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Real Estate and Minivans, Sedans and Convertibles…and 2015, too.

December 30, 2014 By Rick Jarvis

I think all salespeople, as we age, tend to do more of our selling by telling stories and using analogies than we did when we got started.  Call it experience or call it wisdom (or just call it being old,) but the ability to take a current situation and compare it to a universally recognized feeling somehow makes it more real to our clients.  When you can take an odd situation and make it feel familiar, it helps the client feel at ease with their decision.  Familiarity begets comfort.

How does the market feel to you?
How does the market feel to you?

So recently I ran into an old friend at lunch who I do not see often. He owns a small business selling supplies to local restaurants and has been doing so for many years. Of course, he asked how the market was (all friends ask their Realtor buddies this question.)  I told him it was good (which is true) but I sure would love it if people felt a little more like they did in 2006 again. If it was 2006, we would be almost TOO busy (if there was such a thing) as our company had matured greatly since we opened and I wanted to see what we were capable of in the best of times.

I said I wanted the market to feel like they were all driving convertibles again. He looked at me and grinned as he knew exactly what I meant.

We All Drove Convertibles

From 2004-2008, the development market was booming.

The long neglected neighborhoods in Richmond were in the midst of a rebirth with condos, creative office spaces and apartments all being redeveloped at an astonishing pace. The banks were willing participants with (relatively) easy terms and a shared belief that the market was bulletproof.  Lending was based as much on  momentum as anything else. The development community was ripe with opportunity and the developers had both the skill and capacity to really execute projects. The Richmond we knew in 1995 looked nothing like the one in 2005.  It was one of the most amazing transformations I had ever seen in a 10 year period.

The best analogy was it felt like we were driving a convertible on a sunny day with no clouds and a slight breeze with the radio (or CD, or XM, or iPod) playing our favorite tunes over and over.  It was a good time.

Driving in a Downpour

And then a few raindrops began to appear.

While there were hints of the coming changes as far back as the summer of 2007, the definitive marker for the bursting of the bubble came in September 2008 with the announcement Lehman Brothers had collapsed.  By early 2009, all of the feelings of being bulletproof and carefree disappeared into thin air.

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Beginning in late 2007, and continuing well into 2011, banks decided the best way to stay in business was by NOT loaning money.  New home buyers disappeared completely and subsequently, droves of sellers decided to hand their keys back to the mortgage companies which had given them loans only a few years earlier.  No one wanted to make a decision, especially not one with any risk attached to it, and the market froze.  With no loans, there were no transactions and with no transactions, values plummeted.

Sticking with the driving analogy, we had gone from (in 2006) driving a convertible along the beach without a care in the world to (in 2009) driving an old minivan in a downpour, in the dark, on an unfamiliar curvy road somehow knowing that the bridge ahead was probably already washed out.

I don’t think anyone wants to live through that economy again.

Driving Home From Work in April

As we enter 2015 the world has changed yet again.  It is better, for sure, but we are not back to where we were…and maybe that is a good thing…at least for a while.

For the last two consecutive spring markets, we have seen rapid absorption, price appreciation and a gradual relaxation of some lending standards.  The last two fall markets have been shakier.  Spring momentum of 2013 and 2014 stalled by the late summer and some of the gain of the first half were gone by the end of the year.  While other current economic standards (oil, stocks and bonds, employment, inflation) all seem to be in pretty good places, no one will mistake 2015 for 2006.  Alas, it is no 2011 either, and that is okay by me.

The bottom line is we are now in a place where buyers and sellers can make plans based on expectations rooted in realistic probabilities. And while we have not returned to a market where the inputs (new housing, interest rates, development) are back to pre-recession levels, they are on the way back to normalizing themselves.  With normal inputs comes stability and with stability comes predictability.  At the end of the day, words like ‘predictable’ and ‘stable’ are good words for real estate.

Driving home to turn on the grill is never a bad thing, is it?
Driving home to turn on the grill is never a bad thing, is it?

To use the driving home analogy a final time, imagine driving home from a good day of work on that first warm day of spring.  It may be a bit chilly to roll the windows down, but you so anyway.  And while you darted out a few minutes early from work, you still didn’t miss all of the traffic (and even hit a pothole or two) but it somehow seems okay after living through the ride on the curvy road in the rain.  And despite the fact the days are not perfect (yet), you know summer is coming and with it grilling outside with friends, family and familiar faces all in good moods ready to enjoy life for awhile.

The drive in 2015 is less about the car and more about the attitude.  Lets all sit back and enjoy the ride, whether in a VW Beetle, Dodge Stratus, Mustang GT or Maserati Quattroporte…

Pricing a Home is Predicting Buyer Behavior

December 20, 2014 By Rick Jarvis

Dear Property Owners,

The entire real estate world is doing you a disservice.

Sincerely,

Past Sales

Beautiful cyber woman with silver ball

Our industry is set up to determine values of homes based on the sale of other homes considered to be ‘similar.’

The determination of what is similar is largely based on location, size, features as well as timing. Sales occurring in the recent past are weighted more heavily than those in the distant past. This method (commonly referred to as the ‘Comparable Sale Method’ or using ‘COMPS’) is the primary basis upon which home values are estimated.

What is a Comp?

The logic behind the use of the COMP goes something like this – if House A sold for $X, House B sold for $Y, and House C sold for $Z, then your house should sell for some weighted average of the three, provided the COMPS used are the most appropriate ones available.

The Competitive Market Analysis (or CMA) that a Realtor performs to determine pricing uses this ‘COMP-based’ method, as does the formal appraisal performed by your bank to determine loan conditions. The Assessor’s office uses a similar method when it assesses your home for tax purposes (they look at neighborhood sales) and Trulia and Zillow use a combination of COMPS and assessments to (incorrectly, usually) arrive at their estimate of the value for your home.

But is this the best method?

The Future or the Past?

Lets ask this – Do you drive a car by looking in the rear view mirror? The answer is obviously ‘No’ as most of us spend most of their time looking out the FRONT window (or looking down at their cell phones, but that is a different issue.) We look out of the front window because we are concerned with where we are going and the dangers our journey presents. Stated simply, we are more concerned with future events than past ones.

We (Realtors, Sellers, Buyers, Bankers, Appraisers, Homebuilders) have all been trained for so long to look at the COMPS for guidance and COMPS are events which have occurred in the past.

Take a look at the chart below – it tracks the trailing 24 months of homes going under contract.  

Do you notice any seasonality? Yeah, me too.

What happens if the three COMPS you used to price your house in June were from April? Or December? Do you think you have made a correct pricing decision?

Comps are Easy, Unfortunately …

The core issue is this – COMPS are easy to measure and thus prevalently used.

It is unfortunate.

The COMP is not a fact, per se, it is a result. The reasons someone else paid a specific amount for a home at a point in the past is a combination of many complex inputs which do not lend themselves to easy analysis. Inventory levels, interest rates, consumer confidence, seasonality, the ‘Wealth Effect’ created by the DOW and NASDAQ, mortgage rules, Dodd-Frank, job growth (regionally/nationally/internationally), population trends … all combine to influence buyer behavior.

When you look at the number of pending sales generated in 2010 (chart below), do you think think that April did a good job of predicting May?

This is not to say that using COMPS to help price a home is without merit as understanding what has happened recently is a good place to start. If you can determine a point from which to begin your analysis, it is of great help. Establishing patterns in past behavior has value…it is just that using COMPS exclusively falls short, especially in a dynamic market. The quicker the market shifts, the less value any individual COMP has (see the example above.)

Pricing Should Look Both Directions

Ultimately, a pricing model is not complete without some projection of future events and relatively simple tools exist to help drive the analysis. While predicting the future is far more challenging, it is not impossible, especially given the almost universal access to information we all have. The tools we use for analysis are cheap and easy to use and some level of predictive intelligence is achievable in almost all situations.

Pricing any asset for sale SHOULD be undertaken with the mindset of ‘what behavior from our audience are we EXPECTING?’ and that can only be achieved by looking into the future, as murky as the view may be.

Space, the Ultimate Luxury…or is it?

July 29, 2014 By Rick Jarvis

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I wonder if outer space will ever have traffic problems…

Space is the ultimate American luxury.

Elbow room, manifest destiny, large SUV’s, acreage, privacy, trees … all of these items help us create the luxury we call space.  It is somehow American (or perhaps, just plain human nature) to be insular and protected in where we live.  We want our homes to back up to trees (or better yet, woods!) and to have places to go and seek asylum within our own homes.

Yet in the same breath, we want to be close to things.  Restaurants, coffee shops, quaint boutiques, parks, culture and events … all within a short walk is highly desirable. The ability to walk to the market to get a loaf of bread or to the local cafe where the proprietor greets you by name is also alluring.  Being immune to the whims of traffic and the yin and yang of rush hour is empowering in so many ways.  We forget sometimes how refreshing it is to walk from point A to point B and thus we think in terms of how quickly can we get to where we are going and not how much we will enjoy the journey.

What is unfortunate is both of these wishes (elbow room versus proximity) largely preclude the other.

It is no secret that the suburban development model allows for more ‘privacy.’  While some lot sizes are small, they are still far larger than the typical urban lot.  Many of the the neighborhoods of Richmond have lots as small as 7,000 square feet (SF) such as The Fan, Museum District, Church Hill, Jackson Ward and Manchester.  This compares to the 1/3 acre standard in most suburban settings (15,000 – 20,000 SF) with more width and more trees (usually) to give some semblance of privacy.

Ironically, the suburban development model which has been in vogue since the advent of the automobile, has actually taken the one invention designed to connect us (the car) and turned into an instrument which does the exact opposite (traffic.)  Our current development practice isolates our uses from one another.  Office parks only contain office space.  Residential neighborhoods only contain residences.  Retail strip centers are constructed in retail or commercial corridors.  This isolation of uses only forces us to build more roads and widen our interstates.   The result is more and more time lost in traffic and an increased burden on our taxes to pay for more and more infrastructure.

So what is the answer?

West Broad Village is selling at a rate 3-4x the market in 2011 due to its walkability to entertainment and shopping and excellent interstate access.
West Broad Village is selling at a rate 3-4x the market due to its walkability to entertainment and shopping and excellent interstate access.

New Urbanism may be one.  The ‘New Urbanist’ movement has many different interpretations but essentially asks the question – if we could build a city from the ground up, starting today, what would it look like?  Richmond is now seeing examples of NU thinking creeping into our new suburban development.  The Village at Rocketts Landing and West Broad Village are the two most well known examples of New Urbanism in Richmond.  Currently under development is the Libbie Mill project near the Staples Mill/I64 Interchange by Gumenick Properties.  However, these projects are dwarfed in size by the potential live/work/play retooling of the Innsbrook Office Park.

The size and scale of Innsbrook (1300 acres,) already home to some of the nicest and most highly occupied suburban low and mid rise office space, makes this a true ‘game-changer’ for Richmond.  Libbie Mill is attempting to combine residential, retail and office into one development but its relatively small size (80 acres) prevents it from changing the landscape of Richmond.  West Broad Village combines housing and retail (as does Rockett’s, albeit on a far less successful scale) but they both lack the office component.  Residents of West Broad Village and Rocketts still generally need to drive to and from work, while Innsbrook will offer the potential for someone to exist almost wholly within the development.  Being able to live, work AND play in the same development or neighborhood does not really exist anywhere in Richmond on any scale, even within the oldest neighborhoods of the City.

And while a true 1/3 acre suburban lot may not be available in Innsbrook, the greens spaces provided may lessen the impact of the density and the mix of retail, residential AND office will be a powerful draw. Will we see the demise of the suburban planned neighborhood?  Not likely, but we are on the leading edge of seeing more instances of all property types in closer proximity to one another to hopefully shorten the distance between space, services and employment.

Assessments, Appraisals and Zestimates

July 5, 2014 By Rick Jarvis

Why is the assessment so high (or low)? Why does Zillow say my house is worth so little (or so much)? Is that the same as my home’s Market Value? And why is the appraisal different from the assessment?

It can be confusing to say the least.

Agents are asked a version of this question with regularity and often, time does not allow us to fully explore the subtleties of the answer.  The summary answer is that each ‘valuation’ is estimating a different value, using differing data and for differing purposes.

Market Value (or Fair Market Value)

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Wall Street seeks to measure Fair Market Value of almost everything imaginable…

Any discussion of the different valuations begins with the definition of Fair Market Value (FMV).   Fair Market Value is the measurement which most closely reflects the value of the asset at any given point in time.  The simplest definition of FMV is: the price at which both a rational buyer and a seller would exchange the asset neither under undue pressure.

Two key points to remember :

  • FMV is established by the market
  • FMV measures a specific moment in time

Stated differently, FMV is NOT established by a third party at a point in the PAST.  While there may be additional interested parties to the transaction other than the buyer and seller (lender, mortgage insurer, title company, assessor’s office), they are not the ones who set the FMV.  FMV is set by the market and all other valuations SHOULD be driven by this fact.

Alas, it is not always so.  FMV is under attack by the other parties in the transaction and in order to make an informed decision, a buyer or seller needs to understand the intent of each of the other forms of valuation.

Below begins a discussion of the other common valuations and how they are established.

The Assessment (Tax Assessment)

Want to go down to City Hall to protest your assessment?  Here is where...
Want to go down to City Hall to protest your assessment? Here is where you go…

Each year, property owners get a piece of paper from their local City (or Town) Hall asking them to remit payment to the treasurer for their property tax.  We all open the bill with curiosity to see where our ‘assessment’ is and generally, it is met with a grunt, nod or gasp.  Sometimes we feel it is so egregiously incorrect we place a call to the local assessor’s office to argue that the value is either too high (meaning you are paying too much in tax) or too low (meaning that you wish to pay more in tax…not sure I understand why people wish to argue their values UP, but I digress…)  Regardless, the assessment value is what your property tax bill is based on.

Now, how is the assessment established?  Much like Realtors, assessors use a combination of factors including size, age, beds, baths and location, as well as sales price of other ‘similar’ properties…and establish a value.  A city or county does not have to be right, they just have to be ‘close enough.’  In reality, the perfect assessment is one which generates the most revenue without making its residents vehemently complain.  As the actual bill is computed by taking the tax RATE and multiplying it by the tax ASSESSMENT, so a county is better off to lower assessments and up the rate…which they do with regularity.

So how accurate are assessments?  A word that comes to mind is ‘somewhat.’  The assessment uses the least current information (tax assessments are generally adjusted on an annual or bi-annual basis) and it uses the least accurate information.  Since the assessment department does not see the information in MLS and rarely (if ever) visits the home, an assessors office will likely not know if a home has been improved or unfinished areas are completed (think 3rd floor or basement.)  The assessors office will likely not know (or really care) about the condition of a property (unless it is in need of condemnation) or if deferred maintenance has been kept up with and if the grass is cut regularly…despite all of these factors impacting FMV.

Accuracy Level – 85% at best and generally below the FMV, unless the market is falling dramatically.

Want to see what an appraisal looks like?
Want to see what an appraisal looks like?

The Appraisal

If you have recently gone through the purchase process and used a mortgage as a part of your purchase, you are familiar with the appraisal.

So what is an Appraisal?  An appraisal is a valuation process required by almost every lending institution when a buyer is using debt (a mortgage or loan) to purchase a home.

It goes like this – a bank contracts a professional appraiser to examine the property and offer an unbiased opinion the value.  An appraiser (generally) has access to the most accurate information (MLS data), the most recent sales and actually visits the property to confirm measurements and condition.  (*** It should be noted that appraisers are licensed and required to attend continuing professional education and many seek additional designations in order to help value more and more complex properties.  In addition, all appraisers use standardized forms to help guide the process ***)

How do appraisers establish values?  While the appraisal process notes the three primary methods of valuation (comparable sales, income approach and replacement cost) the comparable sales method is the most common when establishing value of single family homes.  It is the job of the appraiser to compare the subject property to 3 of the most applicable (and recent) sales in the immediate marketplace and make adjustments for any differences.  Simply put, an appraisal on a 5 bedroom home in Salisbury should be compared to other 5 bedroom homes of similar size and age in Salisbury with small adjustments for differing features (garage size, lot size, new roof, etc.)  The houses being used for comparison purposes should be substantially similar…thus the term ‘COMPARABLE sales.’

What is the purpose of the appraisal?  The appraisal is used by the bank or mortgage company to establish the maximum loan amount.  Typically, the effective interest rate increases (and this is a gross over-simplification) the more debt is applied to the value of the home.  Stated differently (and another incredibly gross over-simplification), a bank might give you an interest rate of 5% if the loan is 80% of the value of the home but closer to 6% if the loan is 90% of the home’s value.  The bank uses the appraisal (and NOT THE SALES PRICE) to establish the ‘loan to value’ ratio for the home.  If the appraisal is less than the sales price, then either (and alert, my last gross over-simplification is coming) the buyer must make a bigger down payment or accept the higher rate.  Needless to say, a great deal hinges on the appraisal, especially when maximum loan amounts are sought, and many deals have failed to consummate due to an appraisal coming in lower than the sales price.

Then how do appraisals differ from FMV?  In many minds (including appraisers, underwriters AND many Realtors) an appraisal and FMV are one and the same…which is unfortunate.  An appraisal is measuring value at a past point of time to establish a value in the present under the assumption past and present market conditions are effectively constant.  Using recent history as an example, the rapidly accelerating (or decelerating) markets of spring 2013 (or summer of 2008), the appraisers were being asked to value properties whose values were literally shifting several percentage points each month and thus, no longer accurate.

And remember, the appraiser did not see what the buyer saw during their home selection process.  A buyer can easily look at 20 homes during their search and select the best option given the available homes at the time.  The appraisal seeks to compare the subject decision to one made during a different time period and by different people who saw an entirely different set of homes.  Far too little attention is paid to this hugely important fact.

Real_Estate_Market_Statistics_for_Zip_Code_Report___RBI
This chart shows median sales price in 23220. Do you think that a sale closed in January can be used to measure the value of a property contracted during May?

Regardless of the arguments presented above, the appraisal is USUALLY accurate enough (in most instances) and while not perfect, is probably the most accurate of the measurements of Fair Market Value.

Accuracy Level – 95-98%

The Zestimate (or other Automated Valuation Models…sometimes called AVM’s)

Zillow buries their accuracy charts deep in their site but they can be found
Zillow buries their accuracy charts deep in their site but they can be found if you know where to look…or by clicking here.

A lot has been written about the issues with Zillow’s estimate of value. They are far from the accurate estimates the market feels they are.

In Henrico County, for example, Zillow offers the following disclaimer – a Zestimate of $400,000 means a computer in Palo Alto has estimated that the ultimate sales price be +10% in 64% of the cases.  The other 36% of the time, the value is less accurate than that.

Use the Zestimate at your own risk.

Accuracy Level – see the chart that Zillow publishes

Summary

If there is any takeaway from this post, it is the measurements of value are all measuring different things for different parties.  Do not mistake any of the varied measurements for FMV.  If you and your agent take the time to do the correct homework and to structure the search correctly, then the correct outcome will occur.  Before you allow a Zestimate or Assessment to cloud your view of  a home you are considering, take a good look at the methods used to establish the valuation and ask yourself who is doing the measuring and how they came to their conclusion.  If you do your own homework and strive to understand the forces that drive the market, your own estimate will be far more valuable than anyone else’s.

The Evolution of a Buyer

February 9, 2014 By Rick Jarvis

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Darwin, obviously…

The word ‘evolution‘ is generally defined by a sense of growth or improvement over time. Living things evolve, as do more theoretical things, such as ideas, processes, societies and technology. Evolution surrounds us.

Applied to real estate, the concept of evolution is most apparent in the stages of growth the best buyers go through on their quest to buy a home.

How Do Buyers Evolve?

It is important to begin with the following statement – the market that exists today has not been seen since approximately 1994 and the home buying experience of the period of 2003-2012 has almost zero resemblance to the buying experience of today.  The importance of this cannot be understated and as soon as a buyer understands that what they remember about buying a home 5-10 years ago (or more) will offer little value to the process of home buying today.  Even the buying experience from as little as a few years ago differs radically from that of today.  The current market has inventory conditions tighter than any period in modern history and the Dodd-Frank Act has permanently altered the mortgage markets in ways we are still discovering.

Evolutionary Stage One | All of the Good Cheap Houses Sold in 2009 and 10 

When the market rolled over, demand for housing stopped before production ceased.  Effectively, the lag time between when everyone realized the magnitude of what was happening and when nail guns fell silent, meant that we continued to produce homes at an incredible pace for an additional 6-9 months despite demand falling to almost zero.  The US created roughly 2 million new homes in 2007.  By 2009, we built less than 500,000.

FacebookNeedless to say, the production which continued created an incredible overhang of quality inventory that the market was forced to absorb prior to it resetting itself.  This overhang, many times brand new or recently built (and many times now owned by the local banks), provided a plethora of quality housing available for sale at steep discounts well into 2011.  Additionally, special financing options were used to move excess property from the bank balance sheet into the hands of individual buyers.

As prices began to stabilize, largely due to the absorption of this inventory, the buying public began to show up to buy, only to find out that the 20-30% discount on great home was no longer an option.

Evolutionary Stage Two | Every House I am Interested in Sells Before I Can Get to It

I believe each Realtor somehow knew that when the market turned, it would turn quickly (the inventory graph below tells the story better than any words ever could.)

Market values by 2010 were as far below trend as the values had been above trend in 2007.  By 2015, the same conditions which drove the market to its heights (far too much demand for the existing supply) were about to occur again, albeit for a different reason (far too little inventory for the existing demand).  The spring markets of the last several years brought bidding wars, multiple contracts and escalation clauses (all hallmarks of 2006/7) in many sub-markets of Richmond.  The conditions are unlike to change as building has still not caught up with demand and ‘quality’ don’t sit around long, especially in mature neighborhoods.

Expecting to be able to take your time and sit on your decision for several days will result in lost opportunity.

Evolutionary Stage Three | Every Contract Price Seems to Be Higher than I Expect!

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If you drive while looking out your mirrors, you just might not being paying attention to what is in front of you.

Appraisals, assessments and Trulia/Zillow estimates are all driven by comparable sales.  Comparable sales are PAST events and represent where we WERE and not where we ARE.   If you are exclusively using events from the past to drive current decisions, your estimates of value will feel low relative to the actual market values.  While this may feel slightly disconcerting, the same statement can be said during the free fall of the market in 2009 (albeit in the exact reverse) meaning everyone felt as if they were making great below market deals, only to find out the market was falling faster than they realized.  Past events are helpful in establishing where we have been…use them for that purpose.

Evolutionary Stage Four – Every Seller (and/or listing agent) is Becoming Unrealistic Again

Denial of reasonable repair requests, refusal to renegotiate when appraisals miss, ‘shopping’ contracts, missed deadlines for response, pocket listings … they are all starting to occur again.  When response times are not honored, contract agreements ignored or other behaviors designed to extract value after the fact, buyers become frustrated and decision making becomes poor.  Just remember, when the market was flipped, buyer behaviors exhibited in 2009/10 were exactly the same.  When one side of the market has an extreme upper hand, they will act accordingly.

When you are buying into a tight market, expect these behaviors.  Being surprised or frustrated by questionable seller behaviors is a recipe to miss the bigger picture.

Evolutionary Stage Five – Trulia and Zillow are Total Crapshoots and Cannot be Trusted, Despite Some Really Great Commercials

Data_Coverage_and_Rent_Zestimate_Accuracy_-_Zillow
In their best markets, Zillow can only estimate the FMV of a $300,000 home within $30k about half the time…

In 2009, Trulia and Zillow were nothing more than websites with funny names.  This is no longer the case.

Today, T/Z (unfortunately) represent the housing gospel in many folk’s minds and thus (poorly) impact many buyer and seller decisions.  It is one of the most unfortunate developments in our industry in the past 5 years.  Simply put, the data that T/Z use is not accurate and thus, their estimates of value are poor (I am being kind) and inventory they represent as available is questionably accurate.

For reasons I am not entirely sure I understand, many feel that a computer in either Seattle or San Francisco knows more about the market than those locals who live it and breathe it daily.  T/Z, are amazing technological achievements and offer some great tools, it is just that which they do most poorly (value estimates and availability) is what they tout as their best features.

If you wish to rely on T/Z to help you buy a home, I wish you the best of luck.

Evolutionary Stage Six – Appraisers and Underwriting Departments are Petrified of Mistakes Thanks to Dodd-Frank

Business_Latest__Dodd-Frank_fail___MSNBC-2
Markets hate uncertainty and Dodd-Frank offers it in droves.

The Dodd-Frank Consumer Protection Act is another classic example of government intervention negatively impacting the market it was created to protect.  Dodd Frank increased regulation, capped compensation to lenders, decreased product choices and created additional bureaucracy. It has effectively slowed the market and increased the cost of administration.  It was also enacted well after the financial crisis had occurred and largely repaired itself.

In the short run, the act has created an atmosphere where decision makers are waiting for legal precedent to guide their actions (think ‘lawsuits’.)  Even several years after passing the law, only half of the over 400 new rules created under the act have been finalized…The level of uncertainty created by Dodd-Frank is staggering.  Currently, those in the mortgage business have little guidance and therefore, decision making is stiflingly slow and conservative.  Any loan which does not fit nicely into the proscribed box (think ‘most every loan’) represents an unnecessary challenge.

Evolutionary Summary

At the end of the day, the evolution one must go through has more to do with understanding market conditions than anything else. The past 5-7 years has brought about monumental shifts in values, processes and inputs unprecedented in any time in history.  Failure to recognize not only the difference in the process, but the impact of the differences will lead to failure.

Nothing about today’s home buying bears any resemblance to the past and those who seek to compare the two are destined to struggle.

 

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I am Sarah Jarvis, Broker at One South and I work with our buyers. I bring 20+ years of experience to our Buyers Advocacy program and take great pride in helping our clients understand the RVA marketplace.

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  • The market dictates pricing.⁣ ⁣⁣ #rvahousing #rvarealtor #rvarealtors #rvahousinginsights #onesouthrealtygroup… https://t.co/ArRaru8q2j March 6, 2023 8:25 pm

804.201.9683


How Do I Schedule a Showing?

I am Kendall C. Kendall, Client Care Coordinator for the team. I am a licensed Realtor and it is my job to answer questions and schedule showings for the properties shown on our sites. Here's our call policy.
kendall@richmondrelocation.net

804.305.2344


How Do I Determine What I Can Afford?

With over a decade of mortgage industry experience, Southern Trust Mortgage knows what it takes to provide the very best service for each of their clients and truly believes in forming lasting relationships with their customers.
www.southerntrust.com
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Equal Housing

The Sarah Jarvis Team agrees to provide equal professional service without regard to the race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, national origin or sexual orientation of any prospective client, customer, or of the residents of any community. Any request from a home seller, landlord, or buyer to act in a discriminatory manner will not be fulfilled.

IDX Disclaimer

All of the information displayed here is deemed to be gathered from reliable sources but no warranties, either express of implied, are made part of this site. Additionally, the IDX Feed for listing information may contain descriptions of properties not represented by One South Realty, its agents or staff and any violations or misrepresentations are the sole responsibility of the listing brokerage of the subject property in violation.

Our Network of Sites: RichmondVaNewHomes.net, RichmondVaCondos.net, RichmondLuxuryNeighborhoods.com,
RichmondFanRealEstate.net, RichmondVaMLSSearch.net
Housekeeping: Sitemap, Listings Sitemap

 

Members of the Sarah Jarvis team are licensed in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

 

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