Housing Bubble Fears Versus Real Inventory Numbers

And now live from our smokehouse studio, it's time for Real Estate Jerky. All your real estate questions answered by our provocatively lean expert hosts, Edward Ed Parcaut, MBA, veteran and president of Lending for Living. We'll give you something to chew on. Real Estate Jerky is on now. Welcome back to Real Estate Jerky. We always give you something to chew on. I'm your host Ed Parcaut, MBA veteran and president of Lending for Living. Our studio is located right here in Modesto with our producer Mike Murray and we're proud to bring you the latest updates and insights on the real estate market in our community. Thanks to our partnership with iHeartMedia and the station KFIV. You can tune in and never miss an episode by subscribing to our podcast.

Stay up to date by following on social media. Joining me today is Mike Kelly again, a Remax executive realtor. Mike, you ready to get going? One more time, yes. All right. Any major stuff happened since last week besides the election still going on and they're trying to get all the Democratic votes? Yeah. Oh my, yeah. They're looking for more Democrat uh ballots. We had to get the Republicans off. Yeah. Yeah. Not in a good way. Um this thing is just crazy. It's crazy, crazy, crazy how the how California The safe act needs to pass. It absolutely does. Cuz if you saw the map, it was like so red except for a few, you know, handful of counties. And you're like, how can we still lose? We all know how and why.

So, anyway uh That's it? How and why? You're done? Yeah. I I don't want to talk about it. Okay, let's move on. I'm so frustrated. But you want to do national numbers. Well, I don't want to talk about the war either cuz we, you know, that's still affecting numbers and Are we still at war? Uh well, not necessarily. If you talk to Congress, we're not. We're just there to protect everybody. Okay, good. Yeah. The War the War Powers Act and then a lot of the senators are like uh I think it's unconstitutional. But I'm not an attorney and I'm not a constitutionalist. Whatever. Yeah. Then why are you saying it? Constitutional expert. Yeah. All right, so let's talk about national numbers if that's what you want to do.

Um we we are here about real estate, finance and all the fun stuff. Yeah, let's do that. All right, so national numbers are up. Not not as much as we thought they were going to be, but they're up 7,000 7,000 795,921. So, they're up 1,635 From last week? From last week. Well, that's last week's numbers from the week before. And basically, there was a bunch of listings and then it lost a bunch of pendings. Right. But that's what our inventory is right now. And then we I don't know if we talked about this on here, but uh we did talk about it on our other show, Real Estate Jerky Daily, the fact that during the Great Recession cuz everybody keeps talking about um, you know, we're going to have this bubble.

It's still going to come and all that. And the only way it can come is if we have nationwide the amount of listings that we had added weekly, which was 250,000 to 400,000 listings per week. Per week. Did you that was that was just we'll ne we don't that's how we go through a problem. I know, I don't think so. We barely have we barely have 20,000 listings every other week or, you know, if you average it, we're probably like 5,000. So, we'd have to that's what people don't understand. There's no way we can have a bubble or any of this kind of stuff that people are wanting to unless something like that happens. So, if you save those numbers, that is very hard to do. And that would mean in California, we'd have to do 400 to 500 Do you think there's a possibility?

I haven't seen it in a while. Yeah. extra listings a month. I better start calling people. You ready? Okay. Well, the only problem is the worst part is there is less agents. And so if we did have something like that, how would you handle something like that? Back then we had more agents before they went away. They were still all hanging out going, what do I do? Well, let's do all these short sales and other stuff. With fewer agents, you're going to have to have a couple people on your on your crew, not necessarily a team um cuz I'm just not a believer in teams. Um they'll they'll finally destroy the real estate market. But Is that because there's no I in team? There's just a M and an E? Exactly, me.

I I said that in in '92. Did you? Yes, and I thought I came up with it, but I guess I didn't. Oh, you know, synchronicity. Things happen in different places at the same time. Oh, really? So, maybe one person was a minute ahead of you. That Phil Collins? Yes. That was actually the police. Oh, that's right. We can't talk about music and stuff like that. Oh, I guess we can talk out. We just can't sing it or have it played on the right on the station. Oh, we we can't we can't have the music. We can't sing it. Well, why can't I sing it other than the fact that I can't sing? Oh, you want to know why you can't sing it? Because I can't sing. Yeah. That's like when Marcy used to sing to the kids. They're like, Mommy, please don't stop.

What? We can't recognize And I actually think she has a good voice, so I don't know. We can't recognize that song that you're singing. Yeah. It sounds like uh anyway. Yeah. Um so, where were we? So, listings. That's where we are nationwide. Uh median list price Yeah, we're at 1,600 1635. So, median list price is is 450,000. Average days on the market still 56. But we are doing more price reductions. That's increased again to 36. 88. So, it is creeping up. When we first started talking about this earlier in the year, it was only 33 to 34. And now we're moving up. What does that mean? Price it right from the beginning. Don't listen to your sellers. Sellers listen to your agents. They know what's going on.

You know, that's like going into work and you're doing your job and your customer comes in and trying to tell you how to do your job. Listings. So, we're up a thousand? Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah. Have you you've been doing this for a while? No, no, but I just got an idea that this will work better if you do it this way. I've been working on this oil rig for 20 years and and you're you just need gas down the street and you stop by here and tell me how to do the oil? Yeah. Don't do it. You're listening to Real Estate Jerky. I'm Ed Parcaut, MBA veteran and mortgage advisor at Lending for Living alongside Remax executive realtor Mike Kelly. All right, so what do you want to get into California numbers?

Or is there anything you want to add to that before we move on? Yeah. No, just yes, I do want to add to that. Seriously, listen to your real estate agent or your realtor. They've been doing it for a while, especially if they've been doing it for a while. They have a pulse on the market. They know what price is going to get your home sold. And I know your home is better than everybody else's, but it's really not. Um Well, they don't understand the difference in pricing of a home. Uh a lot of people go, I have an extra bedroom. That's worth $30,000. No, it's not. Really? What does an appraiser give a bedroom? Um I five grand. Exactly. Uh I have this extra shop in the back that I spent 100 grand on.

Okay, well, that's like 2,500 bucks in today's world. Exactly. And that's going to excite um seven out of the 10 buyers that are potentially going to buy your property, but they don't want to pay more for it. Well, the since I brought this up, the one thing that's nice about the VA loan now, if you have like sheds and certain things in the in the on the property, the appraisers don't have to include that in value and or if there's something wrong with it, have it repaired where before if there was issues with it, you'd have to have it tore down or fixed. So, they have come up and had new things that have happened, which is good. I just thought I'd throw that in there. Right. Well, it used to be anything bigger than a dog house, right?

Anything at all. That what, you know, you can't mess with a dog house, but yeah, any place that was any, you know, water pumps to shed, you name it. If it was there and it was decaying, you would have to deal with it. Yeah. You'd have to fix it or tear it down. Tear down. And what we do a lot of times in up there in the hills, sometimes you have a really bad deck or anywhere, you just tear the deck down and put steps. Yeah. Well, that's less less expensive. And then what you can do Well, just to get the house sold, they were going to do the deck afterwards. But remember, if it's a two-story deck, you're going to have to close off the sliding glass door and whatever else that would come out to.

You'd have to put something across there like a metal grate or whatever. Right. Because someone might step out? Yeah. First step is a doozy. It's it's a it's a it's a big one. Do we have time for California um numbers? Yes. Unless you do it really slow. So, no. Oh, that would be way slow. Um California housing market according to Redfin says we have 102,995 homes. Now, they're just paying attention to single-family homes. How come you don't own a car? Um well, because car doesn't they break it down to every county, but they don't have a this is the total number at the end. Okay. Got you. Which is the dumbest thing in the world, I believe. Um Well, do you think people only care about their county?

Well, realtor yeah, realtors are living in their own county, but you know, we, you know, you and I, we kind of prefer to know what the heck is going on statewide. Realtors. com, they're always about 50,000 higher. So, they're 154,801. Of course, that's everything single-family one to four. Um one to four means single-family home to duplex, triplex, fourplex. So, there. So, what was the total number? 154 I know I know you do that all the time. 154,801. I stopped listening to you when you started talking. No, I don't. I just you can't for everything. Everybody else listens to me. Yeah, but so for everything was how many? 154,801. And for just single-family homes was 102. 102. All right, so that was close.

Yep, you are very close. And you know, it's okay that my voice uh has a tendency to put you to sleep, but because it never bothered me. Um if we move into Stanislaus County, which I'd like to do, uh we're active on the market right now. Um about uh five lower than last week at 6. 99, but we're up five pending sales. I'm sorry. So, what was our closing? That means no new listings. Our closings are 317. That's just for the month of May. Right. So, April was higher, March was higher. March considerably higher. But the but in the three last three months, those are the highest numbers that then in the last year. Or two maybe. Yeah. So, I mean activity activity is present. There's still a very large demand for property um in certain price ranges, even a larger demand like the four to 500s.

Uh but 699 homes, that's not a lot for 2,000 realtors to uh try to sell. No, and then we were given an article by our illustrious producer. Yeah. But it was from the problem first thing I see problem with it is not the title. You know, sellers are pulling homes off the market the fast pace since 2020. Who wrote the article? Dana Olick. Right. Oh. She has never liked a real estate market in her life. Ever. Ever. Even when it was during things going crazy and good. This is really bad and we're not going to have. So, she her key points were nationwide 5. 8% of all home listings were pulled off the market in April according to Redfin. So, five so it's like so let's just round it up. So, six homes for every 100 homes on the market were taken off.

Okay. That seems like a pretty average number to me. Listings were up 3. 8% compared to with March. So, that let's round that up. Four out of every 100. Atlanta saw the most homes pulled off the market as higher mortgage rates and elevation gas prices weigh on the market. Uh and then it was summertime, so of course, it's humidity uh also in there. Yeah, you don't have people from other states going over there saying this is a good place to live. No, you only do it been a winner. So if you look at the nationwide numbers, I don't think that's that really big of a deal, but I can understand in April or actually we just started the war, rates started going up and people like people aren't looking.

I think the biggest headache right now for that I've seen, not so much with this, but with Redfin, not Redfin, uh Airbnb and VRBO, I was reading some stuff where people are like, hey, are you guys having trouble with your listings because um I've had nobody looking, you know, we're down 50% of the amount of people who normally take our home. And I know somebody we both know, their thing was not rented at all during a certain month. And I think a lot of it has to do with gas prices. People are not driving far all over the place to go to places because they can't afford it. Right. Yeah, so you bring you bring your prices down to kind of offset that that traveling expense. Well, you just don't go as far or, you know, and it's So if we go through this list, they said Atlanta saw the highest share of homes like I just said come off the market in April um with one in 10 delisted.

San Jose, California followed with roughly 9% pulled and then well, what did we say the median price in San Jose was last week? 1. 5 million. Yeah, so that's half a percent in a rate really is expensive on something like that. Yeah. No kidding. And then Los Angeles 7. 8%, Dallas 7. 8%, and Seattle 7. 7%. Back to Dallas, they've had 111 companies come to Dallas in the last couple years. Yeah, wonder why. Oh, I And did they come Well, they came from New York and California. Yeah. Well, yeah, I get New York, too. Yeah, but I'm just saying because I've talked to Brian Gawk all the time and he's constantly at some type of event constantly there. Oh, about a million Just everywhere. And then I was like, hey, did you know And I could see how they're booming now in Dallas and a lot of the events are going to Dallas because it's in the middle, not really in the middle, but closer to the middle.

Because if I want to event in Florida from here, it's a 6-hour flight. Plus it costs a lot of money now with the new gases and then the, you know, the airline stuff. But if I go And everybody used to go to Vegas. Well, now they're not going to Vegas and Vegas is down. Everybody not go is not going there and so they're all going to Dallas. Yeah. Right. Right. I didn't know that. It's interesting. Yeah. I'm going there in August. So it's just like, okay, I now I know why you're doing it in August in Dallas because Because it's cheap, right? Yeah, it's humid. That's like going to, you know, doing events in July in Vegas. It's Or the realers had a uh our third meeting of the year in Palm Springs in July.

And guess what it is in July in Palm Springs? 112? Yeah, yeah. Depending on It's like here but add a little bit. It's like here but no trees. Yeah, exactly. No shade. They have Well, they have palm trees. They don't throw a lot of shade, do they? Well, you hope they don't. Depend on how how tall they are if you could you can stand a block and a half away and get in that shady spot. When it comes to palm trees, I look to where they're crossed because I know that's where the the treasure is or in and out. Or what Or in and out, yeah. All right, so so what we're saying is in April things This whole article talks The bottom line part of this article is about the fact that rates went up and that had to do with why everything happened.

But for as much as rates went up, they were still 1% lower than a year ago at the same time. That's why we didn't see as much We didn't see 20% pull off the market or that And if you start seeing, I say double digits coming off the market, then you might have an issue. You're listening to Real Estate Jerky. I'm Ed Parco, NBA veteran and mortgage advisor at Lending for Living alongside REMAX executive realtor Mike Kelly. So there you go. What do you think? Yeah. Well, I I think that the the interesting thing is when you look at 5. 9% or whatever that number was that delisted 6%, it'd be interesting to go in if you could talk to every single seller and say, why did you pull off? What reason did you pull off the market?

Um you know, there's a myriad of reasons and sometimes it has nothing to do with the market, you know. It could be a familial thing. Well, this is what they're saying. Increase comes from higher mortgage rates, elevated gas prices, and weaker consumer confidence take their toll on housing demand. Sellers are no longer in the driver's seat and aren't getting the prices they want. They haven't been in the driver's seat for a couple years. Yeah. Well, they have a passenger who's in the front seat now, too. Well, the problem is they have So that you do have to negotiate. They have two steering wheels. That's the problem. Exactly. And the buyer's turning to the right and the seller's turning to the left.

Well, they're just There's only one person going to buy the house anyway. There's still more I have right now in Turlock County, there's still multiple offers on certain homes. And those are the homes that are priced right and or have a little issue that needs to be done that nobody wants to deal with. And then the buyer can deal with it. So they're out there. It's just it's the low end, you know, 500,000 below is going to fly off the shelf. Exactly. Right. And they do. A million plus in our area is going to take a little bit. Um but the higher end buyers have money. They have cash. They still have stuff and they still are buying. And sometimes they finance themselves. Because I had somebody who's selling in Tracy call me from our daily podcast and they're buying Discovery Bay pretty much almost all cash for one, you know, 1.

4. So that tells you those people are out there. Right. Wow. Yep. Yeah, that's that built-up equity they've had for a long time and probably out there, you know, money market. So Well, it's not it's definitely not NVIDIA anymore. They've already done their business. That NVIDIA cash? Yeah, they had a lot of it. Uh but, you know, a lot of people are worried about new home sales and everything else that's going on because I we I we haven't talked about the National Home Builder Index for a while, but it's still down, but it's at the point where Berkshire Hathaway, who always buys stuff whenever the people are running from them, just bought Taylor Morrison for 6. 8 billion in cash. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the cash.

Right there, you're right there. Take a minute to say that. Yeah, that's a lot of cash going to one place. They they have a What did Where was it at? I can't I read this article earlier because we talked about it I think earlier in the week or last week. They have a lot of properties that Taylor Morrison has and or built. Um they are number six among Builder Magazine's top 100 home builders. Right. Yeah, I wonder is DR Horton still number one, I would imagine. They're huge. I don't know. I'm I'm dealing with one right now with a reverse mortgage for purchase. Yeah. Yeah. A DR Horton home? Yeah. Okay. Um No, I'm sorry, KB. Oh, they're still around. Yes. They still building that tri-level? That was such a popular floor plan back in the early '80s.

Not here. Oh, it was hugely popular. In In In Colorado? No, it was it was popular over off of um Kansas in Morse. There was a KB subdivision over there and I would say probably every third home was a tri-level because that's the plan buyers were picking. It was so different from the normal just walk in. Yeah, because you want to have to go upstairs and then go upstairs because with bad knees for constant Forever, yeah. You walk in the entryway and you got to either go up or down. Yeah, no thank you. Yeah. Well, I mean, so like in Colorado they have that they most homes are a tri some type of a tri-level or they have a part that goes downstairs that's goes out to the back for some reason. Yeah, and that Right, the the walk out.

That's like Colorado where you get the walk out. That's what I just said. I know. It's that Wait, that sounded so familiar. Okay. Um So uh yeah, so if they're buying builders because Berkshire Hathaway doesn't do anything, they're never dumb on their purchases, they never mess up, that tells you home home builders are slow right now, but there's a potential down the road they're they're going to be because they're going to have to build. We're so far behind our homes and we're not just going to count, you know, take existing home sales to make up for it. We need new homes. Right. Well, they're definitely not building building it to dismantle it. No, they also need I think the other thing is another builder, I forget their name, they're really going into the um print a home business.

You know, the one where they're Yeah, what is that called? Uh Thank you. Yeah, with and with concrete. Yeah, that's their big play. Oh, yeah. The 3D printing? Yeah. That's an interesting concept. I think it's a great concept. It's just the problem is it's going to be like cinder block homes, meaning that really hard to screw things to the wall. That's my first concern. How am I going to hang my paintings? Well, I I have a person I know that has a cinder block home and they want to add on to it, but it's just a pain. You can't just add on the way you want to add on. Even if you build with wood and add on to it, you just have certain things that are there that you can't move. No. This is very very true.

It makes it very difficult. Yes, very much so. Um you know what I want to do? I'm going to do it. This is Real Estate Jerky on PowerTalk 1360 KFYV and I'm Mike Kelly, REMAX executive realtor here in the Central Valley alongside Ed Parco, NBA veteran, mortgage expert, and president of Lending for Living. And we were just discussing um all kinds of things. It It was It was the builder being purchased, Taylor Morrison, right? Correct. I'm I'm surprised I remembered that in like 2 seconds. They actually build a pretty nice home. Well, you know, I when I when I pause, it's like a hard reset. It's like started restarting a computer. Oh, we talked in the first segment we talked about uh listings. We talked about nationwide, local, and and California.

And then we got into uh Berkshire Hathaway bought Taylor Morrison for 6. 8 billion and how sellers were how the article from Diana Olick um I didn't believe. Talked about people delisting and that this horrible thing. Yeah, they're not really delisting. I mean, Florida was one in They were losing a lot and that's not where, you know, that back when they couple months, you know, last year that we were talking about and they and they were losing a lot. For every 100, they were losing uh 10 at that time or more. It was more than that. It was it was probably 20 or 30% delisting. You there? That's a lot. I mean, I just Yeah. That was last year, though. And again And that had a lot to do with the condos needing to be retrofitted, correct?

Correct. And so what would happen is nobody would sell. They'd be dropping their prices and then a builder would come in and buy the whole place and then just tear it down and build new again. Yeah, with all the new upgrades. Yeah, and to sell each one for a million. They are expensive over there. It's a nice place to live, I understand. You know, we got another 4 months of the year. No, it's more than that. Is it? 3 months is when it's too warm with humidity. Okay. Yeah, that would be probably uh June, July, August, September is probably the worst months. Yeah. Gotcha. All right, so back to since we're talking about we were talking about California and talking about other things that builders and stuff like that want There's 30 best places to live in California and they're and they're not Modesto.

Yeah. Really? Yeah. Wait, what are the top 16? They're all in Palo Alto. Which Which blew me away. I'd not for me. It's a beautiful place. They have money. I just didn't think it would be all the way down 16 places. Well, it'd be like if you're in San Diego, what's the best places to live? I don't know. Carlsbad, Encinitas, uh on the beach. But does everybody live there? No. So I I could see that because it's a totally different place. I mean, you have all the tech people and all the tech people buy where they live they work and they have a lot of money. So I could see that. It would increase the the nicety of it, yes. I mean, Berkeley is on there twice. Why? Isn't it? Well, because they, you know, liberals have to another place to live.

Oh. Santa Monica is on there, Ventura. I was like, really? Ventura, Torrance, really? Los Angeles, Los Angeles. Green Acres. North University Park, Los Angeles and Westwood is an These are all neighborhoods in Los Angeles. They probably have gated communities. They're all expensive on I I I lived in LA for a while. I don't know where those two are in LA. Westwood, I I painted a couple places in Westwood um but I that was so long ago, I can't remember the the quality of the area. Well, there also was North Park in San Diego. It's like that's four from the end. So what is this 30? So it'd be like 26. Uh I am shocked because San Diego to me is like the one of the best places to live. Yeah. Yeah, just very because that's the temperature year round.

Palo Alto is nice, but you can never get up, you know, there's the how warm does it get? Do you have enough to get a pool? Not really. Yeah. Not really, but you do have an ocean close by. Yeah, cold. Sharks. Yeah, Marsha would say uh that would, you know, she hates the beaches here because the water is cold. And well, not only that, it's the kelp. I remember when we did our first triathlon in Santa Cruz. And you know, I'm good with it cuz I used to dive in San Diego. It's no big deal. You have to learn how to go through the kelp crawl so that you wouldn't get pulled down and everything. Yeah. And the stuff's all over. And my worst thing was it's the trash in the in the ocean. Yes. Oh. Right. Stay pulled down.

In the ocean. Yeah. That is no bueno. So there's no places like I said in the Central Valley that we are that we have here. And but if you look at the map from the uh election this week, you all these places on here are all in those areas that are voting for other things. And people wonder why they vote the way they do. It's because of the area they're in. They have everybody's the same. Yeah. They're not suffering. They're not having the issues that that we have in the rest of the areas. No, and they're making they make a lot of money, so taxes doesn't matter to them. You when you make a a million you know, $20 million off of yourself and you have to pay some taxes, nobody cares to a certain point.

Well, you know, the the millionaire tax is going to bug them. Should give them up riled. Yeah, you would think. But I listened to uh what's uh Pocahontas this week on a thing. What's her name? What's her name? Is she still talking? Elizabeth Warren. Thank you. And she's talking about that tax, right? The over on 50 million and 51 million and above. It's only 2 cents on the dollar. So what you're saying is 2% tax. Don't say 2 cents cuz it sounds like nothing if they say 2 cents. Yeah. And that's and I'm like going, okay, so that's just that's so 2% of 100 million is how much, Mike? 10 million? 20 million? I don't know. I can't think about it in my head right now. I was looking for my calculator.

But 1% of 100 million would uh well 10% of 100 million would be 10 million. So it'd be 1% would be a million. So it'd be 2 million. I know you were. Yeah. That's I'm sorry, but that's not chump change. It's not. Don't be trying to take that money from me. And they earned it. Spending it stupidly. Yeah, and that's the other thing they were talking and they said, you know what? The problem is is the fact that you have wasted so much there's so much fraud going on and so much cost right now and the budget is so big and the whole thing. At what point do you scale that back and then look at maybe doing these types of taxes? But they never want to scale back. You're listening to Real Estate Jerky. I'm Ed Barko, NBA veteran and mortgage advisor at Lending for Living, alongside Remax executive realtor Mike Hill.

That's our biggest problem all the time. They always want more money. They can never live within their budget. Well, if you don't have to earn it, of course you're not going to live within your budget. Yeah. Is that true? It's like if you get a credit card to a kid, they have no understanding. And they never have to pay it off. Yeah, they have no understanding. That's why credit cards are the worst things to use because it cash you use the cash you have or you don't because you don't want to use the cash you have. But when it's somebody else's money, that's different. People spend other people's money totally differently than they spend their own money. Yeah. Cuz there's no pain. There's no pain when you go to the bank and go, I have fewer dollars.

Is that what they go? That's what they say. Okay, if you say so. So um what about the the 30th city? The 30th best city? Which is it? I want to I'm going to tell you right now. Yeah, you have to look it up. I thought it was still open. Um Carmel Valley Village. Yeah, in Carmel Valley, San Diego. North County San Diego right next to Del Mar. There's Carmel Valley. Oh, okay. See, I don't I've only been to San Diego a few times and I haven't spent a lot of time there, so don't worry. I know. It's a nice place. It's a nice place. I mean, you you know, that's right off of uh uh Del Mar Heights Road. You you get off on Carmel and you go back in there and that's where there is the one of the last Robertos down there.

Roberto's Tacos had uh three rolled tacos with guacamole and carne asada burritos that were just unbelievable. You couldn't get it outside of San Diego County the same way. Once you went to LA, they make it totally different. Um the only other place that I've seen a Roberto's was in uh Barstow. Wow. Arizona? California. What? But that was back in the day when I was down in the Navy. The Robertos were everywhere. And the guy who set it up, everybody, you know, they're all little franchises, but they're all Robertos. And then he pissed them all off. And next thing you know, it's Ubertos and Robertos and all the other type of things. Really? Yeah, cuz they all went away from them. But they were all the same stuff.

And they're all they were really good fast food um Mexican food that was really good. Yeah, so. But that's the last one. The problem is it's not as good as the one that's in Lacadia. And you're going to say, where's Lacadia? That's on the other side of Del Mar going north. Oh, where's Lacadia? You said I was going to say it. Yeah. Um I just don't know I just don't know the San Diego area at all really. I know everything about San Diego, LA, all of California. I've driven it all. When I was first out of the Navy, I did some stuff where all the military exchange systems. So I went to all the military bases in in California. So I got to know every place. Wow, that's very very cool. I only knew the kind of downtown area, the Hilton on the Beach and that area for and the convention center.

You mean talking to San Diego? Yeah, San Diego because of uh CAR meetings, California Association of Realtors. Well, that's a nice place, but it's not the same. North County is a totally different world. And I liked them way better than San Diego. Well, I didn't like it that I mean, I love the beach. I love the setting. I didn't like it during the time where they were uh disinfecting sidewalks because of the homeless. Yeah, well that's downtown. That's well, they've done better, but yeah, that's the biggest problem everywhere in California because if you become if you give things away for free, people come. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. And then you got to keep giving them. And then that way you can, you know, have an NGO and just waste that money and get rich.

Yeah, don't feed the bears. Don't feed the bears. All right, so we talked about the best places to live. Carmel Valley was number three. 30 29 was again Berkeley. Um I don't know. I mean, going to Berkeley, it seems like a nice place. I just seem that I just hear about the school, you know, that's totally liberal and whatever. Yeah, well we talk about the Republic of Berkeley, you know, a lot of times and Oh, dear. Yeah, we in the Central Valley just think it's a lunatic bin. So according to our producer, he thinks the best places to live in California is in the valley or mountains. Really? Okay, but he lives in Sacramento, so. Yeah. The one thing I like about Sacramento is it cools down at night much faster than we do.

Yeah, you got that little delta breeze there going on. We have a delta breeze too, but it just takes longer to get to us. Yeah, and it warms up. As it keeps coming across. I mean, cuz the last few nights it's gotten much cooler and uh so yes, it has. Much faster. Real Estate Jerky on Power Talk 1360 KFIV is always bringing you the latest information on the real estate industry. And if you have any questions or comments about our discussion today, feel free to email us at radio@realestatejerky. com. All right, we're going to talk about a lot of stuff today. Uh inventory is up only a little bit nationwide, local, and California. And we'd have to have 250,000 more to 400,000 listings per week to go into a bubble.

Um but one of the things that we didn't talk about, we talked about our show this week that actually went pretty viral was um what they're trying to do to veterans. They passed a thing through the house where um if you have a VA loan and you do a refinance, instead of the half a percent for the funding fee, they're trying to make it one and a half so that they can fund to get more benefits for veterans through people doing loans. Well, that's and my problem with that is I want to help vets because I am a vet. Um they're trying to make it to where National Guard active duty status is no longer at 90 days if you go get deployed. It's down to like two or three weeks you can and it include a lot more veterans, which I'm all good with.

Yeah, well not only that, but other benefits. And I'm good with that. But the problem is the fact that they're trying to get a group, us veterans, to pay for our own thing going forward when the VA funding fee on a purchase and refinance was to cover the fact that if something happens on the VA loan, they have the money to cover it. That's what the funding fee is for. Then in case you which the problem is our delinquency rates on VA loans are so low, they probably never use that money and just sits there. Well, that's what it's for. But they're trying to make it to where a group, there's no other group out there that has to pay some way to get the benefits that they have except for veterans they're trying to do.

Yeah, they they shouldn't have to pay any additional ever ever ever ever. It should be automatically given to us by the government. And cuz they do it for everybody else, but for some reason veterans to get what we need, we have to figure a way for us to get our own stuff and pay for it ourselves. Yep. Yeah. And that's what irritated me. And they cut it up and it went pretty viral because of that because that's it's went through the house and it has to go in the senate. I just hope some senator wakes up and go, this is ridiculous. We want to do this, but why are we making them pay for it? Yeah. It's expanding. I get that. I want it expanded. However, don't make me pay for it. I mean, I don't have to cuz I'm disabled vet.

Well, but you're asking a handful of veterans to pay for it. You're asking uh 18 there's 18 million veterans. Only about six and a half to seven have a disability where they don't have to pay the funding fee. So you're asking 12 million veterans to pay for it if they use a VA loan. That's crazy. It's it's just it's the wrong way of thinking. It should come elsewhere. Yeah, but I They should be rewarded for their service. It should just be an automatic thing. You're we want to give this to them. Let's make the changes. Okay, thank you. Not hey, let's fund it by using something they do. So it's going to cost so much more money to do to do refinances for people and or purchases that the VA loan will not be used as much.

Right. Yeah, anytime you raise the the cost of purchasing a property, I'm against. Period end of conversation. Anything to increase the cost of a loan, I'm against. Yeah. And anything to get rid of the VA loan since it just became so amazing, I have a problem with. Yeah, I have a problem with too because it is a fantastic loan. Yeah, I use it a lot. Yeah. That's pretty much 80% of my business is a VA loan. And it's funny, I talked to a person who was looking to change and she's like, well, I go, what's your favorite person? Well, I like helping vets. Okay, who is, you know, but you're not a vet. So not against. I can't say you can't help with vet if you're not a vet. But I'm just saying who you can't just I like helping vet.

You got to figure that out and that's who your niche is and only go after your niche. Right. All right, so what home improvements are tax deductible in 2026, Mike Kelly? I don't know. I couldn't get that article to open up, so you're going to have to really kind of run with it. Yeah, it would not open. It just kept throwing crap stuff in front of it. And I kept hitting X X X X X. Really? I just rolled down scrolled down and it's right there. So what home improvements are tax deductible in 2026? Energy efficiency home improvement credit. Yeah. I was going to say, do you want me to guess? You get up to 3200 for energy efficient improvements made after January 1st, 2023. Credit covers 30% of qualifying expenses with limits for different types of improvement placed in service before December 31, 2025.

What? Does that energy efficient thing Why are we even talking about this if it's no longer available? Yeah, does that energy thing includes solar? No, it's replacing windows. No. New roof is BIOMAS. Yeah, BIOMASS stoves aren't cooking stoves. They burn biomass fuel to heat our home or water. Oh, jeez. Is that like a heat pump? It's got to be. Uh home audits. Uh well, clean energy home improvements. Yeah, I don't think solar panels are included in that anymore. Geothermal heat pumps. It's because the normal heater you get now can't do anything. I'm talking to a air person. He's like, yeah, if I put in a new heater, I tell everybody I'll see you all winter long cuz it will break. Oh, because because the new units are are built to fall apart?

Yes, because of the fact that with all the restrictions. Regulations in California. Yes, exactly. That's why we need to change. You can buy them elsewhere and bring them in. No, no, you cannot. Don't even do it. It's a you'll go to jail. Yeah, jail? I'm just kidding. Yeah, you'll go to energy efficiency jail. You're You're listening to Real Estate Jerky. I'm Ed Parcaut, MBA veteran and mortgage advisor at Lending for Living alongside Re/Max Executive Realtor Mike Kelly. If you have questions or comments for us, feel free to reach out to us by emailing us at radio@realestatejerky. com. You have questions about VA loans, go to loansquad. com. You have questions about reverse mortgages, go to lendingforliving.

com. Questions about probate, go to mikekellyrealtor. com. Yes, please. On all of those, all of the above. Yeah. Replacing old pipes, we did that. We didn't have a choice. Yeah, we didn't have a choice. Did you? Yeah. When you found When they dug up the sewer line uh for the pool, uh it's really hard to put it back. Yeah, you had to had to do a workaround. Yeah, and they had to start from the garage raise and I explained to somebody they had to raise it up a little bit to to have enough slant all the way to the thing. Yeah. Otherwise, I could They wanted to put in a pump station and I said no. Yeah. I'm not going to sit there and smell a pump station. You don't want to smell a pump station. Well, they're saying oh it'd be fine.

No, I'll smell it. I have that nose. You know, in my neighborhood they're starting to Actually, cast iron pipes are starting to fail. That was one of my Yeah. The waistlines, yeah. And We were one of the last ones in our in our area to to replace everything with ABS. Yeah. And I know they thought oh this stuff's going to last forever, but it rusts from the inside out. Yeah, it's pretty nasty. Yeah. Especially the sewer pipe one. Yeah, cuz it hangs on to everything. Well, it just makes pits in there and then it grabs everything as it gets going. Yep. I have two homes in escrow right now that both have an issue with their uh waistline on the cast iron. Oh, that's horrible. And I The problem with us is every plumber in the past that came out and did stuff, they said the thing was the sewers in the street in the front of us when there is a sewer in the front of us, but that's for the people across the street and the people behind them that come through their property to go to that sewer line.

And ours is in the back where they used to have an alley that's no longer there. Across the street. Yeah, that was abandoned years ago. Yep. Uh they're talking about modified smoke detectors for those with disabilities, blindness, or hard of hearing. Changing out your smoke detectors for ones that flashlights emit louder noises can qualify. Smart monitoring systems, water leak detectors. I I actually would like to change it out to where it just flashes. Yeah, that would be cool. That's only good for the uh The way Marsha cooks. I'm just kidding. I had one in the kitchen and it would catch uh Yeah, so I had to just take it down. Take it down. Oh, it'd go off all the time. Yeah, it's just too close.

Yeah, it's too close. Um I I want them to come up with a smoke detector for the um blind and the hearing or the deaf that just comes up and taps you. Yeah, that's your wife. Get up. The house is on fire. Yeah, time to go. Um smoke detectors all all have to be good for 10 years and you And you can't change the battery. You have to throw it away and buy another 10-year. Yeah, they have the batteries now that last for 10 years. That was a very good lobbyist there. Well, the No, that's just Nobody replaced the batteries. Nobody remembered to do the 9-volt every year. Well, and what I came to understand is after about 3 weeks nobody hears the beep. I know it's No, because they take knock it down. Yeah.

They unhook it. That's why. And the ones that were connected to electric with electric on the newer homes, you still had to have a battery in it. It still beeped. Well, my kids when they lived in Texas every time I visit them I said you don't hear that beep anymore? No. Well, then the beep followed them to Colorado. You know what it was? Mm-mm. It was newish smoke detector still in the package that somehow the thing got pulled that the batteries had died on and they were beeping in the closet. Well, guess what? Oh. It's time. That's right. We got to go. Appreciate you being here today. Uh thank you, Mike. Thank you for listening to us. We really appreciate you. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can find us via the web, social media, or you can shoot us an email at radio@realestatejerky.

com. Give me a call, Ed Parcaut, at 209-404-1915. Reach out to Mike Kelly at 209-968-5633. If you missed any of the shows, don't worry. You can catch up via podcast wherever you find your favorite podcast at. And we're proud to live in this country. You can build personal wealth through home ownership. It's still possible. Join us here on Real Estate Jerky. We always give you something to chew on every Saturday at noon and Sundays at 3:00 p. m. on PowerTalk 1360 KFBV. Mike, thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having me one more time. Yeah, thanks for tuning in to Real Estate Jerky. We'll talk to you next week. Cuz we got small towns and farmland, folks who still make a living with their hands.

Where I come from a man is still a man. That's my California.