Our marketing team is slammed 24/7 (literally) churning out co-branded marketing materials for agents.
We have an entire “materials library” for agents to choose from that includes (1) open house flyers; (2) bridge loan flyers; (3) buying-before-selling flyers; (4) First-time-homebuyer-discount flyers; (5) First-time homebuyer education booklets; (6) DSCR (rental income loan) flyers; (7) down payment assistance flyers; and more – with over 30 items in total.
It’s a win/win/win – as we get our name out there; agents get valuable materials for buyers; and buyers get information they desperately need.
But what caught us off guard was the popularity of our new slide deck offering for buyers’ agents.
The offering consists of 16 slides that focus on buyer education, and numerous reasons why buyers should not fear a housing crash (agents can simply choose which slides they want to borrow).
Huge Problem: “Crash Bros” Keep Buyers On The Sidelines!
I often remind readers that mortgage rates have fallen almost 2% since October of last year. And, per NAR, every 1% drop in mortgage rates enables an additional 5 million buyers to qualify for a mortgage.
The question is – where are those buyers? To be sure, we have seen a very nice uptick in buyer activity lately as a result of the rate drop. But it is nothing like what we would have seen in years past.
And – we think the reason is all of the fear that the “Crash Bros” are inspiring online. “Crash Bros” is the moniker housing analyst Logan Mohtashami gives to all of the pundits who have been continually predicting housing crashes since 2012 – and I share an excellent list of failed predictions below (I’m still waiting for 2012’s dreaded “shadow inventory” 😊).
Our slide deck hits numerous topics such as (1) why 2008 won’t and can’t repeat; (2) why demographics bode extremely well for home prices; (3) why home prices perform well in recessions; (4) why buyers should not wait for rates to fall; and (5) what key ingredient for a housing crash is missing today.
But below is my favorite and what I think is our most compelling slide.
Note: If any readers are interested in seeing our Co-Branded Marketing Materials Library or our Slide Deck, please let me know.
All The Crashes We Didn’t See
In 2014, author Anthony Doerr released his famous novel “All The Crashes We Cannot See.” It was about a blind loan officer who took refuge in her uncle’s home during the Great Financial Crisis and ended up helping to fight off the depravities of big banks and the CFPB. OK… I made that up, and I am pretty sure this is where my boomer humor is getting too obscure. I actually borrowed that plotline from this excellent novel that I highly recommend: “All The Light We Cannot See.”
Bad book references aside, Logan Mohtashami posted a long list on X of predicted crashes that never materialized. I loved the list because I remember every one of the predictions, and I will readily admit that I too used to fall for them – until about 2015 when I said… “Hey, wait a minute, this might be click-bait…”
Here’s the list of crash predictions that never materialized:
- 2012 – Shadow Inventory (all of the foreclosure inventory held by banks was going to hit the market any day and crash the market)
- 2013 – Higher Mortgage Rates
- 2014 – QE Ending
- 2015 – Manufacturing Recession
- 2016 – Home Prices Return to pre-2008 Bubble High
- 2017 – No Good Reason – but the crash is still coming nonetheless
- 2018 – 5% Mortgage Rates (gonna pop that bubble for sure!)
- 2019 – Home Price Growth Was Cooling Off (uh oh…)
- 2020 – COVID-19 (not so much)
- 2021 – Mortgage Forbearances (no way can all those people start repaying again!)
- 2022 – 7% Mortgage Rates! (oh my!)
- 2023 – Historically Low Housing Demand
- 2024 – Affordability Crisis (currently getting solved with lower rates)
- 2025 – Recession Fears (count on it)
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