Stop making sense (when did you…?)

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Interest rates are inching upwards, slowly but surely. Rate monitors say long-term residential mortgage rates have gone up about ONE percent over the last 12 months and another ONE percent is forecast for the next 12 months. What does that mean? It means that more and more people will be priced out of buying the home they might want. The home they could have bought last year will not be available to them next year. So waiting was not a good idea after all? Each person is different, so what you did with your money while you waited for the right time to buy a home is your business. Maybe you made a small fortune in the stock market? Congrats to you! Maybe you invested in your own business to further secure its long-term success; necessary before you splurged on that new home?

There are plenty of good reasons for almost any action you take when it comes to real estate. And it is incorrect to posit that all people are subject to the same rules and market conditions equally. But if you are on track to purchase (with a mortgage) a home about a year from now, you might be looking at fewer choices and a smaller or “lesser” home than you thought you would be buying. Should you jump now and get what you can get before that new one percent takes hold? Maybe. Call me to explore what is out there.

Rates are still at historically low levels. If you are quoted 4.75% to 5.25% right now, that is much better than most of the last 40 years. It’s just the last 8-10 years, when rates hit bottom to assist in getting our economy back up and running, that you could get a lower rate. Those days of crazy low rates are gone now. I recall back in 1979 being told the going rate for a home improvement loan was over 18%. Yes, I know, your credit card rate is likely higher and I hope to heck you pay it off monthly! But home improvement loans can run for 10 or 15 years.

Meanwhile, the Santa Fe residential real estate market is healthy going into the winter. Many assume homes don’t sell in the winter, but they do sell. In relative terms, winter will see 120 to 140 home sales a month while summer will see 200 to 240 unit sales. There is no wrong time to list your home. And allow me to be a broken record: inventory is low and dangerously low in the mid and lower price ranges. Even the million plus range has less inventory compared to demand than has been the case in many many years. That makes it a sellers market overall, with occasional geographic exceptions and anomalies.

What else is going on?

IMHO, logic and reason can sometimes modify gravity, hold back the floods, temper the wildfires and heal the sick, but they cannot explain some of the current events in this great country. Allow me to wonder when exactly America used to be great and how we lost our way. And leave it to you to speculate when we should go back to (in years, maybe the mid ’50’s – a time of innocence for baby boomers?).

Do you want to return to any particular year or decade? Was that time long before the Civil Rights laws and the efforts by some to give people of color a chance at living in America without having to live with widespread racism and persecution?  Was there a time of economic prosperity that lifted everyone equally, when almost nobody went hungry or without shelter? Is the time you want to return to when your family and friends had everything and the hell with everyone else? Were you slave owners or something? Is your happiness dependent upon others suffering? Go ahead, take a look at what you say you want. I’ll wait.

Personally I would rather move forward and make progress on many issues rather than go back to another time with different conditions for living in America.

Our country is in the hands of people who do not have my or your best interests at heart. They solely have their own interests in focus and the rest of us can go eat worms. With just a touch of curiosity you can learn of the deep damage being done today to humanitarian efforts and systems that are the only safety net for so many that do not have food and shelter. Our national parks are being ignored and underfunded, selling drilling rights where sacred ground and wilderness should prevail. Health insurance is quickly becoming something for the few, not even the majority, not to mention the need everyone has for some level of health care. Corporations are raping and pillaging our environment in the name of stockholder returns and preventing true progress in alternative fuels and care for the earth we must live on.

The recent mid-term elections seemed to prove, among other things, that now more than ever we must put women in leadership and control. They are going to be in charge sooner or later. I hope it is soon enough to allow them to correct the course we are on, because it needs serious correction. Leaving the fate of our future in the hands of old white males seems suicidal. As a group they seem bent on the destruction of morality and the abandonment of progress, although I am sure there are some fine people on both sides! Both sides of what?

What is your worry when you go to bed at night? What keeps you awake? I observe the downward trends in civility and honesty among those that live and work together, yet might not always agree on things. I worry about drunk drivers and careless texting while driving, putting me at risk of being terminated by an event I cannot control. I am sorry so many fail to take care of themselves as they age and sad for those that were unable (or unwilling) to save money for their old age years. Who will pay for their care?

As people age they need more help in simply living and the oldest need the most help in the current system of societal care for elderly. If we are too old to work and are not employable, what are we contributing to our world? Are we caring for grandchildren and providing love and nurture to those less fortunate; to those in great need? Or are we watching TV all day and grumbling about the dog shit left in our front yard and the lack of money for infrastructure leaving potholes to grow larger? What is bothering you?

Thanks for staying in front of your screen and I hope to have helped trigger some thinking and some reflection on what sometimes is forgotten. Now go buy a house!

Posted in cultural commentary, Interest rates, Santa Fe, Santa Fe area real estate, social commentary and tagged , , .

The writer is a 68 year-old young man engaged as an active REALTOR (associate broker) with Keller Williams, in real estate sales and management in the Santa Fe NM market area. My career has been in and around the real estate industry for more than 35 years, ranging from mortgage lending (interim, commercial, residential); residential property management and leasing; shopping center development and leasing; real estate sales; sales training; title insurance as an executive and an escrow officer; various management positions; consulting and other related activities. That plus a bunch of banking experience including our family-owned Bank of Santa Fe in the 1980s. Where has the time gone?
My background means you have my working knowledge of the entire transaction process at your disposal. That comes with honesty and no bullshit.