top of the investment pile in my book and with interest rates as low as they are now, seemingly going lower this morning, we're at 1.77 on the 10 year treasury. So the today risk is that inflation could come back. The fed has said that the 50 B increase in March is probably off the table as Powell has to figure it out. Did he wait too long?

The answer is yes, but you couldn't have known that. Hindsight's 20/20, right?

Did he say that inflation was temporary for too long?

Did he dismiss it as just this passing of this coronavirus and, and say that the economy was gonna come back, and everything was gonna be fine?

And then of course the timing of Russia invading Ukraine. Who could could have known the timing of that. And the impression on that on trying to curb inflation when oil prices are going up and the cost in Russia. Russia is the number one supplier of fertilizer. So the cost of our vegetables and our produce in the spring is gonna go up. The cost of microchips, if China decides to back Russia and take Taiwan, Taiwan is the number one supplier of microchips, that's gonna increase the cost of everything.

The world's events and tragedies affect us all beyond finances and interest rates. The emotional effect also plays into our economy, even though it's "not happening here" it's still happening and affecting millions of people. Please listen to this episode as we talk about how this affects what we personally can control, our financial empire through real estate. Please tell me the thoughts you have on this current situation in Ukraine.

Run through this list of five things you can do to avoid delaying closing, or botching up the entire deal.

Changing jobs.

Sometimes you don't think about it. You're like, but I took a job that has better pay or better opportunity. Well changing jobs and pay, changing your pay structure could disqualify you for that loan. So if you go going to do it, which you can, but if you're going to do it, make sure that you talk to your lender, give them all the specifics for your new job and have them run the scenarios to make sure that that job still qualifies you for this purchase.

Paying your bills on time.

Nobody wants to or sets out to paying bills late, but this time is critical. So a lender will have pulled your credit prior to you going under contract. We're gonna have to pull your credit again, three to eight days before closing, if you have a jumbo or conventional loan, we don't have to do that for FHA a and VA. But if I have to pull your credit again, and now I see a judgment or a collection, or I see higher balances or a new credit card, well, I have to stop and assess the damage that might have done to your credit score and your ability to afford this home. So lay low on the credit use during the period of time, make sure that you're staying in communication.

Communicate! You have a full time job, and I get that.

But as your lender, it's my job to get you to the closing table on time with the least amount of stress. Well, if you can't get back to me except for on weekends, or maybe only at night, it might delay the process. If I'm waiting for a documentation. So stay in communication with your lender, try to respond as quickly as possible and let them know how you like to communicate.

Going on vacation.

I don't know how this works, but it always seems to be that you find the perfect home right before your trip to Mexico. How does that happen? But it does.

Spending your cash to close.

We wanna let you know what money you need up front for the down payment for the closing costs. If you have other opportunities that present during that period of time, you're under contract, maybe now is not the time to take on the at new investment. Make sure you're speaking with your lender. How much money specifically do I need? And in what accounts are gonna paper trail your bank accounts. We don't want you spending, maybe there's another account that we can't use for some reason, and we need the money in that account

Don't get outbid or underfunded due to appraisals. You might bid $20,000, $30,000, $50,000 or even $100,000 over the asking price, and it may seem obscene to you. But, if I pay $100,000 over asking, and overvalue, how long will it take to make that value back? You'll still make it back and quickly. Denver Metro appreciate lately at double digits during the past couple of years. Will you purchase this and is this the height or is this a bubble?

We have a strong economy underneath to help ensure you will make back that additional money you spent to secure the home of your dreams. Prices of homes will not come down. Builders can't build their way out of this because of supply chain issues.

The largest group of home buyers is 30. We have the next 2 to 3 years of supply issues to contend with. So you may be asking, "How do I get in? What are some of the hacks I can use?"

Let's talk about appraisals.

Desktop Appraisals:

It had been that you could request a desktop appraisal if you know that a seller had COVID, or requests to have a desktop appraisal to avoid having people over. This means the information is gathered from comps, historical data, past photos of condition inside and out.

This has stopped, but a variation is restarting. The pandemic is no longer a valid reason. Sandra Thompson said she'd bring it back in January. That didn't happen until now. It's very small. You can request a desktop appraisal, AUS for conventional only, Fannie, Freddie, not FHA, purchased as a primary residence with a minimum of 10% down. If you do a desktop appraisal and it comes in low if it goes higher than 90%. Let's do the math. $600,000 home. You put $60m000 down. If the value comes in at $560,000, now the loan is no longer at 90% because of that. If that happens, Fannie and Freddie will keep using a desktop appraisal, it won't go away.

When do you want o use a desktop appraisal?

Absolutely you want one if the listing agent has pictures of the home that are better than the current conditions.

You've done the walk-through, you'll do the inspection. But from a value perspective if I know the house has gone through some wear and tear, if it's currently being rented, or there are extenuating circumstances that would detract from the overall experience of the appraiser when they walked through it. What if the home backs up to a grocery store? Is that a distractor? No. But if there's nothing hiding that. That may affect the experience of the appraiser again. They are supposed to be completely unaffected by these factors, but they are human.

When you do not want to use a desktop appraisal?

When you are on point, remodels done, etc. when you want measurements to be done, you want a full report.

The benefit of a desktop appraisal is that anyone involved can give it to the appraisal company - photos, comps, etc. to the appraiser to evaluate. The agents can meet the appraiser at the home with a comparables package.

Speed and price are factors too. It may be faster if there are not many appraisers in the area. Denver - appraisers are bored. Not enough for them to do.

This is coming back as an option March 6.

Appraisal Waiver

An appraisal waiver can get when you run through the AUS and it tells you that data from Fannie and Freddie, had a loan, and it was insured by Fannie or Freddy. That database can determine the appropriate value of that home based on the appreciation numbers that exist and past history. The value that is put in the file was within the bracket too.

Example: listed $739k, $851k offer, and got appraisal waiver?

This means you do not need to order an appraisal as long as the parameters of that loan don't change.

What if you put 20% down, and then changed it to 15%,? You could lose the appraisal waiver because you changed the parameters of the loan.

They can be run before you go under contract. If you don't get it, the loan will be terminated based on the non-fulfillment of that contract.

Appraisal Gap Insurance.

If you go in with an asking price of$739,000 and offered $851,000, what if you don't get the waiver? "I'll cover the gap". 20% down, shift the loan to value and absorb the difference and not have that buyer bring extra to the closing table. This is also known as mortgage insurance.

Feels like cash is king. It's extremely competitive.

What are the disadvantages if I don't have cash?

In the last 30 days in the Denver market, 18.7% of the closings were done with cash. The remainder had a loan. You have only a slight disadvantage, but you are not in an end-all situation.

Know your appraisal options. The Rueth Team Fairway Mortgage can do a TBD underwrite before you find the property so you can close it in 8-10 days. Learn more about this option by calling our office.

In this episode, we talk about how volatile interest rates are and what you can do to avoid the heartbreak of not qualifying for the home of your dreams. 80% of Americans 75% of their net wealth is in their singular home. What about the number of people in the 80% that don't have a home? They just lost 75% of their opportunity to build their net wealth. They are relying on their 401K, basic savings.

What if the jump in interest rates put you at the 50% balance to debt ratio. Your options thinned out quickly. You are now high risk, with less available for a percentage down, so the interest rates are higher. You need to be strategic and bring all the options out to explore them so you can get the house of your dreams.

The situation with Russia and Ukraine is affecting the markets and the interest rates. You need to have current information and not rely on an older lender letter. You will be heartbroken when you no longer qualify for the home you are searching for. Make sure your interest rate is secure.

Interest rates are going up with the Fed too. Rates jumped up last week to over 7%.

It's a fair question... why are interest rates rising? A combination of international politics putting a strain on inflation and large flights of safety to sell stocks, it's causing turbulence on our market. When rates jump and move around so quickly, it affects affordability. Knowing the affects on conforming, high balance and jumbo loans is important so you can advise your clients on their next move! Listen to this episode for helpful tactics and information from Nicole Rueth.

Sure you can buy your rate down, but does that actually benefit you the most? What about eliminating some debt on something with a high rate of interest or a high balance? What about mortgage insurance? Do you need it or can you buy your way out of that with the money you would have used to buy your points down? There are so many factors to consider and no one right answer. PLEASE listen to this episode to have a better list of options before you make that decision.

Creating or finding a home to age in place can be difficult. You may feel you don't have options to move. You could pull equity out of your home, but you still need that age-appropriate home. Enter the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage for Purchase (HECM).

Let's say you are living in a home with a $750,000 value. Your mortgage balance is around $150,000. That leaves you with $600,000 of equity, minus closing fees and costs nets you around $550,000 profit upon sale. It can be tough to find an age-appropriate home for $550,000 today.

Nicole's guest, Gabe Bodner, Reverse Mortgage Specialist at The Rueth Team Fairway Mortgage, gives an example of how this works.

BUT, if you take the $550K, find a home for $650K to buy. You are able to put 50% as a down payment - that's $325,000. If you walked away from your previous home with $550,000, that's a boatload of cash AND a new age-appropriate home And, there is no required mortgage payment with the HECM. When the loan comes due, the home is sold to pay off the loan. Since your home will continue to build equity, you or your heirs will still end up ahead and you will have made no mortgage payments.

Interest rates have been on a downward trend since 1981 when the 30-year fixed rate hit 18.5%. Just three years ago they were almost 5%. Now, news cycles are headlining rates jumping from 2.625 to 3.25% in 2021 and climbing from 3.25 to 3.5% in 2022.

If you bought your first home in the 80’s, 90’s, or even 2000’s, you're laughing out loud when the words “jumped” and “climbing” are used with rates in the low 3’s.

The low rates in 2020 and 2021 both propelled and offset the insanity which was extreme housing demand with a limited supply. I don’t have to remind you of what happened, but it does beg the question…

Where do we go from here?

Agents, do you want more listings? Who do you know who is retired, nearing retirement, in an age-inappropriate home, and has equity which gives them options? Our Retirement Mortgage Specialist, Gabe Bodner joins me today and we are discussing how you can help your clients take advantage of a Reverse Mortgage, and get you more listings, especially in the crazy low inventory Denver market!

Feel free to reach out to Gabe and his team directly at: gabe@bodnerteam.com or 720-600-4870

Back out now? Or stay in the game? Well, the politician's answer is, "It depends." Every home and buyer situation is different, so this question should be assessed as such. If you or your buyer are unsure about anything in the inspection report, are unsure of any conditions, or feel it's just not the right move, have an "A-Team" on standby to answer questions and assess situations on a case by case basis. Get some quick tips to determine the best course of action in this episode of the Double Comma Club, "When should you back out of a deal?"

In this episode you'll also get a taste of Nicole's dream in an unlimited future ala Kenny Rogers.

This episode is for agents AND sellers. With inventory so tight, we have to be on point with our lending solutions because BUYERS NEED AN EDGE. Here's what that looks like appraisal gap insurance, appraisal waivers, earnest money guarantees, and loan objection waivers. PLUS all the creative loans to match the opportunity.

What is a TBD underwrite? This is where you disclose the loan, gather all income and asset documentation, we completely underwrite that file for a particular TBD purchase price, with estimated insurance, taxes and amount down, qualify to verify income and assets, then all you need is the property. That can give you the ability to waive the loan objection. Would this help you the buyer gain an edge? You bet it will!

Nicole and her team are specialists in this to help your buyers, agents. Buyers, ask your agent to get help with this. There are more tips in this episode that will help you purchase the property you have found. This will tell people you are good as cash when it comes to the loan.

We still need to go through the inspection and appraisal process, but as a verified cash buyer you have a huge advantage. She also covers appraisal gap insurance and the logic behind it.

There are bonus tips for credit repair.

Some people are better off renting. You'll have to decide where you are today. You can go back and forth from owner to renter and back again. Please consider these big points.

Homeownership advantages:

Building equity/wealth
Adding to your credit profile
Stability - especially with children in school districts
Possible tax advantages
Ability to upgrade to add-on, remodel - make it your own.

Disadvantages to buying:

Costs more upfront
You have to pay for the maintenance
Apply and get approved for a loan
You can lose money

Renting Advantages

The epitome of flexibility and freedom
Less up front costs, other than security and first and last.
No responsibility for maintenance even thou
No ancillary fees such as higher insurance and taxes.

Negatives to renting:

Not building equity
You'll possibly have to move several times that are not in your control
No long-term tax advantages

This story of using real estate to fund a dream makes me smile each time I think about it. I'm joined by my friend Olivia Kuynevicius, an agent with MilehiModern. It demonstrates the power of real estate and the opportunities owning a home creates. On this episode of Financing The American Dream, I and my dear friend Olivia spotlighted her client Cynthia, who just opened a coffee shop in Denver, Colorado... using the Equity in her Homes! Owning real estate quite literally opens so many doors toward financial well-being, you just have to see it for yourself! Join us for this episode spotlighting Cynthia Diaz, Owner, Tonantzin Casa de Café in Denver.

Do you know what your dollar per hour is? How do you value yourself and your time? Do you have a fear of delegation? These are just a few of the key points that this incredible panel will be speaking on at THE NEXT BIG THING. With how quickly our market moves, it's crucial to learn time (and money) saving tactics to increase your dollar per hour. LEARN MORE & PURCHASE TICKETS at: www.thenextbigthingcolorado.com

Say hello to Jay Clark, Nicole's personal financial advisor! Jay has been her advisor for some time now and specializes in portfolio management that includes real estate investments. He's a rare breed of financial advisors that is able to weave real estate into the big plan for building your financial empire. You'll want to hear this taken from an Agent Ignite panel discussion in October 2021.

About Jay:

Jay Clark, Founder of Lucet Advisors has been helping business owners and individuals since 2002. Certified Exit Planner (CExP™) and Financial Advisor. He focuses his practice on business owners, healthcare professionals, and pre-retirees. Not a Denver native, but grateful to call it home since 2000. Proud father of 3 boys, active outdoor lifestyle.

When you want to start looking to purchase a home, one of the very first things that you're going to want to do is get a lender letter, and that realtor that you're shopping with is going to ask, have you talked to a lender yet? Do you have a lender letter? And you're, what's a lender letter? Well, that's what I want to talk to you about today. What is a lender letter and is that all it is?

No, there're several levels to lender letters. So let's talk about it. The very first out of the gate, a lender letter simply states your information as well as the qualification for your loan. So it's going to say something like John Doe, with all of your address and your information, is qualified to purchase a home for the purchase price of $400,000, with a down payment of 10%, using a conventional loan. That would imply that when your numbers were run and your financials were reviewed, you qualified for a $360,000 loan.

Now, at that point, you can put any amount down based on the loan program chosen, and you can go up or down in purchase price based on that. But ultimately, it's the loan amount that caps you out. And then if you only have 3% down or 5% down or 20% down, it will start to shift what that purchase price is. So that's the basics of a lender letter, and maybe it says something about the lender or the lending organization. Maybe it says what it's qualified based on. Maybe it has some criteria on it, that it's based on the sale of another home, or maybe it's based on you getting that job that you already have a job offer on, or maybe it has some other qualifying factor, but that's the basic premises of a lender letter. Now, what are the levels of lender letters? That's an interesting question because usually, people don't talk about that.

They just simply say, do you have a lender letter? Well, you start out with a pre-qualified lender letter. What is that? That means you filled out a loan application, whether you did it on your phone, online, or you did it in person, or over the phone with your loan officer, you completed a loan application. And in that loan application, you stated things about your financials. You stated how much money you have in the bank. You said how long you've been on your job, how long you've been at this address, and other pertinent information.

And based on all the information that you entered into that loan application, you're qualified. You're qualified for this loan amount. Now that's level one. It's the very basic of levels. It means that as a loan officer, I have not verified all of that information yet. Now, I'll send you a list of documents that [00:03:00] I want to review and those list of documents, we're going to cover on another video, but I'm going to send you a list of documents that I'm going to want to review that authorize or give credence to all of the facts you put in that loan application.

And so once I've verified how long you've actually been on the job, I verified exactly how much money you have in those bank accounts. Maybe I verified how long you've lived at different addresses or who else might be on the loan with you. All of these things, we've verified all of the facts through third party, documentation, or verifications. Once that's done, I now have a pre-approved lender letter. So it upgraded from pre-qualified to pre-approved.

There's one more level. That means if I've taken all those documents and I've submitted it into underwriting, and that can take a couple of days to a couple of weeks, depending on underwriting turn times. [00:04:00] But if I've submitted your full loan, the loan application, all of the supporting documentation, and I've submitted it into underwriting and in turn, I've gotten a loan approval from the underwriter, well, that means I have a fully approved lender letter. Sometimes depending on the lender that you're working with, you could also so get an earnest money guarantee stamp on that.

And that's what we do at the Rueth Team. If we've fully underwritten your loan file, we'll say that your loan condition [00:04:30] is fulfilled and we'll guarantee your earnest money based on the loan condition deadline. Now you'll still have other conditional deadlines on your contract, around the home, the appraisal, the inspection, any HOA docs if there is a homeowner's association. But per the loan, we're good to go. And that's an earnest money guarantee on a full approval lender letter. It makes a huge difference when you're going out shopping in a competitive real estate market. So make sure you ask the right questions. Ask your lender to upgrade your lender letter, and if you have any questions at all, I want you to make sure to ask for the Rueth Team. If you like this video, or you watch any other videos in this series, please make sure to like, subscribe, and follow our channel. I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Don't get sucked into a quick, easy online path of securing a lender letter. I know.. you're like.. but it's easy. I'm here to share that that "easy" online lender letter won't help you get under contract. When competition is fierce, stand out with a full Pre-Approval or TBD Underwritten Lender Letter. Pre-Qual? Pre-Approval? TBD Approval? It really matters! Have questions? Or want to get started today? Then give my team a call

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

All those loan documents you're receiving can seem super overwhelming! So, here's some insider knowledge to elaborate on what the documents are, and simplify what they all mean! You need to know these things - it's not complicated.

How much do I need to spend per month?
How much do I need to bring to the closing table?
A fee worksheet is a very first thing you will get from a lender or potential lender. Go through it line by line to really understand and get comfortable.

The fee worksheet is not regulated - depending on the lender, you'll want to ask a lot of questions.

Then you move on to a loan estimate which IS regulated. The fees can only go down, they cannot go up. Nothing the lender controls can change, except in your favor.

Get all the details in this episode. Subscribe to Nicole's Youtube channel to get all the guides through every step in the process of buying, selling and refinancing your home.

Chris Gordon loves what he does. He especially loves it when he has no juicy stories to bring home other than, "I worked with a bunch of nice people today that wanted to get their ducks in a row, so we set that up." He wishes younger people would set up their estates to have peace of mind, not just for themselves, but for those who will either care for them in the situation of an illness or accident, or those they leave behind. He has some great tips to add some humor to what can be an uncomfortable part of growing up. Even couples married for decades put this off and then there is no easy way to make transfers and act on behalf of the loved on or children if these pieces aren't in place. You'll gain a lot of comfort and information from this episode of The Double Comma Club.

Learn more about the services Chris Gordon offers at Stewart + Gordon.

We hear about owning short-term rentals. Many of us take advantage as we have started traveling again. Gone are the days when you could grab some random property in a decent area, furnish it with Goodwill furnishings, and make a profit after covering your mortgage. Listen as Nicole's guest Michael Vialpando makes it simple to understand how to do this, and enjoy the process.

What are the costs beyond the cost of the home you select? After you make an earnest money deposit, here are some of the costs and fees you can expect:

Inspection $450-600 Well, septic, sewer, radon may have additional fees.

Schedule the appraisal. $750 fee.

Title company $1000 - $1200 which includes lender fees - processing and underwriting fee. All lenders have a fee. They may bend on it, depending on your interest rate. They are doing a service and need to be paid.

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Setting up escrow - pay the full first year of insurance upfront. This can be rolled into the loan

2-3 months of escrowing that insurance payment.
2-3 months of your property taxes - which is an annual bill. A couple of months of buffer.
This could be anywhere from $7000 - $10,000 or more for those million dollars plus homes. Depends on the homeowner's insurance.

There are no more hidden fees - they all need to be upfront. They cannot go up, only down. Sometimes the seller pays for closing costs. VA loans could be with no money down. Call us if you have questions about your loan process for your next home.

I'm SO excited! The Next Big Thing is approaching and I can't wait. I will of course be there sharpening my own saw, but I will also be SPEAKING. I'll be giving the latest updates in Lending, and what to expect down the road. I hope you're as excited as I am; The Next Big Thing is coming, and we hope to see you there.

We are thrilled to have Katie and her expert panel speaking about Commercial real estate trends, and how that affects the Residential Real Estate Landscape. Katie is the CEO of the Denver Metro Commercial Association of Realtors, which represents 2,000 commercial real estate professionals across Colorado!

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It really is good to give, and we are thrilled to have Javier Alberto Soto, President and CEO of The Denver Foundation speaking at The Next Big Thing. Javier will be discussing how to integrate philanthropy into your business model, and the advantages of doing so.

Let's welcome Ann Alba and Stacey Veden, customer experience and service specialists from The Broadmoor Hotel. Combined, these 2 women have 34+ years of customer service experience and will be sharing how their principles translate to the world of real estate. You DON'T want to miss this dynamic duo share their keys to a 5-Star 5-Diamond experience.

Tickets available here: https://bit.ly/3iFGic4

Comparatives are funny because they can tell any story you want. The market is slowing down? The market is still nuts! The idea real estate is hyper-local is at its epitome in times like these. Nicole dives into the Denver Metro local numbers and a bit about the economy but let's start with a story because perspective is everything.

"One of our clients this past weekend put in an offer and the listing agent and friend, Maura Putnik, called me and shared the seller side experience.

Her $890,000 listing had 80 showings, 18 potential offers Six of those retreated when they heard where the price was headed, 12 written offers of which a few improved their offer, to have that one get the deal. In addition, four agents offered to submit a backup."

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If that’s slowing down, now I know why we are all exhausted. DMAR’s November Market Trends Report shows buyers deciding to fight the good fight regardless of rates going up. Active listings dropped back to 3,376, partially due to 13.28% fewer sellers (new listings) and 7.42% more buyers (under contract) than last month. Buyers today have 782 more homes to choose from compared to the hot Spring market, can take an extra day to view the home, and will pay almost 3% less over asking than they did in the Spring. However, compared to last Fall, this market is on fire! We have nearly 1,500 fewer homes to choose from, yet we put the same number under contract for 1.5% more in almost half the time.

So, Let’s Talk Rates. Are They Going Up? Or Down? The Federal Open Market Committee’s November meeting is happening as we go to print with this month’s Market Trends report. They are expected to announce the much-awaited tapering of $120 billion per month in agency mortgage-backed securities and Treasuries purchases. Powell will undoubtedly emphasize flexibility in his public remarks after the November meeting as the committee is likely to split on what actions to take. However, Fannie Mae, NAHB, NAR, and the MBA are sticking to their forecasts estimating 30-year mortgage rates hit 3.5 to 4% in 2022.

Home prices continue to increase, yet so do rents and the alternatives facing our first-time homebuyers today. And with the potential of rising rates, NOW is the time to jump in.

Do you currently own investment properties? OR Are you looking to begin your investment journey, but are hesitant due to low inventory? Well, we are here to tell you that deals ARE happening, and you CAN add exponential value to your real estate investment (or future investment). Jacob Mueller of Atlas Real Estate starts by explaining the differences and benefits of both ADUs and AFSs, as well as the rules, the effect on taxes, and more. But he mainly talks about maximizing your investment property with a simple math problem of the ratio of bedrooms and baths to square footage. We all are paying more for every piece of real estate. Get the most out of it now and in the future when you sell it. We know the level of commitment & financial assets needed to invest in real estate, so it's okay that the process comes with a bit of hesitation. But, there are plenty of options available for you to start with one or modify your current strategy that will add value to your property.

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Jacob Mueller is an experienced owner/professional with a demonstrated history across several industries including real estate, marketing, and software. Having grown up in the Pikes Peak region, I'm currently serving my clients' investment real estate needs with the outstanding Atlas Real Estate team.

The Next Big Thing is shaking up how Real Estate professionals will define business success. This two-day event will be far from typical. While our past may have shaped us, it is time to define the future. This energy-rich, content-driven event will introduce the biggest drivers shaping the industry, and instill how to harness the next big thing to catapult your own business.

Built on the foundation of helping others build wealth through real estate, The Rueth Team has created the ultimate tool that is The Next Big Thing. Over the course of two days, you will hear from industry leaders and pioneers who have paved the way and achieved the highest levels of success. They are leaders who inspire, and businessmen and women who are challeging the 'norm.' You'll discuss how the world is changing and what’s needed to stay two steps ahead. Together with four hundred and fifty other professionals, you will build a foundation to become the Next Big Thing.

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Speaker Numbers 1 and 2 at THE NEXT BIG THING will be... Caleb Jones and Dan Habib

At The Next Big Thing, Caleb will lead a panel of experts and futurists who are driving the next generation of real estate technology. They will discuss the immediate impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and industrial automation that will change how you and your partners engage. They will share the tools you can use right now to improve your overall effectiveness and efficiencies for business success.

Dan Habib is the executive vice president and co-founder of MBS Highway and most recently a co-founder of Crypto Charged, a cryptocurrency firm dedicated to disseminating critical information, data, and analysis. In 2020, Dan was named as one of the 40 most influential Mortgage Professionals under 40 by National Mortgage Professional (NMP) Magazine.

Speaker Number 3 at THE NEXT BIG THING will be... Kenyon Salo, The Bucket List Life

Kenyon Salo is one of the top keynote speakers and trainers in the fields of inspiration, leadership, and adventure.

One of only five members on the Denver Broncos Thunderstorm Skydive Team, he is seen each week during game season flying into the Denver Broncos Stadium at 60+mph, ending with a soft tip-toe landing on the ten-yard line. He brings to the stage over 20+ years of successful audience engagement through humor, awe-inspiring moments, prolific storytelling, and ‘edge-of-the seat’ content.

Kenyon’s mission is to give your event the next generation of keynote presentation experiences.

Speaker Number 4 at THE NEXT BIG THING will be... Adam Williams! The Rueth Team's own Adam Williams will be speaking all about Leads and how to acquire, sustain, convert and scale your lead generation process. Adam will lead the way to your business' success in 2022.

There is no denying that Lead Generation is becoming one of the largest and most active sources of finding your next prospect. We are inundated with companies offering “guaranteed” deals with lists of “hot” prospects. With all things in life, if it sounds too good to be true, more than likely it is. Adam is going to share how you can implement a lead generation program to fit to your business model and scale. Learn what the sources are for an automated lead and how you can open up your business to new sources of prospects.

Speaker Number 5 at THE NEXT BIG THING will be.... BRIAN MOSES!

Brian has been ranked in the Top 10 for a major Real Estate Franchise, from more than 140,000 agents, seven consecutive years! His highest ranking was #2 in the world! During his tenure, he sold more than 400 homes a year, producing sales volume of more than $100 million in volume, making over $3.5 million per year in commission income!

Speaker Number 6 at THE NEXT BIG THING will be... RYAN AVERY!

A world champion public speaker and coaching professional, Ryan will tell us how to go from "A" to "THE" agent/professional in 2022! This is your time to shine, we want you at The Next Big Thing!

When he came across the video of someone trying to win The World Championship of Public Speaking, he thought “Isn’t public speaking the hardest thing for some people to do, and aren’t most people more afraid of public speaking than anything else? What if I enter this contest? What if I have never given a speech in my life but win this contest? What if I win the world championship THIS year?”

Eight months later, Ryan became the youngest World Champion of Public Speaking in history competing against 30,000 people from 116 countries to win the World Championship of Public Speaking. It was the hardest thing Ryan had ever done… at the time! Ryan is still the youngest winner in history, but after becoming the World Champion, he wanted to see if he could apply the same principles and strategies he learned winning the contest to other things in his life.

Using the same strategies, Ryan has broken numerous world records, has written two best-selling books and works with companies all over the world showing them the strategies he used to go from A speaker to THE speaker in less than 8 months.

Stay tuned for more announcements about this event. You can learn more here https://thenextbigthingcolorado.com

We know just how stressful deciding to purchase a home can be, especially when you're already a homeowner! It can be nerve-wracking to think about purchasing a new home when you have hundreds of thousands of dollars already in your current asset...

BUT, THE FEAR STOPS HERE!

When it comes to buying and selling at the same time, or even purchasing before you sell, it is all about strategy and diving into the details. Sellers are in a very strong position in our market right now, so buyers who also have listings on the market have to come up with a strategy to make their offer stand out.

Join Nicole Rueth and Justin Knoll as you are given options to simplify this coordination.

There is a lot of math in this episode, important math. Listen while Nicole walks you through the cost of waiting to purchase a home, especially if you are currently paying rent. The last 18 months of everyone's lives have been exhausting. But putting off purchasing a home shouldn't be one of the things falling to the wayside. If you've been on the fence, now is the best time to buy. Why? It's not just because interest rates are low, it's because of the two-fold effect of appreciation and principal reduction. No matter how good of a deal you have on rent, you're not getting the best bang for your buck or making the most of the roof over your head. In fact, you'll lose out on quite a lot by waiting. But just how much...?

Learn more about building wealth through real estate on Nicole's YT Playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDnB7ZSa5nonyH6H8F9-RAS6AtdlOMo7Q

Use Real Estate to Pay For College! First-time homebuyer and investment property purchase. * How can I use equity to pay for college? * When should I start investing?

Nicole's personal experience. She had three in college at the same time - one graduated, two are still in. At 20, Nicole's two boys were able to purchase their first homes. They bought income property where they could live, and then become the landlords and rent out the other rooms in their homes to not only pay the mortgage but to help with cash flow.

Each home cost $400,000 with a 3% down as first-time homebuyer or could be done using downpayment assistance.

If you put less down, you'd still cover the mortgage with the income, but maybe not as much pocket money.

You can use your own home equity to purchase investment properties do follow this same model and cover room and board, and increase your real estate portfolio. Consider this option instead of a 529 plan. That home you purchase for your child when they are born could appreciate over the next 15-18 years and will pay for college, or a whole lot more using the rental income and principal reduction. It could help pay for their first home and even their wedding, PLUS their education.

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OK, say you didn't plan this when they were born. Here are a couple of things to consider. You can put 10% down to help with cash flow, but if the kids did it on their own, they could have gone after downpayment assistance. 3% or 3.5% down FHA is a great start.

Room and board are two of the most expensive items to factor in for an education.

Think about a single-family home that has a rental-able basement, building in the yard, garage. Or maybe further away from campus. The answer is a creative YES - how do you do this in a hot market?

Listen to this 10 minute episode. You'll want to listen to the credit series on how to increase your credit score to learn more.

5 Important Things You Need To Know About Your Personal Credit Score What You Need to Know About Debt to Income Ratio

What is debt to income ratio? Which is different than what is my monthly budget. All right? Because I really want to just land there just for a second. Because it's super important that when you're going out looking for a home, you've identified what is that monthly number, that monthly payment that fits with the rest of your lifestyle? Because it's really easy to fall in love with a house that's higher than your budget. I mean, the higher you go, the prettier they get. Right? But that might not work with the fact that you want to start a family. You want to buy a car. You want to go on vacations. Maybe you want to build up investments to secure your financial freedom and retirement. All of those things should be talked about, discussed with your lender. Bringing in all the other things about your life to ensure that you pick the house payment that allows you to have a life, not just live in a home. Lisren to this episode to get the full story and why you need to know its affect on your credit score.

Do you know what goes into a credit score? We're going to be going through a five-part series to share with you what you need to know.

What makes a credit score? Let's start off with the five factors that can ultimately affect your score: payment history amounts owed, length of history, credit mix, and credit inquiries for new credit. The first three go hand in hand. Your payment history will appear in your credit report for all of your open and active trade lines. Payment history demonstrates how you were able to manage your debt over a period of time. Paying your bills on time consistently yields a higher credit score, and in turn, allows you to borrow more money.

Additionally, the longer your history of consistency exists, the higher your score will be. I mean, this is important, because while you're shopping for a home, do not close any accounts as that cuts your history short. Also, keep your balances low, ideally below 30% of the credit limits and make sure above all else, keep making your payments on time. I mean, if you're looking to purchase a home, now is not the time to miss a payment. Even if it's by accident, a missed payment can drop your score by as much as a hundred points.

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Credit Type Inquiries As we're talking about credit, many people don't realize the types of credit you can have affects your score. I mean, did you know that people with student loans can sometimes have the very best credit scores? Creditors are looking for a good mix of revolving credit, installment debt, lines of credit, and mortgage history, but don't worry if you're a first-time homebuyer having several credit cards, a student loan, and even a car loan is a great mix. Just keep those payments low. So your debt to income ratio is strong.

Inquiries also affect your credit report. I mean, think about it this way, a creditor's going to look at your attempts to get additional lines of credit with concern. If you're continually applying for credit cards, cars, or other debt, and don't have new trade lines to show for it, it will count against you. It can also count against you if you've applied for a lot of credit in a short period of time, that's why, although credit inquires fall off over time, they can leave a stain on your credit if too many of them exist.

Credit Utilization So we're talking about credit score optimization, and I want to ask, have you heard the term credit utilization? It simply means the ratio between your credit line limit and your current loan balance. Keeping your current balances on your open accounts below 30% of the limits is key for keeping a healthy score, and especially allows you to take advantage of some of these new market opportunities, like first-time homebuyer purchase programs, or buying your first investment property, a tip to get your credit utilization down without having to pay any money out of pocket is to request a credit line increase. If you've had a card for over six months with a good payment history, you may be able to get a credit line increase, which improves your overall credit profile.

Opening a new account can also improve your credit utilization. Now, be aware that new accounts are just that, they're new, and any new activity on your credit report, no matter how high the credit limit can be viewed as a negative action and cause your score to temporarily decrease before it goes back up longterm. So don't do this right before applying for a mortgage.

Paying Down Debt If you're like most Americans, you probably have credit card debt that's keeping your credit score low. If you're looking to purchase a home, coming up with a pay-down strategy is key to your success. I mean, you can focus on the credit utilization method we talked about in our last video, or you can even keep it simpler by focusing on paying off debt with higher interest rates first. Those higher interest rate cards are building up higher balances every single day with the added interest. Then as you pay off each one of those cards, you can use what's called the debt snowball system, where, as you pay off debts, you apply that same amount plus what you were already paying towards that singular debt, as in the minimum payments, towards the next credit card or loan. You keep doing this, paying off each credit card in full, and then applying that entire amount to the next one until finally you get them all paid off.

And while being completely debt-free feels great, it is not our requirement to own a home, nor is it an impediment to homeownership. Often you can begin creating wealth while paying down your debt.

Become an Authorized User to Improve Your Score As we wrap up our series on credit scoring, I want to talk about one of the quickest ways to increase your credit score. And that's by becoming an authorized user on a family member's credit card, being an authorized user, you will get all of their histories. So make sure that you know that they have an established on-time payment history with the specific credit account that you're going to co-sign on. Credit cards with a longer open history pack a bigger punch because they show responsibility over time. This is particularly helpful if you're a parent, and you're wanting to help set up your child for success. I added all three of my kids to my accounts when they were 16 years old to help them build their credit. Then when they were 18, they were quickly approved for their own credit card. This way by that they were ready to purchase a home at 20, they had a credit score of over 740. I mean, that's a game-changer.

If you've enjoyed this series, I'd love to share more and set up a plan that's just right for you, based on the goals that you have for homeownership.

You've been listening to the Double Comma Club. Never miss an episode, subscribe at thedoublecommaclub.com, or your favorite podcast venue to hear more success stories, get free tips on how you can get on the path to becoming a millionaire through real estate at any age. If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy our YouTube channel. Just look for the Rueth Team on YouTube or visit our site, theruethteam.com.

Purchasing your first home is a major accomplishment .. it’s also stressful, daunting, and overwhelming! Knowing exactly where to start the journey to homeownership will allow you to optimize the most of your available time, money, and energy. So first steps first... do you talk to a real estate agent or lender first?

If you are a first-time homebuyer, you may not even have those names to fill in the blanks. The best practice is to start with people you trust. Who in your life do you know who is a realtor, a lender, or maybe someone who just purchased a home and had a great experience? These initial contacts might not be where you land, but picking their brain on why they liked working with their team can give you a good direction to start from.

As a lender, I want to say everyone should first dial in their credit availability, payment budget, and optimal purchase price before looking at homes. But sometimes people get excited... I get it. Looking at homes is a lot sexier than talking about financing. But the last thing you want is to find the perfect home $25,000 outside of your budget. You will also want to find a realtor who specializes in the type of home or location desired. Let's take Denver Metro for example. You would think anyone can go anywhere, but looking at horse property with a well and septic, versus condos downtown, versus multiunits in the suburbs can take a different skill and a focused search. Talk to your agent openly about what is important to you to ensure there is a match.

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Getting pre-qualified or, better yet pre-approved is an essential step in your home purchasing journey. If you want to learn more about the differences, click on this link to a video where I share how to make your offer stand out from the crowd in this competitive market, and definitely catch the section where I touch on my team's earnest money pre-approval guarantee. It’s a game-changer.

Your realtor and lender should be YOUR TEAM. Working together to get you to the finish line. Ask them questions and know that they are there to support your journey into homeownership. So, what’s the answer? Do you find your lender or your realtor first? The answer is either, but make sure you have the right CONVERSATIONS first. Making sure your team understands your clearly defined goals and guidelines will set you up for success in your path to homeownership

Want to talk more about your specific goals? give us a call. We’d be honored to go to work for you.

Nicole Rueth with the Rueth Team.

The table below is taken from Tracey Wilson's presentation at the Agent Ignite session. These are derived from his research. If you have questions, please visit his website. This is the BIG RED button he talks about in this presentation.

Here is the PowerPoint from this presentation.

Here are a few points covered:

1)American Rescue Plan: $1.9 trillion for COVID Stimulus Package

Passed even though $800 billion of the previously passed $2.2 trillion CARES Act (passed 3/20/20) had not been spent yet

2)American Jobs Plan: $2.3 trillion for infrastructure

Raise the corporate tax rate to 28%
Increase the global minimum tax paid to 15%
Impose a corporate minimum tax on book income
Eliminate tax benefits for the oil and gas fossil fuels sector
Increase corporate tax enforcement

3)American Family Plan: $1.8 trillion for universal pre-K, free community college, SLD $50K forgiveness, paid family leave

Raise individual income taxes
Raise cap gains tax rate
Increase estate tax
Limit step-up in basis

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Here's the math

$1.9 trillion
$2.3 trillion
$1.8 trillion

= $6 trillion

for new spending...

Current federal debt is $28 trillion...

Plus $6 trillion would make U.S. federal debt $34 trillion

U.S. debt-to-income ratio would be 154%...

The July DMAR Market Trends data was released this week, and there are two notable trends. First, when comparing 2021 to pre-covid 2019, our seasonality is falling back into normal ranges. We have a healthy influx of listings which were up 8 percent, 2 percent more homes went under contract, and there were 7.5 percent more closings when compared to 2019, yet we continue to see three times the price growth. If I return to our current month-over-month or year-over-year and stop there, we are bleeding red.

But the real story is in the green. Green month-over-month active listings are eluding to hope that more balance is on its way, yet green double-digit annual closed prices say that balance may not arrive too quickly. The second trend that stuck out is that year-to-date, homes priced over $500,000 are flying off the shelves compared to 2020 and 2019, with more homes at higher prices coming on the market, going under contract, and closing. Year to date 54 percent of all homes sold in the Denver market were over $500,000. In July, that number spiked to 74 percent. Where did all of the under $500,000 priced homes go?

Nicole welcomes Tracey Wilson of Investment Property Exchange Services. You can find him at ipx1031.com. Ipx1031 has provided its clients with superior qualified intermediary services for three decades. And each year they assist thousands of clients and their tax and legal advisors by providing proven exchange solutions that best achieve the client's goals of enhancing their business portfolios and preserving equity. But he'll tell you more about that at the beginning of this episode. This is a two-part episode. There is so much to learn. This first one covers the basics you need to know as an agent and as an investor, about a 1031 exchange to avoid capital gains taxes. He will give you guidance, no matter how creative you think you are, he will have solutions and some recommendations to keep you out of hot water with the IRS. Listen to this episode now.

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6 Rules of a 1031 Exchange:

Held for investment Owned and treats as investment for usually 1 year and 1 day.
45-day ID rule - up to 3 properties
180-day rule - 180 days to close on one or more of identified properties
QI requirements IRS Mandates client us a QI QI cannot be their attorney or accountant Client cannot touch the money during the exchange
Reinvestment requirements or equal or up Rule: Zero taxes: buy = or higher, and reinvest all the cash If you buy down, then perhaps it's "boot" and there is some tax, but the rest of the exchange is OK
Title Requirements Must close and take title on the new property exactly as title was held on the old property but tax return trumps title.

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The full transcript for this valuable episode is here:

Announcer (00:14):

Welcome to another episode of the Double Comma Club with your host Nicole Rueth of the Rueth Team, the number one lending team in Colorado. Join us today for this special episode of the Double Comma Club, where Nicole welcomes Tracey Wilson of Investment Property Exchange Services. You can find him at ipx1031.com. Ipx1031 has provided its clients with superior qualified intermediary services for three decades. And each year they assist thousands of clients and their tax and legal advisors by providing proven exchange solutions that best achieve the client's goals of enhancing their business portfolios and preserving equity. But he'll tell you more about that at the beginning of this episode. This is a two-part episode. There is so much to learn. This first one covers the basics you need to know as an agent and as an investor, about a 1031 exchange to avoid capital gains taxes. He will give you guidance, no matter how creative you think you are, he will have solutions and some recommendations to keep you out of hot water with the IRS. Listen to this episode now.

Nicole Rueth (01:26):

So Mr. Tracey Wilson, love it that you're joining us. Thank you so much.I work with a lot of investors, my husband and I, in fact, we had a small house that we did a 1031 exchange with, with you earlier this year, because we were like, we don't know where that's going now. Could we have held onto that home and continue to allow it to grow? Yes, but we also had an opportunity. And so I'd love to hear where things are going. And I definitely know there's a lot of money moving in 1031 exchanges. I continue to hear the story where people get caught, not fulfilling some of the guidelines. That you've got to spend all the money you make, not just the net revenue and there are nuances that I know that you're going to share that I know catch people by surprise.

Tracey Wilson (02:19):

Sure. You don't have to do the exchange for all the money, if you sell for 300 grand and you buy something that's 250,000, you can certainly do that, it's just that you'll pay the tax on the difference, demand you buy down. But you're right, if you want, no taxes buy something that's equal or greater in value. So yeah. You're spot on. You guys did that, didn't you?

Nicole Rueth (02:40):

We did. Well, we didn't spend it all. We paid some taxes. Although, having said that my CPA was very happy about that. He says you could use a little bit of a loss.

Tracey Wilson (02:50):

You could use, wow. Okay. There are weird CPAs. All right. Okay. We're going to dive right into it here. We're going to first start talking about 1031 exchange changes, and then we're going to transition into something that I think is probably as important, if not more important and that is the coming proposed tax changes. So I'm going to dive into this. I like it when people feel free to interrupt and ask questions as we go along. Let me tell you a little bit about our company. The name of it is Investment Property Exchange Services. You can see with a big, long name like that we're trying to short it up just IPX, the one which is also our website, it's a very user-friendly website. Who the heck are we? We are 33 of us now attorneys and CPAs nationwide, including our paralegals and the exchange coordinators and the banking staff. We're about 400 and some employees, we're wholly owned by Fidelity. So we have some very deep but natural pockets.

Tracey Wilson (03:51):

We actually are the largest qualified intermediary in the United States. We even do exchanges internationally as well. So last year we did just a smidgen under 11 billion with B dollars, 1031s. In Colorado, we set a record of which I own a franchise of $600 million in 1031 exchanges. That was for all of last year. I need to tell you something, so far this year as of July the ninth, Friday numbers. So we are on target, who knows what's going to happen. We're on target to almost double last year's volume, which last year was a record-breaking year already. So there is a heck of a lot of 1031 exchanges being done nationwide. So we do all types of 1031 exchanges, the regular forward exchange, we do reverse exchanges where you want to buy, the client wants to buy their new replacement property first, we also do exchanges on things other than just real estate.

Tracey Wilson (04:50):

We do exchanges on the oil and gas and water rights and minerals and waste systems, air rights. We also do exchanges in which the client may want to make improvements or do some construction to their new replacement property. And there's a way to do that while the property is parked or temporarily owned by us IPX. And just for whatever it's worth, we used to be able to do exchanges on businesses. Like when somebody sold, for example, a 711, we did the exchange not only on the real estate but also on the gas pumps and on the hotdog rollers and on the slaggy machines, the capital assets of the business. We are no longer able to do those personal property exchanges, cars, price, boats, equipment. We were the largest, exchanger of intellectual property from Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Oracle, all that is gone. It was wiped out of the tax code with the tax cuts in Jobs Act. We can only do exchanges now on real property.

Tracey Wilson (05:52):

If you have any questions about a 1031 exchange, give me or Denita a phone call, we can help answer your questions right there on the phone. But as a good resource, our website, you can actually start an exchange immediately online. You don't even have to talk to anybody. We have calculators that'll figure out what your capital gains and basis is. I prefer that you would call me in that regard because the calculator is limited in terms of its assumptions. And I can do the same thing in about three or four minutes, and you actually understand what's going on. We also have calculators for the 45, 180 days, and we have a knowledge center that has a single-page answer to any 1031 exchange question you could possibly have. And a brand new feature on our website, are little one and two-minute videos that you get right off the homepage on almost any topic on 1031 exchanges.

Tracey Wilson (06:48):

So enough of all that, as I said, I am in charge of the franchise for Colorado Yukon, Wyoming. And again, we are part of the Fidelity family of Title Insurance companies. That's Alamo Title, Chicago, Commonwealth, Fidelity. In Colorado, Commonwealth is actually called Heritage Title. We also own and do business through Lawyer's Title, Ticor Title, through to Union Title. And then as a part of that big family IPX is the exchanger for all those title insurance companies, again, nationwide. All right, let's dive into it that's enough how it's keeping in advertising. What the heck is a 1031 exchange? What is section 1031 of the tax code? It's two pages out of the thousands of pages of the tax code that allows for non-recognition of gain. That sounds like CPA pitch peek for the following. If you're selling an investment piece or real estate, and let's say the gain is a hundred thousand dollars. Not a lot of people know this, but the taxes, the capital gains taxes on that 100,000 are going to be about 30 ish percent.

Tracey Wilson (07:57):

Now we know where is that 30% coming from briefly because we're going to take a deeper dive in just a minute or two, but that 30 some percent consists of these capital gain taxes. It's either 15 or 20% on the appreciation, but then when you're doing investment real estate, there's always un-recaptured or the recapture of depreciation it's taxed at 25%. Then both of those gains are hit with the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare at 3.8%. And both of those gains, the appreciation, and the de-appreciation recapture are taxed by the State of Colorado. It's now 4.55%. You add all those capital gains taxes up and they blend together to be about 30%. If you are dealing with someone selling property, investment property in a high tax state like California and New York or New Jersey, Chicago, or Iowa, Illinois, or Iowa, for example, California's income tax rate for capital gains is 13.3%. You can see why then that the capital gains taxes can range anywhere from 30 up to as high as 40%.

Tracey Wilson (09:15):

So when you're dealing with us, we're talking about investment property. So when I need to pause and need to go 1031 exchanges are not for the sale of someone's home, where they live, it is not for your personal primary residence. There's a better deal in the tax code, section 121. So if you've lived in your home for at least two years out of the most recent five, then when you sell it, you get to have your gains tax-free, that's better than a 1031, which is nearly tax-deferred. Tax-free up to how much? Well, if you're single, you get up to 250 grand tax-free, or if you're married finally joined, you get up to $500,000 tax-free. And oh, by the way, you get to use that personal home exclusion over and over and over as often as you want once every two years. So it's no longer a once-in-a-lifetime exclusion.

Tracey Wilson (10:12):

So that's the sale of someone's home, where they live, their personal family residence. I want to get that out of your brains because everything else from here on out is about the sale of investment real estate, rental real estate. So if you do an exchange, instead of just selling it, walk through the rules of what that looks like, and then you buy some replacement property or you can buy multiple replacement properties. Guess what happens? The gains are actually rolled over. They're transferred into the new property, and then you don't have to pay the %30 to 40% capital gains. Yes, the gains are rolled over into tax-deferred into that new property. Let's take a little bit of a deeper dive. Let's say you bought a piece of property for 150,000. I know these numbers are probably, may not be relevant in today's market, but it makes the math or the thinking about it a little bit easier. Because what we're going to do is look at some accounting, but we're not going to do debits and credits, we're just going to use pictures.

Tracey Wilson (11:18):

So you buy some rental house for 150,000, you rent it out and then years later you're going to sell it. And it's gone up to 200 grand. Well, a lot of people think, okay, I bought it for 150, I'm selling for 200,000 I think my gain is about 50 grand. I'm ignoring commissions and closing cost. Well, that is all true to a certain extent, but we want to get some definitions down. When you do a 1031 exchange, the property you're selling is called the relinquished property. You're giving it up, you're selling, you're relinquishing it. And the property that you're going to buy, that you will exchange into is called the replacement property. There are too many Rs I've already had my, so I'm just going to call it the old property and the new property. And so the basis transfers from the old and to the new property when you do an exchange. And so too, does the gain, the gains transfer and that's the whole point of doing a 1031 exchange. Defer, transfer, roll those gains into the new property, do not have to pay the 30% to 40% capital gains taxes.

Tracey Wilson (12:21):

We need to re-emphasize a concept that I just brought up. You buy a house for a hundred grand, you rent it out five years later, you sell it for 150,000. And everybody thinks again, ignoring commissions and closing costs that their gain is about 50,000. Well, just as a reminder, the original purchase price of the house has been going down, on paper it's going down. It's an accounting phenomenon and it unfolds as like this. The original purchase price a hundred thousand has to be depreciated. If it's residential, it's over 27 and a half years, if it's commercial, it's over 39 years. And so this is residential property, a single-family rental house. And that means that there should have been about 3,600 and some odd dollars of depreciation expense every year. We did that for five years, we have a total of $18,000 of accumulated depreciation that has got to be subtracted from the original purchase price. So that on paper, the book value of the property is actually 82,000. In real life, it's selling for 150, but on paper it's only worth 82 grand.

Tracey Wilson (13:33):

So that means when you sell it from 150, there's not just one gain of 50,000, there's actually a second gain, a gain due to the recapture of depreciation, $18,000. So that really the total gain from the sale of this property is $68,000. So whatever the client thinks their gain is, it's going to be a heck of a lot more, that's concept number one. Concept number two, when you sell a piece of real estate, there isn't just one gain, there are two gains. Gain from appreciation, the gain from the depreciation. So what do these taxes look like that we're trying to avoid? 15 or 20% on the appreciation, 25% on the recapture, then the Affordable Care Act on both of those gains and then there's the State of Colorado grand total. Let's add them all up. It adds up about $20,000 in total taxes. Is that really 30%? Well, let's do a little math. 20,000 divided by 68 is 29.8%. That's close enough to 30% for me.

Tracey Wilson (14:39):

So if you are talking to a client or if you are a client, you're thinking about selling property, you're pretty safe in the assumption that if you sell and do not do a 1031 exchange that your tax hit will be about 30% of a much bigger gain than you realize. All right. So now let's go back to the picture of accounting. Bought the property for 150, selling it for 200,000. Again, we thought the gain was 50,000 we know better now that that basis of 150 has actually been shrinking down because of depreciation and the gain is larger than we thought, it consists of two trunks of gain. 50,000, because it went up in value, and 25,000 because of the recapture depreciation. So when you do a 1031 there isn't just one gain being rolled over, there are actually two different chunks of capital gains being rolled into the next property. All right, I think that's it for basic math, accounting-wise, excuse me. Can you sell one property and buy multiple 1031 replacements property?

Tracey Wilson (16:42):

You sell one property and buy multiple 1031 replacements properties and you sure can, you can diversify. What about, can you sell multiple properties and mush them all together, combine them and go buy one, perhaps bigger replacement property? Yeah, you can consolidate, in fact, you can do any mix and match arrangement. So here are the six rules of a 1031 exchange. I like unfolding 1031s linearly. In other words, going from what you're selling, I always use the red monopoly house on the left, that's the property you're selling and the one that you'll eventually exchange into, the replacement property, I put it on the right-hand side and it's the green monopoly house. So let's start with the sale. There you are, you've got a buyer. There are several things that change when you do a 1031. First of all, you need by law, a qualified intermediary. Sometimes we're also called an accommodator. There's a shingles plug for our firm IPX. So to do an exchange, you absolutely have to have a qualified intermediary.

Tracey Wilson (17:50):

And then there are a couple of things. The sales contract needs to be assignable. That's the only way that we, IPX can be assigned into it. So just make the contract, and or assign or call us up and we could send you a 1031 language. Also when you're there at the closing table of the sale, the monies have to be wired from the closing table, the net sales proceeds to us. By law, the qualified intermediary has to hold those monies during the 1031 exchange process. Okay, so the closing of the sale is done to be clear you need to call us before the closing of the sales so that we can get documents to you, we use DocuSign, get them signed so that they are in place at, or prior to the closing of the sale. If you call me up afterward, a day later, a week later, a month later, it's too late. You're going to get taxed.

Tracey Wilson (18:47):

All right. So that starts the exchange. And there are two timelines you have to be aware of. So you get 45 days to identify and 180 days to actually close on the purchase of one or more of those properties that you identified within the 45 days. So there you are now as a buyer, no longer a seller, of course, you're now a buyer of the new replacement property and you're allowed to identify up to three properties that you might want to buy. By the way, there is the ability to identify more than three, it's called the 200% rule. And there's also another fancy rule called the 95% rule. We're not going to go through them here in the essence of time, but just know that if you want to identify more than three, call me and I can tell you how to do that rather easily. Okay, so all that said, now you're ready to close on the purchase and that means that we have to be assigned again into the purchase contract, to do the exchange.

Tracey Wilson (19:44):

And then we will wire those monies out to the hydro insurance company. And you've now finished your exchange inside of 180 days and you don't have to pay the 30% to 40% capital gains taxes. So that's the mechanics of doing a 1031 exchange. And an emphasis on time, you can sell almost anything. Rental condos, rental houses, you can sell strip shopping malls, commercial, oil and gas, water, [inaudible 00:20:12] to sell raw land. And Like-kind does not mean I just said this a minute ago that you have to go buy more land. You could buy in fact, sell land go buy a commercial office space. You could sell multi-family product and exchange it to oil and gas. Like-kind simply means that it's real property from any other real property, as long as it's in the United States. If you want to make it like you don't remember what I'm about to say, just make it and or assigns. That's all I have to say and, or assigned.

Tracey Wilson (20:42):

If you want, you can say, "Hey, this is going to be a part of, you could leave out the hey part. This is going be a 1031 exchange at no expense or inconvenience to the buyer." And it really doesn't affect the buyer at all. So all you have to do is say, it's going to be a part of a 1031 exchange. Most real estate agents have their own language. You can get the language off our website or call me up or Denita, and we can send you the language and pretty easy. 1031s are supposed to be about long-term capital gains. I usually don't go through this, but because we're going to be talking about big changes, proposed changes in the tax code in just a little bit, we need to make this distinction. 1031s are supposed to be about owning investment real estate for longer than a year. Because if you own it longer than a year, the type of gain, the increase in price, the appreciation is a long-term capital gain.

Tracey Wilson (21:36):

If you own a piece of real estate and you sell it less than a year, then the type of gain you have is short-term capital gain. And that means you get taxed at ordinary income rates. So 1031s are only about long-term capital gains. That means you cannot do a 1031 exchange on a fix and flip and developers, generally speaking, cannot do 1031 exchanges. So a question comes up, how long do you have to own the old property for it to qualify for 1031 purposes? The answer is, there's no answer. It's a shame. The IRS never bothers to state definitively how long you should have owned it. It's always about your intent. Was it held for investment? Was it used to produce income? I'm telling you that there's a very good rule of thumb, one year and one day it creates long-term capital gains. If you hold it for two full years, there's even a safe harbor under a different part of the tax code.

Tracey Wilson (22:33):

What about the property that you buy, that you roll your gains into the replacement property? How long should you own it before you sell it and maybe do another 1031 exchange, or just sell it and pay the capital gains, whatever? The answer is, there's no defined period of time, again it's always about intent, but again, the really good rule of thumb is one year and one day. And of course there is that safe harbor under a different part of the tax code. One year and one day is pretty typical.

Nicole Rueth (23:05):

So one had a client, sold the property, bought three properties using a 1031 exchange. He now wants to sell one of the three he bought, is there any nuance to that he wants to 1031 exchange that one?

Tracey Wilson (23:18):

Have they owned the three properties, including the one we're talking about and selling, have they owned it for at least a year and a day?

Nicole Rueth (23:26):

That she did not say.

Tracey Wilson (23:28):

Let's say they did, let's just go there. And the answer is yes, they can exchange it. No problem. The only nuance is to call me, 3038 835 8-

Nicole Rueth (23:35):

And then Amos asks, are there rules about a cashout refinance timing after 1031 exchange? And he gives an example.

Tracey Wilson (23:45):

Great question. Yeah. So you did the exchange, you bought the new property, the exchange is done and over, that very next day after your exchange is over, you can refinance and pull the cash out, no taxes. That's great. What about the old property? What if you decide to pull cash out a month or two or three before you sell and do the exchange? The IRS says, wow, you avoided one of the rules of doing the exchange and they will tax. And they could even collapse your 1031 exchange because you've pulled money out prior to the sale and the start of the 1031. So where this is applicable, this is why this is a great question, people will say, Tracey, if I sell for 400 grand, I would like about 40 grand out of it. I know I'm going to get taxed on it, I know it's called boot, but I need the 40,000. I want to pay off some credit cards, I got a kid going to college next year, and I tell them, you could do that, you can pull 40 grand out, but you're going to get hit 30 some percent on it.

Tracey Wilson (24:44):

That's $12,000 of taxes on the 40 grand. Instead, do what we just talked about. Leave all the money in the exchange, put all the money into the new replacement property. And then when your exchange is over, the very next day, refinance, pull the 40 grand out and there are no taxes. Yes, you might pay a little bit higher in interest rates, you may pay some more points or fees, but it's got to be better than paying 30% capital gains or $12,000. So Nicole obviously you're in the lending business does that sound to be true?

Nicole Rueth (25:19):

It sounds to be very true, especially since you can roll the cost of that refinance [crosstalk 00:25:24] a loan. So it's not going to cost you anything out of pocket. You'll still walk away with a full $40,000. Edward asked, do you pay any taxes if you lease it for a year and a day and then move into it as a personal residence?

Tracey Wilson (25:36):

Oh, beautiful question. The answer is no, maybe, perhaps yes. So why isn't there a definitive answer? Here's the deal. So you do an exchange, you buy the new property, you treat it as a rental for the first year. Maybe you want to be super-duper safe with the IRS, you want to be squeaky clean and fine, you rent it out for two years, and then you move in and then you make it your personal primary residence. Then year two, four, five or seven years down the road, whatever you decide to sell the property you're done. What you've done is you've turned an investment property that you acquired under section 1031. You've turned it now into your personal primary residence. Wow, that means that if you're, for example, married, filing joint, that you get to use your $500,000 exclusion? Yes you do. Does that mean all of your gains if you deferred by doing this exchange now come out tax-free? No, not quite.

Tracey Wilson (26:36):

The IRS says, yes, we will let you use your personal home exclusion, but not all of it, they apply a fraction called the qualified use fraction. And what I'm going to describe is best if you could look at your hand and we've got five fingers. To do the following, you need to own the property, the new replacement property, the one you exchanged into, you have to own it for five years, five fingers. And at least the thumb and the index finger are the first two years if you rent it out and after that, you move into the property and you live there, but you live there for three years. And let's say that you sell it at the end of year number five. Now you don't have to sell it, you can stay living there, but just for the story, let's say that you do sell it at the end of the fifth year.

Tracey Wilson (27:25):

So what happens? The IRS says, you get to use your $500,000 exclusion, but not all of it. The fraction is a numerator, the top number is the number of years that you've lived there, three years divided by the denominator. The bottom number is the total number of years that you own the property, which was five. So that makes our fraction three-fifths and three-fifths, so 500,000 is 300 grand. So instead of getting $500,000 tax-free, you only get $300,000 tax-free. Nonetheless, it's a pretty good deal. It's the only place I know in the tax code that allows you to take deferred gain and turn it into tax-free money. I do want to mention though that when you do this magic trick that I just outlined, remember when you sell the relinquished property, the red monopoly house on the screen, and you did the exchange. How many gains were there? There were two chunks of capital gain. The gain because the property had gone up in value over all those years. And the other gain was from the depreciation recapture.

Tracey Wilson (28:37):

This magic trick, where they usually, you get the 300,000 in my made up example, a tax-free does not apply to the un-recaptured depreciation part. That part will always be taxable unless you die and then the gums tax-free to your heirs. Does that help on that story or example?

Nicole Rueth (29:01):

That really helps because I talk a lot about, that's my retirement strategy. I'm going to buy my retirement home with one of my investments. So that's great to know how to work those numbers. You do have a couple people ask a very similar question asking, can you buy a duplex or something that has additional rental opportunities, whether it's a mother-in-law suite or some sort of situation, can you move into where you're living in one side and you're renting out the other and still use it for a 1031 exchange?

Tracey Wilson (29:29):

Good questions. Yeah. So we need to be a little careful, let's say, for example, that the property you sold started the exchange on, let's say that it was sold for 300 grand and the property you're going to buy is a $500,000 piece of property. And you're going to live in part of it. Maybe it's a duplex, whatever scenario you can think of or dream of, you're going to live in part of it. The part that you will live in cannot count as a part of your 1031 exchange. So in my example, when you sell for 300 and buy for 500, then the 300,000 of the 500 has to be the part that gets rented out. If you want to live in part of the new property, then it can only be the $200,000 that is not part of the exchange. I want to make sure that I explained that clear enough.

Nicole Rueth (30:28):

Well, and if it's a duplex for 500, the theory would be is each side would be valued at 250.

Tracey Wilson (30:33):

Exactly. Yeah. And you sold for 300. So yeah, one side doesn't count because that's where you live. The other side is 250. You sold for 300 so you have a little bit of a buydown.

Nicole Rueth (30:43):

So this would be a CPA type of a question in determining the percentage of the property that was used for each position.

Tracey Wilson (30:50):

I would certainly encourage CPA to use it. They'll use two different factors. They'll either use the economic utility or they'll use a simple square footage, but I can tell you common sense usually prevails. If you buy a $500,000 house and you say, oh, I'm going to live upstairs and it's the nice part. And it's only worth a hundred thousand and the bottom basement is not finished, you're going to rent it out. That [inaudible 00:31:15].

Nicole Rueth (31:16):

And D, this might be a question or two ago. She says, if you don't rent it and you just let it open, what effect does that have?

Tracey Wilson (31:24):

Oh, that's good. I like creative people out there. They're the ones that get audited.

Nicole Rueth (31:27):

That's a good one.

Tracey Wilson (31:30):

If you do an exchange and you buy some new property, that's usually this type of question, usually crops up when you're talking about a vacation home, maybe it's up in the mountains and you say, well, I really don't want to rent it, have you seen what renters do to a place? I'm just going to let it sit empty for a year and then I'll move into it or whatever. The IRS will say, you're not required to rent it, that's true, but is there a reason that you didn't rent it? You need to advertise it, you need to list it at fair market value rent. And in today's market, if you tell the IRS, I just couldn't rent it, they're really going to come down on you. And they'll probably fail the exchange because anything can be rented today, the demand is quite high.

Tracey Wilson (32:14):

This type of question came up a lot more in 2008, 2009, then maybe you could have gotten away with not "not renting the property out at fair market value" but in today's market if you're not showing rental income and the IRS will know, you have to report the income on your Form 1040, your expenses on schedule 80. They don't see any and noted the fact that you did an exchange the year or two prior because you file the Form 8824, they're going to know. So you'd need to rent it out at fair market value, or they're going to come looking for you.

Nicole Rueth (32:50):

Can you buy 1031 exchange property and lease it to a relative? If so, how long will that go?

Tracey Wilson (32:55):

Sure. At fair market value.

Nicole Rueth (32:57):

And then if you sell a property in 1031 exchange into a new property worth more than the old property, can you then have somebody else buy-in for a percentage of the new property?

Tracey Wilson (33:08):

You could, but you'd be essentially, let's say that the new investor that comes along is going to buy 25% of the property, meaning you'll end up owning the remaining 75%. And when you have someone buy, in my story, 25%, you're effectively selling them a 10 common interest or 25% that you will be taxed on the capital gains. I suppose you could sell that investor and do a 1031 exchange, that is possible.

Nicole Rueth (33:38):

Okay. So yeah, he's saying, if you sold something worth 500 but buy something worth a million, can another investor come in for 300,000?

Tracey Wilson (33:46):

Yes. I certainly could. And you can do it in a variety of ways. If you sell for 500 then the minimum amount that the exchanger needs to buy is 500 grand. And the other investor could come in as a tenant and common owner for the other 500,000.

Announcer (34:10):

You've been listening to the Double Comma Club, never miss an episode, subscribe at thedoublecommaclub.com or your favorite podcast venue to hear more success stories, get free tips on how you can get on the path to becoming a millionaire through real estate at any age. If you enjoy this, you might also enjoy our YouTube channel. Just look for the Rueth Team on YouTube or visit our site, https://theruethteam.com.

Real estate investments are my favorite topic to talk about, but also my favorite type of loan to help a client with why because in an area where loan officer gets to be creative, often purchasing investment isn't cut and dry. It requires strategy and planning. If you've ever joined me from my building investment empire class in the second Thursday of each month.

And you know, I advocate purchasing a home as a primary, living in it for a year and then doing it all over again. Why? Because when you purchase a home as a primary, you can put as little as 3 to 5% down and that frees up cash when you compare it to purchasing it as investment property, which requires 15 to 25% down.

----more----

But of course, the follow up to the strategy that I get asked most is how do I make that purchase?

Cash flow because the less you put down, the larger the monthly mortgage payment is, and so that's a fair question to which unfortunately has no straightforward answer.

I mean a lot of times this concern can be avoided if you know upfront going into a property that you're going to convert that into a rental. Then you can assess with the current economics in the market rents, will this home fit my model?

But what if you weren't able to find that type of property or you didn't have the forethought or the chance to strategize then what? Because sometimes there just isn't enough money being made from the tenant to cover the costs of that property and let you pocket some cash flow if that's what you're looking to do. And in my mind, the not pocketing additional cash flow is OK because I viewed my rentals as a long-term investment for retirement, not extra monthly cash flow today.

But let's say you do. I mean, how do you get that property to generate more wealth after you purchased it with only three to 5%?

Down now, this is where you want to be able to strategize with your team and know your options. One of the options you can do is and it hurts me to say this is sell that property instead of keeping it now as much as I advocate keeping a rental property, there is something called a 1031.

Exchange, and that's a tax code. A tax code that allows you to take the proceeds from that sale to purchase another type of real estate. As long as it's the same or higher value.

So let's say for example, you purchase a single-family home two years ago with three to 5% down. You lived in that home for two years before moving on to the next home, and you decided to rent out that property instead of selling it. But with that home, you couldn't make the cash flow work. There's no garage to rent out.

There's no way to create 2 units out of one. It's not zoned for an 80. You at the end of your first year renting it out, you realize that the current market rent and let's say for that example is $2500 only covers the more.

Rich and you want more for your investment and this particular property just isn't cutting it. Given the market over the last few years, you could have 50 to $100,000 in equity in that home. You can sell that property using a 1031 exchange and purchase another home as mentioned in the same or greater value.

And take that ability to multiply your current equity in that first home. Now I'm not a fan of selling homes you own, but maybe that next property is a duplex or single family with a basement that can be turned into its own unit. So instead of just getting that $2500 from the rent.

On that initial single family, you can charge $2500 for the top unit, 1100 for the bottom, and all you had to pay was closing costs and realtor costs.

I mean, this property is now going to gain you $1100 more a month in rent and because you had all that equity in the home you sold, you're able to put down 20% on this next property. Getting rid of the mortgage insurance, putting even more net rent in your pocket.

Becoming a real estate investor opens the door to financial independence. Don't let the idea of finding the perfect property right off the bat scare you away from taking the first step forward. It all starts with the first one. So if you want to begin your journey into building with wealthy real estate, give my team a call. Let us go to work for you. Nicole rooms with real-time. We look forward to serving you.

Welcome to another episode of the Double Coma Club with your host Nicole Ruth of the Ruth team. The number one lending team in Colorado.

I want to share with you that we just hit another historic low in interest rates.

Really, that's what I'm thinking right now as I'm processing what just happened to the 15-year fixed. Now if you remember, we hit the historic lows 17 times last year into this year on the 30-year fixed. Now the 30-year fixed didn't hit and hold time historic low.

But the 15-year did in fact. It's lower than it was during that entire period of time. It just hit per Freddie Mac, 2.12%. Now Freddie Mac does typically have a point 8% discount on many of its loans as it does a national survey. So 2.12 is the national survey with .8 in discount. So what's point?

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8 So if I have a $300,000 loan, 1% discount is $3000. If I have a 8.5% discount, that would be $1500, so it's a percentage of the loan. So in this case 2.12. If I pay 1.1 full point in our case of $3000.

My team can get you 1.99. It didn't have it two in front of it. It has a one in front of it and you can easily buy down to lower to 1.75. Why not just get 1 1/2? This is free money. But it's on a 15 year now.

Quote and I wanted to share that with you because it's sexy and it's a great rate, but so is the 30-year right now for that same one-point discount, you can get downed it 2.625. I mean, that is fantastic. If you have not refinanced yet.

Or you're looking to purchase. You need to talk to us now. It all depends on your credit score. It depends on how much you're putting down. It depends on how many units you are doing or whether or not you're doing a purchase or refinance or cash out refinance.

As an investment, a primary home or second home? I mean, so this the interest rate that's publicized is 25% down. Great credit, a purchase, maybe a rate and term refinance on a single-family unit, so there's a lot that goes into that. Remember, they're going to show you their best rate for the best.

A situation or scenario so definitely give us a call, but I want to show you these numbers quickly because it's important to me because I'm a huge fan of the 30-year fixed rate. But the 15? Is a one in front of it and I get that and I just want to show you the numbers so that.

You have clarity on what are you giving up. If you lock for 30 year or if you lock for 15 year and so I put these numbers down on this chart and I want to go through this chart with you really quickly. So if I'm.

Doing, let's say a $400,000 purchase $300,000 loan amount, I put 25% down.

I can have these two options. I can have a 15-year fixed at 1.99% or the 30-year fixed at 2.625, both with a 1% discount. So in this case, $3000 to buy that rate down.

In both of these situations, the principal and interest portion of this payment is right here next to it, so it's the 1929 for the 1.99 on a 15-year fixed or the 12:05 for the 30 year. So the difference is 1205 versus 1929, so a little over $700.00. Between those two payments and people often talk about that and they think it's double. It's not double, but it is a jump. So can you budget for an additional $700.00 to get the sexy?

Great well what if you can't? What if you just lock in at a 2.625 and I'll tell you I'm a big fan of the 30 year fixed. I have all of mine on 30 year fixed and then I pay them like 15 because life happens and what if I need to keep that $700.00 for something else or whatever if I want to invest it in something else then I have options.

But the difference between the total payment this 300 and $47,000 number, that's how much you would pay if you did a 15 year loan, so only $47,000. Interest the total outgo is 433 thousand. If you're doing a 30 year fixed, so it's 100 and $33,000 of interest.

That's a significant spread between the 15 and the 30, but what if I take that 30 year and I pay it like a 15? So I paid the extra $700.00 every single month at the 2.625 rate. Well then I get so close that now the difference between 347 total out. No, right, that's principal and interest. That's how much I'm going to pay if I sum up all my monthly payments over the 15 years versus 367 thousand.

Now it's just a $20,000 difference over the period of 15 years, and I know $20,000. Is not cheap. I mean that's a car, right? But $20,000 / 15 years to have the ability to control my cash flow on those months, when maybe I need that $700.00.

But it also goes to show if I can budget it and if it makes sense then it is an option, right?

It's a valid, very profitable option when I'm only spending $47,000 in interest, so I just wanted to make sure that you understood kind of differences. What you give up and what you gain when you go to.

A 15-year fixed. If you have any questions about what your rate would be today given these historic lows, you need to give us a call, especially if you've been hiding under a rock.

And you haven't refinanced. Yet it happens. I totally get it. Then give us a call. Let's get you taken care of this weekend.

Buyers and sellers are exhausted by the extremes. Nationwide, new listings are up a strong 5.5% year over year and an even more impressive 11% from last month.

In the Denver Metro, our new listings were up 6% from last year, and 24% from May. This added 7,826 homes to the Denver market last month, lifting our 2,000 active listings to a less than healthy, but certainly welcome 3,122 at the end of June. That's a 50% lift in one month, although it's still shy of a healthy market.

The average active listings for June is 16,098. Days on market is still 4 for both detached and attached. Mortgage purchase applications dropped to a 5 month low. Pending home sales slowed down to a 2% gain from last month's 17% month-over-month increase.

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Get more information in this episode of The Double Comma Club.

It's hard to tell a buyer that now is the best time to buy when home prices continue to break records landing in June with a median closed price of $545,000, which was 1.5% higher than last month - annualized that would be an 18% gain in value which is exactly where we are year-to-date. As a buyer, you are paying $100,000 more for that median home this year than last year. But as a seller, you gained $100,000 in wealth while you slept, where you slept.

THAT is why now IS the time to buy. Oh and that spike in inventory we saw last week? It may have been a 50% increase but as much as 4 cents is double 2 cents; we are still way short of a dollar.

Click here for this month's Market Trends Report as well as the full blog: https://www.theruethteam.com/market-trends/

There are certain times in life where change is the best thing that could have ever happened. Sandra Thompson replacing Mark Calabria is one I will celebrate for a long while.

Why? Well, Sandra Thompson gave us all a gift this past week by undoing the FHFA Adverse Market Fee. This is a huge win for everyone trying to capitalize on the equity they have built up in their homes. Mark Calabria initiated the Adverse Market Fee in August 2020 stating that there was "additional cost and risk" to FHFA with homeowners taking equity out of their homes. What he was really doing was increasing capital levels during last year's historic refinance boom.

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Removing the fee will reduce interest rates, on average, by approximately 1/8th. This means more money will be put back in the hands of the homeowner instead of the FHFA. It will also continue to strengthen the options for homeowners coming out of forbearance. Given today's low interest rates. if you have not refinanced yet; Christmas came early this year!

Better yet, it’s the gift that will keep on giving. Because rates will stay low for a little bit longer. As Fed Chair Powell and Treasury Secretary Yellen continue to state inflation today is all transitory and express that the debt and the market remain under control. Powell noted last week that the Fed’s benchmark of “substantial further progress” toward full employment and stable prices remains “a ways off.” He also said the Fed will alter monetary policy only if inflation is "materially and persistently" on a higher path.

Powell, I ask you... how much is "materially"? and how long is "persistently"? So what does all of that jargon mean? That those who want to purchase or refinance but had not yet, have just been given the gift of additional time. But this may be one of the last stops on the low-rate train. So how do you know which option is best for you?

Well, it’s all about the big picture.

I always advocate for purchasing more properties, because I believe in building wealth through real estate. However, moving isn’t always an option. Just had a baby? Need to pay off medical or credit card bills? Do you have to take care of a loved one? Whatever’s happening in life sometimes, moving is just too much. And I get that.

So here’s the next best thing. If you’re planning to stay in your home for at least the next three years or if you are thinking about turning your home into an investment property down the road you could save quite a bit of money every month by refinancing now, especially if you are still paying mortgage insurance.

It can also be about your quality of life. Maybe over the last year, you’ve been looking for a new home; but the right one keeps evading you. Let’s take out some of the equity in your home to give yourself a new bathroom, kitchen, or outdoor space. Because sometimes you have to treat yourself. And with interest rates so low, now might just be the time.

Spoiler alert: Your real estate agent will not like this tip - not at all. This is only 4 minutes. Take notes. We don't want t spoil the math or the surprise.

How do you start in your 20's investing in real estate? You start with the first one. It's the toughest. Let's think of money in terms of buckets. Your checking account feeds

short term expenses
Long term savings
outside investments
retirement

Consider setting up automatic transfers.

1 month of expenses, then the remainder rainy day fund, build this account up first. 50% monthly needs housing food - your short-term expenses for living and entertainment. 30% rainy day 20% retirement investment bucket.

To invest in real estate, consider saving $125/month. By the time you graduate college, you can afford to buy a home. People who invest in real estate are 48x's wealthier than those who rent.

This episode lumps together 4 episodes from the Real Estate Investing playlist on our YouTube channel. Catch these first four short episodes to get started, first with the logic and then to show how even with a modest income you can still build your retirement through real estate.

This 17-minute episode includes:

Good Buy, or Goodbye?
Creative Investing
Long Term Investments - Fact vs. Fiction
Turning Rental Income into Retirement Income.

Be sure to catch part two publishing next week.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-... YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMd...

Have you doubled your retirement fund this year? No one wants to get to retirement and realize they will run out of money before years. Or if they were honest, they may only have enough saved for a long vacation or small car, but not enough to be secure and continue to live their life as they want. In fact, the median American has only $33,472 saved for retirement. THAT ISN'T ENOUGH Did you know that the average homeowner in America gained $35,000 in appreciation during the last year? Add that to their retirement account and they just doubled their retirement savings. THAT'S the POWER of Real Estate.

Join me every Tuesday at 8 am MT on Facebook and Instagram as I go LIVE to discuss opportunities like this. Money may not buy you happiness but it can create opportunities to create a life you love.

Let's go through some of the facts and fiction of purchasing a brand new home. Let's start out with one that tends to be the main selling point for new builds. You can customize your home and the basic options included and/or upgrade options available. There's no need to pay a contractor after you've closed to redo that pink tile in the bathroom because you participated in the finishes for your home. Because you get to help in the design, new builds tend to feel much more like home right off the bat. So who doesn't want that?

This also means that your home is equipped with the monitored amenities so there's no upgrading needed once you move in, nor do you need to do that deep clean since you're the first homeowner. Another fact is that new builds in today's market can be easier to secure. Once you pick a builder and if they have a home available, you can secure it without competing against multiple buyers or over asking bids. Although finding a builder with a lot available in today's market is a bit harder these days. Colorado has luckily not yet gone to the lottery system for lots like some other states, Arizona. You should also prepare for a longer timeline and slightly higher costs given today's market conditions.

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So let's move on to some myths. While you need to be pre-qualified for a new build, sometimes a year in advance, you don't finalize your loan until 30 or 60 days before getting the keys just like an existing home. This means that you need to play the long game with your lending team. And that could mean updating your loan documents several times along the way. You will still want to ensure that you do not purchase any big items or have a negative report on your credit during that waiting time. You will also typically not lock in an interest rate at the very beginning, but look to lock in closer to that 30 to 60 days before you close.

If today's low rates sound appealing because they are, you might want to consider doing an extended lock, which you can go out as far as nine months before you close. But use caution here because anyone who has lived through home renovations knows that things can get delayed and a finished date is not always guaranteed. And you don't want to be stuck with expensive lock extension fees.

Another myth related to your lending relationship is that you can't use your own lender or that the builder's incentive is so steep that you will need to go with their lender to get it. Well, we have great news for our clients. The Rueth Team is able to match builder's incentives to give our buyers the new build that they're craving and the service levels provided by our lending team.

Our last myth today is that because your home is new, you won't run into any maintenance issues. However, while you should not run into significant issues with things like the foundation or outdated windows or general wear and tear, there's still a possibility of things going skew. Supplies can come in faulty from manufacturers. Installation can be rushed. And of course, with all homes, unexpected things can go wrong. And so while you're less likely to run into them with a new build, just because it's new does not mean it's fault-proof.

New builds are a great option for homeowners that want modern new homes without the hassle of renovations. In today's hot seller's market, they may be easier to find, but many of the larger new build sites are outside of the Denver area, meaning you may have to commute a bit longer as a trade-off. Overall, they're a great option for first-time homebuyers or move-up buyers. So let us know in the comments below what you prefer. Is it a new build or is it purchasing an existing home and looking at renovating? And if you're thinking about a new build, don't forget to give us a call. Nicole Rueth with The Rueth Team of Fairway Mortgage. We look forward to serving you.

The second half of May seemed to open up a bit. But, sorry, it was a false peak. Less inventory came on the market and more buyers went out looking for it. Inventory was down 6% from last month, and down 14% from last year inventory.

6718 homes went under contract, which was up 17% last month, and up 3% from last year. Active listings dropped last month. In fact, there was a 20% drop and inventory fell below 2000 homes for sale the second time this year. Listings are spending and average of four days on market.

You have to be ready to pounce, offer 30K over asking, without any contingences and ready to close in 2 weeks.

26% higher close - higher end homes. 23% higher close -medium priced homes. $700,000 average closed price detached.

We are nowhere near the peak. Same with rates. Rates turned up mid-month. Inflation jumped 4.2% - the highest in 13 years. Core inflation jumped to 3%. This was the highest monthly gain - EVER. Get the rest of the insights by listening to this 9 minute episode. More false peaks are expected.

Author, Speaker, Coach Ryan Leak is back! His book, Chasing Failure has been published. 8 steps to learn self-leadership starting now!

We laughed pretty hard and learned so much! Here are the questions covered:

What's it like to be around me?
Do you know where you want to go?
What's one word you'd use to describe you?
What's one word others would use to describe you?
What's one word you'd like others to use to describe you?
What credit can I give away?
What mistakes can I own?
How can I get better?
When can I make time to invest in myself.
Whom am I investing in for the future?
Who knows who I really am?

Chasing Failure: How Falling Short Sets You Up for Success

Nicole gives you three examples as to what a creative lender can do for you. Creative is another word for experienced here. When you simply go with the lowest rate without any other thought to the best financial plan for your longer goal, you are selling yourself short and most likely costing you and your family a lot of money.

Tune in to hear these quick examples.

Gabe Bodner, Reverse Mortgage specialist at The Rueth Team joins Nicole for this episode.

1 myth: you give up the title of your house with Reverse Mortgage.

Bank or lender takes over the house.

FACT: You still own the house.

2 myth: you can no longer pass the house to your heirs.

FACT: your heirs can inherit the home, pay off the reverse mortgage and inherit the additional equity above the reverse mortgage.

3 myth: You're losing equity

FACT: Not losing but USING some of your equity. Interest is added back to the loan through negative amortization. This does eat away at some of the equity, but based on interest rates on traditional loans, and growth and appreciation, you gain more equity than you are using and saving money on the loan if you need it.

4 myth: You have to own your home free and clear

FACT: The existing mortgage balance can be absorbed or paid off.

This should be a loan of last resort. You have a better probability of financial success by utilizing a reverse mortgage sooner because it's a more efficient use of the equity in retirement.

Can I use a reverse mortgage for purchase OR a refi? Yes. If I pull money out for a reverse mortgage are you limited on what you can use it for? The equity money can be used for anything you want, including acquiring more real estate, paying taxes, gifting, converting an IRA to a ROTH IRA. The proceeds received are TAX-FREE because it's considered a loan.

Listen to Nicole's happy ending story of how one couple retired and bought two income properties wiping out their mortgage and bringing in steady income.

Some additional information you may find helpful.

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Comparison between Home Equity Loan, HELOC, and Reverse Mortgage:

Key Differences Reverse mortgages, home equity loans, and HELOCs all allow you to convert your home equity into cash. However, they vary in terms of disbursement and repayment, as well as requirements, such as age, equity, credit, and income. Based on these factors, here are the key differences among the three types of loans.

Disbursement Reverse mortgage: monthly payments, lump-sum payment, line of credit, or some combination of these Home equity loan: a lump-sum payment HELOC: as-needed, up to a pre-approved credit limit—comes with a credit or debit card or a checkbook

Repayment Reverse mortgage (deferred repayment) loans are due as soon as the borrower becomes delinquent on property taxes or insurance or under other certain circumstances. Home equity loans involve monthly payments made over a set amount of time with a fixed interest rate. HELOCs involve monthly payments based on the amount borrowed and the current interest rate.

Age and Equity Requirements Reverse mortgage: must be at least 62 and must own the home outright or have a small mortgage balance Home equity loan: no age requirement and must have at least 20% equity in the home

HELOC: no age requirement and must have at least 20% equity in the home Credit and Income Status Reverse mortgage: no income requirements, but some lenders may check that you can make timely and full payments for ongoing property charges, such as property taxes and insurance Home equity loan: a good credit score and proof of steady income sufficient to meet all financial obligations HELOC: a good credit score and proof of steady income sufficient to meet all financial obligations

Tax Advantages Reverse mortgage: none, until the loan terminates Home equity loan: for tax years 2018 through 2025, interest-only tax deductible if the money was spent for qualified purposes—to buy, build or substantially improve the taxpayer’s home that secures the loan HELOC: same as for a home equity loan

Headlines regularly push the topic of inflation. We usually know it's bad if it goes up, but why? What causes the change, and what industries are affected by it that will affect my life? These are questions answered in this episode.

So what is inflation? We know it can occur in any product or service including need base expenses and want base expenses. We also know that the Federal Reserve Bank monitors the inflation rates.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures what you and I feel at the grocery store, medical care, etc. Inflation rates have moved from 2.5 to 4.16 which is the largest increase since 2008. Food costs are rising twice as fast as pre-COVID. Retail sales are running out of steam after stimulus monies have been spent and sticker shock is settling in. This also pushes interest rates up.

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Could we see them drop slightly in Fall, possibly? Depends on wage inflation and the price of raw materials.

A more formal definition of inflation is that inflation is the decline of purchasing power of a given currency over time. An educated estimate of the rate at which the decline in purchasing power occurs can be reflected in the increase of an average price level of a basket of selected goods and services in an economy over some period of time. The rise in the general level of prices, often expressed as a percentage, means that a unit of currency effectively buys less than it did in prior periods. Nutshell? Your money is worthless and it will take more of it to buy the same things.

Inflation can be contrasted with deflation, which occurs when the purchasing power of money increases and prices decline. Not as common, but it does happen.

Tune in to this 6 minute episode from Nicole Rueth, at the Rueth Team Fairway Mortgage in Colorado.

Being competitive isn't strategic, it's a must. Competitive offer tactics can include:

appraisal gap insurance
short closing timelines
waiving inspection items
strong loan approval

Here are some loan approval options to make your offer stand out.

Prequalification is the very first and most common step with online and box lenders. This is the bare minimum.
Pre-approval submitting the loan documentation to the lender.
A pre-approval letter gives the listing agent and seller confidence that what you say you make is what you make, and what you say you have is true.
10 Day Close Earnest money guarantee loan approval through the Rueth Team. You can keep shopping, but once approved and no changes to your status, the Rueth Team will guarantee your earnest money.

Sellers want the best experience selling so they can turn around and buy their next home.

Tune in to this short and helpful episode. Learn more about this offer Nicole covers here >

While the economy roars back to life, real estate continues to be judged. DMAR tells us that 2594 for sale - a lower than low figure. The previous low was 2015 with around 2400. Listen in for this recap.

The months of inventory is currently .51 months for detached homes, and detached inventory is currently at .46 months.
Detached homes' median price is $585,000 in 11 counties, whereas attached are at a $376,660 median in 11 counties.
With a substantial equity cushion, the Denver Metro area has been able to avoid the dreaded and predicted bubble.
2.5% of area homeowners have less than 10% equity, and 1.5% in the same region have negative equity.
Builders have customers, but because lumber prices up 25%, steel up 160%, sheet goods up 400%, this has put a crimp in their ability to build homes ahead of inventory demands.

We continue the Agent Ignite session with Dr. Bruce Lund as he helps us master the four-hour workday. Some of what he covers in this session includes knowing the difference between a promoter and an advocate. Understanding the levels of relationships in business: Connectors, climbers, somedays, aspirational, and experts. He has some actionable homework for you too. Get excited! Listen now.

Have you ever heard of the concept, "Eat the frog"? Eat the frog is basically, do the one thing that you really don't want to do first thing in the morning. So for a lot of us that is working out, and so I'm just a big believer. Here is a time system that works for success. Nicole's guest is Dr. Bruce Lund. He's here to get us started on the successful method of a four-hour work day by starting from the moment your feet hit the floor - the first 90 minutes, then going into the next 30 minutes.

Some of the point covered are:

Physical activity of some type, then move into the walk and talks later in the day after a light lunch.

Stimulating the mind by feeding it helpful information from people and resources you admire and trust, market stats you can share that will show you are of value to your followers and clients, inspirational tips, mediations.

Rely on people of influence rather than people of interest to inspire you. Get the ego out of it.

Practicing gratitude for at least 10 minutes a day. This can be making a list, or making a call.

Who is on your call list? Who is in your database? Take care of your time, your hear, body, mind and spirit by thinning out that list and putting them in the correct buckets. You attracting high-maintenance people that commoditize you? They will ZAP you.

Listen to get the rest of the actionable items to take care of you, and then that will help you increase your success in all corners of your life.

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A bit about Dr. Bruce:

All top performers have a great coach, teacher, or mentor who holds them accountable to their goals and reaches their potential faster. Having coached thousands of salespeople over the past decade and helping build a multi-million dollar business, he knows this is especially true in the sales world.

Because of these beliefs, he helps salespeople in commoditized industries increase productivity and double their production without the years and years of overwhelming frustration.

Here's the quote that impacted me today. Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow." I'm going to get up and I'm going to try again tomorrow. I loved this quote because some days you just feel so beaten down, but I actually love this quote right now from the perspective of the first-time homebuyer. It just really struck out at me because I know we've been working through trying to get those first-time homebuyers under contract. Especially the first-time homebuyers who are FHA or down payment assistance or minimum down, or don't have the money to do the appraisal gaps or put in over asking.

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Let's talk about what's being said in the news because of what is going on specifically in the market, the economy is getting stronger, inflation just came out higher. We expected that. Interest rates took a little dip.

My 23-year-old son was talking to one of his best friends who was trying to nudge him to buy Bitcoin a year ago. He didn't do it. I didn't do it either because he said, "Mom, you got to do this because they're talking about it." I'm like, "No, I don't believe in this." A year ago he put $10,000 in Bitcoin. That kid now has $200,000 and he's not alone. We need to dive into what that means for agents and lenders.

Listen to this fast-paced market update for real estate agents and lenders in the Denver Colorado area.

This is the one topic that has not only generated more calls to our office but to our agent clients, a crazy number of internet searches. People want to know - is the housing bubble about to hit? Let Nicole tell you how it is in Colorado.

Fiction: an imminent collapse is coming.

Fiction: forbearance will lead to foreclosures, especially in Colorado.

Fact: Equity gain is our saving grace.

Fact: What's happening is leaps and bounds different than 2008.

Listen to this 10-minute episode to get the facts.

As part of the continuing Fact vs. Fiction series, Nicole talks about the facts and fiction of home loans. Listen to this 7-minute episode, play again until it sticks.

A preview:

Fact 1 - call your lender first Fiction 1 - assume the best loan for them is with 20% down or minimum down. Fact 2 - you have the power to affect your monthly payment. Fiction 2 - renting is not more cost-effective unless you are only looking at the immediate short term. You want to pay your OWN mortgage, not your landlord's. Fiction 3 - getting a home loan isn't possible unless everything is lined up or perfect.

After hitting low historical interest rates 14 times last year, let's set the record straight. The first piece of fiction is that Rate is King. This is not always exactly as it appears. Oh, and the one using your house as a method to save interest rates on credit cards. Be smart. Then we move into the fiction of long-term real estate investments.

A buy and hold strategy provides OPTIONS. But, just as with rates, options also bring misinformation, many times turning people away from a long-term wealth strategy that could open up possibilities for them and their families. Watch as I bust open some very common concerns that are fiction and go through why, even in today's market, real estate is queen.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-... YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMd...

If you have ever been involved in a Real Estate transaction, you've dealt with Title. But what do we need to know about the title process and what should we ask our underwriters? Sima Patel from WFT National Title gives us pointers. Some of what she covers includes advice for those who have gone through bankruptcies or are buying a home from someone who has gone through BK, what you need to know about trusts, LLCs, and quick claim deeds to avoid legal disasters.

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Get to know Sima, in her own words:

People | Trust | Resource Things that bring me joy in life are relationships, learning and helping people. I’m passionate about education and surrounding myself with smart people so that I’m constantly learning and sharing. I utilize my experience and resources to help you make the impact you want to make in the real estate community.

We all know insurance is important, even though we hope to never use it. Because no one wants to pay $5,000 out of pocket when they could have been paying an extra $2 a month. Enter, the creative insurance agent. Unlike 30-40 years ago, insurance brokers can help you find the best value for money when it comes to your homeowner's policy and covering any investments you may have as well.

I had the chance to sit down with Brandon Ridder of Goosehead Insurance to talk more about the importance of having a clear understanding of your coverage and what is crucial to know as a first-time homeowner and investor.

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Some key points he made included:

verify water back up coverage
verify sewer line coverage
ask about roof depreciation
what is your deductible - at 1-2% home replacement value can be a big amount
don't hide short term rental or your claim may get denied

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-... YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMd...

Let's start with strong demographics. 33% of home buyers today and for the next decade are first time home buyers with nothing to sell, taking from an already stressed market with nothing to give in return. At the other end of the spectrum baby boomers are delaying their downsizing, moving into assisted living nursing homes, or in with family due to their heightened pandemic risk, holding onto those homes younger families need. For new builders NAHB noted lumber continues to spike up with futures up another 35% on top of the already high 170% rise we saw over the last 10 months.

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There was enough inventory to break records in sales. I mean 62,985 homes in DMAR's 11 County area sold in 2020 for another record breaking year. And another 3,641 sold in February, up 13.43% month over month and 3.7% year over year. It's a days on market issue, not solely an inventory one. Homes are coming on and selling faster than you can sell chips at an edibles convention.

Nicole's guest, Joey Pizzi of JP Appraisal Services wants consumers to know a few things about the appraisal process to help them before the appraiser arrives, and for buyers to understand the current market filled with over-asking-price offers.

It's different than a home inspection. This is what is done during an appraisal: measure, take photos, documentation, assess the condition, look for any needed maintenance
How hard is it to appraise a home? Need to really be familiar with the market. This includes all of these offers coming up to $100,000 over asking prices. Your appraisers need to know how to read the market and look out for anomalies.
Things a seller can do before the appraiser arrives. PAINT: railings, cabinets, holes in the walls. Cleanliness shouldn't affect the appraisal, but it can be distracting. Declutter, clean up - show that the house is cared for.

There are a lot of things that go into qualifying for a loan. One that remains the same no matter the product, you need to have a good credit score. If you're looking to purchase a home you need to make sure you're set up to get the best financing you can by having the best credit you can. This week I am beyond excited to share one of my hidden secrets, David Emge of Credit Advisor. He's our go-to at The Rueth Team to help our buyers get their credit score where it needs to be to qualify for the home they want. Not only that but David makes sure his clients know how to continue to keep their score up to help them build long-term wealth. And who doesn't want that?

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If you would like to reach out to David his email is demge@creditadvisorinc.com and his website is https://www.creditadvisorinc.com/ T

Nicole's guest is Jenny Usaj of Usaj Realty. She explores several zip codes in neighbhoods that have seen a wonderful uptick in prices, as well as ongoing opportunity for investment. Jenny also gives agents advice about how to help their clients drill their buyers down to real needs, rather than distractions when they research online. She wraps up with talking about condos, and future income property and her favorite neighborhoods.

Listen to this 15-minute recap from January's tips: Why an inspector is a must, Top 4 Things to Know Before an Inspection, and Exiting Forbearance.

We've been talking a lot lately about buying your first investment. But what if you're a first-time homebuyer? One of the things that you're going to do right out of the gate when you get under contract is called a home inspector. And if you don't know one, you're probably going to get one from your real estate agent. But what does a home inspector do and why do you need one and why it might be different for inspecting a primary home versus an investment property with a different intention? I brought along Andrew Sams, who I absolutely adore, very well-respected, well-known here in the Denver Metro and up in Evergreen. And he wanted to talk a little bit about what you as a buyer could expect or should expect when you meet with an inspector. He does own Alpine Building Performance, in case you want to look him up. Andrew, what should a buyer be asking you, or what can they expect?

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What is a home inspection? What a home inspection is not? And then just that things are going to come up. This is for home buyers and agents. So if you've got a listing, prepare your sellers, that there will be things that come up on the inspection. Prepare your buyers, that there will be things that come up on the inspection and also let them know that you're there to provide solutions for them, I think that's really key. That you're going to be there to help walk them through whatever comes up but setting those correct expectations.

Secondly, Andrew talks about getting ahead of the ball. Sometimes surprises come up, which no one wants a surprise on either side of the transaction, but a lot of times we know of potential issues that will come up and it may be tempting on the listing side to hope those aren't always discovered in the inspection, but there's a lot of things such as a disclosed past issue with water leakage or moisture or structural issues.

His third point would be documentation. If you're a seller, provide all the documentation that you have on your home, that helps even if the buyer's not looking through it in detail. Have the full story of your home or property.

His final point is making sure that the home is ready for the home inspection.

Nicole Ruth: (10:07) Possibly, you have your current home in forbearance and now you want to take advantage of these low-interest rates or move into that next home, but you're not quite sure what your options are. We haven't talked about forbearance in a while. It was all the rage back in April when the CARES Act allowed for it without any guidelines or rules around its execution. It was really clunky at first. People didn't know how to respond, lenders didn't know how to respond and the guidelines with FHA and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac weren't established yet.

So everybody said, "Wait, don't get into it yet." And then eventually over time, they got the rules established and they actually ended up making sense. Now that you might be coming out of it, what does that look like? But if you didn't know, and if you do need to take advantage of forbearances, those deadlines have been extended by both FHFA and FHA. So definitely talk to a lender about that. They've been extended to March 31st for conventional and February 28th for FHA.

There are things I know, things I wonder about, and things that boggle my mind. Here are a few… I knew demand was about to explode before 2020 began. Demographics told us that. 8.8 to 9.2 million first-time home buyers were coming and they wanted a piece of the American Dream. With the largest age cohort numbering over 23 million, Americans aged 25 to 29 are looking to start families and buy homes. And once someone has a child they are twice as likely to purchase a home.

I knew that a recession was coming, or at least I was pretty certain. America was on a Recession Watch at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 tracking slowing manufacturing, shipping, business spending, and job creation as well as declining consumer confidence, talks of trade wars, and political unrest. The two and ten-year yields had also inverted pointing to a longer-term financial instability.

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Housing inventory was low coming into 2020, down 10 percent year over year with active listings a paltry 5,025 homes for sale. Yet, buyers were not budging. Forty-five percent of sellers at the start of 2020 had to reduce their price to get their home sold even though we only had 1.13 months of inventory. Consumer spending similarly was the very thing that was keeping our economy afloat. Since spending is 70% of the GDP, consumers were determined to not allow the U.S. to go into a recession.

Then, spending stopped because jobs stopped. COVID-19 shut the economy down, and to no one’s surprise the recession began, but then it ended just a few months later. There was political and social unrest, and lives changed forever. The mortgage market was a mess and public enemy #1 Mark Calabria, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, became a target. But here’s what boggles my mind, consumers wanted to spend. But they couldn’t, not on hotels and airfare, nor concerts and restaurants but they could on homes, cars, and oh yea, on stocks.

Housing remained resilient as we quickly defined “essential” and adapted to a work from home economy. Houses became bigger, more suburban, with 2 offices, and a place to work, play, workout, educate and relax. They became everything and everywhere to all of us. Coloradans who had jobs, saw weekly wages increase 8.7 percent. Counties like Denver saw the juxtaposition of 11 percent unemployment and 11 percent weekly wage increase in the same period.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continued to support the markets, dropping the fed rate to zero, and injecting trillions through the purchase of mortgage-backed securities and treasuries. As long as they continue, we will continue to see mortgage rates low and equities high.

So I wonder, will the economy sustain while we distribute enough vaccines to realize herd immunity? Will the stimulus package keep small businesses afloat or add to the equity market gains? The Fed predicts unemployment at 5 percent, spending to increase 3.7 percent, and GDP rising to 4.2 percent in 2021. This is good! So, will they be able to justify a zero fed rate and quantitative easing until 2023? And if they can’t, will rates start to go up? By how much? I also wonder once people go back to work, ballgames, concerts and travel; will they find things to buy other than houses? Easing demand slightly and putting us back towards seasonal normals.

January’s DMAR Market Trends report is anything but normal. With 0.4 months of inventory, the visual of our trending closed homes to active inventory tells the story we are all feeling… there are not enough sellers to satisfy the spending hunger of the demographic swell. Year to date, we’ve sold 6.95 percent more homes than last year for a total volume of 15.44 percent more, yet 1.79 percent fewer homes came on the market. Active listings hit an all-time low of 2,541 homes for sale, which’s down 49.55 percent from last year. Consider that there are 1.2 million households in DMARs 11 county area (per the census bureau). 0.2 percent of available homes are for sale. At the last census, Colorado’s 2020 population growth was 2.63 percent year over year. Where are they all living?

What boggles my mind is how our average and median prices did not move this month. We are all hearing of 5, 10, 42 offers per home with appraisal gaps and inspection waivers. Realtor friends are stumped at how to even price a listing in today’s market. Per the report, single-family homes sold at 100.11 percent close to list. Yet, our prices stalled at 7.14 percent for our median close price growth and 7.94 percent for our average. Our market feels on fire, yet this is only 1 percent higher than the historical average.

There is no doubt in my mind this year will be another incredibly strong year for housing. Low rates, favorable demographics, rising wages, and the wealth effect created by a staggeringly out of control stock market will be the story of 2021. With interest rates hitting record lows 16 times in 2020, buyers and investors alike are taking advantage of increased purchasing power and are willing to pay what a seller asks to get their own piece of real estate!

This is only one session from the outstanding series of presentations during the Fairway Economic and Housing Summit on December 17. The full event featured presentations by the following. You can watch the replays on YouTube here:

Barry & Dan Habib Dave Stevens Ivy Zelman Chris Whalen Rob Chrisman Mike Fratantoni

Moderated by Nicole Rueth, Sarah Middleton, and Peter Beanland.

Follow along with this presentation from Ivy Zelman. (PDF)

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About Our Featured Presenter:

As CEO of Zelman & Associates, Ivy Zelman leads the preeminent boutique research and investment firm dedicated exclusively to the housing industry. Founded in October 2007, the firm is known as a thought leader across all facets of the housing spectrum. Ivy’s concept for Zelman & Associates remains strongly rooted in the ability to perform thematic research overlaid with proprietary surveys to produce unparalleled differentiated research. Ivy is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal and appears occasionally as a guest on CNBC. For the past 22 years, Institutional Investor has recognized Ivy for her industry-leading analysis. Most notably, Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team rankings placed Ivy and her team with eleven 1st place rankings. Ivy reinforced her dominant reputation in the industry by calling the top of the real estate market in 2005... and the bottom of the housing market in January 2012. Ivy received a Bachelor of Science from George Mason University.

The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-... YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Three tips here: Good Buy or Goodbye, Making Money in Your Sleep, and Interest Rates Aren't Why It's Time To Buy - Building Equity Is.

When someone asks, “Is this property a good buy?” Or “Should I be saying goodbye and invest elsewhere?” It’s not as easy as giving a quick yes or no. Most of the time there's not a straightforward answer because each person is starting from a different place have different long term or short term goals. So what is a great property for one isn't necessarily the best for someone else.

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The single most considered factor of any investment is Cash Flow. I am often asked, “What is a good cash flow?”. My answer is always the same...Positive. How much cash-flow is needed is subjective. Maybe you’re living in the property and house hacking so you don’t have to pay rent, or it could be a multi-unit that is cash-flowing so well it will pay itself off in 15 years instead of 30. Maybe it’s earning just enough cash to cover the mortgage, insurance, taxes, and maintenance, and nothing more....but it’s a long hold investment strategy...and that works too.

With a positive highlight from this year being consistent low-interest rates, you may not realize how your home is working for you already. You may be making money in your sleep. And if you haven't purchased a home yet or refinanced the one you want to stay in, this is the time. Align yourself with an experienced Realtor so they can help you realize your dream of owning real estate, or making more money in equity from the property you already own.

Listen to this valuable round up to shift your thinking and start building wealth.

"Our industry really has a need for professionals that use their platforms to take a stand for things and to help be change-makers in our community. I think the general public oftentimes looks at real estate, certainly in a city like Denver, a growing city where the prices have gone high, and there's people that can't afford to live in certain neighborhoods anymore and all of that." Nicole's guest is Ryan Belinak from Live Urban Real Estate.

His two big takeaway points for agents are these, Be kind to yourself, especially those who are new in the industry. Also, don't be afraid to adapt and put yourself out there. We have all learned new skills this past year and have had to listen to our own voices on playbacks more often than we thought possible.

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Nicole says to and about Ryan:

This week I have Ryan Belinak with me, who is the Assistant Managing Broker for Live Urban real estate and also the head of recruiting. Ryan, you have been a pleasure to get to know. We've been able to work together a bit. And your energy, your positivity, your enthusiasm for the business, for serving your clients. It really is phenomenal. I know that this new recruiting position that you've just taken on for Live Urban is going to not only suit you, but it's really going to capitalize on what makes you unique.

Listen to this 8 minute episode for more ideas and inspiration.

With a positive highlight from this year being consistent low-interest rates, you may not realize how your home is working for you already. You may be making money in your sleep. And if you haven't purchased a home yet or refinanced the one you want to stay in, this is the time. Align yourself with an experienced Realtor so they can help you realize your dream of owning real estate, or making more money in equity from the property you already own.

DMAR’s December Market Trends Report was released this morning and provided numbers supporting what we already knew. Demand is strong! Inventory hit an all-time low of 3415 active listings at month-end. Compare this to the average active listings for November month-end of over 14,000 and a happier place of 6,000 units. Sellers are exceeding the typical seasonal holiday slowdown of decreased supply. The added fears of job security, prospective buyers entering their homes, and finding a replacement home are adding to their resistance to sell. Potential Sellers are also starting to face what will become more widespread, something called rate lock where the appeal of staying in their current home with a lower rate and monthly payment will outweigh their desire to move. We will continue to see tenure increase from its current average of 10 years as well as homeowners holding onto their primary homes with low-interest rates and choose to convert them into rental properties.

Thank you for joining us for another agent talk This week I have Drew Morris, who I've got to know through DMARs Market Trends Committee. He jumped on just a little bit before I did about 2.5 years ago, and he's been a real estate agent for 7.5 years and I bring up the half because he claims it just like I claim my half an inch.

Drew Morris is with Your Castle Real Estate. I wanted to bring him on board because he has some of the same views I have and looking at real estate as a wealth-building opportunity and right now, having been through the most turbulent year I can personally remember and not being quite done yet. So how do we continue on our path to 2021 into 2022, 2023? How do we engage with our clients on a very personal level to continue to support their success in real estate?

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There is so much news to absorb whether or not we'll get shut down again, whether or not or how long, I should say before a vaccine comes out and we can return to whatever new normal looks like. What would you, and how do you relate to your clients today? How do you keep engaged with them so that you continue to be that adviser for them? I think being a person that is experiencing it firsthand and being a, I think a voice of reason, a voice of confidence. A very like, in a way, is like being even-keeled approach to things. That's something that my clients always mention. It's almost like a common theme where they could always rely on me to just kind of be even-keeled about things. No matter what's going on, the house could be burning down, and I'm like, OK, Well, here's what we're gonna do, just work through it.

So while everybody is ramping up help, trying to bring that back down and slow it down can be super helpful. And that's something that I learned from the Marine Corps, actually, because you have to be in that kind of setting. Dealing with friction and dealing with emotional responses and emotional environment and unstable environment. You know, again, bringing that to the table has been super helpful.

Nicole asked, "As far as being the even keel kind of advisor, I think that there's a lot of stress, especially this year. Small things become very big very quickly, and to be able to have that person standing beside you and walking through because the long term opportunity and you even said you know before we started recording is that one of your main focus is to continue to educate people and advise them on the power of real estate. Real estate is a wealth-building vehicle. I couldn't agree more with that, especially when we're in the turbulence of the stock market and the economy and the environment. The one thing real estate does is increase in value."

Listen to this 10-minute episode to be inspired.

Nicole's guest today is Zeona McEntyre. In this episode, they talk about house hacking to financial freedom. House hacking is the way that Zeona thought to be financially independent. And her role now is really just to help empower people, inspire people and get them excited about what's possible. People they think, "Oh yeah, financial independence or early retirement, that's for other people, that can't happen for me. Or if I'm going to do that, it's going to take me 15 years." But she did it in two years with house hacking. She also believes it's really doable in five and traditional people that are doing just financial independence with index funds, they do it in about 10. So it's almost about just knowing it's possible and then allowing yourself to have that.

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In this episode she talks about the foundations of financial independence. Some of the kind of like misnomers or confusion around it. She'll go into why, why would you want to house hack? Why would you want to share your home if it's your COVID palace, why would you want to do that? It better be for a good reason.

Shen then goes through four strategies that you can use, like four different ways you can house hack, as well as some case studies and resources at the end.

Zeona's story:

It all started when... Zeona's best friend got laid off from a big time job in New York City and could no longer afford his apartment. He called her one day excited to share his decision to travel with his new found "funemployment" funds and rent out his apartment on this website he just heard about called Airbnb. That was 2011....

After much persuading she finally decided to give it a try and never looked back!

Fast forward nearly 8 years and a whole lot of hospitality magic later. Zeona now owns seven properties, manages 20 (& counting! worldwide). She teaches others how to invest in properties with Airbnb in mind & create automated businesses. She lives in Boulder, CO half of the year and spends the other time traveling the world as an International Pet/House sitter.

There's No Bubble to Burst I keep hearing that people are waiting for the Denver market to cool down to buy or sell. But is that the best plan? Appreciation is at 6.9% year to date, which mean phenomenal growth for those who have purchased and opportunity for those just diving in. How do I know? Because three years ago I was sitting in my backyard saying nearly the same thing. The difference between now and then? Low interest rates.

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Know What Your Getting So often clients will come to us and be scared or timid in asking questions. But I'm here to say, as the top lender in the state, you should ask every question you have and leave nothing on the table. Because sometimes a few answers can make all the difference in your lending outcome. You should be confident in your lender.

November’s DMAR report highlighting October data reflects just how important the home has become by producing nearly as many records as we saw in last month’s report. Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines in fear that the bubble will burst; it is the time to stay engaged. Finding the right home might be challenging, but waiting will only cost you more.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-... YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMd...

What do the current numbers tell us about the difference between delinquency and foreclosure? About values for the top 10% of home prices vs. the entry-level lower-priced homes? Some highlights to this episode include;

We have to make sure that we distinguish this for our clients because the delinquency rates are not foreclosures, they're forbearance. And those numbers of people that are going off on forbearance is growing. More people are coming off forbearance. When they're talking about the delinquency numbers are going up, they're watching that under 30 days, 30 to 60, over 90. That's increasing and that's the number that jumps out on the headlines. Realistically though, the number of mortgages and active forbearance is going down, because remember, we started this in that March and April timeframe. Really, April was the first month that people could skip their mortgage payment with the forbearance, the CARES Act. All of those people had up to 12 months that they could be on forbearance in a three-month cycle. Most servicers are offering it every three months and then at the end of three months, you can choose to extend it or you can come off of it.

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When we hit the three-month mark, we saw a massive drop. Well, we just hit the six-month mark and we saw a drop again. It dropped by about 18%. It was down 650,000 people got off of forbearance, and another 800,000 will hit their six-month mark because remember, their 12 months starts whenever they got on the forbearance, it wasn't all in April. Their six-month mark for 800,000 people is next month.

In the beginning, there were 40% of the people that took forbearance continued to make their mortgage payment. They didn't need it, they just wanted to protect what they had. And so think about the psyche of this buyer who's currently on forbearance and maybe they're not even making a mortgage payment. Only 9% of the people who are in forbearance right now have less than 10% equity.

We need to ask ourselves on behalf of our clients, what is their neighborhood doing? How much is it appreciating locally? And being that champion for them to go, "here's where it starts to tip over. Here's what we could sell your house for today."

Maybe go in and do an assessment on how they can upgrade their home or the very specific things that would give them the best curb appeal or the best value for their home, and help them realize it that way. Maybe it's not a transaction, maybe it's just you doing your best job and being the best version of yourself for all of your clients, because the inventory continues to be a problem.

Nicole gives us a chance to meet the new CEO of DMAR, Nobu Hata. Nobu tells us the plans for membership support and value-added benefits.

Nicole asks him some questions that you will want to hear the answers to, even if you are not in the DMAR Sphere. His perspective includes what he learned working at NAR.

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Working with the Realtors, your wife, and those in your community, do you think it changed your perspective and how you expected to enter DMARs community? Or do you think you're right in alignment with where you were when you left NAR?
What is your primary focus, and how do you want to change DMA to support the membership or the experience that your DMAR community is facing today?
Talk a little bit about your vision in the space of services and content that will benefit and support members.
What's going to be the next disruptive company?
Suppose you're meeting a newer agent who's considering entering the association, what advice would you give that agent?

It’s become infinitely more important as it’s our refuge, our workplace, classroom, meeting room, restaurant, escape and for some, our isolation. The Denver Metro Association of REALTORS® (DMAR) October Market Trends Report highlights how this resurgence in our home has played out in the stats.

We have the lowest amount of homes for sale for any September at 5,301 homes, which consequently is only a mere 950 homes more than Denver-area’s all-time inventory low
Buyers put your sneakers on because homes are selling in six days, the fastest for any September on record
Be ready to pay more. Denver’s median closed price hit a record high at $461,000. Consequently, that’s more than the sellers were asking, as the close-to-list price for September was 100.41%
Even with this low inventory, we sold 5,850 homes, more than any September on record
With another record 6,376 pending sales teed up for October
Sellers, I see you are trying. 6,376 new listings came on the market; but with demographics and interest rates favoring buyers, it simply isn’t enough

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Denver’s real estate market has not only recovered from March and April’s loss; it has picked up the pace from January and February. As of the end of September, year-to-date closed homes were up 1.61% over last year and sales volume was up 7.53%. The median close price was up 6.9% - that’s an incredible equity win for our homeowners. So the question is when will this end? Or worse, will it POP?

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-... YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMd...

This is a recap of the tips in September. They include information about all types of loans, limits, how they benefit you including Renovation, CHFA, Jumbo, Conventional, FHA, USDA, and VA.

I mean who are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?

(Hint: Unfortunately not the neighbors down the street)

As consumers we all want to make sure we understand .. and can take advantage of, our options. Particularly when it’s funding possibly the largest purchase you've ever made! Yet with so many loan options how do you know where to begin?!

Renovation loans are a great option for those who have purchased a home or investment property that needs a bit of TLC. Take advantage of the great appreciation we've had to make your current home your forever home. Old musty carpet and overly patterned tile might go out of style, but leveraging the wealth you've gained by owning your home hasn't.

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CHFA - we all need a little help sometimes.

As a home buyer you have to bring money to the closing table no matter what loan option you choose....but what if the majority of that could come from the state? That’s right! There are so many opportunities to become a home buyer with as little as $1000 cash coming from your pocket. Owning your home can provide so many advantages. Don't let the amount you need to bring to the table stop you. Set yourself up to be 48 times wealthier by starting the home loan application process today!

The Gang's All Here: Fannie, Freddie, and now Ginnie Mae

Ginnie Mae is the one stop shop for first time home buyers. FHA, VA, and USDA, encompassed 67% of their loans just last year. Distinctive in income, location or past service, you can open a plethora of perks if you qualify. By placing only 3.5% or even 0% down, home and even investment opportunities are closer than you think, even if you don't have a high credit score. Make sure you have a loan officer that knows how to be creative, because the potential SAVINGS are huge.

We're here if you need more information to help you decide which loan fits you.

Nicole Rueth

The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

This week we spent time with Mike Papantonakis, newly inaugurated DMAR Market Chair and agent with Re/Max Alliance. He is one of the new leaders of DMAR but leadership isn't new to Mike. Together we explore how his experience gives him the strength he needs to lead DMAR's Board as well as champion his clients.

He reminds us that when we question the value of professional memberships, we have to remember to also ask, "What did I put into that membership? How did I participate? You only get out what you put in.

"We can not continue to do business the way we do business today. We're always going to have to be looking for a better way and a new way to do things."

Mike Papantonakis

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-... YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMd...

Jill Schafer is Nicole's guest in this episode talking about smoothing the path to homeownership to get to the celebration. That's done through continuous education on behalf of our clients.

Jill says, "understanding the market and educating our clients that's not something they could just pick up online I mean, they can read the article, but they are going to get that microneighborhood information that we can provide and getting information on just their price point or their area, or are they looking at attached and detached and that's something that report really provides and you know we can provide it to our clients, but we need to still explain how that relates to them. And so it's focusing on how I can try to make that process smoother for them in every possible and make it a celebration."

Tune in for some sage advice from this seasoned Real Estate professional.

Some of what Dina Piterniece has done to keep communicating with her clients and prospects includes:

Picking up the PHONE and TALKING to them about something other than real estate.
"Thinking about you" cards to clients.
Sending out a regular newsletter with positive ideas.
Keeping them updated as the rates kept changing in case they were able to take advantage of the situation.
Increasing your services, resources to pass along to them.

Her advice to fine-tune 2020 is to stick with the items that work for you best. Everyone has their specialties. Look for ways to increase your value and knowledge.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Nicole's guest, Amanda Snitker, stated it perfectly in this episode, "We were uniquely prepared for the current market and situation, as agents." The only thing she would change is to not be so tired from everything since April. That means she's busy. That's something to celebrate. She's fine being tired, she didn't want to miss a moment, or opportunity to help her clients.

She comes from two great examples in the industry, her own parents. She learned core values from them, saw their example of how to treat clients. What a gift they gave her.

Her takeaway for all of you agents is not a new concept or adage, but fitting for these times. Take it one day at a time.

Real estate has not only taken a position of favor because it’s now where we are spending most of our time, but it’s also giving homeowners stability in a shifting market. What keeps me up at night? The stock market. As CNN’s Fear & Greed Index moves further into Greed and Citigroup’s Panic/Euphoria Index points towards extreme Euphoria; both point to lower stock prices within a year. The recent news of COVID deaths breaking 155,000; COVID cases doubling in July; jobless numbers and continuing claims both breaking trend and increasing; and Yelp’s business tracker showing another 15,742 businesses closed permanently in July alone all point to a long recovery. Real estate, however, continues to show strength with a sneak peek into next month as pending home sales in July another big number of 7,122, 27.47 percent higher than last year.

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Home is a safe place, one which should provide joy, safety, and stability. As the world around us is in a trying time; real estate continues to be the silver lining for those who can win the bid. Jobless claims and COVID cases are up and businesses are closed. Demographics and rates continue to push demand, while the uncertainty of jobs and schools weigh heavily on sellers. Builders are rushing to make up what existing homes are not and all of this could change if the stock market turns. Here’s what I see going on in the market.

Let’s start with the sellers. They aren’t moving. Inventory continues to strain the market with 6,449 active listings at month-end, 31.1% below last July. The uncertainty of the job market, the inability to find a replacement home, and the now the stress of homeschooling have sellers thinking twice. Meanwhile, builder confidence rallied in July to meet the suburban moving demand with smaller homes void of shared spaces. Denver saw New Home Pending Sales up 17.9% in June and 22.9% over last year.

Meanwhile, the buyers are clamoring for homes that are priced right and staged well, with 31% of detached homes selling for over asking and average days on market dropping 7.7% year over year and median dropping 36.4%. And not only is the demand hot for lower-priced homes as first-time homebuyers, downsizers, and investors push the close to list price for homes between $300,000 and $500,000 to 100.6%; homes over a million also gained favor in July. Are people finding well-being today in luxury homes? 55% more million dollar plus homes sold than last year driving the average closed price for single-family detached above $601,863. That’s almost 10 percent higher than July last year when it seemed the McMansion had all but lost favor. Speaking of McMansions, what were the two highest-priced homes sold in July? A $7-million-dollar home in Boulder and a $5.985-million-dollar home in Cherry Hills, of course.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Pipe Knoll gives all of you some very logical tips to succeed during these times and any time. She says, "This is the time to double down on communicating with clients and being the person that's there to care."

And when she started to realize that she was actually becoming her own worst enemy and holding herself back from success. She just started to really build on her showing who she is to people and once she started to really open up and get out of her own way and stop trying to pretend to be a real estate robot she really had her business take off.

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She took her own advice after crying to two days at the initial shut down and started calling her clients and connections. "Hey, how are you? How's your family? is your job Okay? Is the family healthy? How can I help? Is there anything you need ?" And all of a sudden that started this turned into a business thing that she did not expect. Listen to the rest of this 8-minute episode.

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About Piper:

After several years in the insurance industry, she realized that selling homes, rather than insuring them, was much more up her alley and she earned her real estate license in 2005. She has led the charge perfecting their team’s systems and processes over the years, helping our buyers and sellers navigate their real estate transactions extremely well-prepared and with ease! Knowledge is power and she looks for every opportunity to meet with clients and educate them on the Denver market and the home buying and selling process.

We know we still have some reluctant hold outs, but for the most part, we have all been participating in at least a few Zoom meetings, or in other venues. Ray Eickhoff has a few tips that even experienced Zoomers may not know or have forgotten. This was the Q&A session after an Agent Ignite session hosted by Nicole Rueth.

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This Chalk Talk is from April 2020 - the height of COVID-19 and the Zoom Boom. There are tips in there for advanced users that they sometimes overlook. Ray also explains the logic behind some of the tools to help newer users. But what will you do to maximize the value of these free venues? How are you using it to connect? Although we're all more comfortable on Zoom and similar platforms, this is still timely. Zoom continues to evolve, as do the other platforms. Tune in to this Chalk Talk for a refresher and reminder course on Zoom.

Today's Agent Talk features a professional who raises the bar for all agents. Excellence and ethics are the core of what drives her to treat each client and listing - no matter what price range the same, with the same care and dedication. Get to know her in this edition of The Double Comma Club.

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Brigette is a true champion for her clients, watching out for you every step of the way, and knows the market like the back of her hands. There are a lot of people in this business who are just focused on the transaction, while Brigette is focused on a lifelong working relationship and earning your trust.

Your partner building wealth through real estate,

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Susan Finch gives agents practical tips regarding video, online meetings, and how to keep from making a fool of yourself when you meet prospects virtually. From how to stand for a headshot, your HD face, warnings about automatic transcripts, video editing tips that no one talks about.

Susan also covers equipment tips, online meeting tips, and enough suggestions to make your head explode. Grab what you can from here, there are dozens of practical and humorous tips.

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Get to know Susan better through her classes she teaches on DMANC.org, Funnel Radio and her own website, susanfinch.com

Our Chalk Talk experts today are from InkedMichganRealty.com. They covered the benefits of using Matterport virtual home tours and tools, as well as a few other 360 view camera solutions to provide your potential clients added benefits to listing with you, buyers the preview of their next home, as well as added experiences through video and photos. In this episode Ryan, Tony and Chris walk you through how they integrate Matterport into their social media campaigns, marketing campaigns and other outreach. They don't want a listing to sit hoping to be discovered online, they are proactively pushing out every way to safely, effectively preview a property and do a transaction 100% online, with the option of the in-person inspection.

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Learn from one of the most successful real estate firms in Michigan in this episode of The Double Comma Club, Chalk Talk - Virtual Tours, Open Houses, and Social Media Integration.

Your partner building wealth through real estate,

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Learning how to fail is one of the best lessons learned in an industry as humbling as Real Estate. Life, and your career, is a marathon not a sprint with the goal of collecting memories instead of trophies because as we all know, trophies collect dust. Jeff thinks of his agents as his client. His job is to solve their problems so they can do what they do best - real estate transactions to solve the problems of THEIR clients.

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This week we spent time with Jeff Moore, Managing Broker of Blue Sky Home Group.

Jeff has cracked the code on building a business through lead generation. He has lead his team for the past five years, making sure they are always one step ahead, always sticking to a system they know works. After a terrible accident that left him unable to play soccer, Jeff has only just begun to build a lifestyle where he can have what is most precious to him, time, and that's the most important goal.

"You don't have all the answers. And you're not the smartest person in the room. And if you are, then you are in the wrong room." - Jeff Moore

Your partner building wealth through real estate,

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Get me off this COVID-19 rollercoaster! Cases are resurging closing businesses that just opened while risking the recent good news of job creations and lower unemployment we saw from economic reopenings in May and June. The Fed is poised to act to keep rates low and urged lawmakers to accelerate the fourth stimulus package before programs end July 31st. Locally, Denver's housing market remains strong with growing pending home sales, almost full recovery of closed homes compared to 2019, and appreciating values due to scarce inventory.

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Here are some points covered:

Metro Denver’s Resilient Housing Market

The resiliency of our Denver Metro buyers is the theme of July’s DMAR Market Trends Report. New Listings were gobbled up as Pending Home Sales show strength growing 16% month over month - on top of May’s 115% surge. We saw Closed homes recover to within 11% of 2019’s year to date numbers, resulting in a difference of only 3000 homes sold this year compared to last year. Considering we sell an average of 57,500 homes a year, we’ve recovered to within half a month’s sold homes. The Median Closed Home Price recovered from its slight dip last month, landing at a 4.53% gain for our homeowners.

The market gains came at a cost: inventory. We know prices go up when supply is scarce as Months of Inventory dropped from two to one month with the biggest drop in the $1M+ homes going from 9.5 months to 4.36. $300 and $400K’s priced homes also saw their months of inventory cut in half as sellers stayed on the sidelines as confident buyers engaged in bidding wars.

To say Active Inventory became scarce is an understatement and with an 11% decline month over month and 33% year over year - after an almost 20% year over year drop last month from 2019.

As the virus rampages throughout the nation and the economy attempt to recover, the housing market will be its guiding light, strong, stable, and willing to provide financial security to those who participate.

Your partner building wealth through real estate,

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Interest rates are at an all-time low which means a lower monthly payment. But how much? If you are thinking of purchasing a home for $400,000 with 15% down at 4.25%, between taxes, mortgage interest, insurance, and principal, your monthly payment would be around $2,125. BUT that same home purchased at 3.25%, that would lower your payment to about $1,900. What are you going to do with that saved $225/month? If you put that saving BACK into your home, you'd pay off your mortgage 6 years earlier. This would also save you $41,000 in interest. Listen to the rest of this 3-minute tip to get more information.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

It's 2020 and we are all being challenged to think outside of the box. You have to put the wide lens on to make sure your plan of action encompasses everything you value and what makes your company unique. And when it comes to real estate, an industry based on connections, it's even more important. This week we are spending time with Jana Miller, Managing Broker of Live Urban Real Estate.

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Jana has a background that helped her be a fantastic leader for her team during a challenging time. When quarantine began she knew Live Urban had to be a place for information, direction and community, supporting not only within but industry-wide. During our time together, Jana shared how Live Urban stepped up and found new ways to engage.. which included their fun side!

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Nicole's guest is redT Homes CEO, Nathan Adams. He brings a unique perspective to the real estate market in the Denver Metro area because his firm's sweet spot is new construction. First, they covered the growing popularity of townhomes over condos because of shared spaces, including elevators. A townhome is your own germs, your front door is your own.

Closings for his firm have gone way up to give them their best month in the 15-year history of their company.

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He credits part of this to his firm's ability to track the hidden inventory. When new condos and townhomes and homes are built, they don't release all of them at once to the market. They trickle them out in phases.

Because rates continue to be lower, we will continue to see people able to afford 10% more in housing prices than they were before.

He says they are looking into meeting the new needs of home buyers. They are looking for a home with private space - an office, even 6 x 6 to give them a door, privacy for when they work from home. They are looking for a property where they can build 800 - 1400 square foot 2 bedroom homes that still have one or two-car garage, high-end appliances, counters, smart home features, and that private space.

He recommends that agents keep up on zoning changes in your area to know what's coming soon, and perhaps a couple of years down the road.

Be sure to subscribe at the right so you never miss an episode. Find us in your favorite podcast apps, too.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Nicole asked Rylan Pyciak for his advice for the first time investor. He says, "Learn, get educated, attend the seminars, find a trusted advisor, then jump and make the move!"

He's putting this in practice while fulfilling the requirements by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae before adding his next property. His goal is to own five or six properties.

A New Investor Story | It Really Is That Easy Anyone can become a real estate investment owner. There I said it. This is an opportunity that is open to anyone. And the best part is that it can provide so much for not only your current monthly income but it can help you build wealth exponentially over time. I had the chance to sit down with Rylan Pyciak, who has done a phenomenal job over the last 13 months EASILY kicking off his investment portfolio and securing his financial future, even during times such as these. As a business owner, he knew he needed to add to his portfolio to create financial stability. He knew that just owning his company wasn't enough. I'm grateful that he took the time to share what the most important steps were to him in the process. In turn, I hope this can help you know how to start the process of becoming not only a homeowner but own multiple investment properties. Because when you build wealth through real estate you open up a multitude of possibilities.

Want to learn more? Join our Building an Investment Empire Class at https://bit.ly/37CyD7C

Get to know Lori Pace who is way more than an associate broker at Kentwood. This movement leader, compassionate, talented agent talks with Nicole on this Agent Talk episode on The Double Comma Club. Here's a taste, "What I did differently last year changed my business significantly. I stopped focusing on the revenue and started focusing on the relationship. And by me being me, my business almost doubled because I stopped pretending that I was just a Realtor because I am not just a Realtor. I think a lot of us do this, we pretend that we don't have families. We pretend that we don't have loss. We pretend that everything is okay. I stopped pretending and showing up and being real about it.

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When I started going after my passion, the revenue showed up. I don't think there was once that I had to advertise a listing or what I did. I was doing what I normally do in my life, and things started to change as I was doing more things business. I was doing life, and I was doing what was important to me, and somehow the power of attraction worked out. Whereas I was more excited about my mission in life and my relationship."

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Nicole's guest today is Nilmini Hecox. She left us with an interesting perspective as an immigrant from Sri Lanka, turned real estate agent. Our real estate culture here stuns her. As she has become more vulnerable and personal with her clients, she's gained so many insights and stronger relationships. Nilmini says, "The service I offer is about safety and security, not bricks and sticks. We are in the midst of this wave of change that may never reach the shore." Please listen to this 10-minute episode of her story and what she has done to ride this wave of change for the benefit of her clients.

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Your partner in building wealth through Real Estate,

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

2020 has been a year of historical proportions (what else could possibly happen?) and it’s changed the real estate market. Buyers and sellers alike are no longer only asking, “Do we love this home,” but are now asking questions like, “Is it big enough to work from home?” “Does it provide opportunity and space for my children to play if schooling at home?” And, ultimately, “Is it safe?”

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These shifts reveal the new buyer psyche. For as much as the market remains a seller’s market, current events are changing buyer behavior which will impact limited inventories. Read the rest of the blog at https://theruethteam.com/Market-Trends

Your partner in building wealth through Real Estate,

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

When everyone is looking for a shiny penny, the technology to bring in more business, Euan is focusing on the basics. "At the end of the day, you are your business." You've got to KNOW how you are approaching your business, the value you are bringing to your clients, and your differentiator. If you can't express the simple 'why' you do what you do; you can't serve the people you were meant to serve. This week we visit with Euan Graham, DMAR Chair, Realtor Madison and Company and get the simple perspective from an Immigrant.

"Life is too short to be around negative people." – Euan Graham ----more----

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

The economy is finding it's footing as people move from safer at home to back to work.. as restaurants and stores begin to open and some sort of new normal takes shape. Real estate is bouncing back with a resurgence in demand and opportunities ... even in this "recession". The nation as a whole is suffering shortages, and demand is ramping up so prices are going up and up! Key indicators suggested before pandemic there would be higher demand, but because unemployment has skyrocketed, the market dropped in April. But get the full story here.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Sometimes as real estate industry professionals we get caught up in the success, in the transaction, counting units and production. Those are real and tangible and feel good. But when we celebrate the client's success, remembering who the real estate industry is really about, then we stop making it about us and are able to make a dramatic difference in people's lives for today and all of their tomorrows... it's multigenerational.

Nicole asked Bret, "What would you say is the one thing that you've learned during this time, right during COVID19? We've all had to rethink everything. What was the one thing that you've learned that really stands out?"

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When we go back 10 20 30 years, in real estate. We sometimes it feels like we just lose our way and we start to focus on our commissions. We start to focus on the money, and we start to lose sight of value, our award ceremonies. It's based on production, not how many families we've helped. It's based on size. Not how many individuals do we help to achieve their goals, and sometimes we get so focused on those numbers and we forget that this is the biggest transaction in people's lives. In the past 20 to 30 years we've dropped the ball on that a little bit. As Realtors and real estate agents, we've allowed companies like these disruptors, the big companies - Zillow, Redfin, all these companies to come in. Because we've been focused on not the consumer but on the general process and kind of where it takes us.

It is much more important right now than it ever has been for us to focus on being of value to these people because there's a lot of people are gonna be put into really difficult positions and they're looking at us to be the experts. A lot of people have lost their jobs. If they can't refinance, if they can't call you to get something done and they got $200,000 of equity. We have to be that frontline, and there's going to be so many people out there that are gonna be taking advantage of that.

We said real estate agents are essential. They're not. They never have been. They never will be. We're a byproduct of something that is essential. Bret says, "The real estate industry making that dramatic difference in people's lives that are essential. Hyper-focusing on that has really helped us to grow. And the nice thing is, if you build your business this way, it really seems like you get a lot more referrals. You get a lot more people who are actually coming to you because you're an expert. They know that you care.

If you're not sharing and you're thinking that everything is limited, then that's keeping you playing small. "

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Forbearance GREAT News for Your Clients. You've heard me talking about how brutal the consequences were for taking a forbearance. It was something the designers of the Cares Act did not foresee. It took FHFA 6 weeks to figure it out. But they finally did. Listen to find out how the 12-month waiting period just got reduced to zero or three months and a quick summary of the four options for exiting a forbearance and their timing updates.

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***Please note: this guideline change is for originating new conventional loans (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) not FHA, VA, and USDA, those still have a 12-month post forbearance waiting period. We are hopeful their announcements will follow.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110 303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theruethteam YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Nicole welcomes Alex Tooke, one of the founders of Peak Properties Group to Agent Talk today. Derek Weber and our guest, Alex Tooke have grown Peak to a consistent $100 million in transactions per year company. They have 20 agents and three locations. He really drives home the overuse of the word pivot. There is no need to pivot your business now. This is the time to double-down on your core values as an agent and a company. What are you already good at? Do more of that. Look for collaboration among your competitors for the benefit of all agents and the local industry. There is enough room for everyone to continue building strength from within their teams. This 8-minute conversation will give you some aha moments, and allow you to not buy into the need to change everything you know in order to survive in these times. Instead, focus on what you do well and thrive. Learn more about Peak Properties Group here.

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Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110

303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

We have Steve Danyliw, who I am honored to have as long as I've known him, which hasn't been long enough. He has been if you will, the man behind the curtain of DMAR's Market Trends report. He is a data geek, which speaks to my heart. He started the market trends report back with Gary Bauer in 2012. He's been in the industry pretty much since birth since his second-generation realtor, but officially he's been in 18 years, so he's seen the cycles. He's seen the seasons, and this season is unlike anything else. So I wanted to ask Steve, especially this week when the market trends report just came out. Steve, what are you seeing this month?

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Steve: Maybe that not surprised you, but numbers different than where we usually go this time of year. Definitely this time of year, the market starts accelerating. The seasonality of the Denver metro market is that we typically hit the bottom in December and January. Then it's a quick acceleration up to June where we typically peak. Then it's a slow decline all the way back to December and in January. We just didn't see this covert housing market has just pretty much taken the air out of the balloon.

When it comes to that spring surge of the housing market and normal seasonal increases that we expect to this time of the year just have not happened. And the question then becomes, is this a short term situation?

Steve: It is short term, but the impact and the ability to recover, how long is that going to really take. There really is no easy answer because we're in uncharted waters and there is no way to go back and say, oh, this is like the financial collapse in '08, and so this is what we can expect to happen. There is this percentage of distressed sales, and we had short sales and foreclosures and, 2010 – 35% of what we sold in certain months were properties that were in some sort of financial distress. Right now, we're at about 0.1%. So we're still healthy and in those regards. But this time of the year we should be seeing seasonal increases. We would normally see new listings increased 5% this time of year from March to April. And we saw it drop by almost 30%. So there was a lot of red in this report. Is it scary? Not necessarily. It's not scary. We’re not falling off a cliff. This was all kind of expected.

You can't shut down an economy and not see these types of numbers happen.

So you'd expect this to continue into the May report as well, or the May data in the June report?

Steve: Generally, there are certain things, traditionally when a property goes under contract, it's 30 to 45 days to closing. And so you could always potentially look at the pendings or under contracts in a given month to kind of predict what the following month is going to be like.

Your pendings are going to turn into [closings], hopefully. They give you a good barometer of closings the following month. Historically, we should see about a 5% increase month over month in properties going under contract. This is part of that increase in the spring moving into the summer, and we dropped by about 30%. We had 30% fewer. so when you talk about what we see normally see seasonality plus the additional 30%. What it really means is that closings are also next month or the end of this month. The closings, they're going to be probably significantly down once again. Is it going to be in the 30% to 40% range off the pace from the same month last year? Probably to be conservative is probably going to be in that area could we be even a potentially little higher? It's possible.

Listen to the rest of this episode to hear more of Steve's insights for the coming two quarters.

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110

303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

Forbearance .. how to get in, get out, and the 12 month waiting period There have been more questions than answers when it comes to forbearance. Banks and servicers are making it oddly easy to get into forbearance making it seem like even if you don't need it, it's the right thing to do. But is it? It can affect your ability to get a lower interest rate or purchase a home for 12 months, locking you OUT of the market. Parents, sellers.. I'm talking to you as well. There are consequences the Cares Act did not think through. Listen to find out how to get in, get out, and more about the 12 month waiting period!

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Here are the four options your service provider will offer - or make you aware of:

Pay it back in full and get current
Set up a payment plan
Create a deferred payment at the end of the loan
Set up a loan modification

Call me if you have more questions!

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110

303-214-6393 www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media: Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw

We see red numbers on this month’s Market Trends Report and this is no surprise, but there are a few silver linings buried in there as well. Let’s start at the top and what’s going on in the economic market, the consumer confidence, and then how it intersects Denver’s real estate market. COVID-19 has impacted us all, some more deeply than others. The loss of jobs and the requirement to stay at home forced many transactions and businesses to a screeching halt.

Join us for this episode covering Unemployment, GDP and Consumer Confidence Rates, In Person Showings, Appreciation, Demand is Strong, Time to Navigate. These insights will help you respond to the current market and prepare for what's coming up.

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Your partner,

Nicole Rueth The Rueth Team of Fairway Independent Mortgage Corporation 750 W Hampden Avenue, Suite 500 Englewood, CO 80110

303-214-6393

www.TheRuethTeam.com

Connect on social media:

Follow me on FB: https://www.facebook.com/theruethteam/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicolerueth Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rueth-team-fairway-independent-mortgage/ YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPMdb94tUNMMsUTgdWRMDKw