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The Blue Button Broadcast
The Accunet Mortgage & Realty Show 10-15-23
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The following program. The ENT , mortgage and Realty Show is paid for in full by ENT mortgage, L L C 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, L L C, and not W T M J or Good Karma Brands.
Speaker 2Welcome to the Accu Net Mortgage and Realty Show, getting you inside information on buying, selling, and financing your home with expert advice from Accu Mortgage and Realty. And now, here's Brian Wicker and
Speaker 1Tim Holdman. Welcome to the Anette Mortgage and Realty Show, the October 15th edition. I'm Brian Wicker, licensed real estate broker with ANet Realty Advisors and the majority o owner of Aade Mortgage, along with my son-in-law, who is one of our top senior loan consultants. Uh, Tim Holdman . Welcome back to the show, Tim. Good morning,
Speaker 3Brian. Thanks for having me. And
Speaker 1Remember, you can also get a copy of today's show and all our past shows, wherever you normally get your podcasts. Absolutely. Alright , well let's start off talking. Well , let's congratulate my son David and , uh, daughter-in-law, Christie . Yes , indeed .
Speaker 3And your
Speaker 1Brother-in-law <laugh> . So we, we have a new , uh, grandchild or niece as we call it in the house here this last week A Healthy Girl was born and that's why David's got the weekend off. So we're delighted , uh, about that development.
Speaker 3Yeah. Grand baby . Number four for you. Grand baby . Number four.
Speaker 1That's right. Yeah .
Speaker 3The brood is growing. Yeah ,
Speaker 1Absolutely. <laugh> . So we're happy about that. Alright , now , uh, as David points out , uh, his new daughter's gonna graduate and what was it for ?
Speaker 3Oh geez . 18
Speaker 1Years old . 2041. Yeah.
Speaker 3One that's a , we
Speaker 1Thought . Okay . Wow. Alright . So and likely live to be over a hundred, just
Speaker 3By the way. Yeah. Statistically. Statistically Yep .
Speaker 1Along with all the other babies that were born this week. So, alright . Um, what's happening in real estate and Mortgage World? Uh , we had , uh, two things impact mortgage rates this past week. Yep .
Speaker 3Uh ,
Speaker 1One of those was sadly the terrorist attack and the war in Israel and Gaza. And anytime there's geopolitical unrest that tends to make the interest rate world , um, more attractive to investors. Right.
Speaker 3We tend
Speaker 1To sell stuff lower
Speaker 3Risk. Yeah . Lower
Speaker 1Risk, right. They tell to tend to sell the riskier asset stocks and buy safer things like government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, mortgage taxes . Right. But then the other thing that we had happen, which then had a counter effect on this was the consumer price index. Because remember , uh, the reason that mortgage rates are high , uh, is that inflation has been high, now it's been coming down mm-hmm.
Speaker 3<affirmative>
Speaker 1And , uh, and the consumer price index report, which measures inflation at the retail level, was actually in line with expectations Yeah.
Speaker 3On
Speaker 1Thursday. So, Tim, why, why did that make rates get a little worse? Well,
Speaker 3Apparently investors were expecting the , uh, the c p i , the consumer price index , uh, data to come back weaker
Speaker 1Ah ,
Speaker 3Than the forecast. Yeah. Weaker than the forecast. So just by it coming in at expectations that actually had a knee-jerk reactions of , of rates going up a little bit. Unfortunately , uh, overall for the week they're down for sure compared to the prior week. But that was a little bit of a , um, unwelcome day on, on Thursday, you know, compared to the overall story of the week. So
Speaker 1Let's just say, you know, today , uh, or as a Friday I should say, we could do a , uh, 30 year fixed rate, 25% down on the 310,000 , uh, median price for the five county Milwaukee area. So at a 7 3, 7 5, 1 paying points, almost everybody is paying points now to get the rate Yeah.
Speaker 3Down
Speaker 1Some that would give you an a p r of 7.56 and, and you know, last week maybe that rate would've been 7.625%. Right . That's a quarter point different , which I don't get too excited. <laugh> , it's about a $40 per month
Speaker 3Difference
Speaker 1In payment on a $232,000 loan amount. I think
Speaker 3It bears mentioning, though I'm sure you've mentioned it before, we, we still have access to the special super low first time home buyer rate from wida a Wisconsin specific program where that rate for first time home buyers if they qualify for the program is a 6.625% rate as of today with no points.
Speaker 1I'm glad you , uh, brought that up. And if you don't have it memorized We'll
Speaker 3I'm flying the WIDA banner to anyone who listens.
Speaker 1That's right. Uh , and the maximum income you can have on that, I believe is $99,800 if you're a one to two person household. Correct.
Speaker 3Yeah . And
Speaker 1Do you have it memorized what it is if you're three to four? I wanna say it's like one 18. Yeah ,
Speaker 3I was gonna confirm one 16 . We well we will confirm that . Alright . I , we'll confirm
Speaker 1That and get that back to you. Alright. So, so rates are not like tumbling down
Speaker 3No. They
Speaker 1Just basically stop getting worse.
Speaker 3Yeah. Which, I mean, we'll take whatever win we can get at this point, but bottom line is like, like you said, it's all about what's the difference in the monthly payment. That's
Speaker 1Right. Right . Yeah . And so , uh, Tim, we, you had a super busy week helping people buy homes. I think you had
Speaker 3Five
Speaker 1Applications. Yeah,
Speaker 3Yeah . Which is
Speaker 1Monstrous this in ,
Speaker 3In this environment. That's, that's big and yeah, I mean there's still people out there , uh, who are looking to buy some for sale by owners , some with realtors. Okay. And , uh, we are standing by to assist by the way I just looked up , it's $114,885 Oh . In Milwaukee County for a three person plus household for wida .
Speaker 1Alright . So, you know, we're all about triage. Yeah .
Speaker 3When
Speaker 1Somebody comes our way, we are checking all the boxes, kinda like a pilot on takeoff mm-hmm . <affirmative> , how can we get this particular person? And there are tricks to the trade folks.
Speaker 3Absolutely. Uh ,
Speaker 1Uh , as to what can we do to , um, ethically manipulate the information in our favor in the , our borrower's favor mm-hmm .
Speaker 3<affirmative> to
Speaker 1Try to get you the best possible deal. Yeah . Alright . Well , uh, I had a call from a dad this week. I was actually sitting at David's desk <laugh> because he was out. It was this, it was on Thursday and I , I think I just happened to pick up the main line. I thought I was answering David's phone. Oh sure .
Speaker 3But
Speaker 1I just , I think I picked up the main line. This guy's like , wow, I'm talking to Brian Wicker. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3Yeah,
Speaker 1<laugh> . Uh , and so I'm gonna tell you about his question. He was, he had two questions , uh, about hi helping his daughter and son-in-law purchase their next home. One of them is about trying to make their offer a cash offer, but then the other one had to do with my advertising , uh, that we've had a lot of ads lately talking about how we can do property specific pre-approvals with no appraisal required. I'm gonna tell you about his question 'cause I think it's a couple of good ones when we come back. You're listening to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show on AM six 20 W T M J
Speaker 2Home buying advice from the guys who know it best. This is the ACU Net Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker on W T M J.
Speaker 1Welcome back and thanks for tuning into today's show. Uh , before the break I was mentioning I got a call from a dad , uh, of a pre-approval client we're already working with and , uh, we're trying to help 'em purchase their next home. So not a first time home buyer.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 1Uh , and they make too much money to qualify for any of the special stuff
Speaker 3Gotcha .
Speaker 1Special sauce that we have. Sure. Uh , the buyers are looking to buy another two family , or as we call them here in Wisconsin, duplexes, <laugh> in other parts. You know what insure Chicago ,
Speaker 3They call
Speaker 1Two flats. Oh ,
Speaker 3Interesting. Anyway. Huh .
Speaker 1Which is really the key of beef LA if you're a musician isn't
Speaker 3Whoa.
Speaker 1Alright . Digging out into my old music theory <laugh> . Anyway, so they're looking to buy a two family and they already own two duplexes.
Speaker 3Oh, okay.
Speaker 1And they live though this is good in one of the units. Oh.
Speaker 3All .
Speaker 1So they are occupying and they've been occupying that unit as their primary residence for like, at least three years.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 1So I think we're gonna be okay. 'cause what, just I could read your face. What went through your Yeah ,
Speaker 3Well we have to prove that it passes the smell test of is this new place really gonna be your primary residence? Are you really gonna live in it? And you know, they can say, well yes, because we're currently living in a duplex Right . That it makes the argument stronger than if they were in a single family .
Speaker 1Correct. It's not like they're living in a single family home now that's, it's
Speaker 3Like, I wanna volunteer to go back to sharing a , a floor or a ceiling with a neighbor <laugh> . Correct. So I
Speaker 1Think we're gonna be okay on that.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Uh , but it is important that we are able to categorize it as a primary residence.
Speaker 3Yes. Especially with the new rules that came out.
Speaker 1Okay. So talk a little bit about that. Okay.
Speaker 3What's
Speaker 1The difference? Well ,
Speaker 3Uh , previously up until literally last week, unless you were qualifying for a special program like home Possible, which we've established that these folks make too much money for that to buy a duplex, even as a primary residence, you had to go at least 15% down one 5% down unless you wanted to go do F H A , which is still three and a half percent down. But there's a whole other set of issues why you might want to not wanna do that. But literally last week Fannie Mae came out and said, you know what, if it's gonna be your primary, we're gonna make a shift so that the minimum down payment is now 5% down on a two through four unit primary residence property. Which is huge. 'cause down payment is, that is genuinely the barrier I see the most for people looking to buy a multi-unit property. Um, so really, really big change, especially for these folks.
Speaker 1But now have, as of last week and I have been distracted with other things , uh, has there been any announcement yet on what the pricing adjustments are gonna be for those lower down payments? No,
Speaker 3We don't know what the, if there's gonna be an L L P A change or, alright ,
Speaker 1So, so there's a little bit of mystery and let me just kind of decode that for a , for a minute. So Fannie Mee and Freddie Mac, the font of all low, well, formerly low, but now the best you can get still .
Speaker 3Yeah. The best is still
Speaker 1The lowest you can get. <laugh> 30 your fixed rate mortgage money, they, a long time ago, probably 10 years ago, kind of came out with a rubric or a matrix that determines what rate and closing costs can be offered to any particular home buyer or homeowner. Yeah .
Speaker 3And the , the rate is, it's a combination of credit score and loan to value ratio, which
Speaker 1Means, let's translate that, say it the other way down payment. Right,
Speaker 3Right . So
Speaker 1Credit score, the higher their credit score and the bigger the down payment, the better deal you get. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3<affirmative> .
Speaker 1But some of the other factors are the occupancy type. The best is primary residence. Second best is a vacation home. And the least best or otherwise known as the worst is their rental property. <laugh> and then property type matters . Single family detached homes get the best deal. Yeah . Uh, condos are next best unless you can get to 25% down, in which case then they're the same as single family detached. Correct . And then duplexes are third best on that rung. Yeah .
Speaker 3Uh , and
Speaker 1Then finally three to four families , uh, three to four family units are the least best. And then you got your loan purpose, let's not forget about that. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3<affirmative>
Speaker 1Purchases and regular refinances of just existing first mortgage balances. Those you get the most favorable rates. If you're taking cash out, then you get a worse rate. Yeah .
Speaker 3Or
Speaker 1Higher closing costs . And then we already talked about if you meet certain income , uh, maximums. In other words, if you, if you
Speaker 3Make too much money
Speaker 1Yeah. Or I'm gonna say it another way. If you make under 100% of the area median income , uh, you get a better deal. Oh . If you make 80% or less of the area median income, you get an even better deal.
Speaker 3Yeah .
Speaker 1So all those factors go into the answering the question, Hey, what's your rate today?
Speaker 3Yeah. As I was , as a perfect, because all those things you just listed are why it's so funny when someone will call up and literally say, what's your rate? Yeah.
Speaker 1Because
Speaker 3It , it depends on so many different factors.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 3It's like, I can't give you just what , what's your rate? Okay. It's super low. I
Speaker 1Can, but, and what , what I , you know, rather
Speaker 3Than being it's not gonna be super accurate. Well,
Speaker 1Exactly. It's all we we can do is say, well if you're putting 25% down on a , uh, you know, single family detached home Yeah . And you have seven 60 or higher qualifying credit score, then it would be this , your primary residence, it's gonna be this. So that's what I'm sure that's what you
Speaker 3Do . There you go.
Speaker 1But yeah, the real answer depends on all that stuff. Alright . So the other part of the question that, or the first part of the question came about as he had talked to a realtor friend of his who suggested and observed that, you know, what about a third of offers are cash offers now.
Speaker 3Wow. A third. Okay. You
Speaker 1Know , and then we can , we could corroborate that. Sure.
Speaker 3Yeah . Maybe
Speaker 1He's talking about for duplexes in this price range, which they're looking for to buy in around 250,000.
Speaker 3Okay. Yeah. That's probably a pretty competitive price range. Yeah. Yep .
Speaker 1And , and so he's saying, you know what his suggestion to the dad was, why don't you get your financial advisor dad to write a letter that says you have enough money in your investment account in order to make
Speaker 3Pay cash
Speaker 1Your Yeah. To make your daughter and son-in-law cash buyers. When we come back, we're gonna tell you why that's not the best idea. You are listening to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show on Wisconsin's radio station. AM six 20 W T M J getting you into the home of your dreams. Here's more of the ACU Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker on W T M J . Welcome back to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show. I'm Brian Wicker, the elder. And that's , uh, Tim Holdman over there. Son-in-law, the younger good morning , much
Speaker 3Taller
Speaker 1And more Hanssen son-in-law and senior loan consultant Tim Holdman. Alright . We're talking about this , uh, dad who is trying to help his daughter and son-in-law by their third duplex as a primary residence
Speaker 3Building the real estate empire. That's
Speaker 1Right. That's what they that's good for them. Yeah. And we think we can help 'em do that. The dad was , um, inquiring, Hey, is it legitimate for me to get a letter from my financial advisor saying I have enough money to , uh, help my son and daughter-in-law be cash buyers. And um, and by the way, that was predicated on, you don't wanna think about a third of people are cash buyers. Well, that may be true, but I just ran the numbers in the multiple listing service. And from September 1st through , uh, the end of last week , uh, only 10% of duplex purchases in Milwaukee County were , uh, for prices between two hundred and two seventy five were cash buyers. So there you go. A lot lower than a third. Um, uh, by the way, f h a , uh, was , uh, 20% of the buyers and , uh, a little over half, about 57% were regular Fannie Mae 30 or fixed rate. I bet
Speaker 3You the ratio between Fannie and F H A is gonna skew more in favor of Fannie over the next couple months due to that , uh, proof new change their pricing . Yeah . Well , the change in the down payment requirement.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. In the down payment requirement , as long as the pricing goes along with it. Right.
Speaker 3Because
Speaker 1As it stands right now, folks, if you put less than 15% down , uh, it's murderous. You get
Speaker 3Hammered. Yeah . You get
Speaker 1The pricing is like ridiculous. That's
Speaker 3A good point. Yeah.
Speaker 1So we gotta have both things . Right .
Speaker 3More updates to come on that . But
Speaker 1Back to this idea of using a appearance . I have seen that work. Yeah, absolutely. Alright . But it's really not in line with the terms of the Wisconsin offer to purchase mm-hmm . <affirmative> , which say that if there's a cash offer, then the buyer, which in this case would be the daughter and son-in-law
Speaker 3Right .
Speaker 1Have to show that they, the buyers have enough cash to not need a mortgage. Right.
Speaker 3And it's not their money, it's their parents. So ,
Speaker 1And the dad is not a party to the contract. Right. So I told them , I said, if I was the seller or if I was the seller's listing agent, I would say, nice try <laugh>. But unless you wanna
Speaker 3This isn't the cash offer. Yeah.
Speaker 1Unless you wanna put dad o on the offer as one of the owners. Right. It's
Speaker 3One of the buyers
Speaker 1I'm sure they probably don't wanna do. So here's what I suggested. I said, here's almost as good. 'cause what is it , what do sellers enjoy when it's a cash buyer? It means that
Speaker 3No contingencies. That's right. Yeah .
Speaker 1They're , they can't be told no, the buyer can't scuttle the deal based on Yeah . Or they financing. They don't
Speaker 3Have to worry about changing the purchase price due to a low appraisal. They don't have to worry about financing.
Speaker 1Well, only if that cash buyer also doesn't ask for an appraisal,
Speaker 3I suppose could be a cash buyer with an appraisal contingency.
Speaker 1That's right . That's true . But , you know, I think that's the general thinking as I'm a cash buyer. So I said, I told 'em this story, and this is in one of the ads that are airing right now , uh, that just started on last Friday. We had a past customer looking for us to help 'em buy their retirement condo. Uh, and they wanted to put , uh, 50% down.
Speaker 3So they're already way bigger down payment than most folks.
Speaker 1Correct. And so then we put the rock solid preapproval letter with that we did not get the appraisal waiver mm-hmm . <affirmative>
Speaker 3And this
Speaker 1Particular case, but they wrote without an appraisal contingency anyway. Yeah . Of course
Speaker 3The risk is super minimal to them . And ,
Speaker 1And so, you know, the seller asked in that case, Hey, because apparently we're guessing they were the highest offer.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 1Hey, can I, can I take this one with the 50% down and the preapproval letter for mac net ? And , and the listing agent said, absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 3You know,
Speaker 1It's, and so we actually beat out a cash offer.
Speaker 3It's just next best thing to a cash offer. Yeah . <laugh> .
Speaker 1And so my, my point to the dad was, well, why don't we do this up where we will have you show us that you have the money mm-hmm .
Speaker 3<affirmative> that
Speaker 1You could give a gift Yeah .
Speaker 3Of a hundred
Speaker 1Thousand dollars. Right . Big
Speaker 3Down payment.
Speaker 1Big down
Speaker 3Payment .
Speaker 1And then instead of writing the preapproval letter with 15% down, we'll write it with 50% down because, and you're gonna sign a gift letter saying you're willing to give the gift. Yeah .
Speaker 3Now
Speaker 1In
Speaker 3The if if necessary. Yeah .
Speaker 1If necessary, in the end, they're really only gonna put 15% down. Correct.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1Uh , maybe less under the new guidelines. And ,
Speaker 3And by the way, folks, that happens all the time. Uh, where if we show a , a borrower could put more down, they can always choose not to. Once the the offer is accepted, the seller doesn't care how much money comes from the buyer and how much money comes from the lender. It's all gonna add up to the same dollar amount for them at the end of the day. And I
Speaker 1Always like to point out, this is exactly the same as the cash offer terms. Uh, if you write a cash offer in Wisconsin, you have to prove that you have the money. Right . But pre-baked into the language of the Wisconsin offer to purchase WB 11 form, it says this , the buyer can still go out and get a mortgage and the seller will grant access mm-hmm . <affirmative> to the lender's appraiser. Correct. Okay. So extending that, Hey, I'm going from putting a hundred percent down to maybe I'm only gonna put 20% down, but I proved to you I could be a cash buyer. We're taking that and saying, Hey, you know what, we're gonna pre-approve you for 50% down 'cause we've documented the assets Yep .
Speaker 3Coming from
Speaker 1Dad in the form of a gift. Uh, but they might choose to put 15% down. Absolutely. So he really liked that idea as a much
Speaker 3Better execution of the game plan. Oh , okay . Yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah. A a more , uh, inside the box, you're not gonna get anybody , uh, uh, objecting to that game plan.
Speaker 3No. Yeah. It's in line with the contract, the WB 11 . It just actually fits more into that template.
Speaker 1The other thing, we're gonna get to one of your stories when we come back, but the other thing I want to just talk, talk about after we're , uh, back from the news is his question about this no appraisal required idea. Okay. We'll get to that. But right now it's time to turn it over to the 24 hour newsroom. Don't break the fact to get into a house, back to the ACU and Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker on W T M J . Welcome back to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show. And , uh, we were talking Tim, about a dad that had called in or just covered how we were gonna come up with a better way to help them compete , uh, for a duplex that they wanna buy. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And uh, the other thing that came up though, and I brought this up, I said, you know, you may have heard some of our ads. The other thing we're doing now are is what I call a property specific pre-approval. Where as the home buyer, home shopper's about to write the offer, we have 'em call us, text their loan consultant, and then we put that specific property address into the automated underwriting systems that we have access to. And then in a lot of cases the answer comes back, Hey, we believe the value you just put in sometimes the computer, which is all about big data mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 3And
Speaker 1Complicated statistical analysis. Sometimes it comes back and says, I even believe a , a , uh, a value over the asking price. Yeah.
Speaker 3And
Speaker 1That's one of the ads that I have running right now where the , um, asking price I think was about four 10 . And they called up their loan consultant, we put it through at 30 grand over asking.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 1And it said, I believe that guy ,
Speaker 3We believe you. We believe s worth four 40 .
Speaker 1That's right. Four 40. So, because his dad was saying like, why would I wanna do that? That that sounds risk , why would I want to go without an appraisal over asking? That sounds crazy. But once I explained that, we're running it through a really sophisticated model that looks at all the data, it knows this house, it's looking at all the comparables and it's saying , you know what? We believe the value you're telling us. 'cause it doesn't know the model doesn't know the listing price,
Speaker 3Remember. No , exactly. David
Speaker 1Loves to say this. The listing price is a made up number.
Speaker 3<laugh> . It is .
Speaker 1And , and so this is statistically looking at everything and saying, oh, we believe in this particular case, four 40. Now the market is going into what I'm calling its fall cool off For sure. And in September, David and I reported last week, only air quotes 55% of , uh, homes in the five county Milwaukee metro area sold for over asking that's down from 59% the month before and 65% , uh, earlier. Okay.
Speaker 3In
Speaker 1The summer. Yeah.
Speaker 3So a little bit of a cool off.
Speaker 1Yeah. And again, air quotes, only 36% of homes sold for 10 grand or more over asking Sure .
Speaker 3So ,
Speaker 1You know, it's, it's getting less competitive. So , so the answer is we're not ,
Speaker 3Um,
Speaker 1Making things up. It , it is based in fact, and the whole reason why the buyer then feels great. It's like, Hey , maybe I'm probably not over overpaying. I have a statistical model that says it believes it's value. Yeah .
Speaker 3The , the market supports this value. Yeah .
Speaker 1And then the really good thing for the seller is it makes that pre-approval that says no appraisal required mm-hmm . <affirmative> of equal wonderfulness
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Compared to a cash offer where they're saying, I don't care . Right .
Speaker 3'cause there's no risk of them having to go back and reduce the purchase price to match a low appraisal. That's
Speaker 1Right . 'cause we're not gonna get one. So you got it . Right . So what do you got over there, Mr. Frontline, prolific senior loan consultant's originating machine. That's
Speaker 3A lot of pressure. No , uh, I've got, actually this was a, a daughter and son-in-law of a financial advisor that we both know who, who sent his daughter in. And , uh, first time, she's a first time home buyer . He is not. But , um, they, you know, hadn't bought a home in a long time, so they were thinking, okay, we, we just saw a house, we love it, we wanna make an offer. Oh , shoot, we're not pre-approved at all. So jumped on the phone with the kids and , and dad , uh, right away and did a , a whole , um, mortgage pastoring session. But one of the things we touched on was , uh, what we were just talking about, our ability to write a property specific appraisal , uh, that maybe can pre-approval,
Speaker 1I'm
Speaker 3Sorry, pre-approval
Speaker 1With no appraisal required. Yes .
Speaker 3Thank you. Property specific pre-approval , uh, showing no appraisal required. So I got on the phone with the realtor, chatted with her , uh, they actually decided ultimately not to make an offer on that house, but as I was getting my work ready and , and going through the pre-approval, we determined that we were not able to waive the appraisal. Right. Based on, and you know, sometimes that's the answer, but it's still worth looking. And that realtor is going to text me the address of every house that they're even thinking of writing an offer on. Yeah . So I can check because it just makes the , uh, the offer so much more appealing to the seller and that that's still the name of the game. Even though the market is cooling off, I spend the most time with my customers, not pre-approving them. That's the easy part, but it's consulting. Okay. How do we make sure that you can win once you find a house that you wanna buy? And that's all this extra stuff that you may not get and, and probably are not getting from every loan consultant you would talk to out there in the world. This is truly something I think that academic consultants are a little bit better at.
Speaker 1No, we're way better. All
Speaker 3Right . I'm trying to
Speaker 1Be biased . You're sure you're short selling yourself. Yeah. We're way better, better at helping people understand what they can do. Like, oh, let's get a gift letter and verify that mom and dad can provide additional money for down payment. Sure . Because folks in the eyes of the seller, more down payment is better. It equals greater certainty.
Speaker 3You reminded me of something else that, and we will talk about this in the next segment, but on , uh, on the same vein as gifts, you can do actually a gift of equity, ah , between buyer and seller if they are related either by blood or by marriage. And , um, I came across a , a situation this past week with a client of mine who is buying a , a , a condo from his cousin, and we're going the gift of equity route, but they were not aware of, of something called the annual gift tax exemption versus the lifetime gift tax exclusion amount. So we can talk about that after the break .
Speaker 1Let's cover that. That's always a good topic to refresh our memories on. You are listening to the Acade Mortgage and Realty Show on six 20 W T M J, important home buying questions and answers you can count on. This is the Accu Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wickett on W T M J . Welcome back and thanks for tuning in to the Academic Mortgage and Realty Show. I'm Brian Wicker, the elder, and , uh, that is Tim Holdman son-in-law. Tim Holdman , uh, father of grandchildren number one and two. There
Speaker 3You go. Yep .
Speaker 1Yep .
Speaker 3First place, David first
Speaker 1Place. That's right. So number one. And , uh, also taller and more handsome than me by a long shot. Okay. So , uh, before we talk about the excellent topic of misunderstanding, the gift rules Yes. Relative to the I r s that come into play sometimes with home buying. The other thing that came out recently was the monthly Fannie Mae , uh, home buyer sentiment index and or home purchase, technically home purchase sentiment index. Um, which decreased month over month. And , uh, not surprisingly, only 16% of consumers in this survey of a thousand households said that it's a good time to buy a home.
Speaker 3Yeah. That
Speaker 1Doesn't surprise you today .
Speaker 3No, not at all.
Speaker 1That , uh, matches an all time survey low , uh, set Last year , uh, by the way, 63% of those people in the survey said it was a good time to sell. That's down three points from the prior month.
Speaker 3Hmm .
Speaker 1Interesting. Um, so , so the reason why I go yay , is that that makes it easier for our motivated home shopper. Yeah . That means there's probably a little less competition. Exactly.
Speaker 3And now
Speaker 1Remember, all real estate is local. So when you see, you know, headlines or news stories that report home prices tumbling and you know, things really bad, that's really not the case here in southeastern Wisconsin. In particular, the Badger State in general. Last week, Tim, we talked about how I think the , uh, average days on market in the city of Chicago was like 56 days.
Speaker 3Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 1Whereas in the five county Milwaukee area, I think it's still around 30 . Yeah.
Speaker 3Makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1So what are , what are you seeing on, on the front lines relative to that competitiveness before we get to the Yeah,
Speaker 3I mean honestly it's, I'm , I still got a lot of people who want to talk to me about buying a house. Okay.
Speaker 1You
Speaker 3Know , uh, and, and part of that is just staying organized and staying in , in front of people and following up with them. But I am not lacking for people to talk to. Okay . So ,
Speaker 1So we're seeing buyers, plenty of buyers,
Speaker 3Yeah. Which
Speaker 1Is good. But, you know, maybe are , are you finding that the people who are getting accepted offers like this last week, are they still in competitive situations from what you can tell?
Speaker 3Yeah. I mean, a couple more for sale by owner . So that's not , uh, you know , uh, a
Speaker 1Little less ravenous in the competition.
Speaker 3Exactly. And I have , I still have people who are trying to work that out. They're , they're searching out that situation by talking to neighbors, friends, family. Okay .
Speaker 1Uh ,
Speaker 3Those kinds of things
Speaker 1Go on Facebook
Speaker 3For people who are kind of doing it the normal way of getting a real estate agent and going out and looking. Uh, yeah. There's still some competition, but I, I , you know, my customer's experience I think is reflecting the data that you and David went over last week , which is, you know, if you're offering over, it may not be as much over and statistically I'm seeing maybe just a little bit of a downturn in , in how many transactions I'm doing where that's, you know, above the, the list price . Okay .
Speaker 1You know ,
Speaker 3Some , sometimes even for decent properties offering the asking is,
Speaker 1Is sufficient
Speaker 3Starting to be good enough again? Yeah .
Speaker 1Okay. So the message, the takeaway there folks is, hey, as we get deeper into fall, now is a great time to buy Yeah.
Speaker 3If , right , because there's wanna buy competition. Yeah. We , we can help you . And
Speaker 1Remember, refinancing is really inexpensive in Wisconsin. We even always offer a no cost , uh, plan . Correct . Alright , so let's talk about gifting. You got somebody, you said it was a cousin selling to another cousin mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And what's the fundamental misunderstanding here?
Speaker 3So it is in incredible , uh, so , well , I'll just say this first in at least half of the scenarios where a gift is involved, particularly a large gift, I get the question like, oh, isn't there a limit on how much I can give to my family member? Again, not every time that question is asked, but about half the time that question comes up. Sure . And it's incredible how , uh, rampant the understanding is that I can't give my family member more than 17, $17,000 in a year. And the reason some people believe that is because there is such a thing called the annual gift tax exclusion. You can go look this up on nerd i r s . Yeah. Nerd Wall or I r s anything IRSs
Speaker 1T gov ,
Speaker 3Where essentially, if I were to put this in , uh, plain speak, if you give less than $17,000 in a year to a family member, it's as if it never happened. And
Speaker 1It could be to anybody by the way. Oh,
Speaker 3Okay . Sure . It doesn't have to be a family member,
Speaker 1It's just for mortgage lending purposes. The only gifts that are legit for down payment or equity are from family members. But yeah .
Speaker 3So it's, it's the maximum in a year that you can give to a person without reporting it to the I r s . Right. You don't have to do anything. But what happens if you have to give more than $17,000 to a person in a single year, nothing bad actually happens. All you have to do is that you do have to report it to the I R Ss and it counts against something called the lifetime Gift tax exclu , uh, exemption, lifetime gift tax exemption. Where as long as you give under that lifetime amount, you are not gonna be tax .
Speaker 1Oh , see , man , what is that lifetime amount? It's like a hundred thousand or how big is it?
Speaker 3It is a whopping $12.92 million. So what that means is, if over the course of your life you think you'll probably give less than that,
Speaker 1You don't have to worry about it. Right.
Speaker 3So that, that's the only difference. If you give more than 17 K , you have to fill out a form as part of your tax returns and tell uncle you gave the money. Wait,
Speaker 1Do the other variation where, you know, which is very common, where it's , uh, grandma and grandpa are selling to their grandchildren mm-hmm.
Speaker 3<affirmative>
Speaker 1And what's the situation there? Yeah.
Speaker 3Well, you can just parcel it up if you really want to not have to worry about this come tax time, do 17 k from grandma to grandson, 17 K from grandma to granddaughter, 17 K from grandpa to grandson, and 17 K from
Speaker 1Grandpa
Speaker 3To granddaughter. Right. So ,
Speaker 1So you can do four times the 17 where you're got 60,000 .
Speaker 3Yeah . But in , in , in my case, it was a single party to a single party. They were cousins and the gift of equity amount was more than 17,000. And the, the attorney advising both of them actually was not aware of the difference between
Speaker 1Yikes. The lifetime . Well , because
Speaker 3Know ,
Speaker 1They're not accountants, they're attorneys. Right. I've got one other thought to share on transactions between family member sales of family properties . Okay. And then , um, also want to talk about your client who we're gonna help by reducing their qualifying income. What
Speaker 3Tell
Speaker 1You about that when we come back? You are listening to the ANet Mortgage and Realty Show on Wisconsin's radio station AM six 20 W T M J . Find a place to call home
Speaker 4Without the headache.
Speaker 1This is the ACU Net Mortgage and Realty Show with Brian Wicker
Speaker 4On W T M J.
Speaker 1Thanks again for tuning into today's show. Uh , Tim, while we're on break here, you were thinking what I was thinking, or this actually came up, what's the other wrinkle , uh, that we often give advice on? Yeah . When a family member is selling a property to another family member,
Speaker 3So usually common sense they think, oh, well I'm gonna cut my family member a deal and sell it, sell the property to them for less than it's worth. You don't actually want to do that. What you wanna do is you want to set the purchase price at whatever the most is you think you can get for the property in, in fair market value, but then just increase your gift of equity amount to them to cut them a deal that way. Because ,
Speaker 1Because then maybe you're gonna gift them 20% equity and you're not gonna pay p m i . Yes.
Speaker 3Whereas
Speaker 1If you skinny up the price Right, and then the person only has 10 grand to bring to the table or no grand, you know, that that becomes Yeah.
Speaker 3On the lending side, it , it's , uh, it , it actually makes them look less desirable as a borrower and help and, you know, makes 'em maybe get a less desirable by setting the price higher with a larger gift of equity, you're stirring them out with a greater equity position, which from the lending side makes them a more attractive borrower of money.
Speaker 1Just another point , uh, if , if Cousin Paul, the tax accountant was on, if you set the price artificially low, that can technically be considered a gift <laugh> when you sell something to another relative at
Speaker 3Under fair
Speaker 1Market value. Now that's harder to prove. Yeah.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1But technically the same problem. Alright . What's our , our , uh, last uh ,
Speaker 3Topic? So just another unique story from the front lines of mortgage lending. I had a , a call who called in just to our , our main line and said, Hey, I'm buying a house with my friend. We're both gonna live there and I'm not really happy with my rate. I'm getting quoted like eight and a quarter on a 30 year fix . And I was like, hold on. I know rates are high, but that seems a little too high. So we dug into the details and turns out the other lender was offering him not a Fannie Mae backed mortgage, but a portfolio loan because that was the only product that that other lender at that other company was recommending. 'cause this guy's friend was self-employed
Speaker 1Ah .
Speaker 3And on paper made no money for his business 'cause he was writing everything off. 'cause that's what you do when you're a small business . That's
Speaker 1Right . Owner .
Speaker 3So they , uh, were going forward with a portfolio product , uh, where they were using the guys' bank statements as income, which we actually have a program like that that we could tap into as needed. But the rate is really
Speaker 1Right. Unfavorable
Speaker 3Closing cost higher too, probably. Yeah.
Speaker 1Never got to that part . Yeah. We
Speaker 3Never even got to closing cost . But, you know, the , the rate, and it was a fairly decent sized loan, so even a 1% difference I think was gonna save him about 230 bucks a month. Whoa . Real money. And we looked into it further and he, the , the guy who called in W two salaried employee, I did a , you know, a , a number crunch on the , uh, and I didn't access his credit, this was more informal, but , uh, we looked at his monthly payments , uh, for his debts that are show up on his credit report, the monthly payment of the house. And I realized, hey, you can actually qualify for this all on your own Right.
Speaker 1On
Speaker 3A 30 year fixed Fannie Mae mortgage where the rate is at least a full percentage point lower than, than what he was currently getting. And I said, you can still have your friend as a buyer on title and you know, he's just not gonna be on the mortgage.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 3So as long as you're okay with that, you know, risk to you, 'cause you know, ultimately you kind of have to have a handshake agreement with him. He's gonna still help you out with the , the payment. But
Speaker 1Well , the
Speaker 3Savings are , are huge,
Speaker 1Substantial. And , and sometimes when you're buying with the person who is not your legal spouse, whether it's a friend or a domestic partner or whatever, it is best to come up with a written agreement in advance because Right . Uh, there is no legal process to untangle that the person wants to move out or, or sell the property or what have you. Right. You know, whenever you're buying with somebody else, there's oftentimes a mix of down payment. Hey, who's bringing the down payment to the party? Exactly. Or maybe one person is bringing more than the other. Right.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1And then the other thing is paying back, making the monthly mortgage payments. So mm-hmm.
Speaker 3<affirmative> ,
Speaker 1You know, that's best to have a written agreement. Yeah.
Speaker 3Uh ,
Speaker 1Before you close. All right .
Speaker 3So he was thrilled by the, the alternate game plan and , uh, I love giving second opinions. Yeah. And I think all of us at ANet do . So call us if you , uh, have doubts about your current game plan .
Speaker 1That's right. Alright , well that's all the time we have for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You've been listening to the acade Mortgage and Realty Show on AM six 20 W T M J . 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 W T M J Radio or Good Karma Brands. Milwaukee, L L C.