09/09/2024
For those of you who don't get my database news letter... I am sorry. Real pearls of wisdom in there.
Plus some Seahawks therapy.
Call me. 503-320-0925
Happy September! We are now nine months into the year and as we say goodbye to the late summer nights, we start thinking about the most glorious season of them all.... football season.
I know, I know...I am a mortgage guy sending an email to my clients. You expect me to talk about the FED cuts, and mortgage rates, and possible monthly savings but instead I throw you a wobbly curve ball like Geno Smith does on Sundays....
Well guess what...I am going to talk about both.
I have spent 52 years on this planet. 48 of those years cheering on the Seahawks and 24 of those years doing mortgages for people like you.
The main thing I have learned by doing both is that you are going to have highs and lows.
The lows for a Seahawks fan were the first 40 years of their existence. From Jim Zorn, Dave Krieg, Rick Mirer, Dan McGuire all the way to Matt Flynn. In those years we started the year with the confidence of a 25-year-old life coach and watched our hopes slowly die along with our Super Bowl chances.
Then 2013 happened and we all believed in magic.
Well, my mortgage career is on a different trajectory. I started in 2001. At the time rates were in the mid 7% range. Little did I know that this was the equivalent of the Seahawks just before they drafted the Legion of Boom and Russell Wilson.
At the time you could buy a 3-bedroom 2 bath home in Clark County for about $125,000 and there were a few dozen of them to choose from. This was the Mike Holmgren years. It was good, but it would be years before we knew how good it was.
Then 9/11 happened and mortgages changed...just like the rest of the world. Mortgage rates dropped to 6.5% then 6.00% and over the next decade dropped down to about 4%. Home inventory dropped a bit but was still good. The Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl and lost to the The Steelers and the NFL refs.
Then something happened. Most people call it 2007 but we in the mortgage business call it the Mortgage Meltdown. People lost their homes by the millions, mortgage companies were closing by the thousands, and equity was cut by 40% or so.
After we all recovered from this housing hell we started flourishing. Rates kept dropping, equity kept growing and little did we know...we were winning the Real Estate Super Bowl. It was like the Seahawks defense making Peyton Manning look like Brian Manning (a kid I went to school with...he was in the band and had asthma) and putting us up by 40 points for our one and only championship. Little did we know that it would be our last moment in the sun for a long long time.
That is when the tough times started. Not so much with rates but with housing inventory. Rates were still way low but there were only a few homes to buy. Before you knew it people were spending $50,000 to $100,000 over asking price...kind of like what we did for Percy Harvin.
Starting in 2022 we started seeing mortgage rates jump and before we knew it, we were telling everyone that an 8% interest rate was not too bad historically speaking. This was like not running from the 1-yard line... devastating.
Fast forward to today. Rates have dropped a lot (about 1.5% for those scoring at home) and the Seahawks have a shiny new coach and defense.
I am locking in FHA loans at about 5.625% today. Conforming loans at about 6.375% and the Seahawks beat the Broncos yesterday.
We will continue to see rates improve over the next couple of years and that will allow more people to list their homes for sale, and before you know it, we may have a good buyer's market again.
And this time we will run from the 1-yard line.
If you, or someone you know or love needs a good mortgage lender, or a guy to sponsor them in Seahawks Anonymous, give them my number.
Chris Berg
MLO 19802
503-320-0925 cell/text
[email protected] email
