Shifting Demographics, Student Loans, Pets and the NAR
In this episode, Jonathan, Keith and Jim were joined by Dr. Jessica Lautz from the National Association of Realtors for a wide-ranging conversation, from student debt, birth rates, limited inventory, changing demographics, millennials’ dependence on Realtors, and a lot more.
You can listen to the podcast here, and subscribe to the podcast here.
If you enjoy our podcast, please share it with a friend or colleague, and rate us wherever you listen to podcasts!
Highlights include:
- NAR’s amazing Research and Statistic division
- Changing Factors in Buying a Home
- 1 in 6 GenXers are purchasing a multigenerational home
- The Sandwich generation
- Demographics of America are changing
- Why we don’t have enough homes
- Short 5 to 6 Million homes; we do not have homes for entry level or downsizing buyers
- Hard to find skilled labor
- Living with parents at an unprecedented level
- How views on ownership value is changing
- First time homebuyers are expecting to be there for ~10 years
- Benefits and negatives of people staying in homes for longer periods of time
- Interest Rates
- If the Fed lowers interest rates (they did)
- Low rates are keeping people in their homes, thereby reducing inventory
- Sticky or Magnetic : interstate movement
- People are not moving out of state; they are moving locally
- BIG Difference between GenX & Millennials – they want to be close to friends and family
- The only ones really moving are the ones with student loan debt
- Pets
- Economics in home buyer decisions
- Drop in birth rates – costs of kids
- Economic impact of homebuyers
- First time homebuyers are *not* older.
- Typical downpayment for first time homebuyer is 7%
- Understanding Demographics as a Realtor
- How do the changing demographics affect today’s Realtor?
- Younger buyers are more dependent on Realtors because they need their assistance is needed and recognize the professional’s value
- Media and the Market
- HGTV
- Washington dog park
- What should we be reading?
- Untapped Value of NAR to the Realtor
- NAR’s Data and Research division is an untapped resource
- NAR Annual Buyer Profile
- Neverending question of Student Debt
- Student debt is $1.5T, increased 150% over past decade; 3/4 of debt held by those over 55 is for themselves
- Lower loan amount – 3X more likely to default
- 55% of student loans are negatively amortized
- Which is going to crash first? Housing or student loans?
- Student loans delaying home buying by 7 years
- Stay in touch with clients over time. You have to keep that relationship going.
TRANSCRIPT
Keith Davis: This is Keith Davis from Nest Realty. I’m here with Jim Duncan and Jonathan Kauffman on Sweat The Details. And today we’re joined by Dr. Jessica Lautz. who is the vice president of demographics and behavioral insights with the National Association of Realtors. And we’re lucky today we’re doing an onsite interview. We’re at the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors who are hosting their first event at the Hillsdale Conference Center. This is a development and economic summit they’re holding this fall. And Jessica, thank you so much for joining us today. And I’d love to just ask first before we start on, can you just kind of tell people a little bit about your job and what the role of a demographics and behavioral insight economist is?
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, I feel like I have the coolest job at NAR, no joke. I feel very lucky in my role. I’ve been at NAR since 2007 and we have a team now that really looks at demographic changes and we’ve done some of this research actually back to 1981 so a really long time period. And just in context, that was the first Apple computer. It’s when Beyonce was born. It’s a very long time period. And what we found through all these demographics is that demographics in the US are changing and that’s undeniable. We are opening our eyes to it, but it really affects the real estate industry. And so we’ve actually really been able to take a deep dive but not just on buyers and sellers and who they are today, but we’re actually starting to look at members too and really understanding that 1.3 million people are not all identical and we should probably be communicating with them differently. They are different people and they have different wants and needs. Really taking a dive into that.
Keith Davis: Before we went on the air, you were kind of speaking to some of the shifts of multi generational and I was going to say one of the other people we’re going to speak with today is with the National Association of Home Builders. And I’d love to just kind of hear your thoughts on if you want to give a quick snapshot of what you know about the home building side and household creations because I know you’ve done a fair amount of work in studying those shifts over time of households.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, so I think this is one of the things that’s happening in the US right now. Unfortunately we are short five to 6 million homes and that is not a single family home in the ‘burbs. We have, we have those what we don’t have our homes for entry level buyers, what we don’t have our homes for people who want to downsize. Those types of, that type of inventory is not available in the market right now. I’m very interested to hear what she has to say as well. But there are obviously reasons for that. Economic reasons. It’s very hard to find skilled labor today to build homes. It’s very hard to be able to afford land and the lumber cost and steel cost has gone up very significantly in the US and it has for the last few years. There’s a lot of headwinds there. But what it means is a lot of people are doubling up and they’re not moving out from their parents’ home.
Keith Davis: Are they not moving out by choice of trying to save and constrain cash? Or is this a question of there’s literally nowhere for them to go that’s within the affordable bracket?
Jessica Lautz: It’s a little bit of both. You can live at home longer and you can save up money and you can get a down payment that way and get your debt to income ratio and check. And we’ve seen a lot of that. We’ve actually seen an unprecedented amount of first time home buyers moving directly from their parents’ home into home ownership as a way to really cut down on their own costs for rent and utilities. What we’ve also seen is that we know that millennials today are the largest generation of buyers. And so there’s a lot of talk about millennials not being out there as the buying force, but they’re out there. They’re buying, but they’re also living with parents at an unprecedented level. It’s a little of both.
Jim Duncan: When there’s millennials come into the market, are they buying? When I started practicing in 2001, people would stay in the house for three to five years and then it shifted when the crash or correction happened, there it was more that eight to 15 to never, and now I think we’re back, I see we’re back more the seven to 10. Is that about where we are? Or you see that shifting even more?
Jessica Lautz: It’s really interesting for first time buyers today when they go to purchase their first home, they’re expecting to live there for 10 years. The actual tenure in home has increased, it’s now nine to 10. Historically though, you’re absolutely right on. That’s spot on. We have seen historically that in the past, your first time home buyer thought, this is my entry level home. I’m going to live here for five years. But we’ve really, we’ve essentially seen that double. People think of their home, not just as an investment or a starter home. This is the place they’re going to live and they don’t plan on moving anytime soon.
Jim Duncan: Which is good. I think that from a societal perspective, that’s a good thing that they’re going to be in that place. Roots, kids, life for a longer period of time for a healthier community.
Jessica Lautz: Yes. I’m saying that with hesitation. The reason why I say that with hesitation is that because there are no affordable one unit, one bedroom condos on the market, what we see is that a lot of first time home buyers are pushed to the suburbs. Not a bad thing, but it may not be their ideal location. They’re moving into a single family home where maybe they’re a single adult and they now have a three bedroom, two bath home. That’s great. It’s great for their roommates perhaps.
Keith Davis: And they can stay there longer than they would in a one bedroom condo.
Jessica Lautz: Exactly. There’s no impetus to move. There’s no reason to.
Keith Davis: If we can put on a kind of the crystal gaze to the future, if interest rates move from where we are up two points to still a ridiculously low, five and a half percent, that will of course make it even more difficult for people to justify leaving a mortgage that’s paying off at a very rapid rate into something that doubles in price purely based on the interest rate. Where is that going to take us for households movement in five years, seven years? Are we going to, is that seven to 10 year hold period going to extend even longer by default?
Jessica Lautz: I think it depends on when you took on your interest rate and when you re-fied perhaps if you’re in your home. If you’ve locked in this very low interest rate that we have today, it’s under 4%, if the fed lowers rates next week, which is very possible, then you’re going to see buyers who perhaps couldn’t get in the market, locking in those low interest rates. Taking that as one more step towards affordability and perhaps listing, but it’s, it’s still hard to save for that down payment and it’s hard for owners who are in their home today, even if they have equity and many of them do now, they’re in a positive equity situation. It’s hard to make that move and justify it if you’ve locked in that low rate.
Jim Duncan: Are you seeing job, people transferring jobs? Is that again, you look back 40 years, you go to IBM, work for there for 30 years and stay. How have you seen that shift over the last 10 years?
Keith Davis: Is it a question of the sticky versus magnetic question?
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, something like that. But regardless, we’ve seen it essentially drop in half so people are not moving out of state. That share has actually dropped in half from the 1980s.
Keith Davis: Really?
Jessica Lautz: Yeah.
Keith Davis: They’re moving all local.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, people don’t, they don’t move far away.
Keith Davis: And maybe this isn’t really a real estate question, maybe it’s a more general one, but is that because jobs are now so transportable that people are changing jobs and working out of companies in different states, but staying where they are?
Jessica Lautz: That could be part of it, but big thing that we’re seeing in the data, which has really fascinate me, when first time home buyers go to purchase their home, top of their list is not only I want a short commute, it’s, I want to be close to friends and family. That was not the case for Gen Xers and boomers. They wanted to be far away from friends and family when they went to purchase their first home, at least it wasn’t top of list, short commute, good schools, those were top list. But millennials, they move out of their family member’s home maybe, they’re very close to them. Their family member has contributed to their down payment and they’re staying in that neighborhood. Yeah.
Jim Duncan: That’s fascinating. It’s something that, we’ll have to cut this too.
Keith Davis: Well, no, but honestly, I look at my own 16 year old son who is not rushing to get a car, rushing to drive. He doesn’t want that freedom. There is definitely a different feeling of dependence in a very positive way from a family unit, but that I could see in seven years playing on a different way when he’s done with college, to come back. I’ve never thought of it the way you’re saying it, but that’s an interesting way of looking at it.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, it’s a change in the family unit. It’s a change in family dynamics, but it’s also a change in finances. If you are more dependent today on your parents giving you a down payment, you’re more dependent on their decisions in that buying process too. You’re making less decisions here probably independently. That’s a fascinating change. The population who’s moving, the only population that we’re really seeing is moving are those with student loan debt because they have to move somewhere to pay off that debt and get a job.
Jonathan Kauffman: And are they visiting places that have jobs? Is that what you’re saying?
Jessica Lautz: Yes, exactly.
Jonathan Kauffman: They’re less dependent on, I want to stay close to my family. Or, where can I go to make the money?
Jessica Lautz: Yes, exactly. Where can I pay down this debt? Yeah.
Keith Davis: And interestingly, if you look at the older generation, you had people, and I know within Virginia this was common that people within the school systems would move to Fairfax for their last three years of work because Virginia retirement system based your actual retirement payout on your last three years of employment income, not previous, so people could make a move for three years and up their income and that was their retirement savings.
Jessica Lautz: Wow. That’s an interesting dynamic. Where can you…
Jim Duncan: And then you’re starting right out of college, trying to get rid of the debt.
Keith Davis: Well you mentioned the family unit. We were talking a little bit earlier in the prep for this, that’s shifting. It’s not just, parents and kids, it’s parents and pets.
Jim Duncan: Oh yeah, totally. One of my favorite topics. Yeah.
Keith Davis: Okay. Again, talking to somebody with your background it’s fascinating because how has that shifted? I know I’m asking the question how has it shifted? But where are we today? Because I know a lot of our listeners have been doing this for 10, 12, 15 years. And when I started again, 20 years ago, you might’ve had a pet, but it wasn’t like, “Hi, my name’s Jim and here’s my dog.”
Jim Duncan: Now we call them all service animals and travel with them everywhere we go.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, yes. That’s my companion animal. And they need to come into McDonald’s with me, which I saw today actually on my drive down.
Keith Davis: Did you see the mini horse? I saw a mini horse on there.
Jim Duncan: Yes, I saw that.
Jessica Lautz: Totally. It is a really interesting shift and I think there’s a lot of reasons behind it. But what we have seen in the US is that birth rates have dropped actually to more than a 30 year low. With a drop in birth rates, it’s very expensive to have a kid. And so the New York Times actually did this great survey and they said, “What are the reasons why you’re not having children?” And the top ones were really financial. Student loan debt factors in, just the cost of rent, it’s too expensive. Transferring over maybe a $3,000 a month per one kid daycare fee to a Fitbit for your dog might be a good transfer.
Jim Duncan: Wait a second, $3,000 a month for daycare? I had a friend tell me it was 1,400 for his newborn. 3,000?
Jessica Lautz: Yeah. In some areas it’s two to $3,000. DC area man, it is really expensive to have one kid under the age of 18.
Jim Duncan: Yeah, no dogs much better. Or a fish.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, right. A fish, remember to feed it. Yeah.
Jonathan Kauffman: Along those lines, clearly we’ve talked about a couple of topics here that are all bubbling up to the fact that home buyers, millennials are buying their first home later. What economic impact does that have? Because I know that there’s an economic impact when somebody buys a home, there’s more money. They spend more money at Home Depot and kind of it cascades from there. What economic impact does that have on communities when somebody, when the first time home buyer is older and older and older as the years go by?
Jessica Lautz: All right, so I’m going to dispel one myth here. The first time home buyer is not older. Yeah, so mike drop there. Yeah, so the first time home buyer is wealthier. They’re more likely to be single. They’re more likely to have family help, but they’re not older. If you can enter the market, you’re actually doing so at the same age your parents did. Since 1981, the age range is just, it’s bounced around a little between 28 and 32 but that’s the median age.
Jim Duncan: Is it just those homeowners are waiting to have children until later?
Jessica Lautz: Yes.
Jim Duncan: They’re gaining or they’re paying off debts and then they’re beginning to gain their inequities and then using that to invest in the property at the same time but hold off on children until later.
Jessica Lautz: Yep. And they’re doing so also single. More likely to be single than they had been in the past. In the 80s, 75% of your first time home buyers were married. Today, just 54%. More likely to be single. Single female, single male buying a house. Definitely single females and unmarried couples. We’re seeing a lot of that as well. People aren’t necessarily saying, “I need a wedding ring, I don’t need this, but I do want the house.”
Jim Duncan: With that part, it’s not they’re not coupling up, if you will, but they’re just not, they’re choosing to not get married.
Jessica Lautz: Exactly.
Jim Duncan: I’ve had clients who’ve done, I say it because I’ve had clients who’ve bought together with contracts.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah absolutely.
Jim Duncan: Between the two of them.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, absolutely. Boyfriends, girlfriends, I own a share of this house. You want to share this house. I’m not an attorney, but I would definitely say probably some legal advice is probably needed there because you don’t necessarily, if that goes south, what happens?
Jim Duncan: Does that mean, and I know there’s all the federal data is out there on the home mortgages, but can we see where debt to income ratios are compared to the past? Or see down payment numbers, what the percentage of loan to value type equations and where’s that going?
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, so what we’ve seen is that your typical down payment for your first time buyer is just 7%. They’re still taking advantage of low down payment programs. They’re not even putting 10% down. That’s around the historical norm. We’re not, we haven’t seen 10% really for first time home buyers until we go back to before the recession and before the boom. It certainly wasn’t happening. First time home buyers, it’s hard to scrape together that cash. In fact, there was a new report out, it’s not by us, but that a lot of first time home buyers are actually selling something, a personal belonging. That Pokemon card that they may have in the closet, they’re selling that.
Jim Duncan: I saw your tweet about that. Selling old comic books and baseball cards.
Jessica Lautz: Yes. Yeah. Find what you can to scrape together that cash. That’s what people are doing. Yeah.
Jim Duncan: Interesting. I’m going to maybe shift gears a little bit. With these changing demographics that we’re seeing in the marketplace, how does this affect today’s realtor?
Jessica Lautz: Oh yeah, this is a good one because it’s a different type of buyer. It’s probably going be frustrating perhaps for the realtor today. That expert who’s been working with clients for a long period of time, it’s a different type of client. Communication’s going to be different, it’s going to be perhaps faster, or they’ll text or they just will refuse to text you back. They want things at a faster pace. The communication’s different. But we also see that younger buyers are more dependent on the expertise of their real estate agent than they haven’t in the past because they don’t know anything about this process, but they very well could have moved from a dorm back into their parents’ house now into home ownership. They don’t know anything about utilities. They have no idea what that means. They know nothing about a search process and they very much are using agents at a higher rate, but they’re more dependent on them.
Jim Duncan: Yeah. I’ll echo that. I think not in a negative connotation, but I think it’s something that my buyer clients tend to recognize the value of that professional and they know that I’m going to trust you. The default is trust with a bit mistrust in there. But the default is trust because they know that this agent’s been recommended by two other people and so there’s that conveyed trust through the equation.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, absolutely. That trust is there and that trust, the honesty, the reputation, all of those things are top things that people really want from an agent. They’re also more likely younger buyers to use referrals. They know that someone else had a good experience. They want to use that agent. Trusting someone in that process to give them a good agent too, good recommendation. That being said, there’s going to be changes in that process too because so many more have mom and dad’s money going into it. Mom and dad’s expectations are now on the equation. The other thing that we’ve seen a lot of, and we actually did a report on it, is that buyer expectations have changed because of TV shows. They’ve really have upped it.
Jim Duncan: Absolutely. And we’ve been saying the HGTV effect is on every showing.
Keith Davis: I wrote a story about that saying HGTV ruined real estate.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve heard that from members.
Keith Davis: We all expect to every house to be perfect. We expect, and I remember watching one of the earlier House Hunters, there was a buyer, and I know everything’s make believe in the way they deal with it. But this was a buyer who only would look at houses with doggy doors already installed. And I thought, the fact they were even faking this type of personality trait that you can’t do anything to a house once you get in. It does kind of twist the way that buyers are looking for properties.
Jim Duncan: They need a better agent. They just need a better agent and a better writer.
Keith Davis: Much better writer.
Jessica Lautz: No, but it’s crazy because half of pet owners who just bought a house, half of them are renovating for their animals. If you’re going to take out the doggy door out of that equation, maybe you’re getting a house with a doggy door. That’s a real buyer.
Jim Duncan: I’ve got clients who are building a house and they’re can do a dog shower out in the garage.
Keith Davis: I would love to have a dog shower in our house.
Jim Duncan: Wouldn’t that be fantastic?
Keith Davis: Yes, it would.
Jim Duncan: But it’s something, again, five years ago I just got a dog with a little while ago, so I’m paying more attention to it. Like you bought a Subaru and then everybody has Subaru. But I think it’s something I’m seeing more of my clients are having that the pet is the focus point of their life.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, absolutely. And they’re unwilling to compromise on that. For unmarried couples that growing share of first time buyers, 20% of them actually said, “I’m choosing where I buy a house based on where the dog parks are, where the green spaces are for my pet.”
Jim Duncan: I’m going to have to date this. We might have to cut this, but did you see that story in the Washington Post about the dog park that it was in?
Jessica Lautz: Potomac?
Jim Duncan: Yeah.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, I did see that.
Keith Davis: Wait, what about the dog park?
Jim Duncan: There’s a dog park that got put into this neighborhood. It was a park and then became a dog park and then one woman, I think in particular, challenged it because the dogs were barking at a dog park. And it just got shut down.
Keith Davis: She sent you an email last night too.
Jim Duncan: It got shut down because they had this huge community meeting and it got shut down because the dogs were barking too much.
Keith Davis: You can’t plan for everything though.
Jim Duncan: You can’t expect dogs to bark.
Keith Davis: You can’t plan for that. Just some things.
Jim Duncan: But what’s a data point that you think that people should be paying attention to? When we’re working with buyers and sellers what are one or two things that we should be, Googling or have on our news feed or whatever just to be aware of?
Jessica Lautz: Oh my goodness.
Keith Davis: Just two that are really, really important.
Jessica Lautz: Do you guys have something in mind?
Jim Duncan: No. I don’t know. No. What do you think, what do you wish that realtors would be on top of their radar?
Jessica Lautz: That we’re a data source and they should come to us for research. In all honesty, I will give a plug for social media to tell you the truth because I think we’re one of those untapped resources that people don’t know that we have all of these reports that we’re doing on a nearly daily basis.
Keith Davis: Your annual buyer profile is amazing. Meaning it’s not just the quarterly and not the monthly getting things from Lawrence U. Those are fabulous, but some of the larger ones that we really don’t have other sources, the NAR studies are great.
Jim Duncan: Okay, the NAR stuff that’s out there that you go, if you seek out, it’s phenomenal. You all do incredible work.
Keith Davis: Common Ground is another one of the publications you all should never stop doing.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, absolutely. Coming at the research, honestly, the research is out there for members’ use, we want it to be used. And I will say it’s sometimes really painful to pick up a big report, but we got cool infographics you should come and steal them.
Keith Davis: Pictures.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, yes, exactly. It will sniff it down into one bullet point that I think that that’s, that would be my plug.
Keith Davis: Yeah. And one thing that I know we’ve got time sensitivity here, but I want to ask, as we’ve touched on, this has been mentioned three different times in other questions, but I want to ask specifically what is the thought on student debt and home ownership and I just feel like we’d be remiss in not asking.
Jessica Lautz: This is a really depressing topic. Student debt, it’s painful. It’s $1.5 trillion in the US economy. It’s increased 150% in the last decade. It’s not, I think one of the big misconceptions about student debt is that it’s only focused on young adults, but it’s not, it’s increased for those over the age of 55 a 1,250% in the last decade.
Jim Duncan: What?
Keith Davis: Of the 1.5 billion, how much of that is coming from for profit universities?
Jessica Lautz: I don’t have that exact number off the top of my head.
Keith Davis: Isn’t that of the older generation who are using it, isn’t it kind of retraining money that’s a lot of that is coming back?
Jessica Lautz: Yes. A lot of people went back to school after the recession. Three quarters of the debt for those over the age of 55 it’s for themselves. It’s not for their kids. It’s that they went back to school. A lot of those for profit, yeah, they went into default too. Actually if you have a lower loan amount, you’re actually three times more likely to default on that loan amount. I’ll throw out another.
Keith Davis: Wait, wait, wait a minute. The less you owe, the worse it is?
Jessica Lautz: Yes, absolutely, 100%.
Keith Davis: Because is it less likely that you actually earned a degree? Is that part of that?
Jessica Lautz: Yes, and so it’s harder to find that job. It’s harder to have that mobility to move somewhere to pay off that debt. Yeah.
Keith Davis: Major challenge.
Jessica Lautz: Can I throw out a couple more really depressing stats only and I’m going to say…
Keith Davis: Always.
Jim Duncan: Go ahead.
Jessica Lautz: Okay, I’m going to say this one because in all honesty, I gave a presentation last week and a realtor came up to me after I gave the presentation and she pulled up her iPhone and said, “This is my son’s account. He is in this situation.” And the situation is this, 55% of student loan debt holders, if they are on time on their payment this month, owe more next month. They are in a negative amortization loan. Look at your loan terms.
Keith Davis: Wait, 55% of student loans are in neg am states.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, yes. You owe more next month even if you’re making on time payments.
Keith Davis: Wait a minute, I’m just trying to break down where that’s coming from. Does that exclude those loans that are not in a repayment schedule? Meaning the students who are automatically gaining more interest because the loan’s not due, they’re still in school. Those balances are increasing.
Jessica Lautz: Right. And that you know what? In all honesty, it could be including those, but if you’re making an on time payment and you can make a payment while you’re in school, you’re still owing more because of things like public loan forgiveness programs or looking at programs where the idea is that you’re going to pay what you can think you can pay right now. If that’s a dollar, it’s a dollar, but you’re in a negative am loan.
Keith Davis: Which is going to crush first, housing or student loans?
Jessica Lautz: Oh, housing’s not crashing. The demand is there. The demand is absolutely 100% there and we don’t have enough homes. We’re in a different state right now.
Keith Davis: Student loans.
Jessica Lautz: I’m not going to say that it’s going to crush though because it’s just the demand for education is so strong right now that younger populations are the most educated they’ve ever been in history.
Keith Davis: Yeah. I will say to the amount of student debt that’s taken on, I can’t remember the article I sent. I know I sent Jim some numbers from it the last time I read it, but one of the numbers that I was amazed by was that I want to say it was less than a half of the total student debt in the US is currently in a period where it should be being repaid. Half of it is still students or within, I guess it’s that first year of deferment. There in a deferred period of government guarantees and less than half of our student debt is actually in a repayment period right now.
Jim Duncan: Which is terrifying.
Jessica Lautz: Yes, absolutely and you can defer that. If you’re in a situation where unfortunately you didn’t get a good job, you can just call your lender and you go into deferment or forbearance and there’s no default against you except for your credit and your debt to income ratio. That becomes very difficult.
Jim Duncan: And that delays the buying process for the…
Jessica Lautz: Absolutely. The research that we’ve done, even people who are making on time payments who are not homeowners today and are millennials, they expect their delay to be seven years. That is a very long time period for them to get their savings and debt to income ratio in check.
Keith Davis: Well thank you for that cheery outlook.
Jessica Lautz: Sorry.
Jim Duncan: Who’s got the bourbon in the gin? God.
Keith Davis: Can’t afford it.
Jim Duncan: That’s the truth. Well, I will it’s a fascinating conversation, and fascinating the statistics and information that you have are just mind blowing on student debt. Scary. But going back to the changing demographic of the buyer and the changing demographic of the realtor, I want to wrap up with this podcast being Sweat the Details as a realtor, what’s one detail that a realtor should really pay attention to that a realtor should sweat?
Jessica Lautz: I think the increased tenure time. You have to keep that relationship going. And when I say increased tenure, I mean that people are living in their homes for longer periods of time and they’re owning them for different reasons and they’re not thinking of your first home as your entry level starter home. That’s a detail you should be sweating because there’s not as many trade ups as quickly. You have to keep that relationship going, whether that is birthday cards or dog treats that you’re sending that recent buyer, keeping that relationship going is important. And it’s, I think you have to look at it a little differently. It might not mean that you’re going to have that person as a repeat client immediately, but you’re going to have a referral. They’re going to have a good experience and that’s a detail you should be paying attention to.
Keith Davis: Amazing. Before we all say goodbye and just say thank you, where should people go to learn more about what you do, what your team do? Tell us a little blurb about that.
Jessica Lautz: Yeah, absolutely. Go to nar.realtor. Go to the research page, but honestly follow us on social media because it’s the easiest way to grab all the information. We post a lot. We post from every economist and researcher in the department and we super nerd out on the data. But if you ever have questions, just reach us at [email protected] and we will send you any information you need.
Keith Davis: Jessica, we would absolutely love to have you back again. This has been a complete delight.
Jessica Lautz: Thank you.
Keith Davis: Thank you for your time.
Jim Duncan: Thank you so much. This was awesome.
Keith Davis: Looking forward to hearing what you have to say later today.
Jessica Lautz: Thank you. It’s been really great to be here.
Keith Davis: Thank you.
Jim Duncan: Thanks.