An interview on COVID and Mortgages

Paula Switzer of Union Home Mortgage joins Matt Leicht to discuss how COVID-19 has affected the mortgage industry from a residential aspect. Paula has lived in the Sarasota area for 40 years and has been a local lender for 17 years. She has a strong background in financial institutions and worked in a real estate company for 10 years.  She covers loan forbearance and what mortgage interest rates are doing during this COVID-19 pandemic. Watch the interview above for a full report, or check out some tidbits below of our interview.

1:25 - How has COVID-19 affected the mortgage industry?

“Mortgage lenders are busy, busy, busy! Rates have dropped, so everyone out there with a current existing…

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COVID and Real Estate

I have had many people reach out to me the last few weeks with this question, and I am honored that many would value and trust my opinion on the matter. While there is no magic “crystal ball” to predict the future, we can look back on the past and find similarities and differences. These facts may help us predict what is to come in the future. I recently came across an article on “Keeping Current Matters” that has a great breakdown on the difference between the 2008 housing crash and our current 2020 pandemic.

See, in 2008 we faced a housing crisis. Today we face a pandemic. Yes, the pandemic will have an affect on the economy, but I do not believe we will see the same thing with the housing market that we did in 2008.

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Quarter 4 - 2020 

Let's take a look back to October, November, and December of 2020 as I review what the real estate market did in the last couple of months. 

Brief Market Summary For Q4 2020

Overall in the 4th quarter we’ve seen a lot of similarities that we saw in quarter 3 of 2020. Low inventory of homes on the market paired with homes selling quickly. The median days of getting a contract on a property was 28, compared to 39 days at this time of year in 2019. 

Single Family Homes: Single family sales were up 40%. Inventory was down 48%. Sale price increased from $324K to $393K which is a 21% increase. Average time on the market was 18 days. Compared to 36 days last year. This means that homes sold 50% quicker. 

Condominiums: Condo…

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