Watch out for these four real estate and mortgage trends that are evolving now…
The US real estate and mortgage market is changing fast. Many diverse trends and conflicting headlines are showing up. Some of these are local market differences. Like new foreclosure spikes by double digits and declining property prices and rents. Others may have more macro impacts, with bigger opportunities and consequences. If you are out there wholesaling houses now, make sure you know what’s going on.
Mortgage Interest Rates
Bank Rate reports that mortgage interest rates have come down in August 2018. Average 30 year fixed mortgages are only 4.37% and 15 year fixed loan rates are averaging 3.78%. That’s great news no matter what you are financing or refinancing.
Housing Beginning to Drag Down the Economy
Market Watch reports that housing is now finally beginning to pull down the national economy. The chief economist for Fannie Mae says that lackluster building activity, slow sales activity and and brokers commissions are all beginning to become a lag on the whole economy. Other analysts report that only around half the number of people are moving for jobs in 2018, and many home buyers have simply given up. Less building, fewer listings sold, and lower Realtor earnings can all start showing up in unemployment figures, GDP reports, and the balance sheets of local businesses.
While we never want to see other suffers, the sooner agents and sellers who have been overpricing listings catch onto this, the sooner wholesalers should be able to scoop more deals at better prices. If you’ve been longing for the glory days of 2008 and cheaper houses to come around, we could see more distressed sales and motivated sellers ready to take action soon. Providing you are wholesaling and are negotiating at good prices, this is all good news.
Alternative Lending
Investment capital is still plentiful for now. This is the time to use it. Non bank lenders have seen their market share rise over the past 4 years, and made over $60B in loans last year. In addition to transactional funding there are credit unions, crowdfunding portals, conduits, home equity loan lenders and private lenders will to provide capital. Real estate investors can use these sources to fund marketing, make down payments, do rehabs and grow their businesses. Don’t expect this to last forever. So, do take advantage of all the leverage you can get while it lasts.
Just watch out for shady lending and deals in the gray area which could make you a target and scapegoat when things go south. Remember what happened to all the stated income borrowers last time around.
Watch Your Advertising Practices
Facebook just got it with a big suit from HUD. The government agency alleges that Facebook has effectively let real estate professionals and businesses discriminate by providing them with its targeting tools for advertising on the social network. While no one should ever discriminate, many may be accused of it, even though they didn’t realize they were doing anything wrong by trying to market to their ideal audiences. Don’t think for a second that with all the pressure Facebook is under today that it won’t sell out its users and advertisers and give them up to the feds. This may seem extreme, but your financial survival and freedom may rely on revisiting your Facebook ads, promoted posts and social feed and removing anything which shows preference for marketing to any groups of individuals and leaving anyone out.
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