many of you are looking to move to Florida and that's actually not surprising because according
to many reports out there Florida was the number one place people moved to in 2021 and it continues
to be a very popular destination place but a lot has changed over one year when it comes to real
estate homeowners insurance and mortgage rates so in this video I'm going to be providing you
with the latest updates to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape here this could be
so much insightful information packed in this video so make sure you watch until the end so
that you have all the information available to you let's get right into this video the real
estate market was on fire in Florida especially in the beginning to Mid of this year it was not
unusual to be in a multiple office situation with 10 20 or even 40 offers on a house if you wear a
buyer on the market then it was very difficult to secure a home because of the extreme competition
in low inventory cash buys were approximately 35 to 40 percent of all the offers coming in and so
if all else was equal cash buyers typically have the upper hand here around June July and
August the market it started to stabilize as the mortgage interest rates started to go up let's
review Topline data per Florida sunstats data the overall Florida median price for a single family
home peaked in June at approximately 420 000 and it dropped to four hundred and seven thousand
dollars that's a three percent price drop over two months period one could argue this is the
turning point that prices are going to continue to go down and that could be true or maybe not
I don't think it's ever a good idea to look at data that focuses on just one point in time and
so if we go back to say 2019 2018 2017 the prices are higher in June and then they drop in August I
believe that this is due to a summer slowdown that we typically have here in Florida except this year
it was slightly Amplified with the interest rates going up so blind demand dictates prices and in
the middle of the year we had an increase of new listings to the market and my theory is that a
lot of sellers were rushing to the market to take advantage of the peak now that Russia
over and new listings are actually now starting to drop again while demand is still holding strong
the key real estate selling season in Florida is from January to May on the highest number
of buyers in the market and prices typically tend to go up during those months so right now you may
actually have a window of opportunity before it becomes more competitive again next year
but I also realize that it's a really confusing time right now to be a home buyer right I mean
I would feel the same way especially reading all these negative headlines so many credible
analysts such as Fannie Mae are predicting slight price increase into 2023. I believe the next few
months are going to be so crucial in helping to understand what the trend line is going to look
like moving towards the end of the year into next year and so if you're somebody that's looking to
purchase but you're just not confident in the real estate market right now give yourself another two
or three months and look at the data to better understand where the market is headed and only
purchase if it feels right homeowners insurance has been a real pain Point not just for those
of you looking to purchase a house but also for Florida homeowners such as myself because the
premios have gone up so much over a short period of time in this next segment we're going to be
speaking to Jennifer aussiewala a trusted home insurance agent to get her input in terms of how
we got to these high premise to begin with her tips of what to look for when purchasing a home
how to reduce rates in general Jennifer actually assisted me with my own homeowners insurance why
do home insurance rates so high mine have doubled over two years and mine have as well it is the Hot
Topic in Florida right now a lot of people don't realize that we share insurance claims with your
neighbor with the Panhandle with Miami so if Miami has a hurricane come through we're gonna
of course share in some of the claims that they they put in and also in the Panhandle so I know
in our area Sarasota area we don't get hit with hurricanes all that much I hear it all the time
we never have hurricanes I've never had a claim why is is my insurance doubling and that is one of
the reasons because we share in the claims of what goes on in the State of Florida we are the number
one state for fraud we have a huge fraud claims in Florida which have caused our rates to increase
the last three or four years the Panhandle has just gotten hit with storm after storm fraud being
the number one the roof claims that we're dealing with right now there were roofers that were going
around telling people like hey we can put a new roof on your house and we'll have insurance pay
for it they were using like a storm a previous storm and even though maybe a shingle or two
was taken off of the roof they're getting whole roofs replaced is there any recommendations you
have to current homeowners in order to help them reduce the insurance rate is there anything we
can do there are some things you can do of course when mitigation is the best thing you can do it's
costly if you want to put all hurricane windows and doors in your house and it has to be every
single opening every single door even that little side garage door that you have has to be hurricane
proof to get the discounts any type of Clips or straps of how your roof is attached in the Attic
those are going to give you discounts also the size of the nails that they use to put the roofs
on that gives you a discount as well so you'll want to get a wind mitigation inspection completed
the reports last for up to five years so once you get it done you can use it for another five years
and that will provide your discounts that we can submit to the carrier so we can make sure you can
get those discounts another one is second water resistance and that's provides a huge disc can I
even have some carriers that will not even right now if you don't have second water resistance
so if you're looking to purchase a new home if you can kind of know what it looks like in the
roof It's usually the line around the top that helps with drainage that provides a nice little
discount it's going to be much harder to get a home insurance in a house that has a roof that's
over 15 years old can you really give us all the details because that's been somewhat confusing not
just to buyers but also to agents because it seems like it's constantly changing it is constantly
changing we give memos weekly and we really have to stay on our toes to stay on top of all the
underwriting guidelines some carriers are saying they don't want single roofs over 10 years now so
it's not even the 15th shingle roofs used to be 20 25 years we do have carriers that will take
the older roof so it's not like if it's a 16 year old roof like oh I'm not going to find insurance
it's not like that at all we're going to pay a little bit higher premium or a lot of the carriers
are excluding the roof they'll be like we'll give you coverage on the home but the roof is excluded
or they'll do an actual cash value over the roof for tile roofs they're really not liking over the
25 year marker on the tile roofs I do have some carriers that are like no not over 20. so again
it just depends on the carriers they each have different underwriting guidelines so beyond the
roof are there any other elements of the house that we need to be aware of water heaters they
don't like over 15 years so it's a little bit of an older water heater they do want those replaced
if it's older they want usually a picture of it we have to submit that into underwriting and get it
approved before binding another thing that lately the underwriters have been coming back with us on
is trees trees around the home if there's any kind of tree that is hanging over the roof or over the
house they want them trimmed back they don't want any kind of bushes or anything touching the homes
and I I run into that pretty much daily where I have to have people trim the trees around their
houses where underwriting is going to cancel them Plumbing is another I have hard corrosive
water here in Florida so the plumbing tends to be a huge claim came here in Florida that's one
of the number one claims that get put into on homes they do like Plumbing if it's a house over
40 years old they're going to put limited water coverage some of the homes only have to be 35
or 30 years old also the water back up which is if you have a backup in with the toilet they're
starting to exclude that and it's an endorsement we have to add back on and that usually is kept at
about five thousand dollars carriers do not like the cloth wiring in the electrical panel things
are double tap those are things that would need to be fixed before you would purchase the home
or before we could at least put insurance on it would you suggest that the best way to proceed if
a house is somewhat questionable when it comes to the insurability of the house to contact you first
before even going to the offering stage absolutely because that just gives you an idea I mean because
if it's being escrowed it's going to affect your monthly payments and you don't want to get in to
a house that all of a sudden you can't afford it because the insurance and the mortgage rate
is just above your budget give us a call we would be happy to run a quote for you or just even give
you a ballpark idea all right so let's change the conversation a little bit and talk about flood
insurance what zone would be considered a flood zone and how does that impact the home insurance
cost I hear that they're rezoning things right now here in Florida if you are in let's say an
exit Zone that is the preferred rating Zone and you're going to get the FEMA bust rates on that
just depending on what coverage you want on the home now if you're in an a Zone a v zone or a B
Zone and you have any type of mortgage they're going to require flood coverage so you have to
have it to get a mortgage I do have some people that don't have a mortgage so they don't carry
the flood they're self-insuring on that so you don't have to carry it if there's no mortgage
but if there is a bank involved they will require that flood coverage when you are in those zones
you are going to be rated higher we have mult multiple carriers to put flood through so it's
very competitive now it's not that you just have to go through FEMA we have Surplus lines
to quote it through we can get competitive rates just directly speaking how much can it increase
the home insurance if you're in a flood zone say you're an AE if you're an AE I have seen again it
depends on the home gosh I've even seen flood more expensive than the home insurance rates if you're
out on one of the islands I have actually seen that the flood be more expensive than homeowners
so if that gives you an idea there's just so many variables involved when the rate comes
in where do you believe home insurance is going to be headed into 2023 do you actually believe
that the prices that they're down are they going to continue to double every two years and what's
the government doing about all of this you know I don't have a crystal ball to look at but I as
long as we have a minimal hurricane season knock on wood you know we got a few months left here
I don't see home rates going down but they could probably level out now the state is looking at
doing some things I've already put some laws into place with the roofs there's a roofing schedule
and payout scheduled that the carriers have to work by now today I even just got some notices
that carriers are opening back up and starting to write again so that's a good thing they're using
the roofing schedule for that as long as we can get some of those guidelines put into place if
it's a problem with the roofs they there needs to be more suspension approvals before you pay
out on the claim and you know what it's on the carrier side as well there's a lot of different
things that need to happen for the rates to start to go down but as long as we can keep
the Hurricanes away this year I see that it should be leveling out next year if we have a bad storm
here again we all pay into the cost of insurance for everyone so we will see some increases now
mortgage interest rates have gone up quite a bit since the beginning of the year and many
of you are wondering should you buy now still or should you wait now I invited Shannon Cole
to participate in this next conversation she's a preferred lender of mine to get her perspective
in terms of buying now or waiting the market situation and projections for future mortgage
interest rates there is a lot of talk in terms of the FED being very strong when it comes to curbing
inflation and with that we're all assuming that the mortgage interest rates are going to continue
to go up towards the end of the year is that your take as well they're trying to control inflation
which is at this 41-year High we're all feeling it in all aspects of our life there is going to
be another uh 75 basis point great but that's to the fun the FED fund rate which is very different
than the the mortgage interest rates so that rate is the overnight rate that is charged to
Banks but how it trickles over and how mortgage interest rates are impacted inflation is one of
the primary drivers of interest rates inflation going up mortgage interest rates tend to go up
so that's what we're experiencing right now so if and when we get the inflation under control
go into a recession you will see mortgage rates come down historically recession brings down the
mortgage interest rates so we may experience a little more pain until inflation is brought
under control the housing market will stay stable there's a lot of different charge charts out there
that even though there's a little more Supply right now it's being compared to what Supply
was earlier this year which was essentially none but overall it's healthy to to have some Supply
in the market the demand is still stronger than what the supply is so that's that part
is healthy the whole purpose of us trying to fight inflation trigger the slowing of the economy which
then creates the recession and then we come back out of it the lower interest rates and
I don't think it's going to impact housing we're going through a correction in pricing right now
at least in Southwest Florida and I totally agree with you if anything there's going to be a slight
price drop but even that is questionable if you average it out during the year I think it was
last week if you went into the the MLS and it showed I think 470 something price reductions
so immediately you might think oh my gosh we we're we're heading that way but then if you
really dissect the information you can see that over 300 of those price reductions were all from
open door open door who just calls the person hey I'll just buy your house today for this low price
and then they try to you know inflate it to make a profit those are most most of the reductions
here in Southwest Central Florida if you took all of those out they were really like under 40
bona fide price reductions when does it make sense to buy as a buyer and when does it actually make
sense to wait until the mortgage interest rates go back down again what is your take on this well
definitely we we've all read the headlines mortgage interest rates definitely surpassed six
percent this week I think as of this afternoon they're they're right in the mid six percent
range on a primary home purchase which is uh the highest they've been since 2008 so it definitely
has impacted someone's buying power that being said especially for first-time homebuyers
I still would venture and speak with a mortgage professional to get pre-approved so you can look
at that that payment and if it's something you can afford even if it's a little bit higher than
what you were thinking about I would say pull the trigger and go forward because you know
keep in mind that mortgage payment is not going to be subject to Future inflation it's going to
stay the same as long as you have that loan so in that respect I would say to at least get with a
mortgage professional and a realtor to see what a payment is going to look like and if you can
afford it if the high rates are truly preventing somebody from qualifying for a loan right now that
it may be best just to wait a little bit until they do start to come down okay let's take a
scenario where they talk to you and then they come to the conclusion that it's actually going to be
costing them more money on a monthly basis to have a mortgage so to purchase a home versus to rent
if that's the scenario what's your take on it's it's a common scenario so I'm glad you brought
that up because currently right now if they're making that move from renting to buying a home
I can pretty much assure you that mortgage payment once you factor in the taxes and insurance and you
know if there's an HOA fee or not it is going to be a hundred to a couple hundred dollars
more than what you're currently paying in rent but again if it's a home you like you want and
you can fit it into your budget I would say proceed now because again you're locking in
that mortgage payment you can't control what your rent is going to do six months from now or a year
from now or whatever your lease expires I should say so it could still be a good move to do and
then as rates do come down whenever that happens a year from now two years from now there's always an
opportunity to refinance into a lower payment if it makes Financial sense if they're getting to the
point where they're refinancing what are the steps involved and the costs involved in doing that well
the steps great question the steps involved are very similar to when you're initially starting to
get pre-approved to purchase your home there's a new application and depending on what type
of loan you're currently in whether there's a full credit qualifying or streamlined you
would need to make a new application talk with your loan officer to go through the options so
that you know number one they can determine that there is what we call a net tangible benefit to
refinancing the lower rate lower payment what are you trying to to do maybe the rates are so
low you want to take it from the 30-year fix down to a 15-year fix there's a few steps involved but
one of the nice things is if it makes Financial sense to refinance when rates come down you have
the ability to roll in the closing costs so that there's not that additional cash out of pocket and
there are still closing costs there are a little bit less than when you purchase a property in
Florida you pay title insurance and Doc stamps are you know quite a bit less do me a favor if
this video was insightful to you please like it it does help out the channel so my goal today was
to provide you with an update and equip you with information to help you make the right decision
for you if you've decided that Now's the Time to buy watch this video here which is going to help
you take a much more strategic approach also leave a note in the comments section below if you have
any thoughts or questions in regards to this video what matters pertaining to Jennifer Shannon's area
of expertise feel free to contact them directly I also included their information in the description
section thank you so much for watching this video today I always appreciate when you do take care