3 Reasons To Buy A Home NOW According To A Shark | Living in Tampa Florida

So when I was doing my research today, I ran across this video, and it was a video of Barbara Corcoran. And for those of you that don't know, Barbara Corcoran is a shark on the hit show, smash hit show, Shark Tank. And she was on a segment in Good Morning America called Ask the Shark. And in that segment, they were asking Barbara what they thought was going to happen, what she thought was going to happen in real estate. And her answer kind of put me back a little bit. And so there's nothing to be gained by waiting whatsoever. Absolutely nothing. So if you weren't smart enough to get into the market two years ago, a year ago, the idea right now is get into it as fast as you can if you really want a home. And beyond the home front, I think it's probably the best market I have ever seen for real estate investing. I think the return on investment is phenomenal and has been in so many markets in so many cities throughout the US that I don't want to say it can't go wrong, but it's probably the best market I've ever seen in my life. So I think real estate is a champion. And I'm not saying that because that's my gig because I invest in a lot of stuff, but I'm saying it because I've never seen it more tantalizing and with more promise. Now, I will say this. I tend to agree with what she had to say. Especially when it comes to the Tampa Bay area. But there was definitely some things that were a little bit shocking. But what I wanted to do is give some context for you, the audience here, and looking at this through my lens. So I'm studying the numbers every day in real estate. I feel pretty good about my market in terms of knowledge. Not to puff myself up, but I love this. I love being in the game. I love knowing what's going on with real estate. We're investing ourselves. We are very focused on where the market's going, not just where it is today. And the phone calls and text messages and emails I get from people just like you, who are considering making that move, relocating or investing in the area are, Juan, what's going to happen to real estate? Because people are starting to see some hints of a quote unquote slowdown. And people have been screaming that there's going to be a real estate crash for the last 10 years. I promise you. I can direct you to a real estate channel here locally in Tampa where that's all that guy talks about. And his channel is like six years old and that has yet to happen. Now, let me say this. This is a very interesting thing because when you see articles, and I don't know if you guys have been scrolling through Facebook and it'll be, you see an article about a real estate crash and you will see someone, there'll be a bunch of people in there that are happy for it. Like, oh, I can't wait. Which is, listen, and this may offend you, but if that's you, that's utter nonsense. Because if that happens, that affects everyone and everything. Okay? No one wants to go backwards economically. Now, do I think that the market is red hot and it's unsustainable? The answer to that is yes. But whether that's one week, one month, one year, 10 years from now, I don't have that crystal ball. Neither do you. And to be quite honest, no one does. Because if they did, they would have predicted the last crash, which never happened. So that's my two cents and how we're going to set this video up. But I wanted to bring this to you because I thought it was great information. And this is the hot button. This is the thing that everybody wants to know. And the thing that I want to start when we get down this rabbit hole is first of all, I'm not an economist. Second of all, I'm not giving you financial advice. What I am doing is sharing how I evaluate this information as a real estate professional and as an investor. So maybe that can help you do your own research. I put all the links to the articles, all the sources that I use for things like this. So it's not just lip service. There is some opinion based things that you're going to hear from me. That's my opinion. You're also going to see a lot of facts and that's how I blend those two. And I just wanted to share that with you guys, because I know when we make videos like this, it is definitely going to be polarizing and that's okay. Put it in the comments. Let me know if I'm crazy. Let me know if I'm not. I don't care. That stuff doesn't bother me. My job is to study, learn, and adjust. And just like the great Wayne Gretzky said, the reason he was so great is because he never skated to the puck was he skated to where it's going. And I'm giving you my professional and personal opinion about where I think this is going alongside of Miss Corcoran here. So we're going to get into that video. Hey, if this is your first time to the channel, welcome. We make videos that are all things Tampa Bay. What it's like to live here, what it's like to work here, what it's like to play here, the food, the dining, the outdoors, the beaches, and the sunshine. My name is Juan Alcala. I am a licensed real estate professional and a team leader here with the True Living Group. And hey, however you got to get hold of us, whether it's phone call, text message, DM, you can even hit me up on Instagram. Feel free to reach out. I put a link to my calendar below along with all of my contact information. Please feel free to schedule a time to chat it up. We can jump on Zoom. I'll take you through Tampa, pull up the map, show you the areas that are growing, show you the ones that are kind of lagging behind. I'd be more than happy to do that. You have access to me. However, you got to get hold of us. Just know when it comes to making that move, relocating or investing in the area that we have got your back. All right. So what I want to do is get right into this and I'll put a link below again with all the resources, but definitely go check out that video with Barbara Corcoran. But she gave three specific reasons why now is a great time to still buy a home. And listen, why I don't agree with this for every single area in the United States or North America, we are talking about Tampa, Florida and the greater Tampa Bay area. And I got to tell you, it is gangbusters y'all. And I'm going to walk you through the stats, not just lip service here. So let's give you the three reasons that Barbara said that she thought it was still a great time to get into real estate, which I think is spot on. Okay. You should move faster because houses are only getting more expensive. It's harder to get your hands on something that you even find acceptable to live with. Nevermind something you've been dreaming about. All right. Number one on the list is Barbara says that houses are only going to continue to get more expensive. Well, as of the time of this recording, let's talk about what that really looks like. You've got two factors in here, right? You've got values, which means the home prices are increasing too because of the demand. And then you've got the cost of goods. These two things really have a humongous influence on what housing prices can be. And let's start with the cost of goods. We all know that inflation has been running crazy. At the time of this recording, they just announced that inflation is at a 40 year high at eight and a half percent, which is an astounding number. But what does that really mean? How do we break that down to something that's actually tangible? Well, let's look at the goods that builders need to actually complete a home. And there are three of them that I really want to point out. Three segments that are a big challenge right now to get goods on, which are slowing things down and the demand's super high. So it's continuing to push prices up on that side. And those three things are trusses. And a truss is what they put on top of your house and then put the roof on top of those. Those A-frame that you see on the house where they put shingles on top of, that's a truss and they are so far backed up. Most truss companies, the builders of trusses specifically, won't even give the home builders a projected date on when these things are supposed to arrive. So what do you think that does to those prices? It continues to put higher demand on the ones that have built and it continues to push prices up. Number two, windows. Also a super important when it comes to building your home. If they've got the A-frame up, they've got the roof on and they've got the walls up, but they can't put windows in your home, that is another delay. Every time a builder has to hold a home for another month or a week because they can't sell a property because of windows, it continues raising the price as well. The third one is appliances. Most new homes come with appliances, but it is very difficult to get refrigerators and stoves because of the electronic issues and shortages we're having with supply chain. So these are three things. Now I want to talk about the real estate statistics. So at the time of this recording, year over year pricing, and we use that for a reason, Hillsborough County, which is where Tampa proper is, is up 27.1% year over year. That is a huge number. The median price of a single family home today is 378,000 in Hillsborough County. If we move over to Pinellas County, which is where Clearwater St. Petersburg is, the median sales price as of today is 435,000 up 29%. Y'all, that is a huge jump. And when Barbara says that housing prices are going to continue to rise, I think she's spot on. And that's exactly why. What we have right now going on is this cocktail of super high demand and very low supply. And if you, basic economics tells us that if there is low supply and high demand, that prices will continue to increase. That goes back to rule number one that we have today. And this is why I'm in alignment with this here in the Tampa Bay area. Guys, I'm telling you right now, it is very difficult to get a home. The average days on market. And what that means is from the time a home is listed until the time it goes under contract, meaning the seller has accepted some form of an offer. The average is 10 days. A healthy market is six months. And the other thing I want to point out here is that 10 day number includes our multi-million dollar properties here in the Tampa Bay area, which we have quite a few of that tend to sit definitely longer than 10 days. That ultra luxury market, some of those homes take a year to sell. So that number gets thrown off. And what I'm seeing right now, real time data is for a good home, like turnkey ready with all of the upgrades. That home is literally selling in most likely two days or less, as long as it's in a highly desirable area. That is crazy velocity. And the reason is, is because we are so short. Now I ran these numbers on Monday. I run them every Monday. We have 1200 new properties come to the market. We had 1600 properties go pending, meaning a seller accepted an offer. And we had another 1600 properties that were sold. Y'all, we sold 2000 and brought 1200 to the market. That does not add up. It leaves a huge vacuum and a need for more homes. And it continues to push prices up, right? So the active listings in the Tampa Bay area right now are down 31% year over year. So from last year to this year, we have a third less homes on the market. So demand is crazy high. Interest rates are still low, although they've been creeping up and they have promised to continue to go up. All right. Number three on Barbara's list was historically low interest rates. And right now that is a hot button because over the last four weeks, interest rates have rose over 150 basis points. We went from a 375 interest rate to today when I looked it up on Google, it was at 5.62% for a 30 year fixed loan. That is a huge difference over that time period. However, I do want to put this in perspective. Most adults who have owned a home or who are older than 40 years old can remember, I'm 46, y'all. I'll be 46 this year. And I remember when I was a kid that my, and I know I'm dating myself, forgive me, I'm not trying to do the way back story, but I want to give perspective historically. Okay. There were times when my parents and my grandparents were buying homes at 11, 12, 14, even 16% interest rates back in the day. And historically speaking, basically anything around the 6% or lower is a very good interest rate. When you look at, you know, all the way back to the crash at 29, literally that far, those are historically speaking. So when Barbara was giving that context, she was thinking long term, not just short term. And, and the other thing I want to kind of do when we talk about this is we are looking at the long game. If you are trying to buy a piece of real estate today and sell it 60 days later, that is speculation. There's a huge difference between that approach. That is you're risking it because you don't know if there was an economic meltdown, you could be left hanging high and dry on that. But we're talking about the, you know, the average person or an investor who has a more long-term strategy. And that's what her perspective was coming from. So I do want to give a little bit of context on that, but you know, again, at the time of this recording, 5.62 in interest rates, they may get as high as 6.5% this year, but here's what I believe is going to happen here in the Tampa Bay area. Because of the demand, because of the amount of people relocating to the area, we have almost a thousand people a day moving to Florida. We put almost 50,000 people in the greater Tampa Bay area last year, and we do not have the homes in order to fulfill that demand. So we are just continue to see that. And the other thing that comes into play here, when we start talking about these historic interest rates is one-third of all of the homes in the Tampa Bay area have sold for cash. That is staggering, y'all. So one-third of the people don't care about the interest rates whatsoever. The other two-thirds, they're mere mortals, I will say. They definitely care. But, you know, when you look at, you know, is this a good opportunity, which we're going to get into next, it's still a very good bet. So again, to recap really quickly, number one was she believes that prices are going to continue to increase, which I agree. Number two, even if, even if we start to see a recession, I believe that Tampa will be one of the locations that goes into that later. And if things continue the way they are in terms of demand, I don't think that we'll be affected like everybody else. Now, that's my personal opinion, y'all. And again, I don't have a crystal ball and I can't play God, but when you look at the numbers, they don't lie. And here's where we're going to get, we're going to get a little bit deeper into that. You know, in number three, she said that interest rates were still historically low. And if you look at the last 60, 70, 80 years, 100% she's accurate. So, and then she gave a fourth, this was a bonus, right? Really she gave three reasons, but this was a bonus. And this is where I really was pulled into this conversation. And I thought that she had framed this in a really good way. She said, look, at the end of the day, one of the best ways to build wealth is through real estate. And she goes, you know, just like when you plant an oak tree, you know, when was the best time to plant an oak tree? Well, that was 20 years ago. Well, when's the next best time? It's today. And that's an easy thing to throw around. And you see these numbers and what people are paying for houses. And you're like, Juan, we don't have those countries. I understand, but this is what Barbara said. And y'all, this is somebody who has done extremely well for themselves in real estate by using that as an investment vehicle. This is someone who has much more fruit on the tree than me. Okay. And is playing the long game. And so I've got to give some respect to where it's due. Right. And what she said is, look, if you ever want to be able to play the game, you've got to get some chips and to be able to sit down at the table. And she's right. You know, maybe you buy a home and the world flips upside down. Would that be bad in the short term? The answer is yes. But when we look back at those historic charts again, and y'all, I'm going to include a link to, to the government's data of, of housing all the way back to the, to the great recession of 1929. And what you'll find is when we had recessions. And I, I, I do believe that we're, we're headed that direction. And if anybody's following economics whatsoever, the, the inversion yield curve has flipped. And anytime that's happened, there's always been a recession following that. But when you look back and you look at these charts, you'll see these gray strips. And each one of those gray strips was a recession. And the unique thing about that is outside of the, the humongous real estate crash we had, which that recession was caused by real estate specific. Most of the other recessions were stock related. Something else put them into that point. People took their money and put it in safe assets like real estate. So they were able to hedge against inflation, hedge against you know, cash fallout and stock fallout. And what, what you'll see when you look at those charts is real estate typically, you know, it might dip a touch, but really what it was doing is staying stable. And then once you came out of the recession, it started to push up again. And that to me, when I looked at that historical data for the first time, this was a few years ago, when I looked at that, that gave me so much confidence that real estate is a great wealth building vehicle, no doubt about it. And then when, when I take a step even further back, when I look at companies and I'm going to mention some names that I know people hate, but I want to make sure that we keep things in perspective. Okay. Vanguard, huge hedge fund. They own BlackRock, Blackstone, all these other hedge funds. These giant corporations have bought 25% of the homes in the Tampa Bay area over the last year, because the rental rates continue to go up. And they believe long-term that our real estate is a fantastic investment so much so that they're buying properties at retail value. Typically investors try to buy real estate on a dip or at cash at a discount. If Vanguard, Barbara Corcoran, BlackRock, these companies are willing to buy these properties at full retail value. That gives me a lot of confidence as a consumer, because they're most likely long in the money in terms of their strategy, right? And I, I'm sorry, y'all, I have, they do much better with their money than I ever have. Otherwise I wouldn't be sitting in front of this camera with you, right? So when I look to those companies and I don't think that they're gods or they know all the answers, but man, there is a lot of big companies putting a lot of money into Tampa real estate at retail prices. That gives me a ton of confidence. And, you know, when we talked about a third of the properties being bought in cash, you know, 25% of those homes going, going to these, they call them institutional investors, companies like Tricon invitation homes, home partners of America. They are buying these homes up and then turning around and running them out at crazy prices because so many people are moving here. We don't have enough housing. We can't build it fast enough. All of those indicators continue to lead towards a strong real estate opportunity. And that's what I wanted to bring to you in this video today. I know I got a little bit deep on, on stats and statistics and Hey, if you're getting any value out of this, please feel free to hit that subscribe button, click that bell, or leave me a comment. Let me know like, like Juan, you're crazy. You're nuts. That's fine. I, you know, but if you have any questions, my contact information is down below, go ahead and grab that. Now I've got three other things I want to talk. I'm sorry, two other things that I want to talk about on this, on this video. We talked just briefly about population growth. And again, to the tune of the thousand thousand people a day. And this is my, I'm adding to the list here. So this is my number five and that's population growth. Okay. We are ranked number five on the inflow of people into the area, according to Redfin. And we're also number, number three on the most desirable place to move to again. So we start talking about demand, you know is it there? And here's another thing. Here's how I know that's true. We've got schools that have been built in the Tampa area. And I just saw this article too. If I can find, I hope I saved it in my phone. If I will, I put it down below. We've got schools in the Tampa Bay area that were built just two years ago that were built to grow into like 2028 that are already past capacity. One of them was set for 3000 students and it wouldn't be at capacity until 2028. There are already 10 outdoor buildings that they've put, right? They put these modular classrooms outside because they don't have enough space. There is one in Largo, which is in Pinellas County that has literally stopped the planning phase because they were getting ready to break ground. And they already know based upon the demand that is, that is here, that that plan was not going to get them to where it needed to be. That school was going to open over capacity, which is crazy. So when you look at that demand and we talk about population growth and investment, these things all keep stacking up to a favorable real estate market. Okay. Now here's the sixth and the final one, and then I'm going to let you guys get back to your day here, but job growth. And just recently this past week, we released the video because Tesla motors announced that it was under contract to purchase a 100,000 square foot facility in St. Petersburg. Amazon is opening up a new facility. They broke ground last October. You've got Pfizer, Suzuki, Amazon, all of these companies that are bringing headquarters to the Tampa Bay area. And I know this is true because I'm getting phone calls from the employees, people just like you who are saying, Hey, our company's relocating. We're putting a headquarter. I'm going to be splitting time between the West coast and Tampa. Where is a good area to move? So as we kind of wrap this up, what I want to say is, look, we're here as a me and my team here at the true living group would be more than happy to have a discussion with you. All of our contact information is listed below. I hope that some of this information helps you. Again, my resources are here. I've got the Redfin resource, which they do a great job. Their economist is fantastic. I'll put the link down to that, all the resources we use today. So, you know, if you find any discrepancies, please feel free to put them in there. I try to do my homework before all of these videos, things are changing. They are dynamic. When you're watching this video, it may be a year later and things might be completely different. I may have been completely wrong and that's okay. Let me know. I'm good with that. But for me and my family, we are long on Tampa. We believe in the future of this area. It was a quaint little coastal town that was under the radar. That was a ridiculous value that has been found out. And I still think it's a great value because I believe in where the city is going. Listen, if you can have sunshine, beaches, and a great laid back lifestyle every day, that is a wonderful place to grow, to invest in your future occupation, your professions, and to raise a family. So, if that interests you, feel free to reach out and connect. And until next time, go out and live that Tampa life.