Brooke Iapuluchio: Buying and Selling in a Competitive Housing Market

Real estate agent Brooke Iapuluchio joins Coach Pete and Jennifer Ransdell to discuss buying and selling a home. They consider decisions that matter in a competitive housing market. Call 800-661-7383 or text PLAN to 600-700. Transcript Automatically transcribed from this episode; timestamps are approximate. 00:00 Each and every week I talk to very interesting people and the most important part is that I shouldn't be the only one hearing it. I really feel that if these people make sense to me that everyone out there needs to hear it. So stay tuned folks and I hope you enjoy this newest weekly segment on Coach Listens. Well folks welcome back into the Financial Safari. Now this is the time of the show where I like to look around locally and look around what's really happening current and Jennifer I think we have a really good guest today don't we? We do we got Brooke Poluccio with us who is with Keller Williams preferred and she is a licensed real estate agent. It's always good to have a real estate agent on to see what's really going on in the pulse locally. We watch tv and we see what's happening nationally but we are it's a gold mine here but 00:48 first of all welcome in Brooke. Hi everyone thank you I'm really happy to be here. Happy to have you because we haven't had a real estate agent on in forever. We really haven't. Almost a decade I think. I don't know why but we're here we got to we have a microphone. Well and we should have them in more often because the way the market is nowadays we need to have them in. Yeah it's a crazy market now. Brooke tell us about the market. The market is hot out here. Yes yes it is. You know it's a great time to buy a home but also to sell a home. I mean this is the lowest our interest rates have been in 30 years. It's just it's crazy. I mean it's such a hot market right now. I can't believe how low interest rates have gotten. No they really are and they're staying there right now. Under three. If you're not under three you need to refinance or you need to decide maybe this is the time to finally unquutter your house and move. Yeah that's true. And also in the fall time is one of the cheaper times to move. 01:38 It is. You know moving expenses are less. Sellers are quickly to sell and buyers are quick to buy in this market. I mean it's just a really really good time. A big reason why people used to move is to go to a certain school or be in a certain school system. These days my daughter I know she's still working from home school from home. It almost defeats the purpose of moving for the school but eventually we'll be back to normal I hope. I mean yeah and we have great and the thing is in North Carolina and our area in the Triangle area we have some of the best school districts. I mean you can't beat that part of it. You know people are just they they really are set on a certain school district and that's where they want to move and that's what we do. We make it happen for them. Now if somebody is thinking of selling their house right now any any tips for them. By the way folks you can always reach Brooke. Brooke with a e so b-r-o-o-k-e-i at k-w.com and you could call her at 919-473-6341 if 02:31 you'd like to have your house looked at appraise wise or you look if you want a buyer's agent on your side. We will give a free consultation and we would just love to hear what your home goals are in the near future. So I mean as a buyer specialist right now in this market I am able to give the time to look at houses to feel what the buyer's needs are and the seller's needs as well. We do both sides of the transaction. You always want somebody to advocate for you. That's a big mistake because a lot of people don't realize that. They do not realize that when they when they drive down a neighborhood and people see that for sale sign outside of that house keep in mind that that real estate agent is advocating for the seller. So as a buyer you want to have somebody advocating for you and guess what you don't even 03:17 pay us. We get paid by the seller the listing firm. Yeah well that's important. Well because a lot of people think well gosh I don't want to pay two people for something but you're not getting paid out of their money it comes out of what the total would have been anyway right. From the listing yep. Yeah so so how important I really think it is. Jennifer you know when when we buy houses a lot of times we forget about that but having somebody on our side who understands the dirty tricks. Right exactly. The paperwork all the things that go into it and here's here's a little advice I have is visit the house more than just with the real estate agent sometimes like if you're if you're if you don't have a buyer's agent go by yourself ride by different times of the day not the time they wanted you to show up. Right exactly. And different days it may be a perfectly peaceful neighborhood Monday through Friday. But on the weekends you never know how many cars are going to be out there. It could get I mean. You never know and that's what a buyer's agent could do they could tell 04:05 conform you on that because they're they're held liable a lot of times if you don't disclose that stuff. I mean as whether it's us showing you a home marketing your home finding other homes on the MLS at the end of the day we're there for you to help guide you through this process. It can be scary for her first-time home buyers. It's scary anytime you buy a house. It's a very big decision. It's one of the biggest investments that most of us will make in our life. I mean you know that it's a very big investment and it can change our lives and we want to just make sure that you're you have knowledge on the market what's happening and that we're there to guide you advocate for you be there for you and even after you're in your home whatever we will still be in contact with you. We always want to take care of our clients and make sure that they're 04:53 getting everything they need especially in this hot real estate market. It is it's going crazy. I've talked to people in the past where they had bought a house and put a lot of money in or renovating it and they didn't renovate correctly and I wrote about my that in my book the fine print fiasco years ago how people spend too much money on things that aren't going to add value to the house right but now it's almost anything you've done right adds value to the house because people want it so bad people are buying I've heard and I don't know maybe you can tell me I've heard people are buying even not even seeing the house they're buying from somewhere else a different state a different country they're just buying because they see it on the Zillow or somewhere else right? Well yeah sometimes we see these properties that go on the market they're about under $200,000 and they they go quickly there there's multiple offers on them because people aren't really thinking about oh the floors oh the walls I mean this is an invest some of them are investment 05:40 properties right we had somebody that was buying one for their daughter who was going to UNC and they they want to they want to flip the house they want to totally gut it and they got it was a hot property there was multiple offers I mean they go quick. That was a strategy I had a roommate back in the day and I was renting a townhouse from a room in the townhouse for him and his dad had bought the townhouse for him when he was starting college and his plan was to dump it after the after John got out done with college problem is John didn't want to leave Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill's a nice place. Nice Franklin Street. Yeah it was Finley Forest condos the problem with Finley Forest back in the day is they built the roofs this would be the condominium complex but they built the roofs flat so when it rained the water stayed you didn't even need a pool you had a pool on the roof so there was always leaks 06:25 there so that was big problem but so we always have to look at different things that could be problems down the road building a pool is that a good idea? I would say building a pool is a great idea I mean if you like to use it right especially with this pandemic going on I think we're gonna see I mean right now in the real estate market I have heard more people wanting a pool in their backyard because you know I'm from Las Vegas so everybody has a pool in their backyard. Staycation. Yeah exactly I mean that's where I grew up and if you did not have a pool in your backyard you were like looked at like what so I mean now with you know not even the pandemic but for privacy or whatever it is I mean people are starting to realize they do want their own pool and if they could build that and they have the land for it why not as long as there's no you know covenants or anything like that right 07:12 put a big fence around there and get an umbrella policy for your house too and your personal coverage because if someone hurts them if they break in your pool and they drown you're liable which is crazy I've never agreed with that. I haven't either. See back then I think that a lot of people wanted big yards with green grass and everything. Until they had to mow it. Right. Until Sunday morning came. Oh yeah. So I mean now yeah I would definitely I have definitely heard of more people wanting pools in their backyard and think about it I mean with new construction well that's that's also booming. A lot of people now are sitting on a very valuable asset and they may have not really liked the house for years and now might be a good time to downsize you know sell your house now for a really good price and and again just like I say with life insurance never cancel your current life insurance policy to get a new one. What if you sell your house you know where 08:00 you live. Well not only that but people that are older they want a ranch because they don't want the steps. You want that first floor master bedroom right. You want that first floor master bedroom. Yeah. Yeah. And in today's society with COVID you know are you doing a lot of virtual meetings with people. That's a good point. I try to get out there in person as much as I can. Nothing like seeing it right. Right exactly. There's a few like there are open houses like I have one this Sunday coming up in Raleigh and I will go virtual as well as be in the house. That's good. Give you both. Right. You still have those people who want to cling on to this virtual during the pandemic which is understandable. Quingons. Right. You know they're nervous to go out and they want to stay home. I get it. I totally get it. But then you know I try to get in there as much as I can. Take precautions. 08:46 Use hand sanitizer. All the stuff. All the stuff. Go through the process. And then you know try to get people more comfortable with going back into open houses. You know we talk about when people buy a car and I've done it before too. You go kick a tire. Right. What good does that do. What's the equivalent of kicking a tire if you're trying to buy a house. Is there like slam the doors or like fill the windows. What is a kicking the tire thing. Because you can't do that unless you're in person. Right. Exactly. Well I think to start off I would just say you need a realtor. You need somebody that's that's the first step. You need an advocate. Because once you walk into that house your realtor is going to guide you through what you if you have questions. If they don't know the answer they will find out for you. But you get your inspection period. You get everything with buying 09:34 that house. And your realtor is right there by guiding you the entire process. The entire way. So I mean I would say that is the I would just say that's the most important thing. Because in a house you can fix things. You can negotiate. But you want somebody that's there for you advocating for you on your behalf. I agree. And her name is Brooke. Brooke Iappelluccio. Iappelluccio. That's right. And her phone number is 919-473-6341. And I work with my Aunt Teresa Lund who is getting a team at the start of next year. And we have been doing great together. So we can answer any questions you have or anything like that. There's the old phrase the stars are aligned. Right. The stars are really aligned right now. Even if you're buying or selling. If you're buying it's still some good deals out there. But it's 10:19 more important than ever to have a really good real estate agent or a team behind you. And also if you're selling. Same thing. Get the best price possible. Get these bidding wars breaking out. Keep raising the price. Folks if you want to reach Brooke. Brooke. It's B-R-O-O-K-E-I at K-W dot com. Brooke. Thanks for your time today. Thank you so much. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.