Are you working with veteran homebuyers? There’s an important update regarding VA loans that you need to be aware of—an update that could significantly impact your veteran clients’ ability to compete in today’s real estate market. Recent Changes in VA Lending With the ongoing adjustments following the NAR settlement, a significant change has been that sellers are no longer required to compensate buyer agents. This shift posed a unique challenge for veterans using VA loans, ...

Ok Realtors, are you fully up to speed on how credit scores are calculated? It's important to be conversational about credit when reviewing the topic of home financing with your clients. Understanding the nuts and bolts of credit scoring isn’t just about adding another skill to your arsenal—it's about deepening trust with your clients. As Realtors, speaking with some confidence on this topic help you demonstrate your industry competence, making you a more attractive agent ...

Here’s your reality as a Realtor: your success isn't just determined by taking listings, showing properties, and closing deals. Like it or not, the US economy indirectly influences your leads, sales, and ultimately income.    This post is the next post in a series on the economics of the residential real estate market. You are going to learn what the Federal Funds Rate is, what role it plays, how it impacts inflation, and ultimately how ...

Ok Realtor friends, the market of the moment has given us a short window of opportunity.    Today, we're going to discuss a strategy that is especially relevant in our current market climate: how to educate our home-buying clients, and in the process, create urgency for those buyers to make an offer in the next two weeks. Sound good? Let's dive in!   So what is that short window of opportunity for buyers in today’s ...

Title Company Wire Fraud is on the Rise - Here's How We Can Stop It Over the past few years, title company wire fraud has been on the rise in the real estate industry. Wire fraud can cause our clients to lose tens of thousands of dollars and tarnishes the integrity of our industry as a whole. As experienced agents, we have a responsibility to protect our clients from these scams, and there are three ...

Why Are We Back In Multiple Offers? Let's Dive Into It. Why are multiples back? What the heck happened? In Q4 of last year, we felt like the  real estate market was cooling off. Then, all of a sudden we find ourselves in a multiple-offer situation again. This makes no sense, right? I mean think about it, inventory is up 22%. Multiple offers should happen when there's not enough supply to match demand. If the ...

Just two months until Open House Prime Time! Now is the time to start getting ready for it and I'm going to give you the best open house script that you can use as we start doing these. My name is Peter Chabris with RealtorLevelUp.com, where we help you with three things for your business: generating more leads, improving your skills, and growing your financial confidence. I'm going to give you literally the best open ...

If you're following the residential real estate market, you might be thinking “The sky is falling!!” Afterall, 30-year fixed interest rates on a residential mortgage have gone from 3.5% at the beginning of this year all the way up to around 7%.  That's double the interest rate! It feels like everything should be falling apart, so I thought a little historical context would help here. If you look over the past 50 years of residential ...

Here are four kinds of buyers who are going to be excited to buy a home in 2023. Showings are down 20% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2022, and new sales are down 16%. We expect that trend to continue, and the experts believe we'll see 33% less transactions in 2023. So how are we not just going to maintain our sales level but level it up over the next 12 months?  Let's jump ...