 Guys, right now is the time to go out and buy your dream home. So I've heard this statement a lot and I'm sure you have as well, that the Fed is on this mission to really crush the housing market. So I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the 2023 outlook for housing and what I'm seeing out there. I also want to talk about the huge opportunity right now, not even in 2023 right now for homeowners, for buyers, for agents and for investors. If this is your first time seeing me, I've been in the game for 21 years now as a real estate agent and investor. I've been through it all. I went through 2008, lost everything during that time. And that's really where I learned most of the lessons that I teach agents and investors today. And every single morning I read. I get up a little bit before five and I read for about 15 to 20 minutes before I get ready to go to the gym. And the book I'm reading right now I want to share with you. It's called Pitch Anything. This is by Oro and Claff and this is an amazing book. I want to really suggest this to you. If you're looking for a new read, pitch anything. Find that one on Amazon. And if you're wondering why I'm wearing a sweater, if you're used to watching my videos here, it's because the high today here in South Alabama is 20 degrees, which is extremely rare. So we've got an arctic blast coming through. Okay, so let's dive into this situation where people feel like the Fed's trying to crush the housing market. It's just not true. They have very little impact on the housing market. The mortgage rates are really correlated to the tenure treasury, which is really correlated to inflation. If you really compact and look at the macro of the last 40 years of data, compress it into a chart and look at it, you'll see that there's about a one to 2% spread from the tenure treasury to mortgage rates and it follows inflation. So it's quite the opposite from what people think. When you realize how all of this is correlated and you realize that the feds are raising rates to combat inflation and as they raise their rate to combat inflation, inflation starts to come down, you start to realize that as feds raise rates, it's gonna make mortgage rates go down because mortgage rates are gonna follow the tenure treasury, which follows inflation. Now, I know it's a little more complicated than what I'm saying, but this is the basics of it. And what we're seeing right now is inflation coming down. Is it shooting down? No, it's slowly coming down. It's gonna continue to slowly come down. All of this data is super lag. We don't get data for like a month or two after it's already happened. So a lot of times you can really feel what the market's doing, especially if you're in an industry that's tied to something that's happening with inflation. So that's one thing to really keep in mind here is that we're gonna see inflation come down and mortgage rates are going to follow. Another thing with the housing market moving forward in 2023 is inventory and supply and demand. You see, we have a massive, massive problem with supply and demand. We have less than a million active listings in a country with 340 million people. Back in 2006, when all this started to happen last time, when it was a real housing bubble, there were over 4 million active listings, right? And there were 4 million active listings with way less demand. Right now, we have less than a million active listings with way more demand. And yes, that demand is still there when you look at supply and demand. Even though demand has cooled from the mortgage rates increasing, the amount of demand that is still there is still way more than we can keep up with when it comes to supply. And now we even have home builders that are down 30%, right? And that number is gonna get worse. And they weren't even able to keep up with the demand before. And so they're absolutely not gonna be able to keep up with the demand now, right? And next year, we have a massive amount of people entering in to their prime buying years, age 33, right? And that's gonna continue for years and years and years to come. So we have tons of demand in the pipeline. We have a situation where we don't have enough inventory and we have a situation where since the Fed did raise rates so fast to combat inflation, inflation is coming down, which is gonna create a situation where mortgage rates come down. So we're gonna have the trifecta here. We're gonna have lower rates. Prices are still softening a little bit, not as quickly as they were, but prices are still softening just a tad. But because there's no inventory, it's hard for prices to go down any further from what they are now. And so what we're gonna see is favorable prices compared to what they were, favorable interest rates compared to what they were, and hardly any houses to choose from. Now, a lot of people are gonna say, oh, but inventory is just, is rising. You know, an inventory is way higher than it was last year. It's not even half. It's not even half of what it was pre-pandemic. And I'll say I even talk about what it was back in 2006 or any of those years. Let's just talk about pre-pandemic. 2017, 18, 19. We're not even back to half of the inventory that we were then. So yes, inventory is up right now from where it was last year. That's to be expected when you raise interest rates, but that's also seasonal. If you look at a graph and you look at active listings, you'll see that this is the time of year where we have more listings on the market. This is totally normal. And that number starts to decrease as we get into the first of the year and it starts to warm up for the spring. It happens every single year. So this is a normal seasonal cycle. So what we're gonna see is inventory get even worse as we do enter into this situation where springtime opens up, people are in their prime buying years, interest rates are gonna be coming down. So that's what we're looking at in my opinion. This is what I see. Now, another thing interesting, and let me get into the opportunities, and let's just talk about buyers for a second. Buyers right now, you can get a two to one buy down, which means you take 2% off of your rate, 2% off your rate for the full first year and 1% for the second year. And then you go back to what the rate would have been on the third year. But guess what? You can refinance during that time. If rates get down to a low enough number where it makes sense, you can refinance. So say right now, today as we speak, rates are at 6.3. A two to one buy down gets you 4.3% interest right now for your dream home. You walk into that home, you pay 4.3% interest. Next year, you're gonna pay 5.3% interest. Let's say that interest rates go down into the mid fives or low fives. You can refinance before the third year and maintain that low five interest rate. If rates stay around the low sixes, then you're good. You got two years where you got great rates. If it goes above the sixes, hey, you've got a lower rate. So think about that for yourself, if you're a buyer, for your clients, if you're a real estate agent. The two to one buy down right now where they can go out there and look at houses, have more options than they had last year. Sellers are more negotiable than they were last year. 32% of sellers paid some or all of the buyer's closing cost within the past six months, 32%. So right now, I believe that we're gonna look back right now and say, wow, this was one of the very best moments to buy because as we get into the spring, things are gonna heat up a little bit, right? As the weather warms up, as everybody gets into that buying season, if we go there and rates come down a tad and we have less inventory, where are we gonna be? We're gonna have so much demand, no inventory, right? Prices are gonna be at a really nice place along with rates. It's gonna be tough, I would think, as a buyer in that moment. But right now, you don't have that competition. There's more listings than we're gonna have later and you're gonna have more power to ask the seller to pay for that two to one buy down. Guys, right now's the time to go out and buy your dream home. Now, if you're a seller, here's the good news. We're still up around 40% from where the prices were on homes pre-pandemic. We're still up 40%, we're off the high, sure. But we're still up 40%, let me say it again, 40% from where we were pre-pandemic. So you're still getting this amazing price for your home. And the good news is on top of that is that because of inventory being so low and demand being so high, there's a really good chance that we're not gonna lose any more equity over the next year. If you're a real estate agent, listen, closings happen every single day, no matter what. Right now is an amazing time to go out there and create relationships and build your database and offer this two to one buy down to buyers and say, listen, let's go get you a 4.5% rate right now. Let's go get you a 4.5% rate right now. And you should be including this in your listing presentation. Hey, this is what I'm gonna be doing this different from the other agents to help my buyers be able to afford your price. And if you're an investor, same goes for you. Go out there and make offers on as many properties as you can right now. That's what I'm doing. I'm looking for apartment complexes right now in Florida, Georgia, Alabama. We're looking at offers, we're underwriting deals and we're making offers. And I think the real opportunity is gonna be throughout 2023, throughout 2024, more so 2023 for people who are in these adjustable rate mortgages that are coming to maturity, whereas their interest rates gonna be doubling or even tripling from where it was previously. That kind of situation can produce some really incredible deals in the multifamily and commercial sectors. So those are my thoughts. Let me know yours in the comments and if there's anything else in the world I can do to help you today. Have a good one.