Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Brought to you from Ohio based home inspection company of Habitation Investigation. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
The Great Buyer Pushback: How Market Dynamics Are Shifting in Ohio and Beyond
The real estate market is experiencing a significant shift with 71% of active agents making no sales in the last 18 months, creating both challenges and opportunities for those who can adapt to changing conditions.
• 71% of active real estate agents have made zero sales in the past 18 months
• The "Great Pushback" shows buyers refusing to pay inflated prices for homes
• National Association of Realtors has lost approximately 440,000 members (25% of total)
• Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae implementing roughly 80 rule changes, including rental history consideration for loans
• Private listings debate centers on transparency versus seller security concerns
• Squatter problems highlight challenges in property management and ownership rights
• Successful agents must know their numbers and articulate unique value to clients
• Relationship-building and referrals becoming increasingly important in the current market
• Interest rates still high but some builders offering reduced rates (around 6.5% or lower)
• Market shifting from seller's market to more balanced conditions
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
NBC4 news segments: The importance of home inspections, and what to look for | NBC4 WCMH-TV
Advice from experts: Don’t skip the home inspection | NBC4 WCMH-TV
OSU student’s mysterious symptoms end up tied to apartment’s air quality | NBC4 WCMH-TV
How to save money by winterizing your home | NBC4 WCMH-TV
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Scheduled classes
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Course lis...
Habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in Ohio. Trusted licensed home inspectors for your needs from radon to mold to warranties For a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit homeinspectionsInOhiocom.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to the Standing Out and Out Podcast. This is Jim and of course we have Laura, the Office Goddess, here.
Speaker 3:Hello everyone.
Speaker 2:Alright, Laura, so you read some interesting things.
Speaker 3:The other day. Oh yeah, statistics, stats, not necessarily my friend, but very interesting.
Speaker 2:Some people called them sadistics because they did not like stats in college.
Speaker 3:I enjoyed it actually I had. I did well, which is probably why I liked it I had problems with it because they literally taught us how to take the statistics and lie you can manipulate to do information that you want, for example, vaccines.
Speaker 2:they did a thing saying, hey, this vaccine is 100% better than the other one, like double the results. You're like, oh, this is awesome. Really, the first vaccine only had a one percent efficacy. This is only doing two percent but still shit was correct, it's still shit. But yeah, technically from one to two, yeah, you doubled it so you can manipulate stats to do what you want. But you got some stats that you want to talk about the real estate market overall nationally, which then ohio, is a good representation of what goes on nationally.
Speaker 2:We're a little like buffered well, we don't have as wild swings right just because of what's going on in ohio and how many companies are coming in yeah, I think ohio used to be I think in the 80s it was a research center for marketing where they would like national brands would do things in ohio to see how that worked, because they that ohio was a good representation of the country. I've heard that where national brands would do things in Ohio to see how that worked because Ohio was a good representation of the country.
Speaker 2:I've heard that too, so tell us, what have you found?
Speaker 3:So the biggest one that I found was, of all of the real estate agents that are active nationally 71% have not made any sales in the last 18.
Speaker 2:months 71.
Speaker 3:71. 71, which is insane to me.
Speaker 2:Well, there's lots of agents that are inactive, that don't do anything, right.
Speaker 3:I don't think that included them. From what I was reading, everything was saying active agents.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. That's amazingly bad. We know there's a shortage of houses. Yes, overall in the marketplace.
Speaker 3:Across across the country. Actually, yes, but that is amazing to me. I mean they do say that you know, out of most occupations or whatever, especially real estate, you've got 20% of the agents doing 80% of the work and apparently that stat is holding very true.
Speaker 2:That's Pareto principle. Do you know him?
Speaker 3:No, I do not know him.
Speaker 2:He was an Italian economist and I think he realized that, hey, 80% of the land I think that's how it went, he had, 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population. So 80-20 really does transfer to a lot of things.
Speaker 2:It really does. So the freighter person was like 20% will do 8% of the work. So a lot of the marketing people do is they find that top 20% focus on them and that way you're going to take care of yourself very well If you're serving those 20% or you're marketing only the 20% who are able to purchase, or whatever the deal is. So what else did you find in the stats? Because I'm seeing this and we're kind of seeing it here. I'm kind of thinking this is the great pushback.
Speaker 3:Yes. Because, when buyers are done paying ginormous overinflated prices for houses. Basically, once you get into a house and you've paid, you know, 100, 000, 200, 000 over asking price just to get it, you're not getting that appraisal back anytime soon, like they're stuck in that house for a very long time period.
Speaker 2:End story correct because and we're seeing buyers they're not buying the house they're walking what? What was that stat?
Speaker 3:you told me in arizona oh, that was for every one house that went on the market, 30 were coming off because the prices were not accurate when they went on and buyers were refusing to pay I mentioned that to a real estate other day and he's like yeah, I can see that like he, he's even seeing some stats like that as well arizona has great swings typically
Speaker 2:when the market crashed in 2008. They arizona phoenix really got crushed phoenix, florida so we probably have the same thing going on here in some way not as dramatic perhaps, but we're you, I for the home inspection company we are seeing buyers, more inspections.
Speaker 2:We're seeing a good number of inspections, especially on new builds, which is good and concerning the things that we're finding often, but we're seeing buyers like no, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to wait. I'm not going to wait. No, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to wait. I'm not going to wait, I'm not going to sign your paperwork. Yeah, talk to the builder. I'm not going to sign your paperwork because I'm going to do inspection first, because I'm not going to be.
Speaker 3:Trapped in a house that I can't live in.
Speaker 2:Financially trapped in this house, so any other interesting stats come up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, 71% did no single transaction In 18 months.
Speaker 2:And these are the active agents.
Speaker 3:Active agents yes. That was my understanding from all the different sources that I read. So another interesting source is that the NAR role agents are leaving the NAR. Now I don't know if this is because the agents are leaving the industry or because a lot of brokerages are now saying, well, you don't have to belong to the NAR, and so they're just not doing that. So I don't know the exact reason for that one, but they've lost about 440,000 agents.
Speaker 2:Ooh, so what percentage of their agents is that?
Speaker 3:I don't know, they had like 1.6 million.
Speaker 2:So it's not like oh, this is the fourth. Yeah, that's 25%.
Speaker 3:It's gonna be interesting to see what ends up happening with that one and the reasons why for that. There's a lot of stuff coming down the road where things are going to be changed. Freddie and Fannie have about 80 different changes that they had done to their roles, but they've only published like 12. And I couldn't find what they were and what the differences were For the rules of their doing loans and business it makes it all right.
Speaker 2:They're not announcing that it's probably an internal process, that they're not they're either there's no, they don't see a need for the public to know them, or they're like nah, somebody's gonna complain about that.
Speaker 3:Let's keep this internally I think there's a thing with freddie and fanny, the DOJ, and they're working through some concerns with those two organizations. So keep your eyes out on the requirements, because I know they have upped the amount of money for an initial loan. Say that I'm going through Freddie or Fannie and instead of whatever it was before, it's going to be like 806,000 or something like that that they're going to be willing to loan out. So I think they've raised it, but it's going to be like different stuff and they're also going to be able to look at renter's history, I believe, to be able to get a loan to somebody, because that makes sense to me. You've been paying rent for 15 freaking years and you don't think you can pay a mortgage. Why would you not include that in the first place?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good change if they do add your rental history From what I've seen and once again, I haven't been able to find everything.
Speaker 3:I'm not a loan officer, so make sure that you're talking to loan officers, because I think a lot of this stuff is going to be changing on a daily basis and you're going to need to keep up for your clients so that you know the best way to help them and the best type of loan person to give them to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's. There's so many loan programs out there. I remember sitting down having coffee with a loan officer years ago. He had like 80 different programs. Right, I mean down having coffee with a loan officer just years ago. He had like 80 different programs. I don't know how a single loan officer can know all those things. So I'm hoping loan officers can put in your potential buyers like stats or all their information and they have some system to go hey, here's all the potential programs they could possibly use.
Speaker 2:That would be fantastic if they had that. If you're a loan officer and you have that, I would totally let everybody know that you have this program to find the best program for them. I've never heard a loan officer talking about that.
Speaker 3:No, but that would be very good. So if you don't have that hint, hint, hint, that might be a good thing to do.
Speaker 2:Or if you're an agent, go hey, I have a loan officer that can research and find all the programs that for loans, that that may be the best for you. Well, I've always been under the impression, instead of going to the bank and it's only their one loan, two loans that they give out.
Speaker 3:But still, even some loan officers only deal with certain loans. I don't know of any one loan officer that deals with all of the different kinds, so you need to find one that's got a good range for the clientele that you work with.
Speaker 2:Because that's what it's going to come down to. It would be hard to know all those.
Speaker 3:Right and trying to figure that out and remember that that's crazy.
Speaker 2:That would be difficult, that's too, much.
Speaker 3:So those were the big ones. There's a lot of changes coming. There's also something about private listings, and so this has been a huge debate. Apparently, zillow is not allowing private listings, like certain private listings, I believe, on Zillow, and the ones that aren't allowed on Zillow, homescom has said, well heck, we're going to put those on for our people. So if you can't list something on Zillow, go to homescom, because I think you can list it there. So there's this huge debate about private listings. And is it enough transparency? Is it hurting the client, the seller? And so that's another huge debate that's going on within the real estate industry.
Speaker 2:If we were a seller and say we moved out of the house, the house is vacant, right? I, I would not want somebody to know I would be a little more timid about putting the house up publicly.
Speaker 3:That's for sale well we did, because from mechanicsburg, yeah well, we had the agent living in town and she would come we had check on it.
Speaker 2:We had people who could watch the house.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Because you go publicly. Hey, my house is for sale. Here's a public listing on an MLS. Here's a photo showing it vacant.
Speaker 3:If I was a thief, but how does the thief get access to the MLS? Because that's just supposed to be real estate agents. Well, yeah, but MLS posts those things in other places well, that's true, so you'd have to go through and search so I would.
Speaker 2:I'd be like, oh, here's a new list. If I was a thief, here's, here's a house for sale, okay, I can see they listed. Look look at there's new, uh, new appliances, new furnace, new kitchen cabinets. Kitchen cabinets do not have serial numbers. I could go in there and I can see that it's a vacant house because of all the photos in there. That's the house that if I was a thief I would probably target, versus the one that all right, I see it's occupied. You got like no. So if I was say we had a really super nice house, really nice things in there, and it's vacant right now, I would not that publicly listed. I think as a seller you should be allowed to choose you want private listing or not, because I would not want everybody coming in the house.
Speaker 3:I'd want people hey, only serious people that the agent may be vetted coming in to take a look do you remember like the the first year ever we have gone in and two of the houses that we were to inspect had people that had moved in?
Speaker 3:they had squatters in there yes we weren't able to go in and the one company when I called to talk to the listing agent and I can't remember what company this was, but she said she works across the country. She's she's a licensed real estate agent across the country for this company and that ohio was the worst company that she had to deal with yeah, the the worst state to deal with in terms of squatters, and that there were more squatters in ohio just taking over houses than other areas of the country and I.
Speaker 2:That seems very bizarre to me, but we we've had a couple houses where we go in or had that before doing inspection. Like holy crap, there's squatters in here and this is a big problem in other other states as well, where the police are like no, we can't, we can't kick them out. Tenants, tenants, rights. I'm like wait, there's no tenant.
Speaker 3:There's no signed agreement which is infuriating to me. Well, remember when we had that one house that we didn't sell because we couldn't sell it in Toledo. Yes, and so we had a rental agreement with this woman who moved some bippity, boppity dude in with her.
Speaker 2:They were an old boyfriend, old boyfriend or something, I have no idea. But she left him.
Speaker 3:She left him and she moved out, but he was still there and he wouldn't move out.
Speaker 2:And we couldn't.
Speaker 3:We couldn't evict him, like we had to go through the court system to be able to evict him, in spite of the fact we had no agreement with him. We didn't know he was living there, and I think there does need to be a change for landlords to help protect them more in terms of squatters and people that don't belong in the house. If you don't have a signed contract, your butt needs out. You should not have to go through court for that, because you're coming in and that's something illegal that you're doing. You are there illegally.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and they know it, and they know it. So, so really it's I'm calling it a great pushback where buyers are not like nope, I'm not gonna buy that, I'm not gonna pay this much. First interest fed needs. Lower the interest, that'd be, that'd be nice we'll see how that everybody out yeah so interest rates have really not come down that much.
Speaker 3:I have heard some interest rates are good, some some areas are dropping them I've heard down to like six and a half percent now, okay, I've heard down to like 6.5%.
Speaker 2:Now Okay, I've heard lower than that even.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay, whatever I read this morning was 6.5%. I think it was a builder was giving that yeah, builder was doing what Three or four we?
Speaker 2:heard Something like that.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes so new builds are lower interest even.
Speaker 2:So, but yeah, buyers just aren't going to deal with that. They're more aware of mold issues and new builds, which I don't know if we have done a podcast on that. We need to do that one. I think we did, but anyway.
Speaker 3:Well, in flipped houses, like the lawsuit in Alliance, yeah, we talked about that one, where they bought a house without an inspection and they're looking at $323,000 worth of repairs.
Speaker 2:Yep. So, laura, if you are a real estate agent and you know there's pushback from buyers because they're not cave in Right, one of the problem is the sellers. If they got really nice interest rates say 3%, it's hard to move someplace and pay a higher interest rate. Yes, that's one issue 3%, it's hard to move someplace and pay a higher interest rate.
Speaker 2:That's one issue, but it seems like in Arizona, and it's here as well the buyer is like no, no, no, my house is totally worth $500,000. When it's like no, it's worth more like $425,000.
Speaker 3:Or $325,000.
Speaker 2:It's not a seller's market right now.
Speaker 3:It is starting to change. It's getting a little bit more balanced.
Speaker 2:It's definitely more balanced than what it was. If you were a real estate agent and you had to deal with this environment, what would you do? Well, first of all, it's not just that.
Speaker 3:It's the negotiation of your commission as a buyer's agent, because a lot of people are having trouble with that. I'm seeing a lot of posts on Facebook you know how do I have this conversation. Or you know, a friend was listing a $3 million house and he only wanted to pay me point 5% and I'm like no, my commission is this. And he went with another agent, so you just lost that commission. So I understand that, but there needs to be a balance of what your commission is and what you offer to a client. You need to stand out so that you can go to your client. No, I am worth this. This is what I will do for you. It's like $17,000.
Speaker 1:I think is what somebody said Okay.
Speaker 3:I would have taken that as a commission on a $3 million house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's 0.5% right. Yeah, yeah, $15,000. I may be wrong on this. I've never been a real estate agent, but I think the paperwork to sell a $3 million house is the exact same paperwork to sell a $200,000 house.
Speaker 3:I'd rather get the higher commission from the higher priced house.
Speaker 2:There's a whole other topic Agents. You need to know your numbers. If you know your average expenses per house they cost you let's just say $2,000. Okay, of marketing and expense that you have in each house on average, then you know you cannot sell. Your commission has to be at least that amount.
Speaker 3:So it's just a break even figure out your math. And then cause that that would have been worth it for that agent but, that agent didn't do it, so they lost 17, 15,000, but being able to go to your client well, this is what I offer. That other agents don't. I think is going to become paramount in this next few years, Because if you don't stand out, why would anybody choose you at this point?
Speaker 2:Yep. Yep so it's something that other people cannot copy right, which is going to be your connections.
Speaker 3:You cannot copy your connections, your relationships there was a statistic I saw where people were getting um like from past clients, friends, relatives, like those numbers are jumping up for real estate agents in terms of how they are being able to do transactions.
Speaker 2:How to find new clients. Maybe how to find clients.
Speaker 3:So I need to look back through and see if I can find that stat and then maybe one of our future podcasts we can talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you get referrals from taking good care of your past clients.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And being somewhat reasonable within the fee you can't expect because because somebody's your friend, you can double the the expense, your commission, and think they're gonna jump on that jump on that. They're gonna like dude. He's trying to take advantage of our friendship and like no, that's not good.
Speaker 2:So be reasonable on the fee, of course, but you need to know your numbers and and your worth. But fifteen thousand dollar commission, that's I understand. That's less than the thirty thousand you may have hoped, hoped for, or forty five thousand, but if your expenses are only two,000 per transaction that you actually complete, you're making money. It's worth it, especially when the sales are lower. The number of transactions are lower than they have been in previous years. So, laura, I think that's about it for this one.
Speaker 3:Yep, I think you're right. No, just that was it.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you, everybody.
Speaker 3:Bye All right, bye-bye.
Speaker 4:You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company, home Inspection Company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H. And click on podcast. Until next time, learn and go do stuff.
