Welcome Home with Monique

Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. I know you see me on the radio, but you still don't pay me

Monique Buchanan 0:26
no attention. Good morning. This is Monique Buchannan, the host of the welcome home with Monique show. And on this show, I talk all things real estate. Listen. I want to thank you for tuning in. Well, good morning Las Vegas. It is Monique Buchannan, the host of welcome home with Monique show here in Las Vegas, Nevada. Listen. First of all, I want to say, Happy New Years. I know that we're, you know, about a week or so past New Year's, but this is my first show that I've actually recorded live. And I want to say to all my listeners, Happy New Years. I pray that it's off to a good start. And with saying that, I do want to say to my prayer warriors out there, let's lift up our brothers and sisters in California that are unfortunately fighting those fires right now. Many people have lost their homes, and I just want them to know and my prayers to please stand with me and let's pray for those folks. Okay, all right, so with that, let's go ahead and get our first show of 2025 started. I'm super excited. We got a lot of great new things rolling out this year. But like always, my number one lender, Mr. Anthony Valentino, is going to be joining us today to give us some foresight on what's going on in the market now and what he sees that's going to come soon. So without further ado, welcome Mr. Anthony Valentino, with guaranteed rate. How are you, Anthony?

Speaker 1 1:48
I'm doing great. Monique, happy Saturday to you. Thank you so much. Yes, absolutely.

Monique Buchanan 1:52
Thank you for coming on once again and enlightening my beautiful listeners on what's going on with the financials. I mean, it's all over the place, right? We had a moment, what, a month ago, where the rates dropped. I had my phone was blowing up, and, you know, a lot of people were excited, and then it went away quickly. What happened, Anthony,

Speaker 1 2:11
you know, there's just, there's so much unknowns and so many question marks with, you know, a lot of change that's happening, and the markets, they don't like unknowns and they don't like question marks. They like to see a long landing pad and and when there's uncertainties, especially like the ones we're seeing, you know, it's just a rocky road right now, just because of the change of guards and the unpredictable future of what we're going to see with our monetary policy. So yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack, but I would agree with you. You could, you know, wake up one day and rates are looking, you know, close to 5% and then wake up another day and rates are now close to, you know, 7% so it's been a yo yo effect for sure,

Monique Buchanan 2:56
absolutely. But one thing about me and you, we have shown our clients how to tackle that yo yo, how to get around that yo yo. For instance, we just went into escrow yesterday with two of our veteran clients. Are actually k, U, M, V listeners. We want to give a shout out to Shirley and Fred, brother and sister veterans who we assisted. They both were paying over $2,000 a month in rent, and now they're saving 1000s by coming together as family and purchasing a home. Anthony, what do you say to that having family members sometimes people think they can't have four or five people come on alone. Can you speak to that and speak to our veterans as well? Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:38
I mean, it was, it was a perfect example of how now more than ever, we need family to come together. And a perfect example is with Shirley and Fred and and how they both were, were wanting to look for homes, and they both were in the market, and they wanted to keep their payments around, what they were paying, and they just weren't seeing, you know, the the esthetics and the houses that they wanted. And so thinking outside the box, we looked at it and says, Well, you know, you guys are brother and sister, and you guys are always seeing each other, and you guys were actually even talking about moving in together. Why don't you guys move in together? Use the power of both your VA loans. And the biggest misconception is you have to only have a spouse on your loan if you want nothing down. In this case, we're having two non spouse, non married individuals using VA, and they're doing nothing down because they're both VA veterans and have their entitlement. So yeah, we were able to, instead of looking at condos and townhomes for 250,000 we bumped it up to 400,000 so that way they get what they want, and they're still saving more money per month now that both of them are going to be sharing the expenses.

Monique Buchanan 4:46
Yes. And I was able to also negotiate $12,000 yet again, right? Anthony from the seller. So the seller you were Yes, he's contributing 12,000 which Anthony is telling them, hey, now that we've got those funds, we're. Their estimated out of pocket cost is going to be, how much Anthony

Unknown Speaker 5:03
it's going to be a little under $2.26

Monique Buchanan 5:09
guys, we're not making this up. Okay, we've been telling you guys the last what year we have been able to negotiate funds. Me and Anthony, we don't do it the traditional way. We are a team, and we're thicker than that. Well, I won't say thieves, because we're definitely not thieves. We're very thick. We're down like two flat tires. And so what we do is we come together right tone, and we get on the phone, we make these calls together, Anthony, make sure that the other side of the deal, in other words, the listing agent, understands that we are both true professionals. Anthony puts her at ease knowing that these clients are with a vice president of guaranteed rate with over 450 agents under him, that's what Anthony has. He knows his stuff, and he makes sure that the other agent knows that the work that needs to be done has been done and has been done well. That is why our clients win bids over other offers on the table, because we go above and beyond. Is that? Right? Anthony, yeah.

Speaker 1 6:04
I mean, it's about instilling confidence, not only in our buyers, but in all sides of the party. And so you and I do something unique to where one I fully vet our clients before they shop, so their income, assets, credit, everything is done, and we can really, you know, just knock it out of the park. What that does is allows you to send an offer in that is not only rock solid, but has been completed from A to Z, and agents on the listing side really like that, because if they got four or five offers, and they see one that's fully approved, with an itemized list where the agents calling them, the lenders calling them, sending videos, they're more likely going to take that offer than someone else, which means we're putting our clients in the best position

Monique Buchanan 6:49
absolutely every single time. In fact, we've got another client, little Abby. This is her second investment or Yeah Or no, I'm sorry, her first investment property. And me and you will be closing that deal on the 21st we were able to get, what, $7,000 I think, in closing costs. So her out of pocket cost was, like, under $2,000 for her investment property.

Speaker 1 7:10
We had to get creative with that one because it was a lower purchase price. And with conventional when you're when you're putting minimum down, in this case, you know it's, you can only go up to 3% in seller concession. So what did Monique do? She made it to where on the contractual obligation, all of the traditional closing costs were on the seller, not on the buyer. So that way, we can use that full 3% to try to get as low as rate as possible. That's you again, going the extra mile, thinking outside the box, and just making stuff happen.

Monique Buchanan 7:44
Well, thank you, Anthony. Yes, I had the guidance of Anthony. You guys, he's leaving that out, but yes, these are the things that come with years and years of having different cases, you know, learning how to get those workarounds that are still within the guidelines to make the deal happen for your client. And I'm grateful that we have such a team that he's able to suggest these different loopholes in different ways to get the deal done, but but still staying within the guidelines. You know what I mean? So that's something that you know, you only get when you think out of the box. There's a lot of people out there. You know, there's over 15,000 lenders, just like there's 15,000 realtors. There's a many of them, you know, you can't throw a rock without hitting one, right? But not all of them work together as a team like this, and not all of them think out the box to get the deal done in the best light for their clients. So, yeah, so I just want to share that with you, but back into the market, where are the rates at around now? Like, what are we looking at now to purchase?

Speaker 1 8:38
You know? So that's a great question. So you know if, if we want to see where we're going, we need to know where we were and where we are, and that gives a good context. So that way, we kind of have the full road map. And when it comes to the rates, we know that in 2023 the Feds raised the rates nine times. Inflation was at its highest over 9% there was a lot of liquidity issues with the banks and insolvency issues. And when we speed up to 2024 the feds, they didn't raise the rates one time. In fact, they lowered the rates multiple times at the end of the fiscal year, right? And during that time, obviously we had an election, so there was a lot of uncertainty. Now, one thing that the Fed did say in 2024 was, hey, we're looking to lower the rates probably four times in 2025 right? And so when the rates, the rates change, when the Feds talk, the rates don't change when the Feds change the rates. And also keep in mind to the to the listeners out here, the Fed rate is different than the mortgage rate. So when we hear online and in the media that the feds drop the rates. That does not mean it's a one for one for the mortgage rate. It's just the cost that the banks have on their end. So speed up to 2025 and the feds, you know, the last meeting, they said they're no longer looking to lower the rates multiple times. This year, in fact, they're going to drop the amount of rate lowerings by two. So they were looking at four rate reductions. Now it's only two rate reductions the second that they said that, and then when they looked at the jobs report and they saw that the jobs report showed that the unemployment was at an all time low. Now remember, one person's spending is another person's income. So if people stop spending, then income goes away and unemployment goes up. So that's how the Feds see how the heartbeat of the economy is is by the unemployment rate. Because if the unemployment rate goes up, that means people are not spending as much. Means we're going into a recession. Now, when they look at that, people are spending like it's 1999 the feds are saying they're like, why am I going to lower the rates artificially? If people are spending like, there's no problems. So we have a two problem fold. We have unemployment all time low. We have the Feds not wanting to do what is called quantitative easing, and that's why we saw the rates go from the low sixes to the upper sixes over the past four to six weeks, and right now, we're anywhere between 6.7 and 7.25 depending on how much you're putting down, what your debt to income ratio is, what your credit score is, a whole bunch of other factors.

Monique Buchanan 11:14
Well, Anthony, if we're at 6.725 how is it that our clients are purchasing their homes with in the rates of fours and fives. How is that? Anthony, how's that happening? So

Speaker 1 11:27
what we're doing is we're following the math, because math never lies. And so we want to make sure that whatever we're doing, it's economical, both short term and long term. So when I have a client come to me, I want to make sure that whatever we're doing now, we're setting them up for success in the future. And when it comes to the rates, we want to say, Okay, if we're getting 10, 1215, 20,000 from the sellers right now, because of the market, because of the rates, what do we do with that money? Well, what we don't want to do is just throw it on the 30 year rate and drop it by a quarter percent to save them 50 bucks, and now they're gonna have to save $50 for seven years to make up that 10,000 because in a year and a half or two years, when it comes to refinance, and they've only saved 50 bucks a month, they saved $2,000 but they paid 10,000 so it doesn't make sense to buy down the rate in the traditional way. So what do we do about that? We do. We do a buy down.

Monique Buchanan 12:22
That's right, that is what we've been doing you guys for the last year. That's why we sold me and Anthony sold more homes by the grace of God and giving him all the glory. But we sold more homes together last year than a lot of my colleagues, and it was because we were educating our clients. We set them up for success. We even myself. Listen, I'm not going to tell you to do something I wouldn't do. I bought a home with this buy down product. That is why my payment should be $3,500 right now, but my payment is 2900 and, no, it is not an arm it's not all over the place. And you know, you're going to get stuck with this crazy blow up bill out of nowhere. No, that's not how this works, so in a simplified way, and correct me if I'm wrong, because you're the lender, Anthony, what we're saying is I'm negotiating like, for instance, our veteran clients. I negotiated $12,000 for them right now, if we put them in this three, let's just say 2121, buy down product. Just for easy math, that means that they have two years of lower payments and that and within that time, at any point, they can refinance, once the rates drop down, and they get into the fours or the fives, and they say, Okay, let's hurry up and refinance. This is what happens. Pretend that $12,000 is hovering over the top of their home that I negotiated for them, right? That money is the seller's money, and he's basically taking a portion of that money and paying on their mortgage every year for the first two years. So if their mortgage was supposed to be $2,500 the first year, it's $2,000 the second year, if the rates still haven't come down, it will be $2,300 and then year three through 30, it will be locked for 30 years at what it would have been in the first place, which is $2,500 now let's say that the rates do come down like they're expected. Within those two years, my veteran clients go ahead and refinance their home, and guess what? Whatever money is still hovering over their house, it goes towards their principal. Did I explain that? Pretty good. Anthony, they don't lose anything. Yeah, you

Speaker 1 14:22
explained it. That was perfect. That was absolutely perfect. Basically, it allows you to be able to do the full two years and then capture that that savings, or if in 12 months the rates drop back down, you can still refinance, and whatever money you haven't used that the seller gave gets applied to the principal in the form of principal reduction. So you either use it or you apply it to the principal, you don't lose it at any point in time. So it's it basically allows you to buy a house now with rates that we're going to see years from now. And

Monique Buchanan 14:56
so that's what I've been telling all of my listeners, if you're just tuning in, this is. Monique Buchannan, and I've got my lender, Mr. Valentino, on the line with guaranteed rate. We are just going over. I've been yelling this from the heels, and I did it myself in June. So I'm not just telling you this. I truly believe this, and I know that I've set my family up for success, and me and Anthony want to set your family up for success. If you're interested, or you are thinking about purchasing a home or even listing a property. Me and my team, the Bucha and group, would love to help. 702 980 430-700-7029, 84 3700 welcome home with monique.com. Is my website, and you can catch me on YouTube, as well as Welcome Home Show with Monique. Welcome home with money anyways, to jump back into this. Guys, I've said it time and time again, do not wait like everybody else. Now, there are some people out there that would advise you to wait. They would say something like, oh, in the 90s, you know, we were able it was like this, and you should just wait till it gets back like that. What do you have to say about that? Anthony and I know they mean, well, by telling their loved ones to wait. What would you have to say to the grandfather or the grandmother that's maybe telling their kids to wait and they're going to live here in Las Vegas, with all the changes that are coming, they think that the prices are going to go down?

Speaker 1 16:12
Yeah, I would say you hug them and love them just as much. It's it's the perception that skewed. It's not the thoughts, the feelings or the actions and and that's with everything in life. If you have a skewed perception, it skews everything else down downwind. And so there's a lot of skewed perceptions out there because of what they went through in the 70s, 80s and 90s, thinking that that's going to be the same premise in 2025 and it's not, I'm telling you right now. You know, it's as simple as just breaking down the mortgage payment. We know, in a mortgage payment, for our viewers that are listening, there's four things, principal, interest, taxes and insurance, p, i, t, I, that's what a mortgage payment consists of. I can look at each one of those and tell you right now, with the principal. Last three years, the average principal has gone up 42% meaning home prices have gone up 42% with interest. Interest has gone up 100% in the last three years. From the mid threes to the mid sixes, taxes have gone up 26% $400 average a year for a household. And more importantly, which, this is a big one, and it actually attests to what's going on now, with the California fires, with the hurricanes back east, it's the insurance. Insurance has gone up upwards of 30 to 40% in the last three years alone.

Monique Buchanan 17:35
That affects your mortgage payment. We don't realize that these are all the things that are a part of your mortgage payment. So let me just jump in real quick. Your mortgage payment consists of what he just said, which is your principal payment, which is what you owe the bank for buying a house. Right then you've got taxes. We'll never get away from that. You have two different types of insurance. The first insurance is, like you said, hazard insurance, like, if, God forbid, your house burns down, you've got that in there as well, but if you don't put 20% down, you're gonna have another insurance, and that is you paying to insure your own loan. Okay, so that's what four things consist of your mortgage payment. So when the hazard insurance goes up, like with the fires, that affects how much your mortgage payment will be sorry, I just want to jump in and kind of clarify that for somebody that's maybe never bought home and wasn't quite following, but that's what that is. Go ahead. Tom, yeah,

Speaker 1 18:23
yeah. And here's the silver lining of that. So now that we know what a mortgage payment consists of, and how we've seen 40, 100% 30, 40% in each one of those categories, the silver lining is it still makes sense to buy and why is that? Well, like I said, you know, in in the 1970s the average annual income was 7500 and the average house was 23,000 speed up to 2025 the average income is 75,000 and the average house is 400,000 so yes, we go from two and a half times pay to 5% or five times to pay. That does not mean stay on the sidelines, because 1970s is never going to come back. I wish you know the bell bottoms would and the music, but it's never going to come back. And so you can either wait a lifetime to see what happened in the back of you, or you could start planning for the now and make changes so that way you're not sitting on the sidelines for the rest of your life.

Monique Buchanan 19:23
Well, I always tell the story about a client of mine. She worked with me over you know, before I started real estate, I worked in the casino. She worked with me at the casino. She called me she was renting, but she called me for her daughter. So I sold her daughter a house that was about six years ago, and I asked her, I said, Sonia, why are you still renting? Why aren't you calling me for me to sell you a house? And she says, Oh, no, no, I don't want to buy. They're going to come down. But she told her daughter to buy a house, but she said it was too expensive. This was six years ago, you guys, too expensive. Now, mind you, this was like when houses were going for 220 i. Think her daughter's house was around 220 and she says, No, it's gonna come down. There's gonna be a crash. I'm just gonna wait on that. But my daughter wants to buy so I referred you, Monique, because I trust you to take care of my baby. I said, Well, I appreciate that. But Sonia, honey, we've got the Oakland A's at that time, the Raiders, I think, were just coming, or just got here. I said, things are changing here. Sonia, you're one of my good friends of 20 years here in Vegas. I know you don't plan on moving. I know you want to continue to live here. I'm telling you that you need to stop renting and go ahead and buy as well. Secure something now that's a locked in mortgage for 30 years, so that you are secure here in Vegas, because we have no rent cap here in Vegas, she did not listen to me, and guess what? She's living with her daughter right now that I sold the house to because her rent was too is too enough. She can't afford it anymore, so she had to move in with her daughter. That is a true story. So guys, and that's what I feel like I'm telling all my friends, especially in the casino business. You know, average pay is 50,000 because right now these mortgages, they there is no crash coming. I'm telling you, there's no crash, especially here in Vegas, we're one of the hottest, Anthony, you do loans in all 50 states. Are we not one of the hottest, even now with the rates, are we not one of the most sought after places to purchase? There's

Speaker 1 21:15
just so many, there's so many insurance policies to a housing crash in Las Vegas, specifically the fact that one, there's still low inventory. Two, so many people have 30 year fixed rates in the twos and threes. They don't have 10% rates, predatory loans, interest only. We have administrations to where. Now the Cares Act doesn't allow, you know, just a massive amount of foreclosures, because there's forbearance to firm it. There's, there's a modification rules. Now, on top of that, like you said, we have a diverse economy that is now not just reliant on, you know, the strip and tourism. Now we have Elon Musk and Amazon, and we have now, you know, sports teams with the raiders and the Oakland Hays and the Golden Knights. And on top of that, we have the California Exodus. Is what we call it in our industry, because of all of the oversight and the taxes, people love to come to Vegas because there's no state tax, and the cost of living is so cheap, and they're only three hours away from the beach. So I 100% agree with you. If you're looking to purchase within the next five years, it's going to be the most economical over the next six months for sure. Okay,

Monique Buchanan 22:33
that's how quickly the market shifts. And not to mention, since you mentioned California, I mean, they're pouring in from everywhere, but definitely California. And I imagine many more will come now with these fires, right? But Sony is going to be breaking ground with a movie production studio. You guys, the movies are coming here. What other writing do you need on the wall? That's why investors are calling me every day, Monique, I want to see those high rise properties you were talking about on the show Monique. What do you have near the strip for under, you know, 200 $300,000 that I can, you know, go ahead and flip. They're calling me every day because they know the opportunity is here, and that's from all over the states. Okay, Vegas is where it's at. But if you live here and you want to continue to live here and live here comfortably, Don't end up like in LA, where you're sharing a condo with somebody 702 94 3700 we will put you in the best light. We'll make sure that your payment is affordable, right? And we will, we'll get you to Yeah, and get the seller to contribute towards your closing costs. I'm telling you, I can't think of one deal, Anthony, that we've done in the last almost two years where we didn't get seller concessions, can you? Yeah,

Speaker 1 23:44
no, it's definitely a market where you can leverage the situation. There's, it's not going to be like this forever, once we get out of this. You know, there's the one thing that I can say is that there's always going to be change. Change is going to be constant. But it's not about what the change is. It's how we react to it, right? And so right now, it's a it's a buyer's market, and we're getting closing costs. And yes, buyers have to have a higher rate, but when the market changes, and now the rates are lower, and now, if the market floods with demand, there's not going to be that. It's not going to be that easy peasy. Let me get 12,000 Squeezy. It's going to be easy peasy. Give me your highest and best. You know it's it's going to be a different market.

Monique Buchanan 24:30
And we already seen that, Anthony, we've already lived through that 2019 I'm sure there's listeners out there that are shaking their head like, yes, 2019 we were flooded. It it was basically like, what's going to happen as soon as these rates go down to five everybody my phone will be going off the hook, which I don't mind, but it's going to be a fight for the house. Okay? You're going to be left with whatever's left over. Because, once again, we do not have an influx of inventory. We're just a small valley. You know, you see all these brand new homes going up. Um. Um, but still, we have so much demand that we can't even keep up. Really. The only reason that you're going to have any options right now is because there are so many other people out there that don't know how, or don't know about the programs on how to make their payment affordable now instead of waiting. So right now, there's not an influx of buyers out there because they think that they have to pay 7% me and Anthony are telling you that we've got the way for you to buy today without having to pay 7% you can afford it, and then when the refinance comes, go ahead and do it, but guess what, we're gonna make your payment affordable today and for the next up to three years, is that, right? Anthony,

Speaker 1 25:42
yeah. And you know what? Just like you said, we don't just, we don't treat our clients like a transaction, which we are. They're our clients for life, right? And that means we have to not only look for their best interest short term, but long term. You know, I had, I'll tell you two quick one minute stories. I had a client that was a single mother, and she was wanting to buy and she she just didn't make enough money. No family to help. She came to me because she saw me on social media. Was like, You just seem like, you just have no you you don't have to know in your dialect, I'm like, absolutely at the end of the day, she needed to make $5 more an hour. So what did I do? I told her, you're gonna go in your boss's office and you're gonna say, I need a $5 an hour raise, and I will do whatever I need to do to make sure that happens before I leave this office. She left that office with a $6 an hour raise, and now she's in a home because her perception changed. And she said, I'm no longer going just to have the world tell me what I can and can do. I'm going to say what I can and can do, and that's what I'm employing. Your your your your listeners today is whatever obstacle is in your way. 99% of the time you can go through it and and not around it, because if you go around an obstacle, especially in home ownership, it'll always perk itself up again. You want to go through it so that way it never becomes an obstacle again. And you you can become a homeowner. Now, Anthony,

Monique Buchanan 27:07
that's what I love about you, is that you think all the way out the box. You look over each and every one of our clients complete situation, not just to buy them home. I mean, I remember you told one of my clients, Hey, your G payment is $800 Have you ever thought about refinancing? You looked at that, then you looked at some other things. You said, You know what? I want you to do this, that and that. And they had nothing to do with the deal, but they ended up saving him, like $1,200 a month. He followed your lead, and you saved him so much that his mortgage was like, after you take away what you saved him, it was like nothing. Was like $1,000 and he was so happy because you signed up for success. I

Speaker 1 27:42
have a client. Yeah, I have a client this week, actually, from you to where they were talking about, they they really couldn't go up to a certain price point because the payment was too high, right? And so I looked at the whole situation and said, Well, wait a minute, here we have a $700 car payment, a $500 G payment and about, you know, $600 in credit card payments. That's a total of, like, $50,000 I was like, you have 401, k that is sitting there that, yeah, the best gains now you can buy a home and you don't get early payment withdrawals. You can take all of that debt and wipe it out and now pay more towards the mortgage to avoid more interest than what you were paying on those debts, and there's no early payment, and now you're $1,500 less a month buying a house that has the $1,500 more mortgage payment. So they were blown away by that, that they could buy a house that they want and have a lower payment to be able to pay it off faster, because they leveraged their assets and paid their debt off. And so get outside the

Monique Buchanan 28:46
box. And I want to say, I wish we had more time. We've got to jump off now. But I just want to say, if you guys ever want to have a conversation with Mr. Valentino, he's open to it. Am I right, Anthony and I can go ahead and give you that number. Always open. Perfect. 702. Absolutely. 984. 3700702984. 3700, me and Anthony are here to help you guys for 2025 get yourself or your loved ones, your kids, your family members, into a home this year. I'm excited. So once again, if you are looking for a property 9100 spoon bill over 1900 square feet. You guys four bedrooms. It's in the centennial Hill area, 9100, spoon. Bill, Anthony, thank you so much for coming on and until I hear from you guys, have a blessed, blessed weekend. Thank you for listening. Please remember all terms discussed are simply an estimate. My license number is S 1788, 46 my phone number, if you'd like to contact me, is 702-984-3700, you can also find me on YouTube, and please join me tomorrow at my church, Living Word Church on hassle. I'm part of the EXP Realty Group. You.