Answering your questions about real estate!

In a self-driven career like real estate, it's easy to let things fall behind or to lose sight of important tasks that are crucial to maintaining your business. Now is the time to catch up and start the year right.  1. Plan Your Prospecting  The winter months are the slow months for real estate, especially in the Northeast. Use this downtime to plan out your prospecting. Get a poster and draw out a vision board for yourself, something you can look at every day to help hold you accountable to your goals. Order some new marketing materials (postcards, door hangers, magnets, etc.) and plan on how you will distribute, whether by door knocking or reserving a booth at your local town fair or whatever it may be.  Drive around and scope out some areas with homes that have not been on the market recently, or homes that are under distress.  My favorite, and most preferred method of marketing, aside from social media, is to write handwritten letters to prospects. Of course this...

Anxious homebuyers and a low supply of homes has led to a hot housing market, with an average home price increase of 25% as of March 2020, but will it continue to rise? T here are three factors that come into play:   1. Mortgage Rates It's simple, low rates = more buyers, high rates = less buyers. Why? Because with lower rates, buyers can afford a higher total loan amount and of course with higher rates, they can afford less. So you may be able to afford a $400,000 home now, but if the rates rise you may only be able to afford a $300,000 home. 2. Inflation Remember when our parents or grandparents used to tell us about how when they were young gas was only $0.25 per gal.. the good old days. The prices are much higher than that now, all because of inflation. 2021 was a record-breaking year in that inflation rose 6.8%, the fastest it has ever grown in the last 40 years. We never know for sure whether inflation will rise or fall, so we generally look back on our past history to deter...