Insider Tips for Real Estate Success in Vibrant Las Vegas

Ever wondered how the aftermath of a Super Bowl can ripple through a city's real estate market? Trish Williams and Tiana Carroll are back with the insider view on Las Vegas's booming property scene post the big game. As the Federal Reserve hits the brakes on interest rate adjustments, we're seeing a hive of buyer activity that's got the market buzzing. Our experiences with clients in the $500,000 range are painting an intriguing picture of a city whose real estate landscape is as dynamic as its nightlife, and you won't want to miss these tales from the front lines.

This time around, we're unpacking the secrets of home buying strategies, diving into the complexities of financing that could make your next property move a masterstroke. From navigating the nuances of down payment percentages to the ins and outs of FHA loans, we've got the lowdown on making your current abode a rental goldmine. If you're contemplating climbing the property ladder but not sure how to hold onto that first rung, tune in for our real-world advice that could be the game-changer you need.

And for those thinking outside the box, we're talking garage-to-bedroom conversions and the potential impact on your home's market appeal. Don't get caught out by the pitfalls of unpermitted remodels; we're sharing the crucial need-to-knows about legalities and the ever-evolving definition of what makes a bedroom. Plus, we're highlighting the pivotal role of pre-approvals in the home shopping journey and touching on the shifts in purchasing power since the pandemic. Join us as we share anecdotes and advice you won't find anywhere else, right here on Vegas Realty's latest scoop.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:16

Hey Vegas. Welcome back here to Vegas Realty. Check local Las Vegas real estate news. I'm Trish Williams.

Speaker 2: 0:22

And I'm Tiana Carroll. Welcome back. So we are in the second week of February 2024.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Second week is it.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Yeah, well, the 15th of February, that's pretty middle of the month. Yeah, it is pretty middle of the month.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Wow, already here.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Well, we're already in February where it blows my mind because I can't even believe we're out of 23 yet.

Speaker 1: 0:43

It's almost summer in Vegas, guys.

Speaker 2: 0:44

It feels like summer. The past couple days have been sunny and bright and beautiful, which I love. Look no sleeves.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Yeah, either one of us. Either one of us. Yes, very Vegas, not bundling up quite as much anymore, so that's good.

Speaker 2: 0:56

And we'll get to have a super long show, because we'll have any time. We're cutting us off today, right, we can just talk all day.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Yeah, good, good, speaking of super, we made it through Super Bowl.

Speaker 2: 1:08

We made it through Super Bowl successfully.

Speaker 1: 1:11

Successfully. So Vegas is now on the map officially.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Well Vegas has officially been on the map and the whole new Las Vegas is now promoting the Fun Economy, which is the economy of fun which Vegas nails right.

Speaker 1: 1:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:28

But as far as Super Bowl coming in, we have the infrastructure of hospitality in place, so all in all, it was super successful. There was over 50 nightclubs having after parties at the Super Bowl. It was crazy. We saw all sorts of celebrities come in and drown the city and pop-ups everywhere. It was so much fun Bring it back every other year.

Speaker 1: 1:51

I love it. Yeah, Every other year. That's too fast, right.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Right every third year.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Okay, well, yeah Well, it's going to be a spot now, or it is officially a spot now and it should.

Speaker 2: 2:02

So it's usually like Miami does a lot of Super Bowls. I think they're the record for having the most amount of Super Bowls in their city and now we're like we're breathing down your neck now because it was so successful and our hospitality's in place. It's awesome Come to Vegas.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Kind of cooler than.

Speaker 2: 2:17

Miami, so Not kind of Vegas baby.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Yeah, so awesome. That was great News. I didn't see. You caught a couple of news headlines. I didn't see much other than the Fed People I'm not fond of. Well, that's the big one.

Speaker 2: 2:35

You say it was such disdain in your voice.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Such a bad word. So the Fed as you know they were obviously in the beginning of the year started adjusting rates down, which is great. That's caused a lot of activity from the buyers. So this last time they said they're not going to do another adjustment just yet because they want to see stronger signs that inflation is curbed. They didn't adjust up, they didn't adjust down, they just halted on the adjustments for the last.

Speaker 2: 3:03

the last um sort of decrease in that interest rate wasn't the Fed, that was the bond market. So the Fed is definitely on stall right now.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Yeah, yeah, so that's okay. Um, so at the current time, we haven't seen rates go up, so that's always a good thing. Yeah, and we're still happy where they're at. So we're seeing rates right now like sixes in the in the ballpark of sixes. People are accepting that that's okay.

Speaker 2: 3:31

Yeah, so that's a good thing. Yeah, and everybody's used to it, so it's not offensive to anybody now, so that's cool.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Yeah, and we are still seeing inventory going away. So, um, that is, you know, definitely a thing that is happening here. We're a couple hundred um less than we were last month. Last month we were hovering around 3600 most of the month and this morning we're at 30, 3418. Yep.

Speaker 2: 3:56

Family residences on the market. Yep, that is our active inventory, so it's slipping a little, and that lack of inventory is really what's keeping our um prices stable.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Yes, Absolutely. And then, um how many did we sell?

Speaker 2: 4:09

last week. Last week we sold 378 homes. Okay, so that's kind of been on track. So we're hovering around the same numbers week after week. Price decreases 324.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Yeah, so that's, not bad.

Speaker 2: 4:21

No.

Speaker 1: 4:22

It's just everyone adjusting to make up for the market that we're in.

Speaker 2: 4:25

My favorite number Go ahead.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Under contract are 587. 587.

Speaker 2: 4:29

That's a good, healthy number. We're seeing good numbers under contract.

Speaker 1: 4:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:34

And multiple offers now.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Yes, oh gosh, multiple offers. It's crazy.

Speaker 2: 4:38

Yeah, and you guys, sometimes we're here every week and we're reporting the same numbers, right, we got sort of closed and then there's really nothing happening and then within a week to 10 days, things shift and change, and they change fast in the valley and now we are seeing multiple offers going out on and multiple price points getting multiple offers.

Speaker 1: 4:58

Yeah, I have a buyer shopping right now at 500,000. She's looking for something that is under 2000 square feet or around 2000 square feet, not too much under. She wants to stay like around the 2000 with a pole. You know, in Northwest or Henderson those are very far apart areas but those are her areas.

Speaker 2: 5:17

Yeah, no.

Speaker 1: 5:19

And at 500,000, we've come across three properties so far that have multiple offers that said you got to get above list price to have a chance. So that is, we're there again.

Speaker 2: 5:30

Yeah, we are there again. It is our spring market. Whether people want to admit it or not, with spring weather come spring market.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Yeah, spring starts in February in Vegas.

Speaker 2: 5:41

Absolutely, at least in the housing market, for sure.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Yeah, and the weather. I think we all around.

Speaker 2: 5:47

Last year was just a random year where we were wearing sweaters until what? April May?

Speaker 1: 5:53

Yeah, I hope that don't happen again. I hate cold.

Speaker 2: 5:56

I know you're like I want the pool. I want the pool too. Let's do it.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Yeah, so our listener questions. We have some listener questions that were sent in and let's just dive into that.

Speaker 2: 6:08

Okay, so we have three of them, like we usually do in our new format, which is kind of fun. I hope the audience is enjoying it. If you are enjoying the listener questions that are happening each and every week here, you want to drop them. You can email those questions to vegasrealtechekatgmailcom and if you find value in the information you're getting, make sure you join or try it by like sharing, subscribing and setting up that notification. Ring that little bell so you know every Thursday when we go live you'll be notified.

Speaker 1: 6:37

All right, yes and yeah. Please keep sending your questions in, because they're fun. They're fun. I'm going to add on our website. I'm going to add us in a listener question tab on there too, but not yet. It's not there yet.

Speaker 2: 6:51

So yeah, now you have to email us. Coming soon. Yeah, it's all a working process.

Speaker 1: 6:56

Yes. So yeah, we like the questions it gives us. You know we're providing value to people out there that want to have questions about real estate. I mean, we sometimes I don't know.

Speaker 2: 7:09

I think some people don't want to call a realtor and ask them questions because some of us not me, but some realtors tend to be like a dog with the bone. If you have the slightest inkling of interest, they are all over you weekly calls and texts and some people are afraid to have that hound. So this is an easy way for them to go ahead and ask questions and get those answered and not be hounded daily.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Yeah, so let's start with Roxanne. So Roxanne owns a home. Now she does not want to sell the home that she owns, she does not have 20% down to buy another house and wants to know if she can use a first time home buyer program to buy a new home, or does she have to get rid of the one that she has in order to do that?

Speaker 2: 8:01

Okay, so we take off the realtor hat and we put on a lender hat Kind of yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:07

So I just want to say first, the first important thing to note here is some people, like consumers, will think a first time home buyer program is the FHA program. Right, which isn't a first time home buyer program, it's an owner-occupant program, Right, good clarification. Yeah, because, that could be what she's asking about, or she could be asking about the down payment assistance program. So those are two different things, right? But so the answer could vary depending on those two things.

Speaker 2: 8:40

Right. So there's a few little things like well, if Roxanne were here in front of me, some of the questions that I would ask her is well, first of all, that in conventional you don't need to put that 20% down. It can be 5% for your second home purchase.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Yes, if you're owner-occupied.

Speaker 2: 8:57

Yep, yep, so that's good. And then the second would be first time home buyer programs. Already did you use that first time home buyer already on that purchase of your current home? And then it depends upon which one you use, because some of those you have to be in you know X amount of years before you can get out of it. It's like a you'd have to pay back that first time home buyer or whatever.

Speaker 1: 9:21

And that's that down payment assistance program. So that if you use the down payment assistance program Something like home is possible. Like home is possible, there's an X amount of years on the program where you would have to pay that amount back if it's no longer your primary residence, correct? The amount but they pro rate the amount that you borrow. Now that's with a, that's with down payment assistance and not just a regular traditional FHA.

Speaker 2: 9:44

Correct, yes, Correct, go ahead, okay. And then I was going to say if you, if you third, did you use that FHA to purchase that home? Because if you have a conventional on that first home and then you can go and do an FHA loan for your next owner occupant home and that's at 3.5% down, right?

Speaker 1: 10:04

And another way that you can use an FHA loan and many people don't know about this, but it's if you have. If you have a home right now, let's say you have a two bedroom 1500 square foot home, nice, okay. And that home you bought with FHA 3.5% down. And now, through lifestyle changes, through whatever you're upgrading, you're buying a bigger home. This time that's going to be your primary residence. You can get, you can actually qualify and get an FHA, an FHA loan on that bigger home, as long as it's a qualified upgrade to your current residence, and turn your current residence, even though it does have an FHA, you can turn that into a rental property. Now there's some things that the lender's going to ask you for, like they're going to ask you for to provide a lease agreement showing that you have the lease in place, how much rent that you're going to be getting, because you can use 75% of that to offset the current debt of that, and that's both on Franny and Freddie.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Yes, yes, so you can actually do a primary. You can do the primary residence 3.5% down. Now what a lot of blenders and things like that will recommend is going the conventional owner-occupant route on that second home, because you can do that as little as 5% down and that is, and there is a 3% down owner-occupant conventional. But in situations I've seen on many buyers when they're doing this buying the other home and keeping the last one is that the lenders say that because of the MIP is a better rate on that 5% than the 3%.

Speaker 1: 11:40

So, usually they decide to go that 5% instead of 3%. But on that, so if you're using that 5% conventional, a lot of lenders will say, even though FHA's rates are better because that MIP never goes away, that the conventional is the more favorable option. But having a lender that can review all that with you and go over your options and breakdowns and everything, is yeah, because we're not lenders, but we play one on YouTube.

Speaker 2: 12:10

I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1: 12:11

No, we're not lenders.

Speaker 2: 12:12

We're not lenders, we are definitely in real estate, but we do have a knowledge of what happens, and these are conversations. This particular question would be something more suited for a lender, but a good realtor will have a basic knowledge, so that way it'll at least point you in the right direction A finding a lender and, b making sure that you're educated enough to know the right questions to ask when you are going to talk to that lender.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Right and one of those if you are using the first time home buyer, down payment assistance program like Home is Possible. And there's a few other programs out there besides Home is Possible. Those programs will say at the time of closing you cannot own a home to qualify for those programs and some of them, you have to not own a home within three years.

Speaker 2: 12:59

Three years is usually the standard.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Yeah, so I think Home is Possible, is just a closing, but three years is the standard on a lot of them too. But those so in that situation, no, you could not do that. And then if you sell your home, you probably are going to have equity to use for your down payment where down payment assistance wouldn't be necessary.

Speaker 2: 13:19

Yeah, don't sell your home. Don't sell your home if you can buy another home without selling it and use it as a rental income and let it appreciate. Definitely do that.

Speaker 1: 13:28

Yeah, well, that's the other caveat too. So if you own a home, say you have your primary residence and it's three bedroom, 2,000 square foot, whatever home, and then you say, oh, I'm going to buy another primary residence that's a condo, that's smaller or less whatever than this home. That doesn't work. So that's where you're buying an investment property, you're buying a rental. That's 20% down. Your to qualify as a primary residence it has to be a qualified upgrade from your current home, moving on up.

Speaker 2: 14:00

Yeah, so that's where those 20% down rolls and investment loans and things like that will come into play, right, but if you have your house now and you want to purchase another house, there are ways of doing it without that 20% down, and we just covered all those.

Speaker 1: 14:14

Yeah, yeah, just upgrading your home and converting the current home into a rental, but it has to qualify. That's where you talk to a lender. They're going to talk to you about the qualification parameters.

Speaker 2: 14:24

Yeah, so we hope that helps out, Raxon.

Speaker 1: 14:26

Yes, thank you.

Speaker 2: 14:27

Grace, Grace. I love this one. We converted the garage and our house into a bedroom. Now is that going to affect our resale value when we sell our house? Like 5,000 questions popped into my head when I read this. Yeah, First one was was it permitted? That's the big one, right.

Speaker 1: 14:47

That is the big one, that is, if it wasn't permitted, it's not countable square footage, especially from a appraisal perspective.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Right, and I've had appraisals. In their appraiser deduct the amount of money that it would cost to convert it back to the garage or an unpermitted garage. So then the value comes in less than what you think it's going to be.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Yeah, and our MLS actually has a new role. Back about a year or two ago we could override anything. We've got 10 bedrooms in a house.

Speaker 2: 15:17

It didn't matter.

Speaker 1: 15:19

No, we had to be realistic. But our MLS would let us override those fields. Now, if it's not on county records, it's not there. Unless you show proof to the MLS, to the county, to adjust it and show the difference. And proof would be in permits or an appraisal. Sometimes they'll take the appraisal as proof. If you had an appraisal showing the bedroom count with the room measurements, the MLS will accept that as proof. But we can't change that.

Speaker 2: 15:46

Yeah, no, we don't have the magic wand. We have to work within our confines and we are no longer allowed to be like eh, we'll just add that in.

Speaker 1: 15:54

Yeah, and another interesting fact along with that change was that it doesn't have to have a closet to be a bedroom.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Yeah, because that used to be the standard Window bedroom. I mean a bedroom had a window and closet period.

Speaker 1: 16:06

Yeah, so it is like minimum 10 by 10 square feet.

Speaker 2: 16:10

It has to have ingress, egress and a window and a window, yeah, to be a bedroom. They would be like just put your stuff in an armoire, a dresser, it'll be fine, yeah so closets are not mandatory anymore for that.

Speaker 1: 16:22

But yeah, so yeah, is it permitted? Because if it's not permitted, it's not countable square foot, no matter which way you slice it, and you're taking away a bedroom that could be counted, because you can't count it and you still have no garage.

Speaker 2: 16:39

Right, you're down. A bedroom and a garage. Yeah, so that's just a hollow in the MLS listing.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Yeah, that could really affect your resale value.

Speaker 2: 16:49

And. But there are people who want to convert the garage and they do it with permits and they add the square foot and that counts towards the value of their home. But that's also a huge undertaking, right? You have to make sure that your electrical system will support the new conversion. Your AC will be able to pull those gains. You might have to upgrade your electrical or your AC system.

Speaker 1: 17:11

Oh, yes, and please, people out there that are doing this, like I have seen so many additions added onto houses where they didn't pull in the AC ducts. Yeah, and this is Vegas people 120 degrees in the summertime in here.

Speaker 2: 17:29

That little air vent in the corner is not going to help you for sure.

Speaker 1: 17:32

Yeah, it's like what a portable fan, or they have a fan in the ceiling.

Speaker 2: 17:35

You can always see the in-window split units right, those actually work pretty efficiently.

Speaker 2: 17:40

Yeah, a little mini-split unit will do a good job, and if you're living in the house, you've converted it and it's with your lifestyle. That thing's great. Could you just go in there, turn it on, turn it off when you're done. It's not part of your system, so it's not running the entire time and go live your best life however you want to live it. However, when you go to sell your house, we're going to come in there and be like listen, this is not doing you any good because it's not permitted and the appraiser might ding you and say, no, no, no, we're deducting $7,000 off the appraised value to remove this garage and convert it back to I mean to remove this bedroom and convert it back to a garage.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Yeah, yeah, and they definitely won't count any unpermitted square footage in an appraisal. So that's like you could have 2,000 square foot but only 1,000 of it is from the original. Then you're getting a price per square foot on 1,000 square foot, not 2,000. So that's a big deal and I don't know the cost of permits and everything there, but definitely do it the right way if you want it to have an effect on your home value.

Speaker 2: 18:41

If you're looking to add value, permits are the only way to go.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Yeah, another thing with having converted garages and bedrooms. It really this goes down to what the buyer is going to see as value. There are so many buyers that will contact us to put a search into the MLS and as one of the questions when we do our Buyer's Console is how many bedrooms, how many baths are minimum and garage. So I have so many times I meet with a buyer that I'm like if the house had zero garage, is that OK? If it had a one car garage, is that OK? And very rarely do we have buyers say that it's OK to not have a garage. Well, if they're on an auto email from the MLS, that house doesn't get sent out to the potential buyers that say that the garage is mandatory.

Speaker 2: 19:31

Right.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Yeah, so that can have an effect in your pool of buyers that are looking.

Speaker 2: 19:37

Right, you want as many eyes as possible on a property and when you start doing things like that, then that sort of decreases the amount of people coming on over.

Speaker 1: 19:46

Yes, and how many times have you seen a home that had a garage converted to the bedroom, right, okay, and they made this weird plaster thing in the front of the driveway, like the plaster thing we were talking about when you take out the garage door. Okay, like the you know, you got the garage door they remove the garage door and then they fill it in and, like the stucco and the plaster, just still shows the outline of where the garage used to be.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Oh, and the front? They didn't change the front facade. Yeah, so you see, and it's got like stack stone all outside and there's just this stucco wall.

Speaker 1: 20:22

Yeah, and there's always like some weird ridge around the side.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah Like that's where the garage used to be, but it's not there anymore and I've rarely ever seen that done nicely. Yeah, so that is it affects the curb uphill and it affects, like, the overall look of the house. A lot of people don't like that and what I have told people in the past that if you are, if you are going to convert a garage to a bedroom and you want to, you know and you're doing it the right way, you're doing the getting it permitted and everything like that I suggest leaving like a little foot or two and actually leaving that garage door there.

Speaker 1: 21:01

You're not going to have the openers, the runners that go through, right, you take the truck down. Yeah, but you have yeah, you have like a little two foot storage space there, but now the front of your house still looks good. Yeah, and it's an easy Talk about a bait and switch.

Speaker 2: 21:15

You're like driving. You can show up to a house, there's a garage door, and you're like, oh good, they have a garage. You're walking through the house and you're like, wait, where's the garage? Yeah, Psych.

Speaker 1: 21:25

You don't get a garage. Well, there's a little two foot storage space there where the garage door is Right.

Speaker 2: 21:30

But you don't need a garage, but here's a storage closet. You'll love it.

Speaker 1: 21:33

Yeah, but still it does look. The facade of the house looks good. Yeah, it's got a curb appeal. Yeah, and if the buyer decides to that they want the garage back. It's not like a major construction event, Right?

Speaker 2: 21:46

They're taking down a fellow wall with some drywall and then just having the tracks back and it goes back.

Speaker 1: 21:53

It goes back to a garage. Yeah, so the buyers have options, and I've seen so many times where the buyers are like, oh great, at least we have an option. We're so glad they didn't take the door out completely, because that would be a major construction event. You have to go cut it all out again and make it look good, and yeah, so that's an option too.

Speaker 2: 22:13

An option. Yeah, if you're going to do it. I mean, live in your house. However, you want to live in your house, right? If you want to convert the garage because you want more living space and you're turning it into a game room or a bedroom or whatever, that's fine. And then, when it comes time to sell, it's the same thing to me as doing weird paint or something Like just paint it before you sell it and you're good.

Speaker 1: 22:31

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true too, but it is great to be mindful of what your conversions are going to do to your resale value and desirability. If you are, it depends on how long you're planning on staying there. If you're planning on staying there five years, you don't want to do anything. That has a major effect.

Speaker 2: 22:47

Right, yeah, absolutely. But if it's going to be your forever home, definitely do whatever you want.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Yeah, yeah. No, I've seen some weird features in homes before.

Speaker 2: 22:55

that's like okay well, I know, I know I've seen some odd stuff too. I should. I always think I'm going to do like an Instagram channel or something which is all the weird stuff I see in Vegas real estate.

Speaker 1: 23:08

Yeah, yeah. Well, I had a buyer purchase a house that had an oil pit like a big concrete, like oil changing pit in the RV garage, Like you you know, like you stand underneath and you're yeah, yeah, like you go to a Jiffy Lube and they're underneath the car.

Speaker 2: 23:23

Instead of putting it up on a lift, you just kind of have a crawl space underneath to get under the car.

Speaker 1: 23:28

Yeah, super cool feature Super cool.

Speaker 2: 23:30

Yeah, Home Inspector fell in it oh sorry, you didn't notice the giant hole in the garage. Sorry.

Speaker 1: 23:38

So super cool feature, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:41

I told the buyers. I was like, maybe you should. Yeah, I would think of that as a cool feature, not a weird feature.

Speaker 1: 23:45

No, no, that is a cool feature, but I told the buyers like, after we close, I think the first thing you should do is put a net over it or, like you know, metal, something like, something to like protect it when it's not in use so no one tips over and falls in it.

Speaker 2: 23:58

I saw something that I would consider weird. The other day I went to a home and they remodeled it and there's a small little powder room under the closet and they had the door pushed in the bathroom. On into the inside of the bathroom they placed the toilet but now you can't shut the door because the toilet's in the way they should have shut themselves in the little closet. Put the toilet in and then the door would function fine. But I was like wait, you can't even shut the under stair toilet. What is happening here? It's weird, weird yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:30

Community all gets in together.

Speaker 2: 24:32

And in reality, they just have to, you know, pop off the toilet, close the door, put the toilet back on and all's well. But nobody noticed to do that. I sent a little text to the list agent like hey, fyi, you might want to change that.

Speaker 1: 24:45

Yeah, that's kind of a thing. Most people like to shut the door when they go to the bathroom. A little privacy, please.

Speaker 2: 24:51

A little privacy.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Just a little bit, yep, okay, so Alberta, ah.

Speaker 2: 24:57

I want to buy a home and when I talk to a realtor they want me to get a pre-approval before I can look at the homes. But I want to find a home first that I want before I do the pre-approval. Is there anyone that will do that? Hmm, Okay, so this to me is a first time home buyer question, because anybody who's been in real estate or has bought and sold a home is never going to ask you a question like that.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Yeah, I do get where Alberta's coming from, totally.

Speaker 2: 25:29

Buyers love to shop. They're in Zillow and Redfin and every other online source to look for homes.

Speaker 1: 25:35

Yeah, they want to see what they want, then see if they can qualify for it, but in reality you're working backwards.

Speaker 2: 25:42

Totally.

Speaker 1: 25:43

Yeah, so many reasons. There are so many reasons.

Speaker 2: 25:47

Reason after reason. Let's just bring up all those red flags. Let's do it.

Speaker 1: 25:50

Yeah, why we asked for pre-approvals first. And it's not. I mean, it's never the buyers first go to. You know, sometimes when they have like opposition to it right, their first go to is like oh, you think I don't qualify? Yeah, nothing to do with that.

Speaker 2: 26:05

Nothing.

Speaker 1: 26:05

Like. That's never my stance. When I'm saying we need a pre-approval first is for any reason. I think you don't qualify Because I've learned a long time ago you never like judge people by anything.

Speaker 2: 26:17

Never, ever Never.

Speaker 1: 26:18

Never know. I mean, in my opinion, every person in front of me can qualify and you know whatever. So that is never.

Speaker 2: 26:25

That's my mindset too. We can get you there, yeah, is it today or is it next month or next year, but we're going to get you there. Let's see what you've got to do.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Yeah, so that that can you qualify as never the stance Nope, but that you're right.

Speaker 2: 26:37

That is the buyer's first offense right. They're like oh, I'm so offended that you don't think I can buy a house, yeah.

Speaker 1: 26:43

Really.

Speaker 2: 26:44

No, you're so offended you don't think you can buy a house. Go talk to a lender. Let's see what you can afford.

Speaker 1: 26:47

Yeah, no, I mean there's 19 year olds out there that can buy a house. I mean it's never. You know there's there. That that's never the stance from myself or, I think, any realtor. It's just you know that that's just buyer's first, first take on it. I guess, yep, yep, but it's qualification. I mean one reason. Let me just go into security, okay, where realtors we meet with people inside, fake at home sometimes, that we don't know or haven't met or anything.

Speaker 2: 27:18

A qualification lets us know that someone has someone somewhere has got an ID and has run you and you are a real person looking to buy a real house.

Speaker 1: 27:27

Yeah, you've got an ID submitted, you've got a credit check, you've got a, and that doesn't mean I have all that information. That means that the lender, who is, you know, an established organization, has has gained all of this stuff from you and verify that you're a true person, because we're in a world where that's not always the case.

Speaker 2: 27:47

Not the safest world, but we try and take every precaution and that is a safety feature for the realtor. And I always like to get a prequel letter for the simple fact of a budget. Yeah, Period, yeah Into conversation. I don't want to take you and show you a house that you fell in love with online and then find out that you can't qualify and every other house you see is going to be like yeah because I already seen yeah, I already seen a house in this range and so many times people don't understand like what you know.

Speaker 1: 28:18

They're like oh my, my mom has a house that's 500,000 and her mortgage is $1,600 a month. Right, I can afford that.

Speaker 2: 28:27

Right, yeah, that's not the way numbers work in real estate.

Speaker 1: 28:31

Yeah, so I mean they're. Yeah, she could have bought a long time ago, or you know put a lot down or did whatever. So that doesn't, and you'd be surprised there's so many buyers that think that way, Like you know. They'll ask someone that has a house that they like what's your payment? Yeah, and they think that automatically means they can get a house like that with that payment and time change, Yep.

Speaker 2: 28:52

I have a first time home buyer adorable, I love her to death and she's buying a property and she's like I just want a little house like my parents. So I ended up at the parents house 4,800 square feet, lovely. But it is not what I would consider a little starter home and they've been in it her entire life. So they bought it back in 1998. So they have decades worth of equity in that house and a $1,200 a month payment and she wants, you know, 4,800 square feet for $1,200. I'm like, oh you, sweet summer child.

Speaker 1: 29:24

Yeah, yeah. So that's another reason is to make sure that you know the numbers that you're working with and what that payment's going to be. Because again, like what, if you can qualify for this house that we're looking at, that you know is whatever and you do qualify, but you look at those payments and you say I'm not paying that Right, like that's not even if I qualify for it, that's not in my budget of what I want for a home. So we want to make sure that you know all of those costs upfront, what to expect, how much you're going to need for closing costs, what you know, the total picture and review over those numbers, before we even get you out there shopping, because that's you don't want to get that surprised.

Speaker 2: 30:04

Yeah. So I do have a little like caveat to that. If it's somebody that I've worked with in the past or somebody that I know and they don't have a prequel and a house came on the market and they're like, oh, I've been keeping my eye on this neighborhood, because I do bookmark certain neighborhoods for certain clients and when stuff comes up I'm not worried about the lender at that time. I'm calling them saying, hey, listen, your house and your favorite house and your favorite development just showed up. Should we take a peek at it? Are you interested? And if they're interested, then I definitely go look at it because, especially if they already own a home, yeah, then chances of them qualifying for what they want. And they've already been in the business, I mean in the business of real estate, they've had a mortgage, they've dealt with it, they know what the numbers are going to look like a little clearer than a first time home buyer.

Speaker 1: 30:47

Right and their equity in their home. I had a client same thing. I had a girl reach out to me. It was a couple years now but she was the nicest lady. She called me, she wanted to see one of my listings and she said I actually called a couple other realtors. I was working with some other realtors. I was talking to someone else. She said I called them first but they said I need to get pre-approved to see it. Can I come take a look at it? And I said well, and this is another thing too, on some listings the owner rule will require a pre-approval before and that's not our college.

Speaker 1: 31:17

the owner's call yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:18

And that's more in a higher price point.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Yeah, and sometimes not even a higher price point. So sometimes that's not in non-negotiable. But in this case I said I talked to the owner a little bit. I said the lady doesn't have a pre-approval. She had a house. She had a beautiful house that she would plan on selling and I just said just let's verify that you're the owner of this house and everything like that, send me the address. And I was like yeah, your house is your pre-approval. I can't believe anybody didn't like hasn't even.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Well or even taking the time to establish her who she is. Does she have a property? Just ask some simple questions. If you're a realtor out there and somebody calls you and says maybe it's your first or second listing, and you're like somebody calls you and is like, oh my God, I want to see this house, and you're like, give me a pre-approval. You're not trying to slam doors in the face, you're not trying to offend people. You're doing it for safety. You're doing it because it's the request of the seller. They want a pre-approval, whatever the case may be. But you can ask qualifying questions to get you to the point, so you will have a better understanding. Is this a viable buyer?

Speaker 1: 32:22

Right, and in this case she had told me that one of the realtors that she reached out to initially was the person that sold her the house, so it's like they obviously knew she owned a home.

Speaker 2: 32:32

Oh, if somebody had a house that always worked together. I'm absolutely doing anything to help them.

Speaker 1: 32:39

Yeah, and so she is now my client. That, unfortunately, someone just didn't do that extra step Like that was absurd to me. Like her house is her pre-approval Absolutely Her verification. So another thing that I think is like important to note when you're looking at you know, getting a pre-approval before you go out and look at a home is things like debt to income ratio. Did you just buy a car? Right, you might be pre-approved or be, or, I'm sorry, you might qualify like if you do, like the online calculators or whatever, but there's factors that you didn't take into place. Student loans are things that we've seen a lot with that.

Speaker 1: 33:24

So, they have to take those in.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Wasn't it nice during the pandemic when those were gone? Yeah, those are awesome. Let's get rid of those again.

Speaker 1: 33:32

Yeah, so they have to take those into the debt to income ratio. So those are things. So it's not no one's trying to be mean or say that you can't qualify, they're just. It's just making sure that we are doing our due diligence before it starts.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Yeah, but getting a pre-approval letter is really throwing your hat in the ring. You're serious about wanting to make a change, wanting to make a move, you know. So that's a good qualifier. If you get a pre-approval, you look like a much more stable buyer for some random realtor that you're calling.

Speaker 1: 34:06

if you have no relationship with them, oh yeah, and, and I mean, when we send in an offer for a property, we have to have pre-approval or proof of funds attached, or else the offer just doesn't get reviewed Right. It's not as good as offer. We're not making an offer without that pre-approval.

Speaker 2: 34:20

And then also sometimes you know like some sellers want their list agent there when they buy the hat, when they show the house, and then it's like, hey, I've got this rando, and they may not be able to buy the house, but we want to interrupt you and your day and open up this house to it. If you don't have a pre-approval letter and you're really just in the very beginning stages, go to open houses, go to check out. If you're just a looking loo, check out online or whatever. And if you're serious and you want to have a conversation, call a realtor. Matter of fact, if they want to call a realtor, you're a realtor, right, Trish? I think so.

Speaker 1: 34:54

You are. How would they call you if?

Speaker 2: 34:56

they wanted to get a hold of you 702-308-2878.

Speaker 1: 34:59

Okay, cool, and, tiana, how do people reach out to you? I too am a realtor.

Speaker 2: 35:01

Wow, yeah, yeah, I've done it for a minute. You can give me a call, shoot me a text 702-379-9948.

Speaker 1: 35:11

Hey, there's one more thing. I know we're about to sign off on the show, but I did. I just remembered. I meant to mention this today Is that the yesterday we had a broker meeting, you know like, our broker had our little conversation with us and, due to like these lawsuits and all the stuff that's coming out, one thing that buyers need to be prepared for buyer brokerage agreements are becoming mandatory. Yeah, I mean they should have been.

Speaker 2: 35:37

They should have been and they always were in my business. They are now going mandatory across the board to alleviate any sort of liability or anything like that. So when you're serious about buying a home, pre-approval and buyer brokerage, those are on the table 100% in the valley.

Speaker 1: 35:55

Yeah, so all you free souls out there like. I'm not signing out contracts with no one. I'm going to use as many real pieces as I can to get what I want. Well, good luck with that. Yeah, you're going to have a lot more challenges there, so, yeah, yeah, so it'll change a little bit. Be expecting that. So, yes, all right. Well, thanks, guys, come back next week and, yeah, make sure you come back next week. Like, share, subscribe and check out our website at realteachuckvegas.

Speaker 2: 36:22

All the things you guys. Thanks for being part of the tribe and we will see you next week. Have a good week, Bye.