Weird Real Estate Laws Plus Buyer Tips That Actually Help

You can learn a lot about real estate from the serious stuff like rates and inventory, but sometimes the fastest way to understand the market is to start with what makes no sense. We kick things off with a wild tour of strange real estate laws across the US, from a two-toilet limit on a tiny island to fence rules, noise restrictions, and even the idea of squatters eventually claiming ownership. It’s funny, but it also reveals something real: most housing rules exist because someone pushed a situation so far that a city or state had to write it down.

From there, we shift into the buyer questions we hear constantly, especially from people preparing to buy a home in 2026. We break down the 20% down payment myth, talk through zero down and low down payment mortgage options, and clarify pre-qualification vs mortgage pre-approval. We also tackle the credit score fear around getting pre-approved, including how mortgage credit inquiries are typically treated when you shop lenders.

Then we get practical about what can blow up a deal: appraisal gaps, debt-to-income ratio limits, and what underwriting actually looks at beyond one number. We talk inspection strategy and why waiving inspection in a bidding war can be a painful shortcut. We also dig into contingent offers, how to think about sale proceeds, and why it’s smart to keep cash reserves for life after closing. Finally, we talk negotiation mistakes buyers make when emotions run high, including why you should assume cameras are recording you during showings.

Subscribe for more real estate and mortgage advice, share this with a friend who’s buying soon, and leave a review if it helped. What part of buying feels the most confusing right now?

Transcript

Welcome And 2026 Buyer Webinar

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, we are back this week with another episode of Venture with Joe and Cody. I am Joe Skipper, owner of Skipper Realty Group, brokered by EXP Realty, and this is uh Cody Wilhelm with Residential Mortgage. What's up? Here I am.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

How are ya?

SPEAKER_01 0:13

There he is. There he is. Well, we just uh announced on our live stream the other day that uh you and I are gonna do a buyer's um buying in 2026, what that's like, the craziness of this market, what to do as a buyer, what to look for, tips and tricks to buy in this market. I think it's a really good market for buyers personally. I think the sellers are coming out of their haze of the 2.75% rate, the 3% rate they have to sell, and now they're panicking. Um, and not to say take advantage of that, but I think buyers are in a better position to do that. But I think it's an unpredictable market, and I think Cody and I will hopefully help answer some questions. So be on the lookout for that for our new uh buying in 2026 uh webinar. Thinking we're either gonna do live or have it somewhat live where people can ask questions. I think that's smart.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Um figure that out, make it interactive and faux show, man. I like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, and so this is gonna kind of be a random uh random style of podcast. I was just uh we were talking about it, and uh I was like, let's talk about some weird real estate laws in the country. And there's some there's some weird ones out there. But I also have a I also have a home buying quiz that you have to pass a hundred percent because you're a lender and you're you're helping home buyers. So I like to put so much pressure on you, but uh yeah, there's gonna be pressure on you.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

It did take me two times to pass my mortgage license, so I can't guarantee anything here.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

This is either gonna be great marketing for you or you're just gonna be like this, no one wants to work with me anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Yeah, maybe we'll just do another episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Okay, let's get started. This is kind of crazy, and I'm and I'm I apologize to anyone. This is not a kid's show necessarily. We try to keep it a little bit PG, but I don't I have not looked at any of these laws. So if there's anything that's

Weird Real Estate Laws Roundup

SPEAKER_01 2:00

inappropriate, I'm sorry, I'm just reading these as like live. It's the internet's fault. We don't know. So this was broken up into the section of a wait what type laws. Like and this is in your home hood, Waldron Island. Have you heard of it? No. Okay, well, this is a tiny island in the Puget Sound between Washington and Canada, and has a law prohibiting any building from having more than two toilets. Uh, the goal is to limit development and conserve the water supply. So two toilets. Two toilet max.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

My goodness.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Yeah. So if you do want more than two toilets, do not go to Waldern Island, Washington. That's interesting. Is that how many islands are in around Puget Sun? I'm sure a ton, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:39

There's a lot, yeah. I've been up to Whidby Island.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

That's no there's a bunch of little ones, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I need to go out there. It's been a long time since we've been to Seattle.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Take the ferry out there.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

We've never been to any of the islands, actually. We've never been on the shuttle or the ferries or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

So yeah, a long time ago I had a boss that his the like family house up there, and he let us use it one time. It was pretty cool. You just drive up on the ferry, take the ferry over to the place, and there's you know, there's not a whole lot to do there, but that's kind of the fun part of it. Is it like you're just kind of touring the little island and try out the five different restaurants that are on the island and nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah, that is cool. Maybe we'll have to head up there. And they did have more than one toilet. Do you see my lighting? I do, yeah. I have it's so frustrating. If you I know every time it goes, the problem is, is my little remote control here. It's battery's dead, so I can only press the manual power thing, and so it can only turn it on and off. There's no and there's different modes, but it will never be a solid mode. The different modes are literally all sorts of funky stuff. So this is the least funky I could do. It's crazy, it's just dance mode. Yeah, it's in dance mode all the time. I love it. That's what we need to hype this up. This next one will not will probably not surprise you at all. And it's a California squatter law. If a squatter occupies a vacant property for five years and acts like the owner, paying property taxes, HOA dues, etc., they can actually claim legal ownership. So again, probably doesn't surprise anyone in California that you could just live in a random house and as long as you're paying the taxes. How do you pay the taxes? Like, how do you do it? How do you say I'm a squatter, I need to pay the HOA dues? Right. I I don't understand it, but there's lots of California.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah, HOA's like, wait, back up a second. Now you said that you are squatting there, right? You realize we have an HOA that's like they probably can't even ask them.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

They probably can't even ask for follow-up. Uh taxes, they're like, Yeah, we're paying on our property, we're paying our property taxes on uh on the on this house that is not ours.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Is that that's across the state?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

It just says California. Okay. I just the lighter side of real estate is the website if you want to look into that stuff. So wow, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Do it for five years. That's a commitment.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

I know you found yourself a nice squat, like honestly, like in that in that case, like if you've stayed there five years and done like paid taxes, and no one has come to say, Hey, that's my house, like it makes a little bit of sense, like that you can just take it. Because five years is a long time to just be like, maybe in four someone's gonna come and take my house away. Like it's so yeah, at least they've committed, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So yeah, I'm gonna go like look for some remote cabin or something, yeah, and just see if I can live there for five years.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

That's actually a good idea, yeah. Yeah, but you gotta go five years, that's a long, long time. Yeah. That nobody's gonna see their house. Like uh what do you think about it? Like, I completely forgot about my house for five years. Dang it. It's been five years. Now somebody else is squatting in. Well, moving on to some fence feuds in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Uh, isn't Scranton the office, right? Yeah. Okay. I think so. I think I I'm ashamed that I'm not even confident in that. Like uh because I watch the office a lot. But yeah, there are no white picket fences allowed. Dating back to a horse-drawn carriage incident in the late 1800s, fences with sharp points are banned. Any fence in the front yard has to get city council approval.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Really? Wow. So yeah. Are they still doing buggies, horse and buggies over there?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

You never know, man. Uh maybe that's part of the Amish land. I'm trying to think of the office. Did we see any did we see any fences in the office? I don't think we did in any resolution.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I don't remember seeing any.

unknown 6:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Okay, we're back to California. The spite fence law. In California, if your neighbor builds a fence over ten feet high just to annoy you, you can sue them for private nuisance. Oh, so you can't.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

I could only imagine the the battles that would have already taken place if you built a ten foot fence to block your neighbor.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

I actually like wouldn't be opposed to a ten-foot fence. Like, I don't know, I don't know why anyone would be upset about a ten foot fence.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Like, or they just give you at least like like eight feet or something. That gives you a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah, it just gives you more uh privacy.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Yeah. Because there's nothing worse than you're standing there and it's like if you're ten feet back from the fence, you see the middle of the neighbor's yard. Yeah. So a little higher fence, I don't think, would hurt anybody.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

You still have to find my parents' Arizona place, and granted they have like stucco walls and stuff, like as they're fencing, you know. But theirs is, I would say, over ten feet, and it's nice because you just you're you have to do it. Yeah, it's your own little space. Yeah. So come on, California, figure it out. Yeah. All right. We're going over to Colorado for two of these ones. Boulder, Colorado, no outdoor upholstered furniture. Your chase lounge, couch, or padded chair cannot live outside. Wow, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I don't even know what or why, but I don't I'm not gonna lie, I don't feel like I see a lot of like couches and refiners outside, but yeah, I guess no one.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

This is like HOA stuff, it sounds like. Yeah. It says it says it's the website is Evans Law. I don't know what that is. Seven strange real estate laws in the US. In Aspen, Colorado, snowball fights are illegal. You cannot throw snowballs at any person, public property, or private property. Wow. What a I'm never going there. Fun haters.

Noise Bans And Odd Restrictions

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Jeez, no kidding. Um in a place where you're gonna get snow, but I guess aspen people probably are super wealthy and rich and bougie and don't want to get hit by snowballs. So right.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

I'm pretty sure that in Dumb and Dumber, uh, there were snowballs thrown when they were in Aspen.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Illegally, illegally that is. Several states resit restrict DIY homework on Sundays. New Jersey bans outdoor painting and roofing. Shine Shinectade, New York bans filling nail holes with putty. Hawaii bans leaf blowers, and Santa Fe, New Mexico bans lawnmowers.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Okay, so a lot of those, I guess I could understand. Filling nail holes with putty, that one It's like who gets caught on that?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Like I know, right? Like the other ones.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah, they all make noise, you know. Sure. Let's have one day throughout the week of quiet, but nail holes, I don't know. That's an interesting one.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I don't like filling nail holes, so that'll work.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

This will be interesting for you. This might change where you invest. Um, but Arkansas and Missouri, no home more than five women in a single home. So if you were looking to have have some ladies in a in a place in Arkansas or Missouri, then you're out of luck because when you hear that law went into place. It was originally written to discourage brothels, uh, but still technically on the books.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

So what if they're squatters?

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Keep it to four. Well, in California, it doesn't matter. True. So Kentucky and Mississippi dry counties. You can buy a home in some of these counties, but it's still not legally able to buy alcohol nearby. Okay. So, anyways, just some crazy laws for people out there.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah. I want to go back to that Arkansas one really quick. What if you had four

Occupancy Limits And Dry Counties

SPEAKER_00 10:00

daughters and your wife? That's true.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Well, I would support I would report you, but then the law would have to figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

And then I'd take you to Aspen and throw snowballs at you.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

And build a 10-foot fence. Yeah. Sue me for a private nuisance. Let's just do all combine all the laws.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

You know the crazy part about these is this tells me that there have been enough complaints about these certain things that these states have have made them into laws. That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Like some of the old ones I get, the brothel thing, you know, they probably were at the point where they were stopping that. But yeah, the 10-foot fence, and I get maybe it's obnoxious to have a 10-foot fence, but I'm like, Right. Yeah. Especially compared to like maybe the other side of the home that doesn't have it. Sure. But uh, yeah, it is funny how like and I I think that with most laws or most rules, like when you get a policy book with a company or things like that. We always like joked in the police world, we're like, they had to write this policy for a reason. Like it's a ridiculous policy, but someone had to do it to the point where they were like, dude, we might get sued, or this might be an issue. I'm like, why do we have to have this rule? Isn't it common sense? It's like, no, it's not common sense because someone did it. Like it's crazy. Yep. All policy books are basically based on people screwing up and doing that thing. So whatever you see in a policy book, someone has done it at least once.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

So we had something like that happen just recently, not with us personally, but like our church meets at a school because we don't have like a permanent location. Yeah. And we were parking behind the school, like people that were helping out, and one of the neighbors apparently reported and said that there was like somebody's car was leaking oil everywhere, and it was that shouldn't be around kids and the proximity of all that. And so the city got involved and told us, told the school essentially that like we could no longer park there. I'm like, wait, this was a neighbor, and I don't know. I go back there and I don't see oil spilled out, but it's like just those little things sometimes. It's just like it takes one person to ruin everything. And then it goes to the next and the next, and then it's like now we have a whole thing. Okay, well.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

They ruin everything, honestly. Yeah, I know. So it's always a person that you know that there's one person that always is the loudest that makes everyone kind of have to follow that rule. So I know. I hope I'm not that guy, but as I get older I do get a little bit more uh impatient. I get off my lawn, guy. I don't think I'll be like looking at people's oil dripping to see if that's an issue, but who knows? Who knows? I don't want to I want to keep an open mind about it.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

So sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Okay, let's go with a little quiz for you. There's five questions you need a hundred percent, and you need to explain yourself, okay?

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Um, true or false. This is easy. 50-50 chance. You need a 20%

Why Policies Exist

SPEAKER_01 12:40

down payment to buy a home. Starting off easy, Cody. False. Is it true or is it false? We're gonna go with false. Okay, what do you need to buy a home? Tell me.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

You can go zero down. That works for a lot of people. If the if you don't fit that box, you can do three percent down for conventional, three and a half percent down for FHA. Some of the the conventional three percent down option is limited to first-time home buyer or an income bracket. So if you don't fit either of those, then your minimum is gonna be five percent down. But there's there's a variety of options for low and zero down payments. So you're gonna get the best payment options and not have mortgage insurance

Buyer Quiz Down Payment Basics

SPEAKER_00 13:20

and yeah, and the more you put down the better 25% that stuff is as far as a requirement.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Yeah, to my knowledge, no. What are you um the zero percent? Are those primarily for people that are low income, or is that can anyone get it, or is it what what's the kind of general rule with that?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Most of them are income-based. Some are a little more flexible than others. Like most states have their own down payment assistance program, so those tend to be a little bit higher if there's another option. Like we have one that we can do in Oregon that is there's no income limit to it at all. It's a little bit higher of an interest rate, but it you don't fall into that that bracket. But yeah, most programs for anything that is down payment assistance or rate related, where you get some form of discount or grant or anything, it's usually targeted towards like medium and lower income brackets.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Okay, okay. Yep. Uh true or false, and this is actually a good one. Um, getting pre-approved hurts your credit score.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

I would say false. Getting pre-approved doesn't, but pulling your credit does. I mean, you have to do one to do the other, but I think there's a lot of misconceptions around that too. I mean, I've looked it up, I've tried to find like an exact number, and I can't seem to find anything that says exactly what the number is, but most everything that I can find says it's anywhere from like one, two, three, four, five, call it one to five points, right? So it's a very minimal impact. And what a lot of people don't know too is when you pull your credit for a mortgage, you have 30 days to where if you're if you're going, hey, I want to shop this around and kind of see you get a couple different lenders' opinions, within that 30-day window,

Credit Pulls Pre-Approval Reality

SPEAKER_00 15:05

your credit is only dinged one time. Okay. So, like if you're if you're monitoring your credit, you're gonna see this company pulled it, this company pulled it, and this company pulled it.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

But you'll only be dinged for the one.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Yep, but it's only gonna be that first one that makes an impact on your scores.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

I've had some people that are like, Yeah, you know, this company pulled my credit, and then my scores went down like 60 points, and I don't know what happened. And those those types of things don't happen just from your score being pulled. It's more than likely similar timing, a late payment happened or collection hit on there or something happened. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

So it's have you ever run into scenarios where they're like on the verge? You know, there's obviously you guys have these like cutoffs of where you have good credit, average credit, you know, great credit. Are they on have you ever had scenarios where they're on the verge and they're like, dude, if we get this, that six points is a big deal, or is that never a big deal in the sense?

SPEAKER_00 15:56

No, it well, yeah, it is. It's a big deal. Most people don't know exactly what their scores are.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

They might have an idea, but if you had Credit Karma or Capital One or some of these other monitoring systems, they give you a projected score. So based on what you have done today, yesterday, whatever it is, they're projecting what your score is gonna be when it gets reported to the bureaus, but it's not a true accurate score from what the bureaus say. So most of the time it's like say 620 was your number, and they're like, Yeah, I think my score is right around 620, and we pull it and it's 621. Now we're gonna be a little we're gonna be like, okay, we need to we need to not do a whole lot here, but I'll usually run a simulator that we have for that type of stuff that says, hey, you know, pay this card down to here, and that's gonna increase it by 18 points. So most of the time we would do something like that to help if we needed to, but we have a little bit of a roadmap.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Nice. No, that's uh that's a good uh question, actually. It is a good one. Okay, you're under contract, the appraisal comes in ten thousand dollars low. What happens?

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Well, well, we have we've got options. Either the the seller has to drop the purchase price by ten thousand dollars or the buyer has to increase their down payment by ten thousand dollars. However, you can also do say, for example, somebody was putting down twenty percent. Let's actually let's say twenty-five percent, and the appraisal came in ten thousand lower, nothing would actually have to change because their numbers, the buyer's numbers are not impacted, they're still not gonna have mortgage insurance, like nothing's really gonna change because they've put so much down. But if you were in a situation where it was zero down or minimum down payment that was applied, now we have this ten thousand dollar

Appraisal DTI And Underwriting

SPEAKER_00 17:45

gap where we can't, because now our numbers are screwed up a little bit to the point where it's not gonna show they're putting 3% down because now our numbers aren't the same, the appraised value and the purchase price aren't the same. So that's when we have to get the seller to drop, the buyer to increase, or maybe split the middle, split the difference, right? Seller comes down five grand, buyer puts an extra five grand down.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, that's normally what happens is you know, because the seller understands now at this point that they got an appraisal at that price. So whether they like it or not, it's what it appraised at. So you could always go off the market or go cancel this contract and be stubborn, but the next person that comes in may have the same issue. Maybe they have more down and it doesn't matter, but you run that risk. So most sellers are like, well, it appraised at this. Let's see what they do.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

So yeah, there's not a whole lot you can really do. As much as it does suck because it's like out of nowhere for nobody's fault. Now we got 10 grand less, but for sure.

unknown 18:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

And what's the difference between pre pre-quall and pre-approval? We've talked about this before on our show. So pre-quall is just a basic me saying, Hey, I make this much money, you're like, cool. And then this is my debt. Exactly. It's very simple. Pre-approval is more of like the in-depth, grab your financials and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Yep, yep. Reviewing documents, pulling credit, running it through underwriting. That's the official pre-approval. Pre-quall is we're having a conversation, you tell me some stuff, I write it down, do some quick math, and say, based on what you told me, this is about what you would qualify for. Yeah. So that can that can be the starting point for a lot of people, especially if you're not looking for six months. Just kind of like, you know, is this even something that we should be looking at right now?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

So for sure. Yeah. Your debt to income ratio is 48%. Can you still get a loan? Yes. Okay. Tell us just a little bit more about it. I know that gets confusing for most people, including myself, of like the the ratios and where you guys kind of find that can explain in dumb terms for most.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yes. Yes. So the debt to income, uh, each program has its own guideline, and it's going to tell you what the maximum is. So for conventional loans, 50% maximum debt to income. So can't really get anything over that. FHA is a little more lenient, they go up to 55%, maybe a little bit more. It's kind of a gray area-ish, but all that to say, so the ultimate deciding factor is when we run it through the automated underwriting system, that's what's ultimately going to tell us whether or not they are approved at that number. So I could say, Joe, you're approved at 55% debt to income on an FHA loan. That probably is going to mean that you've got pretty good credit, you've got some reserves, you might be putting down a little bit more than the minimum, and maybe you have a co-borrower on there, like your wife's on there with you. So it shows stability and everything. Versus I could have somebody else buying the same exact property, making the same amount of money, their credit's a little bit lower, and they're putting a little bit less down. And I can't get an approved eligible there. I got you approved at 55. For some reason, I can only get this person approved at 45. Okay. Right. So it's a 10% difference. So a lot of it is it's the whole combination of the factors of the loan that are into it, but it's there's not really one thing that I could pinpoint. I couldn't tell everybody, hey, I can get you approved up to 50, 48. Um, because it just varies. But having two borrowers on the loan application is a big strength because now that that liability is split between two people.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Having reserves, so extra money in the bank and a 401k and something like that. If we can show that there's one, two, maybe three months worth of your payment in reserves just tucked away, doesn't even have to be applied to the loan. That is a big strength and compensating factor. Credit scores that are that are good, that's a good compensating factor. So you start to add all these things on, and you tend to get a higher approval amount versus somebody that doesn't have any of those. They're just look the whole system looks at it as like a as great overall profile. So we're gonna reduce the amount that they're qualified for to for safety, really. I see. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I see. Well, we have questions for me, but I have them in here. So I'm going to cheat and just talk about them.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

Do it.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

True or false, the listing agent works for the buyers too. Technically, no, the listing agents signed a contract, especially in this NAR lawsuit, that they only sign a contract with the sellers in this case and what their commission is, their compensation is, whatever that may be. So the listing agent does not work for you. They have some ethical obligations to a buyer that comes in unrepresented, to be honest, to be truthful, to, you know, uh treat them with respect, blah, blah, blah. But they have a fiduciary duty to only the listing agent. There are ways that you can, you know, sign a contract with that listing agent to work for you as well. I think it's I don't like it. Lots of agents run their careers off of it, and that's fine, but I don't like it. I think it just kind of puts a bad taste in my own mouth personally because it just how do you feel good that you gave got your seller the most amount of money and the buyer the best deal. So I

Agents Inspections Contingencies Strategy

SPEAKER_01 22:55

don't know how to do it. People can say and explain it to me all they want that they they do that successfully. That's great, but I personally don't like to do it. Yeah. Makes sense. We talked a little bit about home inspections yesterday, or not yesterday, last week. Uh home inspection finds issues, true or false, you must fix everything before closing. So we already talked about lending with Cody, that it doesn't he actually doesn't care. The appraiser may come in and figure out some stuff that are uh that might be for FHA, you know, there might be specific issues that come up that have to be addressed, um, and even conventional that might need to be addressed. Uh but overall the items don't need to be fixed. You know, you can negotiate closing costs in order to take care of them once you're closed and that sort of stuff. So But yeah, go over with Cody on the you know, there's things that your agent should know to talk to the lender to be like, okay, this was there, this is an FHA loan. There's paint chipping off the siding of the house. Like, you know, those sort of things are just gonna have to be addressed. That's what your agent should know, your lender should know. But Cody does not need everything fixed on your house before he lends you money. Nope. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

In fact, I don't want to know anything.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, I know. He's he's like, do not send it. What does contingent mean on a listing? So contingent, that's a good question. Basically, when you and contingent offers are very common right now, is basically saying, hey, seller, I'm gonna buy your house, but I need to sell my house first. That would be you're a contingent buyer, meaning that I will buy your place as long as I can have the proceeds from my sale of my home in order to buy it. So, lenders, it's working closely with your lender on this and your agent to kind of put together a good offer, what you need to get out of your home sale in order to purchase the next home. So it's kind of I wouldn't say it's complicated, but it it is something that is not, you know, you can't just will willy-nilly it and you have to have an agent and a lender that know what they're doing and know how to walk you through that process because yeah, it it is the requirement is that you have the finances, the finances from your sale are gonna ultimately purchase the house. So you need to know what that is and what you can afford. One tip I'll have, and Cody, you can back me up or not, is okay, don't always think that the all of the proceeds need to go to the down payment of the next house. I I personally say like just keep some money to yourself. If you can keep some money to yourself, every new house needs a little bit of paint, a new couch, new bed, new furniture, whatever. So if you do have proceeds, say $300,000 you get on a sell of a house, Cody only needs, you know, $200 to get you, you know, pre-approved. Um, I'm not saying keep $100,000, but just like think about that. Say, okay, what can we kind of keep and what can we put down? I don't know. What's your two cents on that?

SPEAKER_00 25:31

I I agree 100% on that. And the main reason is because if you do need that money, say you put down the full 300, the only way to get that back out is by taking out another loan, either refinancing and doing a cash out or getting a second loan or a HELOC or something. Not to say that those are bad options, but when you want to get that, it might not be the right timing in your in your life, your financial situation, maybe you don't qualify to get that second loan. So to me, it does make the most sense. Put it in a in a higher interest savings account and just let it sit there, but it's there when you need it. And if after time you do realize, hey, we don't need this, we're super rich, then you can plug it away. But yeah, I think so. Cause because there's nothing worse than wanting to do something and you're going, man, we had $300,000 and we couldn't have kept like $20,000 to do this little project that we want to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Like you said, you got to take a HELOC out and then pay that back. And so just think about it, just something to talk over with your lender and your agent to say, hey, we want to do these remodels once we move out, you know, or once we move in, like what you know, kind of get a general price and see if that works for the lender to kind of keep some of that proceed.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yeah. And I feel like contingent offers too, going back on that topic, they it seems to fluctuate, obviously, based on the on the market and what's going on. There's like windows of time where contingent offers not more than likely going to get accepted. And then other times where it's like, hey, we'll entertain some contingent offers. Like, let's let's make a deal here. So it's I think sometimes people look at contingent offers. I know when I'm talking to them, like in the pre-approval side of it, they're like, Oh, but nobody's gonna take a contingent offer. I get that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

I get that a lot. Yeah. Yeah, I bet. Don't be intimidated by the contingent offer. It's not an it's not a bad thing. There's other ways to make your offer look strong. You know, you know, also, you know, your agent should be pitching why your house will sell quickly, you know, those sort of things. You've talked that over with your agent. They show that they can sell your home in a certain amount of time. So, but there's yeah, right now in this market, you know, yeah, you may you may lose out on a home, but I've had more contingent offers get accepted than not recently. Yeah. So so yeah, don't worry about the contingency. Now it's like if you don't, if you're not contingent, it's like boom, strong offer. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Because there are other contingent offers coming in. Everyone has to buy and sell their home. Generally, people don't have the money to be living inside their home and qualify to cover both mortgages.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Right, you know, so and it's an it's it's a scary thing too if you're doing that and you're looking at going, okay, well, what if our house doesn't sell for another two months and we've already moved into this and now we have two payments, and yeah, you know, for sure. It's a yeah, it's an intimidating thing, but it's it's a very normal common thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

So yeah, I agree. You fall in love with the house, should you tell the listing agent? So as a buying agent, no. As a listing agent, yes, tell me. Right? It's a kind of commonsensical question, but I would say that to add to this, or just to put a little twist on this, every home you go into is recording you. Just assume it. Just assume that every home is there's there's rules that are in place to say you're recording or that you're supposed to be tell everyone that you're recording inside your house. But we have so much technology and so many cameras everywhere. I tell all buyers, assume you're being recorded. Everything you say, do, everything. So be careful with that because you don't want to walk into a house for me as a buyer's agent and say, I love everything about it. I I'll do anything to get this house. Yeah. On the flip side, you don't want to be like, this is ugly, this is ugly, this is ugly. And then two days later, you're like, actually, we like that house. Can we make an offer? Because now the seller knows that you hate their home and they take that personally. So I've had both scenarios and they're not good. Just assume you're being recorded, especially outside on the front porch, the ring doorbell will record it. I have client after client after client that is like, no, they're not interested, or yeah, they're gonna make an offer before I even know anything because they've heard it on the ring doorbell that their clients step outside the house and are like, we love this place, let's do it. Like, or we hate this house and we are never gonna step foot in it again. You know, so just know that you're first off, don't tell any agents that you love it, any listing agent, but yeah, know that you're being recorded in a house. Just assume it.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Just neutral.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Yeah. Neutral place. It's very weird. I just had uh friends and clients. We walk through a house and we knew it was being recorded. And it's just it is awkward because you do want to say something, but you just like walk, everyone walks through silent like a library, and then we have to like walk around the corner down the street, like behind a tree, to make sure that no one's like no one's like recording you. But it's like yeah, it's just the times we live in that you don't want to give away your cards, like you just don't want to show people what what you have.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

So did they have like multiple cameras in the house?

SPEAKER_01 30:16

They had one, so we didn't know about inside. We definitely knew the ring doorbell outside. So the ring, I never talked to people right outside the door. It's like, let's go take a walk or let's go in the car and I'll call you or whatever. But um, this one in particular had like a camera up in the corner. Yeah, I know. It's like it's like the major league. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this one in particular had a camera inside the house, so it was like, okay, that we could see it. Um, and so we're like, okay, okay, let's just walk through. And this everyone walks through quietly and say anything they could like. And then we just go out and they're like, we don't like it. It's like, okay, well, cool.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

But anyways, yeah, that's a good one. Um, okay, you waive inspection to win a win a bidding war. Good or a bad idea. I think we talked about this in inspections. I think it's a terrible idea.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah. You're that that to me screams you're gonna be frustrated in about a year or two and want to sell again.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

I think that you like someone like you, or someone that is savvy enough to take on or can one view the property and know more or less. Like I've had people that are like contractors that look under the crawl space, like in it in during a home showing, and are like, okay, that's fine. You know, so I would say that it depends on your qualification level. If you are someone maybe you're a home inspector buying, maybe you can do your own little thing while you walk through. There are scenarios, but I just generally speaking, it's not a good idea. I don't know. Yeah, your thoughts? Because you're savvy with home stuff, like even you would probably get one.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Yeah, I would, I would still like I we've gotten inspections on our houses that we've bought, and it's partially because they're looking at things so differently than I am. I'm looking at stuff that's like, okay, how can we remodel this and make this look nicer, kind of flow a little bit better? For sure. They're looking at like the the bones of everything. So to me, sure, if I knew that if I saw something and knew it was an issue, great, but I'm not I'm not up there inspecting what the roof is gonna look like and you know the bathroom vents through the attic, and is there mold or anything?

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Yeah, so I I would not do it, but that's just yeah, in the COVID times you had to, yeah, in some cases, because you can only go up so much money.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I know, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:24

But even then I was like, you just unless this is like your passion of a home, like you're gonna live you're just like this is the dream house, it's like don't there'll be another one that comes up. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

That's a good one though, because in those crazy markets, that time does that you have such a small amount of time to to make a decision and emotions sit in, and you know, especially if you've got if you're buying it by yourself, maybe that's a little bit different. But if you've got a spouse and kids and you know, people that are looking at like, this is the greatest house, we want this, and you're like, I know.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Okay, I can't let them down. That is hard. Yeah. Okay, well that's that finishes us, uh finishes our topics up. I think we passed. Both of us. I think we did. Yeah, I think we did. I well I had the answer key, so Okay. I tried not to cheat.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

We can keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

The Masters is coming up random. So by the time this posts, the Masters will be on uh Friday, so or it will be a day into the Masters. So who do you have winning?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

Who uh I'm gonna go with Xander. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

I think he's a popular choice. Little bit. Do you think is it back to back with Rory if he gets one? Yeah. I kind of want Rory, but maybe I have a bias towards his name for my son. Sure. Yeah. I mean Yeah, I think I don't know. Like there was all there's all these things on X that are talking about like all these people say every winner has done XYZ, like been the top 30 of Greens and Regulation or whatever, you know, and it kind of narrows it down. But I think uh Xander's been in there. I think the top five that have had all the stats that say of what a masters champion has had. Uh-huh. I think it's Rom,

Masters Picks And Closing

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Rory, Xander, Scheffler, uh, Scheffler, so a couple others. But yeah. Yeah, we'll see. It'll be fun times. This is like the one tournament I kind of like want to get into like Thursday from Thursday on, just to kind of be a part of it. Yeah, it'll be fun.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Well, there's so many golf tournaments. It's kind of like baseball where it's just every weekend there's golf tournaments, and so it's like the the big ones, the the big championships, yeah, the majors, those are those are always fun to track. And I did see that John Romm, he hasn't really I mean, I don't really watch any of the live golf stuff, but I think he's like the second or third favorite to win it. But yeah, I don't know. I feel like the last few tournaments that I've seen him in hasn't been doing well. Hasn't really done, yeah. Not that not the ROM of a couple years ago that was lighting it up.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

I always like watching Bryson, but I don't know how he's gonna do there, but I he I've done a complete 180 on him.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Really? Because at first, like I liked him for a little bit when he first got on, and then I didn't like him for a while, and now I'm back to liking him.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Exactly liking him, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

Yeah. He's just I don't know, he at first it was like kind of weird ego felt I didn't I didn't really know how to take him, and then the more stuff I've seen on him, I think he's just like he's just kind of like a golf nerd, and yeah, I don't know, he seems like a pretty normal guy, so and I think that's like the benefit of things like social media and YouTube, because I think I was the same, like you get to know someone a lot better, like and so all his YouTube stuff and stuff, it's kind of interesting and fun, and you kind of get to know him.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, but um, yeah. Okie doke. Well, that's what we got on the agenda this weekend for that. But until uh until next time, man, it was good talking talking to you, if I could talk. Good talking to you. Funny time to say that. Yeah, exactly. Odd. Okay, well, we'll chat with you next time, man.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

All right, man. Sounds good. See ya.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

See ya.