HyperFast Minute | April 29th, 2022

A Minute on Something I’m Learning:

You can take a public company private. Maybe I should have known this already. Or maybe I did and I forgot. Or maybe I just had not seen an example of it in a long time. Whatever the case, I am fascinated by how Elon Musk landed the deal to buy Twitter. Rejecting the offer to join the board…making an unsolicited offer…lining up the financing…and then landing the deal. All while this played out in social media. Not sure how you feel about it, but it sure is fascinating to watch.

A Minute on Something I’m Teaching:

There are lots of changes happening right now in the real estate market, but this is definitely not 2008. I see a lot of people are concerned about the real estate market going up to what seems like a new high each month and many times their thoughts go back to the crash in 2008. I’m not saying this will continue and be the new normal, but it is quite different from 2008. For starters in the mid-2000’s there was a housing surplus. Now there is a huge gap of almost 6M homes. The construction industry cannot keep up right now.

Another big difference is the Dodd-Frank legislation changed the process of getting a home loan. In the mid-2000s the vetting process was almost zero. Now banks have to examine the creditworthiness of each borrower very closely. The result? Only the most qualified borrowers get access to loans.

Again, lots of changes are going on right now:  recession fears loom, interest rates are rising (although they are still lower than at the time of the 2008 crash) and prices are hitting new highs. It’s not 2008.

A Minute on Something I’m Excited About:

This is the last text letter of April and I am excited to report that our real estate team is going to surpass $150M in sales in the first four months of the year and despite transaction volume being down this year in as a whole for the market our pipeline is up over 10 percent. The low inventory is making the market more challenging on the brokerage side of the industry and our team is finding a way to do more with less inventory and this has me very excited.

A Picture Worth Looking at for a Minute:

Last Friday we took the family out to eat at Lauderdale by the Sea. I am excited because we are finishing up a duplex renovation for a new short term rental project and this beach and pier are just a few minutes walk away from the property.