Speaker 1: 0:00

The following program. The ENT , mortgage and Realty Show is paid for in full by ENT mortgage, LLC and equal housing lender consumer access.org number 2 5 5 3 6 8. The advice and opinions expressed during the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show are solely that at the hosts and guests of ENT mortgage, LLC, and not WTMJ or Good Karma Brands.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Welcome to the Accu Net Mortgage and Realty Show, getting you inside information on buying, selling, and financing your home with expert advice from Accu Net Mortgage and Realty. And now here's Brian and David Wickers.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Welcome to the Accu Mortgage and Realty Show. I'm Brian Wicker, majority owner of Acuate Mortgage , uh, here today, along with my son, David Wicker, who's the president of the mortgage company. Uh , I should also mention I'm, I'm a licensed real estate broker with ANet Realty Advisors. Although I really don't practice, I just have all the credentials and think about it a lot. Uh, David's individual NMLS ID number is , uh, 3 2 8 8 4 7 and mine is 2 5 9 6 1 0. If you've got a question or a comment, you can , uh, call or text us on the WTMJ talker text line , which is 8 6 6 6 1 6 1 6 20 , and you can get a podcast that it's of today's show wherever you normally get your podcast. Well, good morning, David. Hello.

Speaker 3: 1:13

Good to be back with you. Thanks for the week off last week. How are you and Tim?

Speaker 1: 1:17

Oh, we had a fun time on the show. Yep , absolutely. Uh , I got a lot to talk about today. I've got , um, home sale numbers, both at the national level and locally that we can , uh, take a look at. But , uh, we've got a bunch of stories to share with our, our listeners. And , um, also got the latest forecast for interest rates and home sales , uh, from both Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Association. Um, and maybe let's kind of start by putting that in, in context. There was an article last week on CNBC in which , uh, Moody's , uh, chief Economist said that , uh, if relative to 30 year fixed rate mortgages, quote anything over 7%, the market is dead. And then he went on to say, mortgage rates need to get closer to 6% or below to see House , to see the housing market come back to life. Hmm , interesting. Uh, and so let's, that's one data point to put out there. Uh, then let's turn our , our heads to the , uh, Fannie Mae and , uh, mortgage Bankers Forecast , uh, and also Mortgage News Daily. Uh, publishes a great survey. Guess what? Every day, and they're reporting that for their all the right stuff rate, which they call their top tier scenario, it's at about 7.125% on a nationwide basis. And Accu nuts , all the right stuff scenario would be 25% down with seven 80 credit scores to purchase an owner occupied single family home or condo with a price of , uh, $400,000 and a loan amount of 300. And that would be a rate of 6.99. Um , and that would take $1,862 of total loan costs , which makes the a PR 7.01. And that's identical to last week. What are you gonna say about that, David?

Speaker 3: 3:05

So Mark Zandy is the chief economist for Moody's former , uh, board member of MGIC. If I don't, he,

Speaker 1: 3:12

I didn't, not anymore . Look that he was, maybe he still is. I think he

Speaker 3: 3:15

So, so Mark Guy ,

Speaker 1: 3:17

And he's on, he's on TV all the time, very well spoken .

Speaker 3: 3:19

You know what, you , you , the whole point is you wanna get invited back by the journalist or the broadcaster to come on a second and a third time. So of course you gotta say something like, rates above seven, it's dead. But what, let's quantify that. Let's turn on the light in the dark room and point at the boogeyman. This all depends on loan size though, right, dad, because Okay. The difference between 7% and 6%, well, is that $50 a month on your smaller loan amount? Is it $135 a month on a larger loan amount? There is some payment difference. That is not the thing that is holding anybody back from deciding to get out there and be a home buyer or a home seller if you're trying to figure out where you want to go next. So it sounds savvy to be like, oh seven, bad

Speaker 1: 4:12

Six . Yeah , bad . Great.

Speaker 3: 4:13

But you're talking about a payment difference only.

Speaker 1: 4:17

So, so here we are, you know, and rates are at , at, or a little above 7% depending on, you know, what you're looking at. But let's call it 7% ish. And the , uh, both the Mortgage Bankers Association and Fannie Mae agree amazingly that by the end of the year, by the fourth quarter of 2025, the 30 year fixed rate might get down to six and a half . And that is a higher number than they had predicted a month ago. Fannie Mae had thought when they did their forecast in December, that the 30 year fixed rate would get down to 6.2. So they've increased their forecast by 0.3, almost a half a percent. Yeah. The mortgage bankers were already a little bit more doward . They had previously said 6.4, and so now they're saying 6.5. And you gotta keep in mind these guys have been wrong.

Speaker 3: 5:03

Yeah. Don't ask them , don't ask them what they thought January of 24, what they thought the world would look like or at now.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Correct. They , they thought that rates would be at 5.875 and that has not come to pass. And we should probably mention the one of the reasons why is the current administration's , uh, policy or , or , you know , talked about policy about higher tariffs. Sure. Uh , that, along with two other things, and this is in an article, I'm not making this up. Um, so, you know, tariffs are inflationary and inflation is the enemy of interest rates. Yeah. Deportations is another thing because what are you doing? You're, you're reducing the labor force and so you're probably putting upward pressure on wages. Right ? Right. 'cause somebody's gonna have to fill all the jobs that are being done right now Yeah . By those people that are getting deported. And then the third thing is tax policy. Uh, and , you know, talking about tax cuts, which is gonna increase the deficit. And that's not helpful for interest rates either, because we're gonna have to borrow more money. Alright. So when we come back, let's just do a little bit more mop up on, on those forecasts and then , uh, we'll start to turn the page towards , um, real life stories from the front lines. 'cause 'cause David, you're telling me that you're busier than a one arm paper hanger.

Speaker 3: 6:18

Exactly. E exactly . Even if, even if he , he , even if he had two arms, he'd still be busy.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Alright , you are listening to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show on six 20 WTMJ

Speaker 2: 6:32

Home buying advice from the guys who know it best. This is the Acuate Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker on WTMJ. Welcome

Speaker 1: 6:42

Back and thanks again for tuning in this morning. I'm Brian Wicker, the Elder, and that's David Wicker, the younger over there with Acuate Mortgage. And , uh, David, we're talking about, hey, where are we in terms of the year just passed and also going forward, we were talking about the interest rate forecast. Both Fannie Mae and the Mortgage Bankers Association see rates going from around 7% now here early in 2025, down to 6.5 by the fourth quarter of 2025. And by gosh, we hope they're right. Um, the , uh, in terms of the number of, of existing home sales for 2025 Fannie Macy's, just a 2.3% increase this year , uh, compared to 2024, while the MBA is a little bit more, is the right word, sanguine? Does that mean optimistic? I think it does, yes . And they see a 5.3% , uh, increase. Um , and then also Fannie Macy's, total origination mortgage originations up primarily due to , uh, increased refinancing with the lower rates up by about 13%, and MBA is about the same. So , um, you know, that, that's kind of the context there. If we wanna look a little bit backwards, the National Association of Realtors just came out with their report for December and the year just ended. And they said that nationwide , uh, 4.03 million existing homes , uh, changed hands with help from one of their members, which would make it the lowest number of sales since 1995.

Speaker 3: 8:11

Okay .

Speaker 1: 8:11

So that's interesting. Um, and , uh, here in southeastern Wisconsin, the five county Milwaukee area, according to multiple listing service data, I know 2024 can't be the lowest year , uh, because we closed , uh, more homes and condos. We closed exactly , uh, 309 more , uh, closed sales in the five county . We

Speaker 3: 8:34

Milwaukee. Yeah ,

Speaker 1: 8:35

Milwaukee, I see . Yeah. The region, not we acue, but we all the , all the realtors who are members of the MLS closed , uh, 309 more. That's a 1.8% increase. Okay . So I know that 2024 can't be the lowest year. Um, and get , get this, let's talk about median , uh, sales price for just a second. Uh, in Wisconsin, the median sales price was $330,000 in December, that's almost 14% higher than a year earlier. 40 grand, more so for all of you who are waiting for home values to drop. Yeah, because we've been hearing that since what, 2022?

Speaker 3: 9:15

Oh, 2020. Yeah. It's been, people have been running that one back for year after year after year.

Speaker 1: 9:21

So that ain't happening. Um, and then if you look nationwide, the median sales price is higher in, in , uh, America it's 404,000, and that's only 6% higher, or $23,000 more than a year earlier. So here in our little corner of Wisconsin , uh, median sales prices up both in raw dollars and also on a percentage basis. So , um, you know, that's, that's, that's what's kind of generally going on. Uh , hopefully now this cold snap that we've had may have had a chilling effect on listings. We'll find out. But , uh, literally

Speaker 3: 9:57

And figuratively, but

Speaker 1: 9:58

Yes. Yeah. Right, right, right. Uh, when I looked , uh, last week when Tim and I did the show, there were 2,400 homes in condos for sale in the five county metro area when I just ran it. Um , 77 more. So, you know, that that would take away homes that closed. Oh . And then, you know, add new listings and we're up 77. So , uh, hopefully, you know , and maybe that's what Mark Andy meant, maybe he means that the market is dead for listings. You

Speaker 3: 10:27

Don't have to come to his rescue. He's a big boy.

Speaker 1: 10:30

Okay. So , uh, David, tell us a little bit, what are you seeing on the front lines of mortgage lending?

Speaker 3: 10:36

Uh , people aren't waiting. It's, you know, usually when you doing this mortgage lending for quite a while now, January, things pick up and really it, you know, really, really, really picks up February, March. But , uh, here in late January, people are not waiting. And it kind of didn't matter that my phone read feels like negative 25 this week. Right. I was getting calls left and right from people. So here you, you decide, I have three stories that we , you could pick from one , uh, a couple moving from California back to Wisconsin for a new job. Uh, I have some retired Texas teachers coming to Wisconsin , uh, for retirement. And then I have a relocation , uh, couple coming from Illinois. Any preference as we begin to tell the tale of real people?

Speaker 1: 11:28

Oh, let's, let's go with relocation from Illinois.

Speaker 3: 11:31

Okay. So this is, you know, relocation is nothing new. Right? And what is beneficial , um, in a relocation particularly, I'm gonna say for a large corporation, they've got a protocol for helping a valued employee get rid of basically their soon to be old house and transition relatively smoothly, smoothly to a new home. Whether that be housing , um, allowance, you know, Hey , we'll put you up somewhere for 60 to 90 days, you know? Yeah . They're gonna

Speaker 1: 12:07

Pay for the moving truck for sure. And

Speaker 3: 12:08

The moving truck, maybe they're gonna cover, maybe they're gonna cover some of the closing costs for the sale of the home. 'cause as we like to say, dad, you know, congratulations, you have a new job. Maybe that doesn't necessarily fit with the timeline you wanted to sell your home. So a lot of companies will step up and offset any of those closing costs. Well, and

Speaker 1: 12:29

A lot of times they'll buy your old

Speaker 3: 12:30

Home from you. Well, exactly. So here's where I wanna , uh, or cliffhanger. I sent this client three pre-approvals, three pre-approval letters in an email on Thursday and night. When we come back from this break, I want to tell you why three, because it's based on timing and the eventual sale of that soon to be old home. We'll cover that after this break. You are listening to the Accu Mortgage and Realty Show on AM six 20 WTMJ, getting you

Speaker 2: 13:00

Into the home of your dreams. Here's more of the Accu Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian . We on WMJ

Speaker 3: 13:07

Welcome back to the Accu Net Mortgage and Realty Show. I'm David, that's Brian over there. Dad telling the story of a young couple relocating to Waukesha County for a job. Um, they're not moving that far. They're coming from Illinois, which as I always like to say, like if you're gonna move, man, don't you wanna make it feel like you're like really moving like far Yeah . Not just like, you know, four houses down sometimes is , is what it feels like . It depends where ,

Speaker 1: 13:31

You know, it depends why you're moving. Right . In this case it's for a job I think you said. Yes, exactly. Location for

Speaker 3: 13:36

Employment. Okay. And , and so they are about to list their soon to be old home this week and their employer has contracted with a relocation company that, and I haven't put eyes yet on the agreement Okay. Agreement. The relocation agreement. But generally it says, or a draft would be, hi, we're the relocation company. You can go sell your home and if you get an accepted offer, we will step in and take ownership of the home so that you can enjoy the proceeds prior to the actual closing date. Or , or if you list your home for sale and nobody bites , we, the relocation company will just outright buy it from you so that you can move on with your life. And we will deal then with turning around and selling it us the relocation company. Yeah. It allows you can take that risk. Yeah . It allows for you just build the employer allows Exactly. It allows for the liquidity of you can get rid of this house, walk away with the proceeds and continue to your next chapter. So for this client, they would really like to use all, if not most of the proceeds from the sale of their home. 'cause they're probably gonna clear dad almost a quarter million dollars for this . Oh wow .

Speaker 1: 14:52

All of this . Wow . Yeah . That's real money. Mm-hmm

Speaker 3: 14:54

<affirmative> . And for them they'd like to roll a lot of that into the new home , uh, for payment comfort is how I'll Sure ,

Speaker 1: 15:03

I got you . Yeah . Frame

Speaker 3: 15:03

That. And as I have learned from you and doing this a long time, well the details matter because I'm glad you are listing it for sale this week, but when exactly will the proceeds or the funds hit your bank account and under what conditions? And so I am , uh, keen to review the language of that relocation agreement this week because that timing matters. They've got stupendous income, so that's actually not a point of concern. They can on paper qualify for the new mortgage payment and the old mortgage payment on the old house if they have not sold it at the nanosecond that they are buying the new hull .

Speaker 1: 15:52

So let me guess, you said you gave them three pre-approval letters and one of 'em Yes. I hope all of them are not contingent or non-contingent on the sale of the home. Did I guess that correct?

Speaker 3: 16:02

So the first one that I wrote them, they have other liquid funds. It would only allow them to make a 5% down payment on the new home. Of course, if they bought a smaller home, their liquid funds would make up a larger percentage of down payment, but they could buy as much as an $800,000 house. Okay. Completely uncorrelated to the sale of their old home.

Speaker 1: 16:28

Gotcha . So we say, Hey, use your , use your savings that you have put 5% down and you can shoulder both payments 'cause you've got really big income. Alright . So that's, is that what

Speaker 3: 16:38

They do ? You wanna buy

Speaker 1: 16:38

An 800,000 home or

Speaker 3: 16:40

Probably, probably not. But again, it's uh , any good mortgage banker wants to declare here's what's possible. Yeah . Because then they're gonna go out into the world , uh, they may be looking at a house here today and and say, well, do we want this house? And if we decide it is worth it, yeah. It's not exactly the down payment perhaps we want, but we are willing to change our preferred game plan if it means we get this particular house on a maybe accelerated timeline if they haven't sold the old house yet. So my first preapproval to them was, Hey, you wanna just have a game plan that's totally uncorrelated. Here's that game plan. And then my second preapproval letter was you had asked for probably your more target price range, maybe a , which is half , half million dollar house with $200,000 down payment all proceeds right now, because they have not,

Speaker 1: 17:42

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:42

They don't have, they they haven't sold, or it is not under contract right now. I have to write that pre-approval contingent on the, is it dispossession of that property? And then my third preapproval. Okay. So, so I , I wrote the second one for 500,000. Dad, I wrote them a third preapproval that said you can buy a million dollar home.

Speaker 1: 18:07

Oh boy.

Speaker 3: 18:08

Based upon your incomes with your excellent down payment from your proceeds. 'cause what I said to them was, you know what? A seller loves to see strength.

Speaker 1: 18:18

Yeah. I got a story about that.

Speaker 3: 18:20

Okay. And I said, I just wanna , I'm your mortgage lender, I'm not gonna run out of electrons. So I can send you multiple pre-approval letters and then I'm gonna defer to you and your smart agent, who is how you got introduced to David and Acuate to decide how do you want, which pre-approval do you want to show and use to show strength? And when , that's my relocation story.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Alright , well let's take team maybe after the news 'cause I've got a strength. 'cause I, I too last week gave multiple , uh, preapproval letters to some clients. Okay . And we can talk about, oh, what did the , what did the real estate agent choose to use? But right now it's time to turn it over to the WTMJ Breaking News Center.

Speaker 3: 19:02

Don't break

Speaker 2: 19:03

The bank to get into a house. Back to the ACU Net Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker on WTMJ.

Speaker 1: 19:10

Welcome back and thanks again for joining us , uh, today. So , um, David, you were talking about multiple pre-approval letters for a client that you were helping relocating from Illinois back up to Wisconsin. Yep . I have some Illinois clients , uh, that worked on quite a bit to get them rock solid , guaranteed pre-approved. And as often as the case, like as soon as we got that done , um, man, they're out there looking and so they were looking Yeah . You know, pretty, pretty pricey. Um, you know, between 9 50, 900 50,000 and a million dollars. And so they were going to see a particular house. And so I wrote 'em an offer. I wrote 'em a letter rather , uh, right at that listing price. Um, and they're gonna put 20% down. Uh, they, they are getting an amazing housing , uh, assistance benefit from the husband's employer , uh, which is an interesting feature that we don't see too often. Um, you know, literally it's a , it's an unsecured loan that , uh, has deferred payments and it's gonna help 'em with their down payment quite a bit. Um , they're also getting some gift money and , uh, this couple isn't married yet, so they have separate bank accounts. So it's gonna be a , a a little bit of a , um, you know, when they do the ball up on the big screen of course. And brewer games, you know, hey, all , all this money moving around and guess what? And I've warned them , we gotta track all this money coming in. So, you know , like make a copy

Speaker 3: 20:33

Two words. Transaction history.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Transaction history. That's right. And, you know, as you like to say, the devil's in the detail . So I'm talking to this couple earlier or last week and I'm saying, oh, I noticed that , um, uh, Bob, not his real name, that your account's , uh, bank account statements closed on the 13th of the month. Oh. So let's make sure for this end of February closing that we have all the money in place by , let's say February 11th, so that we can track , so that we can just get that tidy February 13th statement. Yes. And it shows all these deposits and we're gonna have, you know, images of the checks coming in and, you know, it's , it's quite , quite a bit of a deposit .

Speaker 3: 21:17

And as I like to tell clients I have a smooth plan. And then if you don't wanna do that, we can still get there. But then you'll hate me for asking you for PDFs of transaction histories with URLs on the bottom. Yeah . Just like, please help me help you with smoothness.

Speaker 1: 21:32

Right. In this particular case, I could not come up with a super smooth way because of all the different chunks of money. So the mid the ,

Speaker 3: 21:39

The mid month , let's wait till this statement generates. Well, that's right. Right. So we can avoid that . The delayed smoothness is what it is .

Speaker 1: 21:45

And in this particular case, a lot of times, folks, we , we try not to document earnest money if we can document sufficient funds. Yeah . Uh , in excess of the earnest money. But in this case, the earnest money is $48,000. Holy cow . It's a big number. So, so we're gonna have to document , uh, the payment of the earnest money. Anyway, back to the thing we were starting to talk about, which is I gave them this, you know, number in the mid nine hundreds , uh, for which this property was listed.

Speaker 3: 22:13

Was it, was it matchy matchy to their contract?

Speaker 1: 22:15

Well, no, no, no. Because they ended up offering less than the asking price. But interestingly, I had also given them a preapproval for a million dollars. A million dollars. And that's the letter that the , uh, buyer's agent decided to attach. Smart to your point. Yeah . To show strength.

Speaker 3: 22:33

It's

Speaker 1: 22:33

Like, yeah, I know we're offering you less than this, but, and different agents have different mindsets on that . Some, some of them want matchy matchy. Oh by the way, the list EE even though our rock solid guaranteed preapproval letter for a million dollars said, Hey, we verified their income, we verified their down payment, we verified their credit. The listing agent, which just fine, still called me , uh, I think it was on Sunday morning to say, Hey, are these people good?

Speaker 3: 23:00

Yeah,

Speaker 1: 23:01

Yeah, yeah. We verified everything about 'em. You don't have a thing to worry about.

Speaker 3: 23:05

Well , let's back , let's back up a second. They called your cell phone ? Yes . 'cause it was listed on the pre-approval letter. They didn't have to wait till Monday at nine oh one. That's right. To call the skyscraper to be like, Hey,

Speaker 1: 23:17

Is this okay? And and then the other interesting thing that was in the morning on Sunday. So I texted the buyer and the um , and the buyer's broker to say, Hey, just got a call from the listing agent. Just wanted to make sure you're good. I told 'em you were absolutely rock solid. So, you know, looks like you're gonna be getting that accepted offer anytime now. Mm . And guess, oh , then they actually had an open house on Sunday. Our buyers and one of their parents went to the open house and they're like, oh, congratulations. You know, it's gonna be great that you own this house. And , uh, but then they didn't get the accepted offer until 10 30 at night. So it was a little bit of a , you know, angst waiting.

Speaker 3: 23:56

Okay.

Speaker 1: 23:56

For that accepted offer

Speaker 3: 23:58

Company , was it competitive, do you know or

Speaker 1: 23:59

Not that we know of. No. Okay . Not , not that we know of. But it was just maybe ,

Speaker 3: 24:03

Maybe the sellers were Lions fans and they had to watch to the bitter end or something.

Speaker 1: 24:09

That could be, although they could have stopped. Oh no . I guess that game was pretty good. So anyway, that , that just goes to the topic of, hey, you know, what is it gonna take to win? You know, and, and to, to um, help the seller and the listing agent know that you're good for it. And a lot of times, you know, we'll proactively call the listing agent , um, as well. But in this case she called me. So yes . All all good. We're on on the way to um , you know, getting that thing in the end zone here by the end of February. Alright , when don't we come back to , but you said you had a story about some retired teachers relocating from Texas. Yes . Do you wanna talk about

Speaker 3: 24:44

That next? Well, and better yet, soon to be retired. 'cause it's only January. They're going to be retired come June. And navigating the, I'm gonna be retired versus I'm not retired yet. Let me get into all that after this break. You are listening to the Accu Mortgage and Realty Show on AM six 20 WTMJ.

Speaker 2: 25:04

Important home buying questions and answers you can count on. This is the Accu Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker on WTMJ. Welcome

Speaker 3: 25:14

Back to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show. I'm David, that's Brian over there. Uh, dad, as is the case, many times we have clients who are retired or about to be retired and as I like to say, retired is not a swear word at aad . No, no. Nor in lending in general. But you know, most of our clients, the story you were just telling about your client, I bet their income was vanilla. Right. Maybe job

Speaker 1: 25:40

W not exactly. Okay , but go ahead.

Speaker 3: 25:42

Let's pretend it was vanilla. Okay. Maybe, maybe retirement income then is just chocolate. It's still ice cream. It's just a different flavor. Right. Okay.

Speaker 1: 25:49

It's not vanilla.

Speaker 3: 25:50

So, but as kind of almost like a , the story we told earlier in the show, timing is important. Okay. So I talked to these people. It is January, it is the middle of the school year. They will be concluding their teaching career after three plus decades when school lets out in the early part of June. You want to try to read my mind? What was the, it's not crummy, but what's the thing that I had to tell them about their school income for their new Wisconsin house? Yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Can't use it. Can't use, can't use that . 'cause it's ending and we know it's ending and we have to know, we have to say we can only use income that we think is gonna, or prove or somehow believe it's gonna last for three years at least. But the other thing that crossed my mind is occupancy. David. They have to, to buy a new primary residence, they have to occupy it within 60 days of closing on the new mortgage. So I think that means the soonest they could buy is and close in maybe early April ,

Speaker 3: 26:51

Uh , may , uh, so one of mid-April. Yeah. So let me, I I wanna just the, I don't wanna call it umbridge, but I felt like my clients were almost hurt that, you know, the income for this career that they've had for a long, long time can't really be used. Well, you know, it's, people are human and you only know what you know. Okay. Okay. And so to, to not be able, as I said, or a version of what you said, I can't point to your September mortgage payment and claim that you're gonna make that monthly payment for a job you don't have anymore. Right . So

Speaker 1: 27:25

That's, so what kind of income are you gonna use? Are they gonna get a pension? Do they have 4 0 3

Speaker 3: 27:30

Bs or So one of them is actually already retired from teaching, the other one will be concluding. So one of them is drawing a pension from their teaching career. They have been in receipt of that for over a year. And it's plain , that's almost vanilla tasting chocolate because pension, yeah ,

Speaker 1: 27:47

That's just right . It's just as good as a salary

Speaker 3: 27:50

<laugh>. So that's fine. Our other, the husband will be retiring come June, but would not be receiving the pension until, you know, best case early part of July. Right.

Speaker 1: 28:05

That's, or probably

Speaker 3: 28:06

Problematic that into August. And so what I said was, is this coming to you eventually, will it, will it be close enough on the horizon to actual receipt that underwriting will let us point at it for you to use?

Speaker 1: 28:23

I don't think so.

Speaker 3: 28:24

It , well it depends. Right? If they're buying a house in August and he's already received his pension, then of course, but I said, I don't think you are going to given their timeline if they want to actually be buying a house in May.

Speaker 1: 28:40

Right . Okay . That sounds

Speaker 3: 28:41

Reasonable. Yeah. His pension won't have arrived. It will, you know, but

Speaker 1: 28:45

Not , yeah , we can see time , see it's on schedule. Alright . And

Speaker 3: 28:47

Then you're so whatcha are gonna use

Speaker 1: 28:48

For income? I'm on pins

Speaker 3: 28:49

And needles. Well, but hold on. 'cause you said this thing about occupancy, they could go buy a house right now

Speaker 1: 28:55

And Yeah . As a second home.

Speaker 3: 28:57

No, no, no. She could move in because Oh , she is not , uh, her income, she can occupy within 60 days.

Speaker 1: 29:04

Yeah . Because she's not working in Texas. Okay, good point.

Speaker 3: 29:06

So, so we conquered that , uh, depending on how much , uh, house they want to buy and how much money they wanna borrow. I reached for ACU Net's favorite retirement tool, which as I said, do you guys have any retirement accounts that you've been saving into during your teaching career? And they said, of course. Awesome. With the help of your financial advisor, we can take the big asset number divided by 36 months. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . And with your advisor's help to put that in a letter. We say, to whom it may concern, please be advised that Bob will begin IRA income in the amount of x beginning on X date before closing or before your first payment. And turning that IRA asset into income .

Speaker 1: 29:58

Into income . Qualifying, qualifying income, qualifying income. And they don't have to keep taking that if they don't want to.

Speaker 3: 30:04

We only need to show that you can. Yes.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Yep . Yep . And thank goodness it wasn't inside of something like a 4 0 3 B , which has all kinds of rules. Like a 401k. Right. And then we'd have to document, oh , what are the rules for taking that out, which is a pain. So IRAs are our friend. Yes , for sure. And are they moving back to be closer to grandchildren perhaps?

Speaker 3: 30:24

Uh, yes. Or as I joke, because it was negative a thousand this week, I made the joke. I said, you know, what's the weather like in Texas and here's what it is in Milwaukee. He was like, well, when it's 103 30 days in a row, 10 degrees in Wisconsin doesn't seem so great . Sounds

Speaker 1: 30:39

Sounds pretty good. Yeah. Alright , uh, when we come back, I've got a couple other nuggets , uh, to share about , uh, market conditions. Maybe we got another short story I do to tell, but right now it's time for another break. You've been listening to the Accident Mortgage and Realty Show on Wisconsin's radio station AM six 20 WTMJ.

Speaker 2: 30:59

Find a place to call home without the headache. This is the ACU Net Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker on WTMJ.

Speaker 1: 31:07

Thanks again for hanging out with us this morning. I'm Brian the elder. That's David the younger over there, the wicker men . And , uh, David, a couple other nuggets. Looking at , uh, December, which was a good month , uh, uh, December in the five county, metro Milwaukee area , um, the home sales were up compared to a year earlier by, what did I say? Thir 12%. Yeah . Uh , increase in the number of units sold and , um, interestingly cash offers were only 22%. But the other fact that I like to track is how many home buyers had to pay over asking in December. And the answer is 37% had to pay over asking to get to the closing table. Uh, 18% had to pay 10 grand or more. Uh , that usually bottoms out in January. January. Home sales , uh, last year, only a third of buyers in January of 2024 paid over asking. Uh , now we've had, we had a good week of, you know , not only issuing pre-approvals, but a lot of our buyers are getting accepted offers. Kind of a surprising number frankly for, you know, late-ish January. And from what I can see, only about

Speaker 3: 32:17

Not , wait , not surprising for that AED is helping clients, but just the , uh, the tonnage of people actually getting out there and doing it is what you mean. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:25

Yeah. And, and succeeding, although you were just telling me , uh, during the break that you've got some people who wrote offers and, and and didn't get , uh, accepted offers. Um, not And why ,

Speaker 3: 32:38

Why is that? Not because, well, not because that they couldn't, but because I think on that first go around , they weren't yet willing to reach for what it takes to actually win. And sometimes it takes one or two times before you say, I am, I am ready to win. And push all your chips to the middle of the table to get the seller to say yes.

Speaker 1: 33:01

Right. 'cause losing Hertz, it's no fun. Oh yeah . It's not 'cause you already kind of had your heart set on it and, and then you find out and do you think that it was mainly because they didn't offer high enough price is , you know, that's the number one thing that sellers look at is

Speaker 3: 33:15

Of course , uh, it was per , yeah. It , uh, just on price and, and , uh, as this is the moment where I stand on my chair and remind everyone that the list price is a made up number, the true value of the true value of the home is what the seller is willing to let it go for, and what the buyer's willing to put in the suitcase to push across the table to the seller. So, well ,

Speaker 1: 33:37

And sometimes, you know, depending on the listing agent and the seller, sometimes they'll intentionally list a little low to incite a bidding war, you know, if they're in a popular area. Yeah. Uh , and a and a <crosstalk> , that

Speaker 3: 33:49

Listing agent would like more listings and a good story, like I got my client 12 offers is a good story to tell your next prospect.

Speaker 1: 33:59

Yeah. So, okay, so, so we have, you know, a lot of people succeeding. Oh, by the way, just in case you're wondering, cash buyers, I said we're 22% in December and on average they only got a two and a half percent discount on the listing price. That's kind of surprisingly small.

Speaker 3: 34:16

You'll be humored this week. I had to gently remind everyone that yes, our ANet client did write an offer, not contingent on financing, but right there in line 3 0 4 of the templated offer to purchase. Yeah. Yeah . The seller has to cooperate to allow an appraiser to walk through the house.

Speaker 1: 34:34

Oh. 'cause the , the seller or the listing agent was indignant that they found out they're getting mortgage .

Speaker 3: 34:39

No, per , uh, surprised or just gently, lovingly reminded that like, yeah, they can't get out of the contract because they can't get financing. But you would've had to have , they're choosing, you would've had to have struck those lines from the contract Yeah. To be able to keep the door locked on the appraiser.

Speaker 1: 34:57

And I, you know, we don't know when, when the MLS reports, 22% of December sales or cash, we don't know if they actually closed as cash or if they're just written as cash. I'm , I'm not sure what the practice is amongst listing brokers. You know, if like, oh, it was a cash offer, but they got financing. Who knows how they report it ? Nationwide, the number of cash offers in , uh, or percentage of cash offers in December was 28%. Uh , well, e if you're not in the position to write a cash offer, or even if you are, we would like to help you win in this still competitive market. Yeah. Uh , and we think we're really good at it, really good at aircraft . Our track record shows that , uh, people know they can rely on a rock solid, fully verified and guaranteed pre-approval from their friends at Anette Mortgage. So let us help you or your loved one , uh, get into that winner circle and , uh, become a homeowner in 2025. All you gotta do to get started is click on that blue button@anette.com. Thanks for tuning in today. We'll be here next week. Again. You've been listening to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show on Wisconsin's radio station AM six 20 WTMJ. The proceeding was a paid program. Advice and opinions expressed during the Accu Mortgage and Realty Show are solely that of the host or guests of academic mortgage and Academic Realty advisors and not WTMJ Radio or Good Karma Brands. Milwaukee, LLC.