Dennis Wells

Dennis Wells Dennis Wells, Producing Branch Manager
NMLS #383901
IN-DFI MLO 15613
IL MLO 031.0019720

09/03/2026

A straightforward look at what has actually changed for buyers over the last few years and why affordability feels so different right now.

Two or three years ago mortgage rates were sitting at two and a half to three and a half percent. People joked that it was almost free money. And honestly it kind of was. The math was extraordinary.

Here is what that looked like on a hypothetical $100,000 mortgage. At those rates you were paying roughly $400 a month in principal and interest.

Now that same $100,000 mortgage is costing $650 to $700 a month.

That is a significant jump on its own. But now multiply it by three because the average purchase price is closer to $300,000. Suddenly you are looking at a monthly principal and interest payment around $2,100. And that is before property taxes. Before homeowner's insurance. And hopefully before PMI.

That is the reality of the current market for buyers. It is not a small adjustment. It is a fundamentally different payment landscape than what existed two or three years ago.

The buyers who are navigating this successfully are the ones who are working with professionals who understand the full picture and can help them find strategies that make the numbers work. Seller concessions. Rate buydowns. Down payment assistance. Creative offer structures.

The market is tough. But it is navigable with the right team and the right plan.

Reach out and let's talk through what is possible for your specific situation.

09/02/2026

A real estate lesson that applies whether you are buying your first home or your fifth investment property: you cannot over-improve a property beyond what the market around it will support.

Bill Vossos of BVG Realty knows a property that has been improved well beyond anything comparable in its area. It is probably worth what the owner put into it. But there are no comparable sales to support that value in an appraisal. And without comparable sales there is no conventional financing for a buyer. Which means unless someone pays cash the property is essentially stuck. The owner may never move. The improvement did not create value in the market. It created a beautiful trap.

The broader lesson applies to anyone building a real estate portfolio.

A $200,000 condo is accessible. But it may be hard to rent, impossible to leverage for financing on the next purchase, and limited in how much value it can gain if the surrounding area does not support higher prices.

A $500,000 four-unit property costs more upfront. But it generates income from multiple units. It builds equity across a larger asset base. And it creates a foundation for the kind of wealth that compounds over time.

The math is not just about what you can afford today. It is about what the asset does for you over the next ten or twenty years.

09/01/2026

The origin story behind why Dennis Wells entered the mortgage industry is one worth hearing because it is not the typical path.

His on-ramp into the mortgage space came from the wrong side of a closing table in the middle of the worst financial and real estate crisis of a generation. He did not know what he did not know. Communication was poor. The experience was terrible. And he ended up pulling five thousand dollars off a credit card just to get out of his house.

That experience could have just been a painful memory. Instead it became the reason he entered the industry with a specific mission.

He did not want other people to experience what he experienced. So he built a process and a system designed around genuine client communication, real education throughout the process, and the kind of behind-the-scenes ex*****on that makes the whole thing go smoothly.

That is the motivation behind how he approaches every transaction. Not as a business transaction. As a human experience that someone else trusted him with.

08/31/2026

The Homes for Heroes program started with one realtor who wanted to give back. And the way she chose to do it was by contributing a portion of her commission back to the buyers and sellers she served who worked in fields that serve all of us.

Police officers, firefighters, first responders, healthcare workers, and veterans. The program has expanded over the years and now includes a much broader definition of hero than most people realize.

You do not have to be the police officer. You could be the 911 communications operator answering the call. You can be the custodial staff at a school. You can be the office worker at a hospital or a fire station. If you work within one of these qualifying industries you are part of the process that keeps our communities running and you are part of this program.

And here is why it matters in a real and practical way. I know money is not everything. But I also know that in the middle of a move a thousand dollars, five hundred dollars, or two thousand dollars can make a real difference. That is money that helps with closing costs, moving expenses, or just breathing a little easier during a stressful transition.

We commit a portion of our commission back to the heroes. It is our way of saying thank you to the people who show up for everyone else every single day.

If you or someone you know qualifies reach out and let's talk about how this program can help.

08/29/2026

One of the most important things a real estate professional can do for a first-time home buyer is sit down with them before the search ever begins and set clear expectations.

Here is why that matters so much.

Once you start looking at homes and especially once an offer gets submitted the process can move very quickly. Decisions get made fast. Documents need to be signed. Things happen on timelines that feel compressed for someone who has never been through it before.

A one-hour buyer meeting before any of that starts changes the entire experience. Not because it answers every question but because it answers the most important one: what should I expect from this process and from the people helping me through it?

Most first-time buyers do not know what they do not know. And that is completely understandable. If I did not do this for a living I would have every one of those same questions. That is why the questions are welcomed not just answered.

The other piece that cannot be overlooked: if you find a house you love you need to be ready to go. That means pre-approved. That means documents in order. That means a team that has already had the foundational conversation so when the moment comes everyone can move with confidence instead of scrambling.

Clarity and expectations set before the search begins make everything that follows smoother for everyone.

08/27/2026

A real estate communication philosophy worth sharing because it reflects something most clients never hear from their agent directly.

Availability matters. Being reachable nights and weekends is part of the job when you are helping someone buy or sell a home. Real estate does not run on a 9-to-5 schedule and the clients who need you most often need you outside of those hours.

But boundaries matter too.

Not texting before 8 in the morning. Not texting after 10 at night as a general rule. Those boundaries actually make the working relationship better for everyone because they establish expectations clearly and protect the quality of the service on both ends.

And here is the part that gets overlooked in a world where everything runs through text messages and digital signatures. Some conversations cannot be had over text. They should not be.

When your offer gets accepted that deserves a phone call. When the feedback from showings is telling us the price needs to come down that is a conversation, not a text message. There are moments in a real estate transaction where the human element of a real-time voice conversation is not just nice to have. It is the right thing to do.

Texting and digital tools like Dotloop make transactions more efficient. They do not replace the judgment, the relationship, and the care that make an agent worth working with.

Availability, boundaries, and the wisdom to know when to pick up the phone. That is the standard worth holding.

08/27/2026

A data point worth paying attention to if you are looking at high-end multi-unit properties in Chicago right now.

One category of the market has softened meaningfully: multi-unit properties priced north of $1.25 million. These properties are collecting significant market time and the reason is not hard to understand when you run the numbers honestly.

Here is a real example. A two-flat with a coach house priced at $1.8 million. Three units. Sounds like an income property. But once you put 25 percent down you are still negative $2,000 per month.

Now if you are living in one of the units that negative carry is manageable. You are essentially paying a premium to live there and the other units are offsetting part of your cost. That is a defensible decision.

But the second you move out that property costs you $2,000 every single month to hold. And none of us can predict with certainty where our lives will be in three, five, or eight years.

If circumstances change and you have to leave a year from now you are paying for the privilege of holding an asset that is not covering its own costs. That is a very different situation than most buyers envision when they purchase.

Yes some buyers have portfolios and tax situations where carrying a loss makes sense. But for most people that is not the case.

This is the conversation worth having before you fall in love with the unit.

08/25/2026

Here is something about renting that most people never think about until it is too late.

Your rent goes up every year. Six percent, eight percent, ten percent in some markets. And your paycheck rarely keeps pace with that. So every year your housing cost is eating a larger slice of what you bring home. And that means every year you have less money left over for everything else.

Investments. Retirement. Your kids' college fund. Vacations. Savings. All of it shrinks because the biggest line item in your budget keeps growing.

Here is what changes when you own.

Your principal and interest payment is fixed. It does not go up. You can shop your insurance every year. You can contest your property taxes. But that core payment stays where it is. And as your income grows over time the percentage of your budget it takes up actually shrinks.

You do not have to be a real estate investor to benefit from that. You just have to understand what your biggest monthly cost is and what it means to fix it.

There are things in your budget you can trim when you need to. You can cut the streaming service. You can make coffee at home. There are ways to tighten things up.

But your housing cost is not one of them. It is the biggest number every single month. The question is whether it is fixed or whether it keeps growing.

Owning fixes it.

08/21/2026

A real negotiation story worth understanding before your next offer.

My clients and I bent over backwards to give the seller everything they wanted. And then the seller came back and said they would get back to us in several days.

I told my clients to walk away. Here is exactly why.

We had already conceded the leverage and the high ground once. Doing it a second time in a row without getting anything in return and without any sense of where the seller stood on the remaining terms would have sent one message: that we will acquiesce at every turn.

And here is the thing about that message. Once a seller believes they have complete control they will use it. When they came back the following week, even without another offer on the table, they would have felt entitled. They would have challenged us to keep giving. And we would have had no leverage left to push back with.

Walking away was not aggression. It was strategy. It was protecting our position for every negotiation that still had to happen after price, including inspection, timelines, and everything else that comes between contract and closing.

Sometimes the most powerful move in a negotiation is the one where you stop moving.

08/20/2026

Sometimes the best business comes from the most unexpected moments.

My wife and I were out walking our dog when we noticed our neighbors down the street having a yard sale. We had spent eight years waving at each other driving by. That was about the extent of our relationship.

So we stopped. Started talking. And they mentioned they were moving to Florida.

I offered to give them an opinion on their home if they were interested. No pressure. Just a conversation. We ended up spending the day talking through the house, their timeline, their plans.

They were already talking with another agent. Our plans turned out to be very similar and I think we both had a strong read on what the house was worth. But what made the difference was understanding the urgency of their situation. It was a tight timeline. They needed to get to Florida and get the house sold in a way that made that happen smoothly.

They decided to go with me and I am genuinely appreciative of that.

The lesson I take from that story is simple. Show up as a real person in your community. Not as a salesperson looking for a transaction. Just as a neighbor who stopped at a yard sale and had a real conversation.

Real estate is a relationship business. Sometimes the relationship starts with a wave for eight years and then a yard sale.

Address

115 S. Court St. Suite E
Crown Point, IN
46307

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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+12192308400

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