Off The Market with Team Somerville
Break down the week with Tim and Michael, as they talk about the market, tell stories, or just banter about anything and everything
Hosted by : Michael Dempsey & Tim Somerville
Produced by : Hayden McNamee
Music by : Anthony Trim
Off The Market with Team Somerville
#19 - Admins & Things We Don’t Tell You
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Hosted by: Michael Dempsey & Tim Somerville
Produced by: Hayden McNamee
Music by: Anthony Trim
Whether or not, again, we always agree with what they say.
SPEAKER_01That would be the biggest standout in my eyes. Like, that is just not necessary.
SPEAKER_00But again, it just matters.
SPEAKER_01Where are you going? Hi, I'm Tim Somerville. And I'm Michael Dempsey, and this is Off the Market with good old Team Somerville.
SPEAKER_00Hey, so things are good?
SPEAKER_01Things are good. Uh, we had some uh mandatory, well, we call it mandatory, but we had some educational sessions last week. That's right. And uh there was lots of great sessions. And if those who uh I think we've mentioned it before, but if you're not aware, your realtor is constantly brushing up on their education, their new trends, yeah, what's out there. Um, we certainly look to our neighbors down the south, the things that may have come out of their way and give us a heads up to be prepared for and things like that. So I just wanted to say that we attended those sessions overall, good. Yeah, you know, we had chicken twice at a little much.
SPEAKER_00Uh you know, it was last week as well was administration week. Yes. So again, I brought the admin out for lunch. We had a nice lunch, it was great. And you know, I put a post on social media saying, hey, guess what? For all those out there, believe it or not, it truly is uh well appreciated. Uh, you you really don't understand how much is done behind the scenes. And so uh we're very, very blessed, very privileged to have a wonderful uh administrative assistants in the office and take care of things.
SPEAKER_01And at the end of the day, it's nice to to to know that they can just take care of it. And uh, if it was a true fire, they'll get you involved. Uh with the small fires, well, we'll think of them as fire extinguishers.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Oh, good, good, good, good. Yeah, well, what do you have for well?
SPEAKER_01I wanted to dive in on a hot topic. I mean, I know a lot of uh hot fire extinguishers, right? Wow, thank you. Sometimes I'm good, I just don't even realize it about Putin didn't name it. Uh so a hot topic that's been kind of on everyone's mind for at least the last year or so is mortgage renewal shock. Okay. And so I just wanted to kind of touch face, and again, I'll throw it out there. I personally am not a mortgage broker, mortgage specialist, so please talk to your professional when it comes to renewing it. True. We just want to share some basic knowledge, uh, try to keep it as uh as simple as possible for me, more so than you, so that I could understand it. So we look at uh what is the average selling price in St. John County for a residential home? Well, as of last month, it's hovering around 320,000. Okay. So those who are up for renewal, most of us, again, everyone's different, probably took like a five-year fixed or five-year variable or or whatnot. But five years ago, the average selling price was 200,000.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So there's two big pieces of information there about how the market has grown over the last in the last five years. So again, there's a lot of uh reasons for that, and that would be a whole other season of podcasts. But uh, I think you know what kind of caused uh the majority of that. So if we started with a mortgage of 200,000 and the going rate five years ago was a nice 2%, and somebody said 1.99, 2.1, whatever. Let's just make it 2%. That's right. So with a 25-year amortization period, again, we used a mortgage calculator for this. Your mortgage is about $740 monthly. Now, a lot of us don't pay our mortgage monthly, we'd be paying weekly. Just keep it simple. So $740. Now, after those five years, we still owe $173,000 of that $200,000. Okay. So you do the math there. Yeah, $20,000. Okay, but it's time to renew. Oh, yeah. Right now, the best rate that's kind of going is four percent. Right. Right. So higher, but let's choose for exactly. Maybe you get uh you know loyalty with that bank, and they can get you down 10 basis points or something. So now you would be looking at uh your mortgage would be slightly higher, about $300 higher a month. Wow, a thousand dollars a month would be the mortgage. Now, again, a lot of you renters out there going, a thousand bucks must be nice. Yeah, I agree with that as well, but we just kind of want to get people that initial idea that yes, with your higher interest rates and based on the amount that you still owe, you will see a little bit of sticker shock when that renewal goes. So, what's our easiest way to kind of uh combat that, if you will? And again, it's not for everyone. If you're able to have a few bucks extra a month that you could put away towards the principal, let's say it's fifty dollars. Maybe you set it out automatically in your online bank and just say once a month, boom, 50 bucks goes to my mortgage payment. Tim, how can that benefit people in the long run?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's a couple ways. Number one is knowing you have that prepayment privilege allows you each year to put a percentage of the principal onto the mortgage. Now, the important part, and you and I were saying it earlier, is that as you make those payments, please understand it's not changing your monthly payment or your bi-weekly payment. No, not right now. No time. No. At the end of the five-year term or four-year term or whatever term you have, yes, at the end of the day, sure, when you when you go to renegotiate, that will also help. But what it does is it means that by doing your prepayment, it means that each each payment you make, yeah, there will be less on the interest and more on the principal. And so at the end of your five years or four years, the amount that you actually put towards the principal is more, which means at the end of that term, guess what? You know, you're gonna have less than, like I said, your example there of 200 to 173. If somebody would have done that properly over a five-year term and you're allowed, say, a 10% prepayment privilege, and even if you were only putting five down, well, you're 200, now you're down to again, uh 190, now you're down to almost 170, now you're down to 150, like those prepayment privileges now on the principal alone has brought it down to less than you just paying your mortgage payments. Absolutely. So the advantages of doing your prepayment privilege is phenomenal, and people do not take advantage of that at all. Oh, agree.
SPEAKER_01So we want to make you aware of that. So not only are there options to help your future payments be less of an increase on you, but there's also options in which you can have a shorter amortization period. Yeah, get that uh house paid off a lot faster.
SPEAKER_00Shorter amortization period also helps instead of the monthly, which would be okay, of course, only 12 payments per year. By doing it bi-weekly, that means that it's theoretically 26 payments, which works out to one extra monthly payment. So it works out to 13. So when you do it that way, again, that also is very beneficial. So just instead of paying monthly, you pay bi-weekly, and you're taking off anywhere between three and five years on the amount of time it takes to pay that mortgage off.
SPEAKER_01Perfect, very well said, and like I said, uh, we threw a lot of numbers at you. Uh, we didn't mean to confuse you or something like that. But again, the biggest takeaways is contact your mortgage specialist if you've got it coming up. Like me personally, ours is due in December. We were already thinking about it. Uh, no harm in uh you know getting it a little early and having those conversations. True. Um, are we economic economists on this economists? But they what they are saying is we should stay pretty steady the rest of this year. Everything should be status quo. And I think we all can breathe a sigh of relief because there's always so many.
SPEAKER_00Oh, when you look at inflation and you look at everything that's heading heading our way because of the things that are going around globally, provincially, and of course, nationally, we're always throwing, of course, a curveball here and there. So, by doing these things as well, what will happen is if you are throwing a curveball, that could actually put you in a better position to be able to see to be that much more secure. So yeah, okay. Well, that was good. That was good. Thank you. So let's go real estate uh with me. I've got something. From time to time, I'll go online. In fact, we'll talk about that in a moment, but but um I'm always looking for articles regarding real estate. There are many professionals out there, whether or not, again, we always agree with what they say. There are many people with uh, I guess you could say their opinions on real estate. One thing I like to say is that there is always two sides to a coin, right? You need to look at what is said, make sure you look at both sides, and then take what you can out of that and hopefully put it towards your story or your situation. So there was an article, it said 22 secrets that your realtor won't tell you, but should.
SPEAKER_01That is definitely clickbait.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that I'll have read that.
SPEAKER_01I clicked on it. Yeah, I clicked on it exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I want to know. Yeah, so we're going to go through some of these, and you know, we'll give you, I guess, what we believe and what we don't believe, but uh uh be nice to uh share this with you. So uh one of them, uh your house might not be worth your dream price. So, how many times do we go into a listing? We're giving them today's data, yeah, right? They bought it four or five years ago, mortgage is coming up, right? They only put five percent down, they know how much they owe, they didn't do any prepayments, as we said, and they believe because what everything they've heard, Joe's house just sold for this, Jane's just sold for that. So I would agree that your house might not be worth your dream price because at the end of the day, if your realtor's coming in and blowing too much smoke, it's just going to guess what? It's just going to it's not it's not gonna go.
SPEAKER_01It's certainly tarnish the relationship with that realtor because you know the last thing you want to do is is blow smoke and you have a house sitting on the market for you.
SPEAKER_00That's right. That's right. And and so again, we're not, you know, mind readers. We'd love to be able to tell you exactly who your next buyer is going to be, how much they're going to pay, what closing date, what conditions, and so I'd sleep better at night. Yeah, I know. I think everybody would. But what we try to do is we try to make sure that when we're promoting and marketing your home, that again, our pricing strategy is extremely important. So, again, especially with where the market is right now, our market is still quite strong, it's stabilized right now. I still believe we're in that seller's market a little bit, but we are leaning towards a balanced market. I can't wait. Okay. So low ball offers can be a starting point. I disagree. Oh, big time. Listen, we understand that market time is very important. We understand that if it's being on the market, there could be reasons, right? Maybe the price was higher to begin with. Maybe there were other reasons why that property didn't sell. Could have been the time of year. But many homes may be looking for a unique buyer. And just because they're looking for a unique buyer doesn't mean that if you're not there within the first week or first month, and just because you come in in the second or third month that they're just going to, you know, give it away. That's right. Yeah. And so at the end of the day, please make sure you talk to your professional uh about, you know, the starting point on the property that you're going to offer on, because again, you could insult the seller to the point where that now they don't even want to deal with you.
SPEAKER_01And it's happened millions. Yeah. You could even come close to asking price afterwards and they say, I don't where was that before? That's right.
SPEAKER_00You know, you yeah, I know. And it's just again, we have to believe that yes, we work for a buyer or yes, we work for a seller. But even if there is another agent or another salesperson involved, what we know is that we have to work together to try to put a sale together between a buyer and a seller in hopes that again, everybody at the end of the day, you know, it feels good about the transaction. If we don't, chances are it could have been a low ball offer. Chances are it could it could have been a seller holding out for a specific uh price because they didn't get their dream price. So so just something to keep in mind.
SPEAKER_01Bought it for 40,000 and wants one five six million dollars.
SPEAKER_00Right, yes, happens. Some rooms are worth that, yes. I mean, yes, I get it, I get it. Um, open houses don't guarantee a sale. Okay, I yeah, I agree, but I will say that within the first 15 years of my uh career, there were very few I sold at open houses. But within the last, especially last five years, the amount of homes that Team Somerville does sell at an open house would shock you. The concern many people have is that oh well the neighbors they're just going to gawk and come and see our house. You'd be surprised how many knowledgeable buyers are out there that may have been steered away from your home for whatever reason. And by having the open house, it gives them a fair and free opportunity to come and see your home on their dime, and they come through. Guess what? The realtor who has a for sale hopefully will know that property better than the other realtors, and hopefully, we'll be able to enhance the property and possibly get you to buy it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, make for a better experience.
SPEAKER_00Oh, 100%. And again, open houses love them. Uh, yes, we build relationships with new buyers, yes, we satisfy the sellers, and yes, there's an opportunity to sell it, but no, it's not a guarantee.
SPEAKER_01I always laugh when we have an open house maybe in a uh snowstorm or a race form or something like that. We'll show up at the open house and they say, I can't believe you didn't cancel.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, You're here, aren't you? Yeah, we had one on the west side of St. John over 55 people in the coldest day a few years ago, and we sold it because of that open house. Yeah, right, it's warm. That's right. Um, they may not be experts in every neighborhood. Now, I would agree to an extent. Um, major cities, realtors a lot of times are covering one, two, three block radiuses. Michael and I, we cover more or less a very large radius. Four towns, yeah. Really, kind of, yeah, four, maybe five. Yeah. Queens, Kings, Charlotte, St. John, and I thought there were anyway, Carlton. Carlton. Carlton, yeah, I think there's five. But anyway. Um, so when we look at this, what I would say is that we may not be experts in an area, say Moncton or Fredericton. And so, yes, I would agree that there are realtors that are coming into other larger cities that may not have that experience. But you may have that relationship with that realtor. And if you have that relationship with Michael or myself or someone from Team Somerville, and we've showed you 28 homes and you have two homes that you'd like to see in Moncton, we're getting in our car. We're driving there and we're going to show it to you because we will make sure that we, as licensed realtors and professionals, will do everything we can to make sure that you're not overpaying and that again, that it is a solid property that's what you and your family are looking for. Absolutely. Yep. So, anyway, so so I I would agree that we may not be experts, but the relationship with your realtor is so important that again, you want to make sure that there's a mix of both.
SPEAKER_01That's right. We may not know who the local Tupperware lady is. Well, we'll find out.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Uh, commissions are negotiable. Now, I agree. Commissions are negotiable. Now, the great thing if you're a buyer, chances are you don't need to worry about that. As a seller, we will tell you, uh, as Michael and I were talking before this, it's like if I was building a widget for three dollars. Well, if I'm building it and it costs me three dollars, I'm not wanting to sell it for a buck and a half. It doesn't make sense to me. And at some point soon, I'll be out of business. So I know that when we're discussing things with our sellers, we try to be as fair with our seller as possible. And by doing that, hopefully everybody wins. You, the seller, feel like you received a service at a reasonable price. We, the realtor, of course, got paid for our services, and hopefully the buyer and the buyer's realtor also feel the same way. And so I don't know how you feel about that one.
SPEAKER_01No, I completely agree. Uh, last year you had an investor that was uh offloading 20 to 19, 20 properties, right? And so those are the type of clients that you can sit down and say, Yeah, there's a few little breaks I can things I can do, you know, to help you out. I appreciate the business and things like that.
SPEAKER_00That's right, that's right. But I will tell you that no matter if you have one or 21 properties, each sale is its own entity, and we never know what we're going to come across in those. So many times when it comes to commission, a lot of times discussing that could be at time of offer. Uh, the offer comes in, it's not where you expect it. Um, I remember one time I had one client, East St. John. We sold it in three days. We sold it for substantially over asking price. And the the seller said, Well, I don't think we should have to pay you this commission because you sold it so quickly and for the amount that you sold it. And I said, Or I said, Well, if I was in your shoes, I would probably pay my realtor double because I didn't have to worry about sitting on the market for any period of time, and you got me a price substantially higher than I expected. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for double, no, nor are we, but at the end of the day, commission is negotiable. But again, please take into consideration we are a service, and the majority of the realtors work extremely hard, you know, you know, to help you.
SPEAKER_01I completely agree. It's like that old uh old edge where they talk about uh the mechanic shows up and he knows where to hit the hammer. Yes. Oh, you're paying you know, Tim for his experience, his knowledge, his connections. Right. I mean, there's lots of homes he goes into. He's already thinking about three or four buyers that this would be great for. That's right.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I get it. I get it. Yes for us, yes. Um, they might recommend services you don't need. Now, this one was a little questionable because what we know is, and Michael and I were saying, most of the services we recommend are people that we use. So when we look at the lawyers or we look at uh bankers and we look at inspectors, but one thing we won't do is we will not recommend somebody just so that we can financially gain from that. So when we give you a name, if you ask for an electrician, it's because we've used that electrician, or we know that electrician is going to call you back. The lawyer because we've used those lawyers, not because we're getting a kickback. And you'd be surprised in this business and others, how many times recommended recommended services are, you know, I guess you could say it's a two-way street. It's not just for the consumer, it's for the person that's recommending them. And with us, we don't do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. When I read that or when you read that to me, I thought first thing I thought of was staging and how, like, a lot in different communities they pay, you know, a couple thousand dollars to have your homes professionally staged.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01That would be the biggest standout in my eyes. Like, that is just not necessary. Uh uh maybe it's just our area.
SPEAKER_00Uh oh, you look at Halifax, almost every realtor will provide staging as part of their commission. Now, higher priced homes, and again, they want to bring value. But you and I will walk into a home, and nine out of ten times we're talking about specific items that will help your home sell. But to pay someone, you know, 1,500, 2,000, or even more sometimes to stage your home. Uh, if you have that type of home, we we'd love you to call because we'd love to help you as well. But that's right. But at the end of the day, usually again, I agree with you, there are services that we may or may not recommend just because the fact that with our market, you may not need it. Exactly. Right. Uh, there's no shame in walking away. We had difficulty with this one. We didn't agree. No. Why? Is because we as realtors, before you write your offer, we're we're almost asking you, are you committed or are you not committed?
SPEAKER_01Just the home for you.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah. If it's not, you know, then we really don't want you offering. We want you to understand that we will help you throughout this process until you find a home that you are committed to. And now it's price conditions and closing that we'll be discussing, but hopefully, we'll be able to find some type of happy medium to get you the home that you've decided you want to call just that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you don't get to the finish line and decide not to cross it.
SPEAKER_00You you I don't know. I don't know. I'm a little torn on that one. I know. So I like this next one. Yeah, you don't have to buy the first house you see. You don't? You're wonderful. Yeah, we we'd love it if you did. Um, the average used to be 11. So, you know, when you're looking at homes, one out of 11 homes is the one you're going to buy. And sure, we'd love it if it was the first. And remember, that's the average. So some people are looking at 20, 30 homes, and some are only looking at two or three. At the end of the day, one of our cardinal rules is if you reach out to us to see a property, our goal is to, again, to utilize your time. We'd love to set up one, two, or three others so that you have some comparables when we get outside.
SPEAKER_01And if it all works out, I do want to show you the best one for everafter is going to be compared to that first one.
SPEAKER_00You know what? And that's that's funny how you say that because realtors will have their own strategies. I always try to look at them and I try to make sure that the you know I save the best for last. That way you've had a chance to see values, uh, homes. Uh, okay. And then when I show you that last one, hopefully it, you know, it it exceeds your expectations. If I show that to you first and I'm showing you other properties, it's almost like, oh, that was beautiful, but I'm still out looking. I'm still out looking. So we all we all work differently when it comes to how we show homes, but uh that's a fair argument.
SPEAKER_01I might have to shake things up.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I wish you would. On now, okay. Okay, we've talked about this one. Don't be afraid of a mess. Yeah, okay. And it's true. When you walk into a home, you have to remember that the condition of the home, when it's yours, it's now yours. So if there's stuff on the floor, if there's stuff out on the ground, all I all we're saying is, guess what? When you look at a home, make sure you're looking at the important stuff. We say there are five parts to a home: there's your foundation, there's your windows, there's your roof, there's your electrical, and then there's number five, and that's the integrity of the home. What about this home is telling you to buy it or to walk away? Right? We're not asking about the underwear on the floor or the dishes in the sink.
SPEAKER_01No, are the bedrooms spacious enough? Right. You know, you it can you cook in this kitchen?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I get it. Uh sense matter. Um, you know what? I I I don't agree on this one. Uh the circumstance is yes, I remember having a client who was burning incense to the point that we couldn't get in. Uh we had to go back. Um, but you know, out of all the homes I have shown, yeah, we probably have small smelled many different things. Everything you could think of. Right. In a vacant home, though, we will give you one piece of advice don't open the fridge or freezer. Absolutely. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I let your lives do that.
SPEAKER_00You're praying. Yeah, I know. What are you doing? I know, especially if the power is out. Sometimes it's like, oh, no, yes, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I already ate my lunch. I know that. See it again.
SPEAKER_00Curb appeal cows. What do you think about curb appeal?
SPEAKER_01I'd say the the time of year, it you could you could have good curb appeal, but not you know, it's not always doable.
SPEAKER_00Okay. What are your thoughts? I think curb appeal is great because I believe in the first 15 seconds. In the first 15 seconds of coming out of the car or your vehicle, you usually know if you want that home. So you feel good about it, that's a great start. Now, that doesn't mean that you're buying the home before seeing it, but it definitely helps if you're walking into the home and you're already feeling it. If you, you know, I remember one, they stepped in dog anyway, stuff, yeah, stuff. Um, and again, I remember Jason and Tanya doing this and it put him off, and it was a beautiful home. Bang! Guess what? They didn't buy that house. Yeah, so as crazy as sounds, there's more than just curb appeal. But again, as mentioned, that first 15 seconds is crucial. Now, I like this next one emotional attachment can hinder negotiation. What are your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_01I agree. Yeah, you've said many times in the podcast on how as a seller, uh, there's a lot of aspects of being ready to sell. And that the biggest one is being ready to let go. Right. And so being able to let go can certainly hinder uh negotiations. That's right. Uh, not only on closing dates, but price, right? Everything.
SPEAKER_00Are you ready to close this chapter? Right. That's what we ask. Let's start a new chapter, right? And again, when we talk about the word emotional, many times what we try to tell our buyers and sellers is that we as realtors, we want to look at the practical side. And so when we look at it, we always try to tell our clients, we want you to look at it 90% emotional and 10% practical. We'll look at it on the other side, 90% practical and 10% emotional. So as they start to get emotionally tied to either sell or not sell, we then, as your realtor, would want to bring in the practicality and hopefully, well, bring it back to earth and uh and do what we've, of course, set out to do, and that is help you make your next move.
SPEAKER_01We certainly acknowledge that this is no easy task if you're getting rid of mom and dad's home or even you know your own that you've lived in for 30 plus years. We we certainly acknowledge that and we're there with you. We're very empathetic.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I agree. I agree. Uh, next one closing costs can be expensive. Now, I would agree to an extent, but when we look at other provinces, like the province of Nova Scotia, if you're buying and you're not from Nova Scotia, there's an additional fee. Um, our land transfer fee used to be a quarter of one percent. It's now in New Brunswick, one percent of the assessed value or the sale price, whatever is the higher. And again, that actually is still lower than many provinces in Canada. I think Nova Scotia is higher. Yeah, well, there are quite a few. So we have to, you know, I guess grasp the fact that we don't look at just one thing, we look at everything. And right now we're using numbers between three and five percent of the sale price is probably what your closing cost is when you're buying. When you're selling, it's a heck of a lot cheaper, right? You have your legal fees, yes, you have your realtor fees, but at the end of the day, you do not have a lot of the adjustments and again, uh, you know, fees that you would the lawyer fee, you know, for a buyer or a seller is the same. So if you are buying and selling, you're going to have to pay that twice, but it's very similar whether or not they're helping you on the buying side or the selling side.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Just maybe a few extra costs on the buying side. That's right. You know, land transfer, not land transfer, sorry, uh land title to people. So things, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but their actual fee, which is known as their base rate, is very similar whether or not you're doing it as a buyer or as a seller. Selling doesn't mean instant profit. Well, I I would agree because if you're buying, right, you may be buying something that again is more, and all of a sudden you're like, wait a moment, I was hoping to sell this and buy without taking a penny out of our pocket. And when there's the fees that are added, and when you look at the full picture, I would agree that selling doesn't mean instant profit. Now, I will say that for a few years there, I would have stated, hey, guess what? Yeah, there was definitely instant profit. Yeah. Yeah. But again, it just matters where are you going, right? If you already have a home or you know you know where you're going, you may be able to say, okay, now it is profitable. But if you don't know where you're going, right, again, that could tie right into, you know, the longer you go without knowing, could really cut into your profit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Every situation's different.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Buying requires ongoing investment. Well, again, I would agree that again, what we have to look at when we're buying a home is again, is, you know, are you doing this for one year, five years? Is this your lifetime home? Because at the end of the day, if it's there for one year, we're hoping to sell you something that guess what? You're not going to put a lot of money into. But every year, it used to be $1,500 a year, you could think you'd be putting into a new home. But now that number is approximately $5,000. So if I'm going to own a home for about five years, I have to think I'm probably putting $20 to $25,000 back into that home. Right?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Oh, yeah. Maintenance costs. So I would argue things aren't uh always built like they used to be. Usually a fridge that lasts 50 years. Oh, yeah. So much now.
SPEAKER_00No, five, six years. Oh, I get it. So, you know, but those things, appliances are one thing, but your larger high-scale items like siding, windows, roof, you've got to have yeah, very much so, right? In you know, uh making your home energy more energy efficient, as we've talked about. So maybe you're putting panels or you're going to heat pumps. So so you're always investing back in, and this is your biggest investment. So why wouldn't you to begin with? Uh get everything in writing. I agree. I agree too. But keep in mind that legally, texts, emails, right? Yes, the purchase and sale, but do not do it just via phone. No, make sure you have written information, and again, just make sure that your line is there and you can go back and say, yes, these were the conversations we've had.
SPEAKER_01All right, you know it again. We we do it, we see it all the time. It's as per our conversation, we discuss this and this and this. Talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Yeah, that's right. So let's do one more. Let's do it. Okay. Um, and when I talk about this one, it's very important because we've noticed many times that your needs, what you tell us, is not always what you buy. So you need to be up front about your needs and your budget. Because at the end of the day, your budget could change a little bit up or down. But our market right now, if we're telling you that this home is going to sell for 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 above, and your budget is already below that, very difficult to give you the certainty that you finally found a home you want. But guess what? Are you going to get that? Chances are we're going to set you up for disappointment, and that's the last thing we want you to do. And about your needs, how many times have you heard, well, we need three bedrooms, two bathrooms?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Let's go look at this two-bedroom, one bathroom.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Oh, no, wait. I like this one with five bedrooms, six bathrooms.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Right? It's only 75,000 above my budget.
SPEAKER_00See that all the time. See that all the time. So just keep in mind that we as realtors, again, again, we're not mind readers. We will work with you on almost any property you'd like to see. But again, we are going to try to rope you in sometimes to say, hey, wait a moment. Have your needs changed. And if they haven't, guess what? You know what?
SPEAKER_01We're gonna yeah, you know, I'll keep it going.
SPEAKER_00That's right. So I was going to end our podcast uh right there, but you know what? Let let's I I just do want to talk about uh one other thing. And I was bringing up about vices to your um uh earlier. Yes, and my vice is my phone. I'm on the phone all the time. So on most phones you can do your analytics, and you know, my phone's showing me eight to nine hours per day. I'm on that, and that's not all work, don't get me wrong, and that's my problem, right? The yes, there's entertainment, and yes, I'm scrolling, yes, I'm checking this out and that out. And so when I checked Mike's out, his was a little less. Um, but it he was 26% less this week. Uh, because we had the uh we we had that meeting, the training. Yeah, so he wasn't on his phone during see. So he's a good boy, he listened. Uh mine stayed the same. So that tells you what I was doing during the uh you were handling business too.
SPEAKER_01Every once in a while you he could duck out. Oh yeah, yeah. So it's not all, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Back in the day was Farmville, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, here we go. Oh yeah. So talking about vices, um, one thing I had mentioned to Michael earlier was that there was news that um another vice, smoking, in the UK. If you have if you were born January 1st, 2009 and onwards, you are prohibited from buying cigarettes in the UK. I just can't imagine I don't like I know. I mean, yes, don't get me wrong, they're dangerous. And yes, I mean, I don't smoke, you don't smoke, but there still is that level of freedom of choice.
SPEAKER_01I believe so, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and so at the end of the day, I know they tried that in I think it was New Zealand back in 2022. And then when um when a new government came in, they actually repealed that law. So I I I can appreciate that they're trying their best to save our children. At the end of the day, I just wish they'd do something about the nicotine in the cigarettes. I mean, start selling more of those pie cigarettes or whatever. Yeah, oh, I know. Yeah, the little candy sticks. And get rid of those bloody vapors, I'm telling you, because they're just as bad. I know. But but at the end of the day, if that is your advice, we're not here to take you away from that. But we just thought it was it's interesting. It it's interesting that they would take this kind of approach, yeah, as opposed to yeah, more education, yeah, yeah, more education, or or different ways to try to curb the younger generation from being, of course, hooked or addicted to this. So don't know what your advice is. I know that, like I said, most of us probably the cell phone is up there. Yeah, I'd say it's probably number one. Oh, yeah, yeah. But you know, listen, lots we talked about. Hopefully, you enjoyed it. What did you think?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely great topics. Really appreciate you bringing it to it. Was tension? Yeah. Uh that's all the time we have for today's again. I'm Michael.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Tim, and this is Off the Market with Team Somerville.
