Ray Lane: Hey everybody. Welcome to See Tucson! And today, I’ve got a very special guest who’s going to talk to us about real estate and how real estate is doing in this covid pandemic and what you can do if you want or ready to start buying and selling properties.
Ray Lane: So with me my good friend Tony Ray Baker. Tony Ray, welcome to the show
Tony Ray Baker: Hi Ray, thank you for having me.
Ray Lane: Yeah, it’s really exciting to have you on here as we all know where we’re all going through this whole covid-19 pandemic and a lot of people are still locked at home, businesses are shut down. So what I wanted to find out is how is this affecting the real estate market, especially in the Tucson area right now?
Tony Ray Baker: Well there are a couple factors going on. It’s definitely affecting the market as far as how we do things. You know, we maneuver differently, for example, how we show property, how we help buyers, how we help sellers and then of course how we signed documents and all those fun things.
Tony Ray Baker: But what’s what’s very interesting is that that, now I’m talking Tucson and Pima County only, but other states have had different things going on obviously, but what’s interesting is that Tucson the inventory has been falling drastically since about 2016. If we go back in time and look at it and we’re out of an all-time low, probably in the 26 years. I’ve been in business. I haven’t seen it this low. We’re running one maybe one and a half months of inventory in a lot of cases, you want to be at six months of inventory for a healthier, you know, economy when it comes to housing. And so we have a bunch of buyers with a lot of money in hand wanting to buy, interest rates are really low. It’s encouraging them to make that move and then we have another issue which is sellers not willing to make the move yet because of covid so our inventory is going down and we’re not seeing that normal amount of inventory yet that we have come into the marketplace during the summertime and that’s creating pretty much the biggest all-out housing shortage I’ve ever seen in Tucson.
Tony Ray Baker: We are experiencing.. Well, we wrote an offer for a client on Saturday and it was 18 offers had already come in. The average were seeing right now on the last three or four offers we wrote last week, all of them had anywhere from 10 to 15 offers already in. Yeah, it is incredible and it’s it’s this is where experience and wisdom and all these things really get tested and are needed because we have to navigate differently to get the buyers that you know want these homes to get their offer accepted over somebody else’s offer you and in the case of sellers. It’s the same thing. How do we set the seller up to be as safe as possible during this this pandemic but also be able to sell their homes. And so we’re doing things completely differently, but that all being said my numbers that for me personally there. Are the same as last year? They’re not on an increase. They’re just good right the same. So that’s good news.
Tony Ray Baker: And when I look at the multiple listing service in the numbers that are going on. It’s interesting because we’re following if you look at the little graph that goes like this a lot. I like to look at stuff visual, but if you don’t get that, it’s all pretty much the same as 2019. So the Tucson markets so far has been following really close to the same numbers without an increase or decrease. Very close to the same. I think however, if we don’t get some inventory, we’re going to see obviously we’re going to show lower sales because we don’t have property to sell right.
Ray Lane: So let me ask you this if I was on the fence right now about selling my home. Is this the perfect time to really get out there and say “Hey, you know get my home sold because obviously with 18 buyers jumping in I’m assuming things are selling at nice high prices. US versus you know, you know any sort of Bargains that are going on.” Is that pretty much correct?
Tony Ray Baker: Yes, and no so I we have to look at each property individually, of course and where it’s located and its price range, but for example, if I’m going to make a blanket, you know on statement under 400,000 right now that’s where we’re seeing a massive amount of offer multiple offers and all that fun stuff if we just wrote an offer for Are 22,000 overprice it is a cash offer. So that’s okay because I don’t have to worry. We removed our appraisal contingency. So our buyer is willing to pay the over 20,000. They’re willing to waive appraisal. They want that house. That’s not okay when it comes to selling if you have a loan involved because yes, it’s perfect time to sell because you the seller can actually get full. A price what your home is worth and you’ll probably have a couple different options based on the different contracts.
Tony Ray Baker: You’ll have come in and the buyers are willing to compromise and help you in a lot of Weights. So that’s great for a seller getting more than the house is worth. Probably not unless you have a cash buyer because we still have an appraisal and we still have an investor and A lender that the lender investor is actually looking to make sure the asset is worth. You know, what you put on paper the other really interesting thing is though is that this is probably we’re looking at the most Equity position. We’d probably seen in history.
Tony Ray Baker: So we have sellers with tons and tons of money and Equity. So this is a great time not only to be a buyer or seller but to also be a buyer and that is because you sell your home you get full price. You probably negotiate everything you want as the seller to make the terms really agreeable for you and then you get to go buy another home you get to upgrade and when you upgrade your going to get one of the lowest interest rates we’ve ever seen and you’re also going to get more home for your money. So this is like taking the pinto payment getting rid of the pinto but getting the new Ferrari for the same amount of money. It’s a very interesting place right now.
Tony Ray Baker: So buyers are in a Position because they get to buy at low interest rates the bad positio is they’re fighting for property but as so that’s scary to for a seller if you’re going to become a buyer, but the reality is if you’ve got a great agent and your you have someone to help you navigate all this it’s again experience is the key here, then it’s a perfect time to sell. I mean, it’s a perfect time it everything is a win-win for a seller right now.
Ray Lane: Well, that’s good now as a seller. Is there anything that we should? Be looking to do right now to maximize this as far as you know, whether it deals with covid or just you know normal things that we should be doing. How should we be preparing for selling our homes?
Tony Ray Baker: So that’s a great question same as I would say same as always I you know, I do a walk-through with every Sellers and we look at stuff they may not remember or see on a daily basis because as we walk through our own homes, we forget there. There’s a little Mark over there on the wall or whatever because we’ve seen it so many times.
Tony Ray Baker: So I walk through with these sellers and make sure we’re looking at getting the house prepared. We call it a honey-do list and we give that to The Cellar to work on and we help them of course with people to come in if they need and stagings important and kind of depersonalizing the property a little bit not all completely but a little bit that’s all important as well.
Tony Ray Baker: But I think as a seller right now one of the biggest things to look for is how are you? How is the Agent going to help them navigate the situation with covid-19 happening. How do we show property? What technology are we using to get the buyer to see the property as much as possible before even entering the home? So to give you an example, we’ve sold probably three or four in the last 30 days where the buyer never stood in the house. Actually wrote an offer without seeing the home.
Ray Lane: Yeah, I’ve done that by the way, so I know the fears of that and the excitement of that at the same time.
Tony Ray Baker: Right and there’s ways to navigate that so we’ve actually we actually go to the property with our phone in hand. We can work through a couple different apps whether it’s Droid or Apple and we walk through the house with the buyer and we let the buyer dictate where we show and what we look at so we can move the camera. Round up and down and we can give our opinion on hey, there’s a stain on the ceiling. We need to investigate that more. This is the house you like but the cool thing is with technology like 360 degree virtual tours where buyers can do the walkthroughs and walking through with FaceTime or or Duo those things really help our buyers see that sellers home. So that all being said it’s imperative that the seller understands that and that their agent understands it. Because we need the selling agent to have the the means and connections to get the 360 amazing photo shoots the floor plans everything done pre-marketing so that the buyer can see all that before they need to go to the sellers house.
Tony Ray Baker: And I think that’s super important and in just my conversations lately with agents. I’ve actually had some that said when they did the 360-degree walk through there. Lies the house floor plan wasn’t going to work for them. So they never went and saw the house in person. And I’ve had the opposite effect on our 360 degree virtual tours is that they said we were sold on it just because we got to walk through every room of the house and so they just went to the property to verify so it’s a big shift that it’s it’s huge right now. And you know, I know some people that do these types of videos and 360s and Nothing and they actually told me they’ve been busier now than they’ve ever been during a pandemic.
Tony Ray Baker: So I hope so and and I’ll tell you it’s an enlightening situation because I’m a total nerd geek. I love building websites and playing with every type of gear. I love all that stuff and I never knew what I didn’t know which is the efficiency that comes with all this. We took two listings last week and I haven’t met the client or seen the house yet. But with technology I was able to walk with the client through their home create the honey do list talk about staging and actually get their home ready to go to market one has already sold. I’ve already put it on and sold within 6 hours.
Tony Ray Baker: So I still haven’t had the privilege of meeting my client and then buyers were doing the same thing. We’re working with the buyers were walking through and they’re coming in for inspections, but not actually seeing the And it’s a beautifully we have all closed. They’re all happy and man. It really has changed how much time we spend on the road and and how much time the consumer is out there. It’ll be interesting to see how all this lays out later because I think we’re learning there’s some new ways and new cool things we can do to help everybody in this in this time and Beyond because I don’t I don’t know if we’re ever going to go back to where you were or are. I’m getting enlightened on technology. I think.
Ray Lane: Oh, no doubt. We’re getting thrust into it whether we like it or not. So Tony Ray if you could tell everybody how they can reach you to make sure that when they’re ready to buy or sell a home they know exactly who to speak to and how to get it done quickly and efficiently, thank you.
Tony Ray Baker: Yeah, just call me at (520) 631-8669. That’s my cell phone. You can text me there as well. And my email is TonyRay@csonnsSeeTucsonHomes.com. And that is our website as well SeeTucsonHomes.com and yeah reach out anyway, and I’m also on facebook.com Tony Ray Baker so you can find me there and follow me on that and add love to hear from you.
Ray Lane: All right. Well, Tony Ray, thank you for joining us today. We really appreciate you taking the time to Enlighten us on the new world of real estate in this covid-19 pandemic and of course for all of you that are going through this if you’re ready to start buying or selling Selling a home.
