Susie (00:01):

Hi, Bonnie.

Bonnie (00:02):

Hi, Susie.

Susie (00:04):

And hi, Kelly!

Bonnie (00:04):

Kelly!

Bonnie (00:08):

So excited to have you on REal Talk, Kelly! It’s your official REal Talk debut.

Susie (00:16):

Yes. Debut. So for those of you who haven’t heard… Kelly Lombardi, our good friend and excellent real estate agent about town and mom and board member and lacrosse player… And all these things… Has joined our team and we could not be more excited to have her. Yay, Kelly.

Bonnie (00:42):

Yay. Welcome Kelly.

Susie (00:44):

<Laugh>. And you’re gonna hear a lot more about that in the days to come, because we’re gonna be bombarding you with how much we love Kelly and how happy we are that she’s on our team.

Bonnie (00:52):

So in addition to introducing Kelly and having her join us for REal Talk, we do want to talk about the market. It is a hot topic right now, right ladies?

Susie (01:03):

Yep. So we thought we’d do a little mini Adamson Ramsey pundit panel. <Laugh> We are your, your market pundits for today. So we’re gonna just give each of our 2 cents about what we think the market’s doing.

Bonnie (01:17):

Yep. I’ll go if you want.

Susie (01:20):

Good. Yeah.

Bonnie (01:22):

So the two words that come to mind for me are “normalizing”… It’s a normalizing market and the word “opportunity.” So I will say there are a lot of negative Nellies out there right now. And for good reason, things are changing and moving. And whenever that happens, people tend to panic. But I just wanna point out that the market hasn’t tanked and it’s not the end of the world… We are normalizing. We are seeing the interest rates go up to a number that is more sustainable. That is not that high of a number. I know when I bought my house eight years ago or nine years ago, the numbers were similar to this. And as far as opportunity, I would say there’s still an opportunity for sellers because inventory is still at record lows and will continue to be for a while.

Bonnie (02:18):

I think it’s gonna take a while for those numbers to come up inventory wise. And likewise it’s an opportunity for buyers because some people have been priced out. Some people are taking a break and there will be more opportunity to make a bid on a house with less competition and potentially not needing to go as high as you would’ve a couple months ago when we were seeing bids 20 to 40% over asking, you may be able to get a house for list price or 10% over asking or a number that we haven’t seen for a while. So I just wanna kind of stay positive and keep those two words in mind as we go forward.

Susie (03:01):

Awesome. Kelly?

Kelly (03:03):

I’ll go next. I didn’t know this was like a two word prompt, but I’m gonna dive right in. I’m just doing this on the fly, but my two words are going to be “hyper local,” right? So the national news is great. What you’re reading on CNBC and apple and all those other outlets. That’s great. But real estate is hyper local, right? So it’s not just New Jersey, it’s the specific towns. So listen to your local experts as far as what’s happening in that town. And even in this area, what’s happening in one town is different than what’s happening in another town. So I think really you have to keep a hyper local lens on things. Right. My second word, I don’t wanna steal Bonnie’s word, but I feel like it’s op… Let’s use a different word. I’m just gonna say “pricing.” Okay. So right now, what we’re seeing from pricing, not opportunity, even though I wanted to steal that word, I’m gonna talk about pricing. We’re seeing some homes that are overpriced because there are sellers who have certain expectations from what they’ve seen, but there are also other properties that are priced intelligently, right? And at a really smart number that I feel like there’s opportunity from the buy side to sort of look for those opportunities as it relates to pricing. So those are my two guys, hyper local and pricing.

Susie (04:26):

I love it. Good stuff.

Bonnie (04:27):

Well, just a quick comment on that… In order to know if something is priced, right, you need a hyperlocal agent to explain it to you, right? Because if you’re coming from another town, how would you even know? Is this priced right? Is this overpriced, that’s where we come in and that’s where you definitely want to focus on using an agent with expertise and who is hyper local to the towns.

Kelly (04:54):

A Hundred Percent.

Kelly (04:55):

Can I piggyback on that? <Laugh> I actually just got off the phone with an agent in one of the shore towns and it was fascinating to talk to her. I actually love finding agents to send my friends in other towns because I find it really interesting to talk to them about their hyper local market. And it was the most fascinating conversation about a town that’s probably an hour and a half from here. So not far really, but just so different.

Susie (05:20):

Yeah. Yeah. Such good points. Do I get to talk now? <Laugh> yes. And to piggyback. Okay. So I’m gonna follow the theme and go with two not words, but two points at least. So just to finish off the thought, this is actually not one of my two points. I’m gonna cheat and finish off Bonnie’s point about the lack of inventory. We still, just to echo what we’ve said many times… We still have not reached anywhere near the balance point between a seller’s and buyer’s market. That’s about five to six months of inventory. We are still around one month of inventory in most of our local markets. So that just is a really strong data point. The fact over the fear of what’s going on. And so then the other point that I had, I think this was my second point is we’re gonna also reiterate what we say all the time.

Susie (06:14):

The question that we get asked all the time is “how’s the market?” And the answer is, “It depends.” It depends on your priorities And it depends on your goal. So just yesterday I was having lunch and my close friend’s father said, I’m going to go look at a property in Palisades Park. Is this a good time to buy? I said, it depends. What’s your goal? What are you gonna do with this property? What’s your financial situation? How long do you think you’re gonna hold it? You know, like there are a lot of questions that go around the question. It’s not as simple as “how’s the market” “it’s falling.” “It’s terrible.” “It’s great.” There’s, you know, there is no one answer to that question. It very much depends. Are you a seller? Are you a buyer? Are you an investor? Are you in it for the long game? Are you moving next year? Et cetera, et cetera. So echoing what Kelly said… This is a hyperlocal question. It’s a hyperlocal answer. You know what Bonnie was talking about too, there are plenty of opportunities still. Sky’s not falling by any means. And our answers are not wrapped up in what we think is just spinning a good story. Truly. It’s not a bad time right now. And in spite of all the scary news, we have lots of good news. So call us, that’s it.

Bonnie (07:31):

Nice everybody. Good job.

Susie (07:32):

I felt like I had another point, but I can’t remember it. So that’s good for now.

Bonnie (07:36):

There’s always more to say. So we’re happy chat with any of you about your questions and we have lots of data to back up everything we’re saying. So let us know how we can help you.

Susie (07:47):

And we’re off to go look at homes for this week. So if you have questions about what’s what the inventory is like, let us know.

Kelly (07:54):

Thanks for having me for my first REal Talk ladies.

Susie (07:58):

<Laugh>. Thank you. Bye

Bonnie (07:59):

Bye.