TRANSCRIPT:

Jacque
What’s happening in the housing market right now? If you’re wondering “oh my gosh, we’re at the end of 2023, it’s currently October and I’m wanting to know what’s happening in the housing market right now so that I can be fully prepared in 2024, we are going to talk about what you can be looking forward to.

My name is Jacque Elias and I am the Futurebound CEO where we help you get mortgage and financially free and I have on today our founder, Jeff Elias, he’s also my wonderful husband, and we are going to be talking about what’s happening now in the housing market, what is he seeing from his perspective, what opportunities you can be looking forward to, and what you can be doing right now to prepare.

So Jeff, what are you seeing right now in the housing market?

Jeff

We’re seeing something different, something that I haven’t seen for a couple of years now within the housing market, and so I spend time twice a week, looking at different houses on the core logic website, which is a subscription-based website available only to the property industry (it’s not open to the general public) which gives market values to houses and I can see what’s happening with these house values. For the first time in quite a long time, I’m st arting to see housing prices creep up in certain parts of the country, but not in all parts of the country.

This means we’re starting to see a turn around and we’re starting to see those property values slowly increase.

Jacque

So what does that mean, say if I’m a homeowner, what does that mean for me? i.e. is that good is that bad? What does that mean?

Jeff

So it’s ultimately good for homeowners. It’s particularly good for the people that bought their first house at the height of the market and might have gone into negative equity. So if you’re sitting at home feeling a little bit depressed about that, don’t worry, time heals all things in the property world. So this is now the beginning of the healing for you because your house is now going to start going up in value and you’re going to start clawing back some of that equity that you lost over the last, say, 18 months.

For others that are perhaps more established homeowners, you’re going to see your equity start to grow and remember that equity is wealth. So think of equity as wealth; here’s the value of your house, here’s the value of your mortgage. Your mortgage is going to always keep coming down and now you’re going to have your house value start to go up, and that equity is wealth. For some people that means they can now start thinking about what am I going to do with that equity. For those that are interested in investing in property, that equity now gives them the entry, or the key, really to starting to consider investing in property.

Jacque

Yeah, because for some people that equity shift, meaning their housing prices going down meant that they didn’t have enough equity to invest, so that means they can now look at their equity and say maybe we can be looking to do something.

So if someone’s listening to this and they’re saying, ooh, that might be me, what should they be doing now to prepare for maybe buying an investment property or looking to use that equity?

Jeff

This is really a time for laying down strong foundations so that when you do start getting into a property investment, you’re doing it from a position of strength.

You don’t want to do it from a position of weakness. You don’t want to be taking unnecessary risk – you want to do it from strength. So that means, like I’ll probably say the first thing to do is go and talk to a Mortgage Advisor to find out how far off are you from being able to make those types of decisions. The things that you can be doing right now is having a plan in place to get your mortgage reducing faster because when your mortgage comes down faster, you look better to the banks when it comes to borrowing for an investment property.

Having a smaller mortgage is the same as you having stronger financial foundations. You need to have a plan in place to bring your mortgage down faster than standard and you really want to be getting your spending and your annual spending plan under control and know what you’re doing with your money and having a plan. So this is a time for like building, you know, digging those foundations so that when it does become time to expand, you can do so from a position of strength and not have to feel worried about it.

Jacque

So that means that if you are listening to this and you are saying, hey, look, I want to do that, I want to invest from a position of strength, or maybe you’ve already bought one investment property or maybe you’re looking to start investing, then book a 30-minute mortgage strategy session where we can help you look at your situation and discuss where you can go from here i.e. what are your financial goals, where are some strengths, where are some weaknesses and then how we can help you overcome those and get ready to invest and use that equity that you are building because the housing market is now changing for the better.