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Today, we're gonna talk a little bit about interest rates, because there's been some pretty substantial changes on what's going on in the market for sure. So always a hot topic with buyers and sellers with what's going on, but we're entering into some unprecedented times right now, so to avoid triggering all the regulation Z disclaimers and disclosures we have to go through, we won't get into very specific rate quotes, but, my goodness, Jon, we're in the low 3% range for just plain old vanilla 30 year fixed rate loans. It's getting, again, to the point we're almost at all time lows.- I mean, when's the last time we saw something like this? How far do we have to go back to see interest rates of low 3s?- Yeah, yeah, you know, 4 years ago we got pretty darn close and then prior to that we were sitting in a recession when rates were at super lows and there's a lot of things that are underpinning this, that are making this happen, but I think for our purposes the important thing is that this a tremendous win for buyers of course. It's a tremendous win for sellers too, you know, when sellers are entering the market, as you know, part of that question is "well how many potential buyers can I expose this home to?" And that exposure just got broader because now the affordability is more attractive and folks that maybe wanted to keep their purchase price here can now go here, and have the same kind of expense, the same monthly payment. So, it's a good thing, you never know how long it's gonna last, but for homeowners right now, and potential home buyers, it's really attractive.- Just out of curiosity, how much more buying power does a one point drop in interest rates give somebody in general? Just in general terms, we don't have to get into specifics.- So one point, so do you mean from four and a quarter down to three and a quarter?- Yeah, say four and a quarter to three and a quarter.- So I'm really gonna wing it here, Jon, but I'm gonna say 70 to 80 thousand dollars.- That's huge!- But same payment, yeah.- That's the difference between being able to buy in a community and not be able to buy in a community.- That's a good point, yeah. Now that's a severe window from low fours to low threes, but we're there, it wasn't that long ago that we were talking to home buyers, and the 4% interest range was the conversation. So, it's happening, home buyers are benefiting from it right now and home sellers hopefully too. Unfortunately, a lot of the things that are driving that are based on negative things that are happening in the economy, and the Coronavirus is big news right now as well and that's having a global economic impact too. So, it's not a positive that's it's happening because of that, and many economists are saying that this was gonna happen anyway, and the Coronavirus just sped things along, and that's a surprise for a lot of folks, you know, because a lot of folks look at where the stock market was, and they say "Everything is wonderful, "why would the interest rates be falling "because of negative news?" But what I like to say and I'm just mimicking a lot of economists, is that the stock market is not the economy. They're two different things, and there were a lot of indicators about average hourly work week, industry capacity, factory capacity that were down, and so these were things that are really the foundation of the economy, and this is why the interest rates have been pointing in that downward direction, and then the concerns over the Coronavirus and how that is gonna affect global economies is just speeding that up.

Today, we are happy to welcome a past client of both John and mine, Mr. Randy Magner. - Randy actually, you bought your house, what was it? Back in 2014 or 15?- 2014, six years ago.- Okay, so, Tony and I both had the pleasure of helping you find the home and Tony secured the financing for you to purchase the home.- Finally found our dream house. You did a very good job of locating that for us.- We needed to get into a certain school district so my daughter could go to a performing arts school. And we looked at a lot of houses before we finally found the right one.- Yeah, as I recall, we started off in the Warren Con/Troy section.- Yes.- And as we discovered, there was very few houses for sale in that part of Troy that fit what you were looking for. So, as we started to broaden out the search, we ended up having more things to look at, more choices and, of course, in 2014 it was becoming a very competitive market. So, we had to move quickly.- And as I recall, he was a pastor and also considered himself a bit of a handyman.- Yes, he considered himself a handyman, yes. We'll get into that.- So, you move into the house and, I think the first thing to go on the fritz was your dishwasher. Right?- Absolutely.- It quit working on you and it was a fairly new dishwasher, so we had the home warranty in place.- We had the owner's warranty.- So, the home warranty eventually replaced, got you a new dishwasher.- Did you not do some other things to the house once you moved in?- All I did was painted it, and we were done.- Okay. So, we had nice countertops, granite countertops--- Nice cabinets, hardwood floors on the whole first level, hardwood floors upstairs--- We also, we moved the laundry room from the basement up to the first floor.- And I had the master suite redone as well as the master bath was entirely updated with granite countertops, new cabinetry and ceramic tile.- That's right.- And a whirlpool tub.- You did a nice job with that.- We sold our house in Royal Oak and it sold, you sold it, within the first week.- Now with you saying that, it was 2013 that you bought the house, 2013. Because 2014 is where we're going with the story.- Is that when Snowzilla came through here? The Polar Vortex and Snowzilla. We had like six feet of snow in the course of one winter.- Yes, and--- That was the time, it was 2013, early 2014. We got hammered, in fact, I remember coming to, you had a housewarming party and there was like, it seemed like there was six feet of snow on the ground.- Yeah. So, as many of you who lived in Michigan in 2014 probably remember, around about August 14th, 2014, we had a horrific rain storm. And it seemed like the cloud just sat overhead and continued to rain on us.- Yeah, in fact, I can recall, I was, my office was at 13 1/2 in Woodward, at that time, and I recall leaving to go home about 6:30 and Woodward was starting to flood in some areas, or get water over it, the road. And cars just started backing up. Some were around 12 Mile and the rain just kept coming. I remember trying to cut through to get back east, to make my way back home and I remember trying to come across 11 1/2 Mile, and it was flooded. So, I had to turn around, come back to Woodward and then try to get through side streets. And some of the side streets were so flooded, in fact, that I had to just, I was doing what other cars were doing which was just driving over people's lawns on the sidewalks to avoid the big flood areas. I mean, you did what you had to do. And, it basically took me from 6:30 until about midnight to get home.- You were one of those people?---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

- Hey, everybody, welcome to "Avoiding Real Estate Turbulence" podcast, season two, episode two. This is your pilot, Jon Lafferty, with Century 21 Town & Country.- And copilot Tony Abate, with Ross Mortgage, and we are your real estate pilots. Our job is to be your real estate advocate and also make sure you're educated about the buying and selling process. We'll keep you informed throughout until we get you safely closed.- Today's episode is sponsored by Title One. When you're a seller or buyer, and you're feeling weary or small, with tears in your eyes, Title One will dry them all. They are on your side. If times get rough and friends can't be found, Title One can be your bridge over troubled title issues. You can reach Title One at 734-427-8000, or e-mail them at team1@titleoneinc.net Again, team1@titleoneinc.net- There you go. All right, and a I love the commercial, man. You could go into business and write those taglines, I think. In a real estate transaction there are many reasons why you can encounter turbulence. Today we are going to talk all things title with Ken Taylor from Title One. Welcome back to the jump seat, Ken.- Thank you.- Welcome back, yeah.- Yeah.- Glad you're able to join us for episode two.- Happy to be here.- All right.- In our last episode, we sorta talked a little bit about how you got into title, why you're in title, and some things about it, what a commitment for title insurance is, owner's policy, lender's policy, so I thought maybe what we'd do is, in this episode, maybe just talk a little bit about some general questions that maybe people have of differences between different ways to hold title, and red flags when you're purchasing a property to keep your eyes out for.- Yeah.- Well, first, let's talk about why, in Michigan, we have split title, what's called split title, and is it a benefit? Is it a detriment? If it's a benefit, who does it benefit? And what does split title mean? Split title means that in a real estate transaction, obviously, you have a seller and a buyer taking out a loan. You're gonna be purchasing two policies at a closing. A seller will provide an owner's title policy to the purchaser. The buyer provides a lender's title insurance policy to the lender and mortgage company. What they call RESPA, Real Estate Servicing Protection Act, made a rule that the consumer has the right to choose whoever they want for the service that they pay for, so the seller pays for an owner's policy, so they can choose a title company, whoever they want. Ken TaylorTitle One(734) 427-8000team1@titleoneinc.net---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

- Hey everybody, welcome to season two of Avoiding Real Estate Turbulence podcast. This is your pilot, Jon Lafferty with Century 21 Town and Country.- And co-pilot, Tony Abate, with Ross Mortgage and we are your real estate pilots. Our job is to be your real estate advocate and also make sure you're educated about the buying and selling process. We'll keep you informed throughout until we get you safely closed.- Today's episode is sponsored by Title One. When you're a seller or buyer and you're feeling weary or small, with tears in your eyes, Title One will dry them all. They are on your side. If times get rough and friends can't be found, Title One can be your bridge over troubled title issues. You can reach Title One at 734-427-8000, or email them at- team1@titleoneinc.net.- I didn't read that third paragraph, that's a good one Jon. All right, in a real estate transaction there are many reasons why you can encounter turbulence. Today we are going to talk all things Title, with Ken Taylor from Title One. Welcome to the jump. Welcome to the jump seat, man. Welcome to the jump sleet- Thank you guys for having me I appreciate it.- Absolutely. It's our first day by the way. I can tell.- It's my first day, I feel like Homer Simpson.- I didn't realize Jon was such a poet though.- He is, holy cow.- Skills that I didn't know he had.- Yeah, I think he wrote it at the traffic light right outside here, sitting in the car. Very good, Jon.- In blood. So Ken, how long have you been in title? What made you get into title? Let's start with just the basics there.- I've been in Title Insurance for coming up on 14 years now. I've been blessed to be with the same company, Title One the whole time. My, mother actually was, has been in the industry her entire life and got me started and more, the more and more I got to know the industry and move in different departments, found out I really enjoyed it and have stuck with it and gonna make a whole career out of it.- What do you like about title insurance?- I like, my favorite part about title insurance is, while in practice all real estate transactions are the same, they're not. The puzzle pieces always are a little bit different. The way to get to a closing table is just a little bit different in every transaction and that uniqueness is kind of what, you know, makes me go everyday. That everything is, nothing is ever the same. Every transaction no matter how on paper it looks like it's gonna be the same, is always different and new challenges every day and that's something that I look forward to everyday. Trying to put the puzzle pieces together, to get everyone to a closing table.- Wow.- Yeah, it's one of those unseen functions, you know, we all kind of walk folks through the process, but churning away in the background literally from start to finish and even before start, with pre Title and what have you, that is absolutely such a critical piece of the transaction.- That's correct yeah, it's a nice search, a nice, like I said, keep putting the puzzle pieces together. It's fun to draw a line from the start to end and, you know, we get to do that on every transaction which is fun.Ken TaylorTitle One(734) 427-8000team1@titleoneinc.net---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

Today we are going to talk about the new loan limits that go into effect January 2020. What that means for buyers. Also we'll talk about what happens when an appraisal on a property comes in below purchase price. What options does a buyer have?Jon Lafferty:Let's talk about the new loan limits and how it might create some turbulence for buyers who are unaware of where those loan limits end and what that means, the difference between standard and jumbo. Tony Abate:Sure, yes. It's an important topic. It doesn't come up a lot. But your loan limits for the majority of mortgages do get changed on annual basis. You have your three typical buckets, conventional or conforming loans, FHA loans, and then VA loans. What happens is the government entity that has control over these, for instance, on conventional loans it's FHFA, which is the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Tony Abate:Basically what they do is they do an analysis and they evaluate the increase or decrease in home values nationwide. When there is an increase, then the logic is well then the conforming loan limit really should change with that. They compare third quarter to third quarter so that they can start a new year with an adjustment and give everybody some ramp up time. Tony Abate:For 2020, for instance, the new conventional loan limit is 510,400. Over half a million.Jon Lafferty:For Metro Detroit?Tony Abate:That's nationwide. Conventional is not local specific, if you will. Yes, in certain high cost areas like Hawaii where they get a bump. Jon Lafferty:Or Los Angeles or San Francisco. Tony Abate:Exactly. Yes, but for those of us in this area, 510,400. That's an increase over last year's number 484,000 and some change. That's as a result of a national price increase of single family homes for 4.9%. We can take that as good news, I would say because it does show health in the market. 4.9% is a nice increase, but it's not an unreasonable increase. It's not like the market has gotten away from itself. Just some historic analysis. When I got in the business, it was, let's see, 202,300 was the conforming loan limit. Have a Happy New Year and we'll see you guys next year in 2020. We'll start season two and looking forward to a lot more fun discussions, some great guests and looking forward to answering user... questions from you guys out there.Thank you for listening to Avoiding Real Estate Turbulence. If you'd be so kind to subscribe and review and rate we would appreciate it. Please share with your friends, family and co workers that they too can find us on Facebook, YouTube and avoidingret.com, where you'll find our contact information and every episode. You can also find us on Apple podcast, Google podcast and Spotify. ---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

Jon and Tony share some humorous Christmas stories. We hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season.---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

Today we're going to talk with a local insurance agent about some of the turbulence you can encounter when trying to get homeowners insurance. Welcome back to the jump seat Christine Suchoski with Custom Insurance Agency.Let's jump right in talk about that PIP coverage.It's auto. Yeah.Yeah. Let's talk about that first because that's pretty top of Mind right now for a lot of people.Yeah, we're going through some changes here in the state of Michigan. This has been in and out of the courts for... oh, gosh, for years. What's happening here in the state of Michigan, the PIP, personal injury protection portion of your auto policy is what's in question here. They're looking to mandate your liability limits. What does that mean?What they want to do is, you, the policyholder, have an auto-related accident, and they want to know who's going to pay first? Who pays primary in an auto-related accident?Are you benefits coordinated? Does your medical pay first? Does your auto insurance pay first? To be honest with you, you really don't know until you call that 800 number on the back of your medical card for those of you who have medical insurance.Then at that point, you have an option, if your medical does pay primary, you can leave them as primary. If they pay secondary, well then your auto becomes primary. Then there are those of us who just don't have medical insurance.Auto insurance, at that point becomes the primary medical responsibility in an auto-related accident.I can understand here and paint the picture, so we're talking about a scenario where a person has typical auto coverage and typical medical coverage, and they get into an auto accident and they're hurt-Mm-hmm (affirmative).... and so medical bills ensue and then it's a question of were you're insured two ways, both through your own policy into your personal which one's going to write the first check, is that really what we're talking about here?Yes.Okay.See, personal injury protection basically covers your expenses, your medical care, if you will, recovery rehab, let's say there's some wage losses, it even covers funeral expenses too.But what's happening here in the state of Michigan, our rates are so high, because in the state of Michigan, if you were to get hurt, we have unlimited medical, for the rest of our life.And the auto policy.And the auto policy.Mm-hmm (affirmative).Yeah. But now what's going to happen here come next year when they're rolling this out to you guys, the policyholders an opportunity to put a cap on that to say, "Hey, I don't want unlimited medical anymore. I'm going to put a half a million cap on that and take a discount."They're offering you a discount by putting a cap on your medical protection. Health insurance will cover your medical expenses, but then the auto kicks in for all your ancillaries, your rehab, your recovery, do we have to do something to the house? Do we have to remodel?Right now with unlimited medical, we don't have to worry about that. But that's why our rates are so high. If you were involved in an auto-related accident right now and you had health insurance as primary, they have a schedule fee, if you will, "This is how much we can charge you for the X-ray, hundred dollars."But if you have auto as primary, you don't have a medical insurance and you have that same accident, they can charge you whatever they really want to charge you. 200, 300, 400, there is no fee schedule when the auto is paying first.Christine SuchoskiCustom Insurance Agency586-255-3477csuchoski@custominsuranceagency.com---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

Jon and Tony are joined by Christine Suchoski (Custom Insurance Agency), and they are telling personal Thanksgiving stories then and now in this holiday special episode.---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

Today, we are going to talk about how divorces can impact both purchasing, selling, real estate and also financing real estate. So today, I'm pleased to have a colleague of mine, Mr. Marc Edelstein is here with us. How are you doing Marc?Good, good-Good. So Marc has been a lender for 17 years. He is a certified divorce lending professional. I think I got that right.Mm-hmm.And a lot of folks might not know that that's even a designation, it absolutely is. It's not something that a person gets overnight, it takes some effort, it takes some dedication. And I think in our business we kind of learn the hard way when we're early on, that a divorce in a transaction isn't just an extra document, it can absolutely affect the flow of the transaction and, whether it's even doable or not.Thanks for coming on board, Marc.Absolutely, thanks for having me.Yeah, yeah, yeah. We went over some Q&A prior to about some of the things that impact things, but Marc if we could, why don't we just kind of let you paint a 10,000 foot view picture of the kind of things that folks need to at least be thinking about when there's a divorce in their life, and there's going to be a sale of real estate, purchase of real estate, et cetera.Sure, sure, sure. When it comes to divorce in real estate, and divorce in mortgage lending, there are lots of mortgage lending guidelines that intersect with the family law. So a lot of times, we see a spouse that needs to re-enter the workforce after an absence being out of the workforce, or somebody who is going to be receiving some sort of support, whether it's alimony or child support, as their form of income on the other side of the divorce. And how can we use that income towards qualifying? So that's a big thing that we see a lot. The other thing is your mortgage debts tend to be joint with husband and wife. And so when one spouse is awarded the home for the divorce, and the other spouse is either getting an equity buyout, or just off of the home, if there's no equity to split, that mortgage becomes what we call contingent liability.And so how does the payment history after the judgment on that mortgage, that our borrower is not responsible for any longer, impact their ability to be able to purchase a home? As far as other guidelines and other things to consider, it's really the timing of filing of your divorce. If you file your divorce, and then you go to apply for mortgage to purchase a new primary residence, and your divorce is not final, it makes things very, very, very complicated. Most lenders will not grant you a mortgage approval without either a legal separation agreement, or property settlement agreement signed by a judge or your final divorce decree.Yeah, yeah. And, Jon, you probably had conversations. I mean, think about the natural progression of things. There's the unfortunate things that lead to a divorce, the divorce is filed, and then one or both parties are thinking, I need to move on. So I'm going to start house hunting. But they're in that window where the divorce is filed, but it's not finalized.Right. So you know Tony, on the loan application, we have a declaration section where we ask nine, 10, 11 questions about your citizenship, do you intend to occupy this home? Are you going to borrow any part of the down payment?Marc Edelstein(248) 379-6749 thatmortgagebanker.com---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret

Jon, Tony, and special guest Marc Edelstein discuss some of the spooky, creepy, and scary real life real estate stories they've experienced or heard about.Yeah. So we were just sitting around chatting, with Halloween around the corner, and in the business that we're in, we come across houses that have interesting histories. These guys sometimes see it on the lending side, I certainly see it in walking through homes, and so we all kind of had interesting stories about things that we've come across, and thought we'd share a few of them with you today.Perfect timing. Perfect timing. So let's just start.So, Marc, yeah, you were talking about something that you had come across ...Yeah, I had a client of mine who purchased a home. It was owned by HUD, and it was the scene of a murder, and she was the first buyer after this had happened. So the appraisal comes in, and of course you want to take a pretty good look at that appraisal, right, because you know what happened there, and you just see drywall missing for the first four feet up in certain rooms, where something clearly happened in that room, where that was needed for evidence.But I thought, for sure, this woman was going to back out of this deal once she found out that this had happened there, but she just ... she couldn't get over what a great deal she was getting on the house, that she put it behind her, and was like, "I'm still buying this house. I don't really care what happened."Wow. The whole half the drywall missing didn't dissuade her or anything?No.No. Wow.Wow.Crazy. And then did she find out? I mean, was it discovered or revealed?It was discovered early on. She had plenty of opportunity to decide to back out, but it was too good of a deal to pass up, I guess.Wow. Hope she's doing well in the crime scene.I know she is.Yeah? Wow. Wow.That's ... and she went ahead with it anyways. Well, so I, several years ago, had a buyer who was interested in a condo, and it was disclosed that the owner had died by suicide, but it was never clear what had happened, how he took his life. It was never clear.This condo had been on the market for must've been six or nine months. It was being sold through probate because he had no will, and so they determined that a family member was going to oversee and receive some of the proceeds. So in steps my buyer and decides that they are interested in it because it's an incredible deal. It's like $90,000 under anything else in there.Now, mind you, all the people had done in that place where he had taken his life was replaced the carpet, that's it. So on the wall you could still see the outline of some bodily fluids that had-Oh, man.... discolored that wall. So anyways-They were going to paint anyway, right?Marc Edelstein(248) 379-6749thatmortgagebanker.com---Avoiding Real Estate Turbulenceinfo@avoidingret.comhttp://www.avoidingret.comFacebook: fb.me/avoidingret