The Drysdale Team

The Drysdale Team Danny Drysdale, loan officer, providing home financing and refinancing for CA residents. The decision to buy a home is personal.

Thats why we offer a personal approach. We know the nuances of our local market, can identify opportunities, provide extensive knowledge of mortgage products and loan options, and create a personalized mortgage solution that works for you. We're dedicated to helping you achieve the dream of home ownership.

08/19/2026

The desert is not becoming “the cheaper version of San Diego.” That is exactly why I think the opportunity is getting more interesting.

We are watching buyers widen the map based on what they actually want their life to look like, not just how far they are willing to commute.

And the numbers show there is real movement behind it.

San Diego County sent thousands of households toward Mojave Desert including Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and Clark County in a single year.

But I would not lump those buyers together, because the opportunity looks very different depending on the market.

➡️ High Desert buyers can be trading proximity for breathing room. With a median sold price around $443K in Victorville and Hesperia, the conversation can shift from “What can I squeeze into?” to “What does my family actually need?”

More space, more options, and more time to compare homes can completely change the buying experience.

➡️ The Coachella Valley is a different play. Inventory has grown, homes are sitting longer, and there is more selection.

That can create room for a buyer to be more thoughtful about the home, the neighborhood, the terms, and whether it works as a primary residence, second home, or longer term lifestyle move.

➡️ Las Vegas is another lane entirely. More listings and longer market times can mean buyers are not making every decision with the clock running against them.

That is the part I think agents and lenders need to pay attention to.

The opportunity is not simply finding someone a less expensive house. It is understanding what they are trying to solve for, then knowing which market gives them the strongest combination of price, lifestyle, inventory, and negotiating room.

Stef and I have experienced the second home side of the desert personally, and we are also helping people who are making these markets home full time.

Those are two very different decisions that deserve two very different strategies.

🚨🚨🚨 If you are an agent working in the High Desert, Coachella Valley, or Las Vegas, I would love to hear what you are seeing from

08/19/2026

If you’re a dad in business and wanting more tips on how to invest for your kids, would you be interested in a meet up for this exact topic?

The best time to help your buyers understand their financing isn’t after they’ve fallen in love with a house.It’s before...
08/19/2026

The best time to help your buyers understand their financing isn’t after they’ve fallen in love with a house.

It’s before.

When I work with San Diego real estate agents, I want your buyers to know their numbers, understand their options and be ready to move when the right property hits.

That’s especially important in markets like Clairemont and Bay Park, where the difference between browsing and being ready to write can happen pretty quickly.

Send them my way early. I’ll help you get them from “we’re thinking about buying” to actually being ready to buy.

08/17/2026

Most buyers are waiting for a number.

5.5%. 5%. Maybe even something with a 4 in front of it.

But that’s still only one piece of the math.

Right now, I’m spending more time than ever running scenarios because the opportunity isn’t always obvious from the rate alone. Sometimes the best option is hidden in how the entire deal is structured.

➡️ What happens to your monthly payment if we negotiate the price down versus using that same leverage for a seller credit?

➡️ Is it smarter to use cash toward a larger down payment, or keep more liquidity and use funds to temporarily or permanently reduce the rate?

➡️ If you’re planning to move, refinance, or restructure the loan within a few years, are we optimizing for the first 36 months or unnecessarily paying for the lowest long term rate today?

➡️ Are there loan structures you qualify for that change the payment enough to make a property work without forcing you to change your entire budget?

➡️ If one home has a higher purchase price but stronger seller motivation, could that deal actually cost you less monthly than the “cheaper” house?

➡️ What happens if we compare the cost of waiting another 6 or 12 months against the cost of buying now, including rent, potential appreciation, competition, and the possibility of refinancing later?

➡️ How much flexibility do we want to preserve after closing instead of putting every available dollar into the transaction?

These are the conversations I’m having constantly right now.

The strategy might be completely different for two buyers looking at homes in the same price range because their income, liquidity, timeline, risk tolerance, and future plans are different.

That’s why “What rate can you get me?” is becoming a much smaller part of the conversation.

The better question is:

➡️ “Can you show me the different ways this purchase could work, and what I gain or give up with each one?”

That’s where lending actually becomes strategy.

08/14/2026

Anyone else trying to navigate this?

One of the biggest financial questions we keep coming back to as parents is this: what are we actually trying to build for our kids?

Not just college money.
Not just a savings account they get handed at 18.

Actual options.

For us, that has meant thinking less about one perfect vehicle and more about what future flexibility could look like.

➡️ Money for education if that is the path they choose.
➡️ Capital to start a business if that is where they are headed.
➡️ Help with a first home if ownership makes sense for them.
➡️ Investments that have had years to compound before they ever need to touch them.
➡️ Enough of a head start that they can make a smart decision from a place of choice instead of pressure.

That is also why I do not think there is one universal answer for every family.

A 529 can make a lot of sense for one household. A brokerage account may feel more flexible for another. Some parents prioritize real estate. Some spread money across multiple places. Some are still trying to figure out what they can realistically contribute each month.

The part I find more interesting than the account itself is the question behind it:

What do you want this money to allow your child to do someday?

Because that answer changes the strategy.

If your only goal is education, you may structure things one way. If your goal is broader optionality, you may care more about flexibility. If you want them to learn how to manage money before receiving a large amount, that creates another conversation entirely.

We are still figuring out our own version of this as parents, and I actually think that is why this is worth talking about publicly. There are a lot of smart people doing this very differently.

So I am curious where everyone lands.

➡️ Are you using a 529, brokerage account, real estate, custodial account, something else, or a mix?
➡️ If you chose one route over another, what made the decision for you?
➡️ And if you have older kids, what do you wish you had started earlier?

Drop what you are doing below.

I'm sure there are

08/12/2026

For years, lenders trained buyers to ask the wrong first question:

“What’s the rate?”

When rates were historically low, that worked because almost every conversation sounded good. The number itself did most of the selling.

The problem is that we accidentally taught consumers to treat rate like the whole strategy.

It isn’t.

Today, the better question is: “How do we structure this so the payment, cash to close, and long term plan actually work for you?”

That changes everything.

➡️ Maybe the win is negotiating seller credits instead of obsessing over a tiny rate difference.
➡️ Maybe it is comparing multiple loan structures instead of defaulting to the first option.
➡️ Maybe it is deciding where your cash is most valuable instead of automatically putting every available dollar toward the down payment.
➡️ Maybe it is structuring the purchase around how long you realistically expect to own the home.
➡️ Maybe the right answer today looks completely different than the right answer for the buyer sitting next to you.

That is why I am running more scenarios now than I ever did when rates were lower.

Not because lending suddenly became more complicated for the sake of being complicated. Because when affordability gets tighter, every lever matters more.

A small change in price, credits, cash allocation, loan structure, or future plans can completely change whether a purchase feels uncomfortable or genuinely makes sense.

This is also where a lender should earn their seat at the table.

The job cannot just be quoting a number and hoping it is the lowest one on the screen.

The job is understanding what problem the buyer is actually trying to solve, showing them the tradeoffs clearly, and giving them enough options to make a confident decision.

After 20+ years in this business, some of the most strategic deals I have worked on are happening right now.

Higher rates did not eliminate opportunity.

They just made strategy matter a whole lot more.

08/11/2026

The hardest part of this market is that almost everyone is comparing it to a different one.

👉🏼 Buyers are waiting for prices to “make sense.”
👉🏼 Sellers are pricing from the last peak they remember.
👉🏼 Agents are trying to read the room.

Meanwhile, the actual market is giving us a much simpler set of instructions.

➡️ Start with what is true now.
How many comparable homes are actually available? How quickly are they going pending? Are there price reductions? Are homes selling above, at, or below asking? Is the competition coming from five buyers or none?

That tells you more than a headline ever will.

➡️ Remove yourself from the story.
A buyer thinking a home “should” be cheaper does not make it cheaper. A seller believing their home “should” command a 2021 premium does not create demand. The strategy gets better the second we stop negotiating with our memory of another market.

➡️ Then identify who has leverage.
Low inventory can give sellers leverage, but only if the home is priced and positioned correctly. More listings can give buyers leverage, but only if they are willing to act on the homes where that leverage exists. Even within the same city, one neighborhood, price point, or property type can behave completely differently from another.

➡️ Build the offer around the conditions, not the emotion.
If a home has been sitting, ask what terms can be improved. If it is new, clean, and getting heavy traffic, waiting for a discount may cost you the property. If you are selling into low competition, your first week matters more. If you are overpriced, low inventory will not save you forever.

That is the part people miss. “The market” is not one giant thing. It is a collection of small markets moving at different speeds.

After 20 years in lending, I have learned that the people who do best are rarely the ones who predict perfectly. They are the ones who read what is in front of them and adjust faster.

What is your market doing right now?

Buyers getting leverage, sellers still holding it, or completely neighborhood by neighborhood?

08/07/2026

My competitive advantage is not that I never have a bad day. It is that I have learned not to hand that bad day to everyone else in the room.

That matters more than people think.

In this business, energy travels fast. A buyer can hear uncertainty in your voice. An agent can feel when you are distracted. A team can tell when the person leading the room has already decided the problem is bigger than the solution.

So I make a conscious choice before I walk in.

Whether we are trying to get a complicated deal across the finish line, talking through the same concern for the third time because a buyer needs reassurance, or spending an entire day chasing kids from one adventure to the next, I want the people around me to feel that I am actually there.

Not performing. Not forcing positivity. Just present, engaged, and willing to bring something useful to the moment.

➡️ Fun is not the opposite of being serious about the work.

For me, it is part of how the work gets done well.

It keeps people calm when the pressure rises. It makes difficult conversations easier to have. It reminds a buyer that this process can still feel exciting. It gives an agent confidence that we are going to keep moving instead of letting one complication change the entire tone of the deal.

And honestly, it makes the long days feel worth it.

There will always be another urgent email, another unexpected condition, another call that comes in after hours, and another day when I am not operating at one hundred percent. The goal is not to pretend those things do not affect me.

The goal is to decide what I do with that energy before I pass it to someone else.

I cannot control every outcome. I can control whether I make the room heavier or lighter. I can control whether people leave a conversation feeling more confused or more confident. I can control whether my kids remember that Dad was technically there, or that Dad was fully in it with them.

That is the standard I keep coming back to.

Show up. Bring the best of what you have that day. Help people feel steadier because you were there.

And whe

08/05/2026

No one really talks about this and I’m not really sure why.

I hear plenty about building a business and plenty about being present at home.

But don't hear many dads talk honestly about what it feels like when both matter at the same time...

In lending, people do not stop needing answers because school drop-off is happening.
A contract can come in during dinner.
A buyer can panic on Saturday.
An agent may need clarity before coffee.

When you care about doing the job well, it is easy to believe constant availability is simply the price of success.

Then you become a dad...

And those flexible moments do not feel flexible anymore.

You want to make the playdate.
You want the beach day.
You want to be there for drop-off, bedtime, and the ordinary moments your kids will never know were difficult to protect.

But here is the part I was not prepared for: when business starts to feel shaky, that pressure does not stay at work.

You carry it into the car.
You carry it into dinner.
You carry it into the moments you fought so hard to be present for, while part of your mind is still trying to solve something that may have started inside you.

That is hard to admit when everyone relies on you.

I have learned that the answer is not pretending the tension does not exist... It is getting honest about where you are standing.

Are you committed to the season your business is in and making the changes it requires?
Are you protecting the parts of your life you said success was supposed to create?

One foot at work and one foot at home sounds like balance, but most days it just feels like being absent from both.

The reset is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is rebuilding your confidence, tightening the business, asking for help, and creating better boundaries. Deciding that when you are with your family, they get the version of you who is actually there.

So to the parents trying to lead, grow, and still make the beach day: you are not failing because this is hard. But sitting on the fence will wear you down.

Choose where you are. Then be there.

08/05/2026

Hot of the press guideline changes that could help you qualify for more home without putting more money down.

This will allow my team and I to be really strategic and help you qualify for much better terms without using all your funds and keeping more of your money in the bank.

Save this and share with a friend. DM me for more details on how this could help you or your clients get in a better position with their home purchase.

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92108

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