473. 3 Buyer Mistakes Agents Can't Afford to Ignore in 2026

(upbeat music) - So Frank, this is working so well in today's marketplace. You know, one of the things that we're doing right now is reaching out to our agent partners. And you know, here's what you have to have. You gotta have talking points. You know, it's like how many of you are listening, you know, today and it's like, man, there's all these buyers and even sellers that have been sitting on the fence. And you know what it is, Frank, there's so much negative news. You and I know this, man, it's like there's everybody's got an opinion and it's like the feds dropping the fed, you know, for some, here's what cracks me up. I did a big reel to presentation to the six largest brokerage in Texas. My sweet friend owns it. And she said, Steve, come in, talk to all my agents. So, and it resonates with all of it. It's so relevant because it's like, the feds dropping the interest rates, the administration is gonna buy mortgage-backed securities. Rates are gonna just plummet and it creates all this uncertainty and buyers to like, you know, what do I do? - Yeah, well, now do I wait? - What do I do? - Yeah, maybe I should wait. Right, maybe, you know, and so the agents that I'm working with, they have all of these buyers last year, you know what they did? They've put things on hold. And so what I wanted to do is just share real quick and you and I can talk about it, but these four, like the number one mistake I see from buyers right now, and what I'm helping with agents is giving them what we call talking points. So every first of the year, I always try to find four or five talking points. And these talking points don't last forever, Frank, but they probably will last the majority of the year. And so this year, here's really what it is. The number one mistake buyers are doing or having right now is they're simply trying to time the market. Instead of making a decision, and here are the three things, and I know everybody here, you'll hear your clients and you'll hear the agents clients talking about it, and the problem is how do you overcome it? But the number one thing, guess what it is, Frank? - What? - I'm waiting for insert in. - Whatever, rates to drop. - Yeah, prices to drop, whatever it is. - Number one. - Yeah. - It's like, hey, I'm waiting in a, like I'm in this, how to overcome objections, you know, deal. But it's like, I'm waiting, that's number one. The number one objection, I'm waiting for rates to come down. And you know what's fascinating? When you look all the way back in, so I've got these charts and things that I've put together for me personally, because I literally am doing a realtor presentation in front of a group of realtors every week for the next 90 days. And it's just about empowering our partners to be able to have real conversations to overcome feeling with data. So did you know the, like if you look at the chart for home price, I mean, home interest rates, by decade, this is fascinating, listen this. So if I go in and I say, look at, and you can pull this up online, but it's mortgage rates by decade. The 70s, the median rate was 8.8, the 80s, 12.8, the 97.8, 2006.1, and the anomaly is in 2010 when we had the financial crisis in the beginning of COVID, the median rate was 4%. And guess what 2020, the 20s is, 6.2. So the median mortgage rate since all the way back to the early 70s is 7.1. So like when somebody's waiting on rates to come down, data-driven decisions, not emotional decisions, guess what, anything below 7.1 is profitable. Yeah, well not pretty good. Well just remember this a year ago, guess where we were at 6.8 to 7.5. I mean, and this year, and this one, I'm telling clients and agents, like you and I are seeing rates well-qualified buyers, refinances and the high fives. If the credits under 700, it's conventional, probably low sixes. I'm like, you gotta be, like we have to be shouting from the rooftop, and here's the other thing. People, I asked a group of agents yesterday, a whole room full of agents, and I said, the Fed dropped rates, what does it mean? They couldn't tell me. They were like, mortgage rates are going down, and it's like when you start educating, know that short term bank to bank overnight, living rates, like we have to help buyers know, anytime you're in the low six high fives, it is a remarkable time to buy. - Indeed. - All right, so number two, and here's a fun one too. So what do you think number two is I'm waiting for? - Prices to come down. - That's it! (laughing) - Man, I'm good, Steve. You didn't even know that I was gonna talk about this, but hey, that's number two. And it's like, 'cause there's three, and then you get a bonus, and I'm gonna share that with you real quick, but listen, this is so cool. All the way back since the 1940s. Do you know that the home prices have increased 73 times, and they've only gone down negative, it's five times, and two times they were neutral. - Like zero. - So like, and what's crazy is guess when the times that the market went negative, it was the financial crisis of 2008, nine, 10, 11, and 12, the recovery years. And other than that, and you can find this, like you can find the K-Shiller, that's all I did was I grabbed a K-Shiller graph, and it'll literally show how that the trajectory is, the median, like the home prices and values. Frank, if you're betting on data, the data says you're not gonna lose ground. And it's not a guarantee, but here's what I was sharing with the agents yesterday, Frank. And you can get this like our friend Barry's got it. I pulled one of his graphs, which was fantastic. And in Texas, and here's what I share with agents, you know what the, like the cumulative appreciation was for five years, people have no idea. It's 40.8%. So if I bought a 200,000-or house five years ago, that house grew, yeah, $80,000 in five years. And then Barry's part of this survey, I pulled the numbers and it's really cool 'cause Barry's one of the economists, they averaged, Fannie Mae, I saw a new report, came out last month and it said they're projecting, they had like the top, I think it was 20 or 30 economists, Barry was one of them, which was super cool. The average for the next five years was 20%. So they're projecting, not only did it grow 40.8% and for me, I look at Texas, but then it's projected another 20%. So when somebody says I'm waiting for prices to come down, what really happens, I'm waiting for rates to come down, it's emotional hope-based decisions as opposed to database decisions. And you know what I'm finding, agents, they know this intuitively, but they don't know how to communicate it. Here's the third one. And I'm not gonna ask you on this one, but I'll just say it. I'm waiting for inventory to improve. And what you'll hear, and I just saw the data for us that was released from the Houston Association of Realtors, and about three months ago, inventory was sitting at 5.4 months, which if you don't know what that means, it takes about five and a half months for a new listing to sell on average. And this last report that came out this last week showed that it's now at 4.5%. I've 4.5 months. So what that means is buyers are getting back into the game to buy houses and they're selling faster. Well, here's the challenge with that. If you're waiting for inventory to improve, you may wait past the buyer's advantage and here's the four things of a buyer's advantage. Number one, you can find the right house in the right location, in the right condition, at the right price. And see, I don't know about you, but Frank, whenever I remember four and a half years ago, I bought a house 'cause we were building our dream home and I needed a place to actually try to rent. I couldn't rent 'cause I got two dogs, three kids. I mean, it was almost impossible. The market was a little frenzy. I bought a house, side unseen, for 35,000 over list. And I had to close in like two and a half, three weeks. That was the demand because there were like seven or eight all the-- - The line of people. - Dude, and I paid over list, I paid all the sellers' expense except their realtor expense. And I had a short clip, like there was no advantage for buyers, it was all for sellers. And in today's environment, I'm waiting for inventory to improve the truth is you can find the right house in the right location, condition and price. And here's the bonus, you get seller contributions. Like people don't realize four years ago, that wouldn't even available. - It's impossible. - And now, yeah, I get not only the right house, but I get it in the location, condition and price. And here's the bonus, last week we had a ton of people close Frank, I had a $180,000 new home buyer by a $180,000 house. Listen this, they fixed the foundation, they put a new roof on and they gave them $5,000 in seller contributions on $180,000 home. And then I had a $650,000 client put 20% down, and guess what, they gave them 14,000 to cover his closing cost and prepaid items and the house appraised for more than what he bought it for. I mean, it's like, so it doesn't even matter the spectrum used to it was like, if your first time, you'll get it. You even have got a million. $1.2 million. Everybody is giving incentives. You know what? So it's like, in what I wanted to do today, and chime in on this, but those are the three talking points. List into this, save it, go back, get it transcribed, drop it in chat and say, give me some notes. But what I would tell you to do is this, that these conversations are not just, "Hey, will you work with me?" Conversations, these are conversations that are saying, "Hey, listen together. Let's go wake up some of the buyers that got on the fence, some of the sellers that hesitated with real documents and data, we can build a pipeline right now 'cause we gotta tell when." And I wanted to share that because when you have talking points, you are the expert. People will say, "Dude, I don't know there's something different about Steve. I gotta help because he's not just blabbing and saying I can pre-approved your clients, which we can, we're really good, but it's about empowering, equipping, partnering, and bringing value that helps them move clients forward." - Right, right. It is a team situation. I mean, we need them, they need us, right? - Oh, yeah. - If we can be those that provide talking points like this to help them revive a database of leads. I mean, come on, you're quite the asset on their team. I think what a lot of people are gonna be interested in, and this has been great, and we could probably just leave them with these thoughts that you've provided today, but I think another episode would definitely be Steve, like how can I get that appointment, and how can I get that presentation? How can I get in front of a group of agents, to give them this in type of information? And I think that would be a fun one to discuss later. - You know the simple answer, so we don't leave too much of a cliffhanger, and we'll do this on the next episode. Okay. - Remember one as you just call them and say, "Hey, if I could show you how to get six to eight additional leads with the list you already have, would you be open to a 15-minute conversation?" - There you go. - That's it. And I'm not gonna repeat it, just go back, listen to it, pull it off a transcript. But that's what I did, the whole presentation that I did for these agents, and everything I'm doing right now, is how to create six to eight opportunities in 30 days. Here's the key with the list of people you already have. - You already have. - That's it, man. That's the money. That is the money. - That is the money. - That's what agents are gonna say. They'll either say, "No, I'm good." But you know what I'm finding? It's my bigger agents that are saying, "Bro, this is regular." Because they need bandwidth. The smaller agents are like, "I'll do it myself, but I'm really finding that the teams, hey, we had one agent last week reach out to 20 of her past old cold leads, guess what? Three of them joined a conversation that we were having and two of them started moving forward. There you go. Game over, man. - It's a good deal. - 'Cause they need this help. They wanna do it, they know it intuitively, but they don't have talking points to share. - Right, right. - Wonderful stuff, man. - Hey, listen, if you guys won't help with it, go to, like, jump on a call with our team at freedomplanningcall.com and the team will walk you through a plan, how to reach out to the agents, help you with your talking points, freedomplanningcall.com. We are committed to your success. Frank and I are just, we believe this gonna be your best year ever. And we gotta tailwind. The key is take action, make the calls, have conversations. And so anything we're doing is we're doing badly, just get started. - Adios.