Huge Opportunity From High Rates!

Grizzled Escrow Officer Sets Me Straight!

While aimlessly wandering the hallways lamenting the industry slowdown, I ran into a very grizzled escrow officer who runs the title company next door.

She is one of those utterly fearless women who has been around forever and has literally seen it all.

She handled George Washington’s escrow when he bought Mount Vernon, and, more interestingly, she handled Mike Tyson’s escrow when he bought in Texas, and Mike refused to sign in person because he was afraid of her.

In case you wondered just how badass she is, here are a few more factoids about her.

• When she cuts onions, she makes them cry.
• She uses pepper spray to spice up her steaks.
• When she wants an egg, she cracks open a chicken.
• A cobra once bit her and after 5 days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
• She once beat the sun in a staring contest.
• Her keyboard has no “backspace” because she never makes mistakes.
• Her tears can cure cancer, but unfortunately, she has never cried.
• She can build a snowman out of rain.
• She can order Big Macs at Burger King … and get them.
• Michael Dell lives in constant fear that her laptop might crash.
• When she does pushups, she doesn’t push herself up; she pushes the earth down.
• When the boogeyman goes to sleep at night, he checks his closet for her.

Anyway… when I made the mistake of asking her, “How’s business?” she coldly stared me down and said: “We are busier than ever…”

When I asked her why, she disdainfully said, “Because we are so good at our jobs and because people are still buying like crazy despite the high rates.”

She then added this key tidbit: “There are still tons of buyers out there, and the ones who are still making offers are having better luck because there is less competition right now, because of the higher rates…”

When I asked her if she was worried about a slowdown, she was even more disdainful saying, “Things are never as bad as people think they are, and we have been through much worse many times.” She then reminded me of 1981, 1989, 1994, 1997, 2000, 2008, 2013, 2018…

I want to summarize her wisdom:

1. Higher rates create opportunities for buyers because there is less competition! (This is something I mentioned in Monday’s blog, and am hitting again because it is so important).
2. People who do stellar work never get too slow.
3. We’ve been here before, so there is no need to panic.
4. Things are never as bad as they might seem.

Message To 1,000 Pre-Approved Borrowers

We have almost 1,000 fully pre-approved borrowers in our pipeline, and we send them periodic emails with market updates.

And the gist of the message we are sending to our pre-approved borrowers is this:

1. Higher rates = opportunities to find homes (for reasons I set out above)
2. You can refi later into a lower rate because a recession is a near certainty now.
3. Housing will hold up just fine because of massive inventory shortages that have accumulated over the last 15 years (we of course back this up with some serious data).

I know this blog is a bit of a repetition from my recent blogs, but these messages are too important not to repeat.

And, when a badass escrow officer, who has seen it all, says it, it is always worth repeating.