Just curious to see how everyone is doing in terms of volume and what you're seeing.

My wife and I own an appraisal firm in the Metroplex and over the last 6 months we are really seeing everything dried up and shriveled away. Its been ROUGH.

Just curious to see how everyone's local market is doing and checking the volume.

Hang in there

A lot of lenders have reduced staff the last year as well.

During the last year with rates higher the continued high end custom home market remaining strong has surprised me some.

I own a small residential/commercial appraisal company, concentrated in Austin. Still seeing a good bit of new construction activity here, but of course refi is non existent and resales are picking up a bit, but still super slow.

We are probably averaging 10 or so deals a week now (mostly residential) and it was 5 or 6 times that at the peak and close to double last year. Definitely have had to dip in the rainy day fund at times, but not too crazy yet.

I have always anticipated 2024 will be rough and hoping 2025 might see more movement after we get the election uncertainty out of the picture.

Depending on loan dates on some of these deals, commercial has got to start falling apart in certain sectors and markets. I've had a couple of commercial orders this year with local banks ordering for internal purposes to restructure with borrowers. I'm seeing more and more STR properties hitting the market in areas of Austin and hill country locations as I think some of those bad DSCR loans based on Covid numbers are starting to fall apart.

Would be very curious to get more insight from anyone on here on the lending side of things and what kind of projections they are seeing/hearing.

I understand Freddie and Fannie are starting to expand their appraisal waiver program.

problem is, that's such a small slice of the market.

If you have those clients, it's great of course....just not that may of them compared to the total market.

Doing a lot of investor business and always looking for good appraisers. Love to connect.

and we are hiring LO's!

GenericAggie said:

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It's a bit scary. We have 30+ LP multi-family investments and luckily most have interest caps on loans. A few have had capital calls and 2 will fold, with us losing about 150K.

If rates don't drop, the multi-family market is going to crater in 2 years as bridge loans continue to mature.

Need interest rates to drop.

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sitting on a shovel ready 95 unit multi family project and can't even get sniff for traditional construction financing. At some future point there is going to be a dearth of available MF units with the pipeline literally frozen.

CS78 said:

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Yet rates have done absolutely nothing to curb inflation as a whole.

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Huh? Inflation is down to 3.1% from 9%. The Fed plan is working but just not for RE…yet. The most common prediction is the Fed starts cutting this summer which would give us some relief.

What I've seen the last year in residential is buyers are only in the market for a reason. Divorce, job mobility, expanding family etc. Folks are not moving up but sitting on 2.5-3.0 loans.

You're on the front line. Aren't you seeing some pent up demand starting to surface from people who slammed on the brakes last year? I am on my end.

For sure. There's a stable of folks waiting to pull the trigger in two traunches: (1) when some inventory finally hits the market; (2) when rates drop [I'd say into the 5% range].

Red Pear Realty said:

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For sure. There's a stable of folks waiting to pull the trigger in two traunches: (1) when some inventory finally hits the market; (2) when rates drop [I'd say into the 5% range].

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i've been saying for a year that prices and rates are playing a game of chicken.

once one drops i think we will be in better shape

I definitely have about five clients right now who are buying all cash who cannot find what they want, and they aren't being crazy or picky. Inventory is a real problem in Houston right now ITL. When I bought my flip in Timbergrove in September lots were comping at about $425,000. Today they are about $50,000 higher. It's wild.

and I can't give away my condo. Oh well...such is life

And for the data nerds. Here is a good article on CPI vs Core CPI

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/headline-inflation.asp#:~:text=The%20CPI%20determines%20inflation%20by,volatility%20from%20month%20to%20month.

And if you want to dig deeper learn about the Fed's preferred measure of inflation the PCE.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/feds-preferred-inflation-gauge-falls-below-3-for-first-time-since-march-2021-133223352.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAM92Q-zBEEad2bDJL1ivAN9uYtDRW97Y9uIwbKcUv6zBOr8Y8muvyzrokGZ-n9Q8hE_xXCFeNwTQzVu5lM9WlSztvtwbeBZVVTt6oAP-TIWF11hpkWa5h0DDLcHykwmeRk1xpSqSinnZrQWHfgTg-tjd6gxqVoi-30hb_c-oloFM#

All the people in the secondary marketing world I talk to say higher for longer about rates but we've seen a little relief the past 2 weeks. Hopefully that 4.30% peak on the UST is in the oast.

Red Pear Realty said:

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If you need a pro to help you sell it…I know a guy.

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It's me, hi. I'm the guy, it's me.

Oh, I was going to suggest one of those big 50 person team brokerages out in El Paso, but only bc I know Diggity has it handled already.

I sell new construction and we've been pretty steady, but they want us to increase volume, so my QMI incentives are pretty great and I have a 5% commission to anything that can close by the end of April. Traffic has been up and down, but we always have decent traffic because we are in a really good location.

Business has been steady, but not the influx we usually see around this time. Lots of tire kickers, but then when people look at the monthly payment... that's another story. lots of first time homeowners in this community.

Huge difference in macro and micro economics and inflation. There is a reason Core CPI excludes food and fuel. They are extremely volatile and are not good for correct trend lines. Just think of daily gas prices you see driving by the station. What are you paying for gas today compared to a year ago? I paid 2.67 last week. That compared to last year? 3.50?

But the data doesn't lie. Prices are higher and I hope they stay that way. Why? To bring down inflation you need recession. And no one wants millions of lost jobs just bring down the price of bread.