Date the rate. Marry the house.

Now, what does that mean? That means that if we went back in time to a year ago, the market was a completely different animal. Right?

A year ago, buyers that were in the marketplace were experiencing multiple offers on every listing. They were being asked to sign escalation clauses that would maybe sometimes mean they were paying 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, a hundred thousand dollars more than the list price. People are being asked to do appraisal waivers, inspection waivers, appraisal gap language, non-refundable earnest money.

It was an incredible time to be a buyer in what we might call a frenzy market.

Now, fast forward to today:

The market's undergoing a complete shift, right? And what that means is there's a lot more to choose from. There's a lot more listings on the market. List prices are coming down in a lot of price categories. We're seeing a lot fewer buyers in the market. So that means that the...

With over 8 years of experience, 450+ homes sold, over 100 million dollars in real estate negotiated and a ranking in the top 1% in the area for 6 years in a row all by referral, Garrett brings substantial experience and expertise to his team and their clients. Come listen to this amazing podcast as Garret breaks down his Perfect 36 strategy in detail and how it delivers over 50 closed transactions a year consistently with a database of only 300 clients.  Learn how he manages his team including his ‘Lead’ agent strategy and how he hands off clients seamlessly to his team members while staying close to them throughout the transaction.

New study out from the Mortgage Bankers Association shows that ARM demand has reached a 14-year high.

And now what's an ARM?

An ARM is an adjustable rate mortgage.

A lot of you that have entered the business over the last 10 years may have never used an ARM.

They became almost invisible for many, many years. Why? Because we've had the lowest interest rates in history. No one would bother doing an ARM. But over the last quarter, just to here in 2022 ARMs have gone up to a 14-year high.

So an ARM is an adjustable rate mortgage. Generally, it's set interest rate for the first 3, 5, 7 years. And then it resets based on the current rates of that time. There's a cap on it. Every loan's a little bit different, but here's some examples of what that looks like:

Right now, as I'm talking to you today...

The current interest rates are about 5.5% while the ARM rate is about 4.5%. So people are getting about a 1% discount for going into an ARM...

A stat from a Zillow study that came out shows that 30% of Americans have cited climate change as a reason to move in 2022.

Now, I think about that and I reflect on my own market where I live here in Southern Oregon. And I think, well, a lot of people wouldn't consider this being a climate change issue here, but it is.

You see, we've had, and we've been surrounded by fires for the last four or five years in our community. And those fires create smoke. And it creates a situation where people don't love going outside during the summer, one of the best times to be outside. Coupled with the fact that last year we had a fire rage through the entire city and burned down 2,700 homes. I had three duplexes burned down myself.

So when people have that experience, it's very detrimental. They are in fear of it. Of course they might think about moving. And a lot of people did move away because of that.

Or think about your...

Hey guys, can you think of an investment that is safe, stable, and secure in today's environment?

We know the stock market's crashing.

We know the crypto market crashed.

And we know other market assets are crashing right now.

So is there an investment out there that people can really trust?

The answer is yes.

And Americans already know this:

The most recent study shows that for the last eight years straight Americans trust real estate more than any other asset class.

Here's the question mark I have for you:

Are you out there beating this drum? Are you the evangelist about real estate to your own clients and talking to them about the fact fact that they need to diversify their portfolios, you know, rebalance their assets, and get some of that money over into residential real estate?

One of the safest, most stable, secure investments they could possibly make.

Now, how do we know that?

Well, all markets are based on supply and...

What is an anchor point? And how can it benefit you when you're talking to sellers about getting their prices down?

Well, an anchor point is a way that we can help sellers recognize where they're at relative to the competition of the market. And what's gonna happen to them if they don't take action.

So let me give you an example:

If you have a seller in a neighborhood and you call them and you say:

"Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Johnson, I was hoping I'd have a conversation with you because I did a little research in the neighborhood, and I know we haven't had the activity that I've been hoping for. And so I'm concerned about getting the house sold. So I did some research. I know, you know, the property over on fourth street. It's been sitting in the market for a hundred days. I know you'd drive by it every day.

"And I did a little research on that one. It looks like they started at $600k and now they're down to $550k,...

How do you normalize a price reduction?

People don't wanna feel like they're the only ones reducing their price. And some sellers may not be in tune with the market like we are. They may be assuming that the market's like it was six months ago. And they're the only person that's not selling right now.

Of course, we know that's not true. We know the market's changing. We know there's more inventory hitting the market than we've seen in a long time. We know interest rates are impacting the marketplace.

So how do we normalize a price reduction?

The way you do it is to show others in your market that are also reducing their price at the same time. So here's how you do it.

When you're talking to a seller, you can say:

"Hey, Mr. And Mrs. Seller, you know, we haven't had a lot of showings and that's probably directly to related to our price. We're seeing more competition. Interest rates are definitely...

Hey guys, I'm seeing something in the market that I've never seen before, which is really interesting.

We're seeing a mass migration of people moving from one state to the next because of political reasons.

Now, we haven't seen that. In my 33 years in the industry, I've never seen a mass migration because of political reasons. People are moving because they don't agree with the local politics or the state politics. And they're going to where they agree more with the politics of that other state.

So you might say, well, that's interesting, Jim, but how in the world do I capitalize on? How do I use that in my real estate business?

It's interesting because we all know some folks around us—family and friends—that have actually made the move. So isn't like way out there. This is like close to almost all of us.

So I'm gonna give you a simple technique today that you can implement right now.

...

We're still in a highly competitive market. There's still lots of multiple offers happening. The market is changing, but there's still high demand out there.

So I want you to think about what can you do to incentivize people to take my offer over maybe a cash offer if my buyer is being financed.

What would be a unique strategy for that?

One unique strategy I found from one of my top producing teams is this:

They use a closing guarantee. Maybe you're already using one, but if you're not check this out, here's what they do:

When they write an offer, they include a closet that says, "Hey, listen, just for accepting our offer and considering us, we're gonna guarantee that we're gonna close it by this specific date. And if we do not close it by that specific date, we're gonna give you a non-refundable earnest money of $10,000, $5,000, $20,000."

By using that closing guarantee, what you're doing is providing clarity to the seller, so they...

Feedback is one of the most important things we can collect on behalf of our sellers in order to adjust prices, adjust terms, adjust condition, and to get that property really tuned up for the marketplace.

So one thing is we gotta make sure we're going out and trying to collect that feedback. And when we do that, I'm gonna ask three questions:

1. Would you think of the price?

2. What did you think of the condition?

3. What did you think of the neighborhood?

Those are my three questions. I'm sending this by text to every showing agent. But I'm gonna also add one more question. My fourth question, which is maybe the most important is:

4. Can you tell me, did they make an offer on another house or did they actually purchase another property and get in contract?

When I do that and I find out that I can actually deliver that by act to my seller and say, "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, here's the feedback. And they went ahead and made an offer...