Welcome to Episode #118 of the Real Estate Redefined Series. In this episode, Dan Forsman shares insights about the 2020 real estate market including predictions from his conversation with Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist from the National Association of REALTORS®. Dan also shares a great MoxiPresent Success Story and exciting new programs from Prosperity Home Mortgage that will save consumers a significant amount of money and reduce their risk. Watch the video for more details! Watch the video for more details!
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What will the Greater Metro Atlanta Real Estate market look like in 2020? Just watch the rest of this video to find out! I know my son’s dog Indie will!
Roll RER Intro
I am Dan Forsman and welcome to Real Estate Redefined. Last Wednesday, I attended the FMLS First Look Event to see some of the new initiatives FMLS is planning for 2020. At the event, I spoke to Lawrence Yun, Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of Research for the National Association of REALTORS. Lawrence shared that the real estate market for Greater Metro Atlanta area was in great shape and he expects closings to be up 4% and average sales price to grow 5% in 2020. He expects a continuation of strong job growth for our area. Lawrence commented that our home prices remain affordable compared to other metros and he believes that our buyer demand will continue to be fueled by the growing migration patterns for businesses and new residents moving to our area. He shared that the biggest challenge in the coming year was lack of inventory – especially in the entry level markets. Lawrence expects new home starts to grow but not fast enough to offset our low inventory market segments. Home values will continue to rise where we have strong demand and lower inventory.
To help our associates and clients in this competitive, low inventory environment, we have just introduced a powerful new platform from MoxiWorks. The first phase is MoxiPresent which is includes the industry’s best CMA or Comparative Market Analysis solution. Two of our great associates in our Cobb Roswell have an amazing success story. They were working with a new client who had previously listed his home with another real estate company for 6 months at $640,000. The seller had contacted Madeline Sable and Cynthia Bowman because of their successful track record in the community. Madeline and Cynthia had just attended our training class on MoxiPresent and prepared a comprehensive CMA for the seller – who was a licensed appraiser. Once the seller saw all the market facts, he agreed to the recommended list price of $599,000. Madeline and Cynthia launched their MEGA Open House marketing and attracted and incredible 120 visitors! They secured a buyer and negotiated a full price offer. In addition, they also qualified 20 great buyer and seller prospects. MoxiPresent is a powerful solution that allows our associates to create amazing CMAs, Buyer Tours, Neighborhood Tours plus many types of online presentations including videos. We are seeing success stories all over our company. At our VISION 2020 Kickoff meeting, we will also be launching the new MoxiEngage CRM which will help our associates take their business to a whole new level. Congratulations Madeline and Cynthia! You are great examples of Associates who know how to leverage new innovations to deliver more value and better service to your clients and customers.
When I was with Lawrence Yun, I also asked him if he thought the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates further. He does not expect that to happen in 2020… but expects mortgage rates to remain under 4%. Given the competitive nature of buyers getting the properties they really want, our mortgage company has introduced several new programs to strengthen their offers in a competitive marketplace. The Second Opinion Program simply provides a free competitive option and we are able to provide a better package in over 80% of the opportunities. We also know that closing on time is a big deal for clients. We just introduced a new $10,000 Close on Time Guarantee. Today, I asked Brendan Pagano from Prosperity Home Mortgage to come tell us these exciting new mortgage program.
Thanks Dan. I am really excited to be here today to talk about these two terrific programs from Prosperity Home Mortgage. The Second Opinion program is very straightforward – we will provide a free competitive quote. If we do not meet or beat the competition, we will pay the consumer $1000! And the best news is that we do beat the competition over 80% of the time – which saves them money on their mortgage. Over a 15, 20 or 30 year loan, this can be a significant amount of money!
Now, let’s talk about the Seller Close on Time Guarantee. In the competitive, low inventory market that Lawrence and Dan described, buyers need every advantage. The costs of missing close dates can be significant for buyers and sellers. Prosperity Home Mortgage is part of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices family of companies and has invested considerably in the advanced systems and processes that allow us deliver an exception level of value and service. So, we are putting our money where our mouth is – by offering a $10,000 Guarantee to close on time. For more information, please contact one of our local Mortgage Consultants who would be honored to assist you.
Thank you, Brendan. Our associates, clients and customers are going to love these programs in this crazy, competitive low inventory environment.
Right before the FMLS event last week, I was watching the CNBC coverage on Phase 1 of the new trade deal that had just been announced with China. The stock market reaction was incredibly positive and all the indexes were reaching new highs. Here is the consumer confidence slide that Lawrence Yun shared. We are in a really exciting period where Consumer confidence is strong and we have momentum for early 2020.
Speaking of momentum, closings were up an incredible 24% in December. That is one of the best months we have seen in years. Pending sales were up 12% signaling a great start to January. The $200,000 to $500,000 market segment was hot in December with over 1000 closings higher than last December. The Average Sales Price was $320,000 in December and the annual average was $312,000 – setting a new record. Remember the real estate recession? Our average sales price in 2011 was $176,000. We have gained an amazing 77% since then.
The economic and housing trends for Greater Metro Atlanta are impressive. Site Selection Magazine ranks Georgia the Top State for Business for the 7th year in a row. A recent Zillow survey of 100 economists ranked Atlanta as the #2 market expect to outperform in home values. The Atlanta Regional Commission forecast for population and employment growth is very strong. In fact, the U.S. Conference of Mayors predicts that 2.8 million people will move to our area by 2046. The trends are all positive and our future looks bright!
Our VISION 2020 Kickoff is January 30th and I look forward to seeing all our associates and employees there! We have the honor to celebrate our 2019 Award Winners. 2019 was a record-setting year with more winners that ever before. Tom Ferry, the leading Coach & Trainer in the world will be with us. And we will be launching our new MoxiEngage CRM platform to help our associates take their business to a whole new level.
I want to thank you for watching this video. 2020 is going to be an exciting year! And Remember … every day… in every way … YOU can get better and better!