My last post was August 2020. Over 3 years ago. WAY too long. I’ll try to catch up briefly, then it’s time to brain-dump about some topics I’ve wanted to get out for awhile. I’ll get several more posts out over the next few weeks.

Covid-19 shut the whole world down in March 2020. Everything changed. People got sick. People died. Schools closed. Remote schooling and work took off. Travel and entertainment industries were shut down.

In the finance world, the US stock market dropped about 33% in 1 month. However, it only took about 6 months for it to fully recover, and then it really took off! I hope you didn’t sell during that mini-COVID crash…

The real estate world went CRAZY hot at the same time. With no one working in offices, people wanted a better/larger home office. Many used remote work to relocate away from their office. Builders were constrained by miserable supply chain problems, labor shortages, and slowdowns caused by social distancing requirements. When selling houses, if I saw a seemingly identical property had sold last week, I’d add 3-5% to our listing price and still expect a bidding war. It was nuts!

Unemployment rates went from 4.4% to 14.7% in one month. YIKES!

To prevent the economy from going into a recession, the US government was handing out money to literally everyone. Individual stimulus checks, child tax credits via direct deposit, delayed tax return deadlines, eviction moratoriums to protect tenants, mortgage forbearance to excuse homeowners from making mortgage payments, the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to give free loans to small businesses to make payroll, student loan payment forbearance, and all sorts of other state and local programs. Free or cheap money was EVERYWHERE in an attempt to keep people sheltered and fed and to keep money flowing to businesses. It worked!

The hysteria has pretty much ended by now, despite COVID still lingering around.

I’d say the optimism really started to come in the middle of 2021. The vaccine had been made available to just about everyone. People were feeling resilient, and even if they did get infected, the virus wasn’t as daunting. With the at-home tests becoming prevalent in early 2022, reported cases became an irrelevant number. As viruses mutate, they become more infective but less deadly. Although, deaths are still happening, it’s not what it once was.

Enough about the rest of the world, let’s talk about me…

2021 was the most lucrative year of my life. It was my biggest year ever selling real estate, AND I started working as a mortgage broker in Oct 2020. In 2021, I worked enough hours in each role, that both could have been considered full-time jobs.

In 2021, I sold about 20 houses, 130 mortgages, and brought on/trained 2 friends to sell mortgages with me. Just writing that brings back memories of exhaustion.

I was writing loans in about 6 states. My wife got licensed to sell real estate in 2022, so now she can help me out if I’m spread thin.

2022 and on

2022 was a turning of the tide for financial markets, especially in the mortgage and real estate world. The US stock market lost about 20% in 2022. 30-year fixed mortgages went from about 3.25% to 6.5%. Since so much cheap/free money had flooded the market, inflation went crazy. The Federal Reserve started raising borrowing rates basically Jan 1 in an attempt to slow down spending and inflation. They’ve gone up and up ever since. I think there was some panic buying of houses in early 2022 with people thinking “if I don’t get in while rates are lower, I won’t ever be able to buy”. They may have been right, but it’s TBD if they will come out ahead… Home prices peaked in April/May 2022. They hit a low point in Jan 2023. Check out some numbers in my local market:

Month	Homes Sold	Median Sales Price	Days on Market
May 2020	2,997	$355,000	15
May 2021	2,823	$460,000	5
May 2022	2,900	$560,000	6
Jan 2023	1,357	$482,000	54
May 2023	2,376	$525,000	20
Sep 2023	1,924	$520,000	28

So a $205k (57%) increase in home prices in 2 years. 🤯

$78k (14%) drop in the next 8 months. Back up a bit now… but it feels slower/lower than those numbers look.

How are we doing today?

Mortgage rates hit 8% last week. Home prices are still high. Home affordability is in the toilet. The stock market is up almost 8% YTD but still down about 14% from the end of 2021. Unemployment is basically back to pre-COVID rates; 3.8% in September.

I have no crystal ball, but I think my fellow real estate and mortgage pros could see some meager days over the next 18 months or so. I think the economy as a whole could be approaching some dark days as well. More on that in future posts…