These 10 swaps make for a decadent meal that won't leave you feeling like an over-stuffed turkey.

The Holidays have a way of throwing even the most dedicated health enthusiast off their game.  Food and family are two of life's greatest pleasures.  But for some of us, Thanksgiving can be too much of a good thing.  I thought this was so good, I stole it from Silver Sneakers Blog, I also added my own recipes and comments along the way.  You don't have to be a senior to want to stay healthy and stress-free.  

So here we go.....

1.  Make Sweet Potatoe Casserole a little less sweet!

Try one or two sweet mix-ins instead of all three, pineapple, marshmallows, and sugar.  Another trick is to do away with all three and use brown sugar (monk sugar or another sugar substitute), pecans, and oats strudel on top of your yams.  Oh, and always use FRESH sweet potatoes or yams, never canned.  Add a little cinnamon and use Ghee instead of butter. 

2.  Use whole milk, low-fat milk instead of cream.  Dishes like mashed potatoes, casseroles, and pie fillings are already flavorful.  

3.  Skip the flour in the gravy.  I use Arrowroot, a natural thickener, it works just as well, but does not add calories.

4.  Use Greek Yogurt to increase the Protein in mashed potatoes.  Substitute Yogurt for butter and milk in mashed potatoes.  As far as measurements are concerned, 1/2 cup of yogurt for 1 cup of butter is required.   

5.  Halve the butter in every recipe, if you insist on using butter.  Taste as you go.  You can also put butter on the table if anyone wants more.  Another way to trim the fat is to coat your dishes with cooking spray, not butter.  Every little bit helps.  

6.  Try Applesauce instead of Cranberry Sauce.  One dietician uses Applesauce instead of Cranberry Sauce to top her turkey.  But if you have got to use Cranberries make it from scratch and use orange juice, orange zest for flavor, plus honey for sweetness.  

7.  Skip Sausage in the Stuffing, flavor with fresh herbs instead.  The combination of cornbread and rich stock tastes amazing without adding Sausage.  Try dried or fresh sage, thyme, and rosemary.  Use wheat bread instead of white bread.  I can taste it already,  

8.  Season without Salt or as sparingly as possible, instead use dried or fresh herbs.  Always taste before adding and add just a little at a time.  Keep plenty of water on the table, since that can help lessen the effects of sodium.  

9.  Make a Simple Salad that people actually want to eat.  Most of the dishes will be savory and filling, so why not add greens to the table?

10.  Dessert!  What can I say about desserts, there are plenty of recipes that are fabulous without all the calories.   I am going to leave the desserts up to you.  Just remember, most people are so full after dinner, that a light dessert may be all you need to enjoy your meal and not feel, bloated and stuffed, and miserable. 

Have fun and Happy Thanksgiving!   

Greg and his staff     

IS THE MARKET GOING TO CRASH?

There were Sixty-two million homes sold last year, and we are on pace through the first quarter of this year to sell as many or more.

Even though we have enjoyed unprecedented growth in real estate with sales and appreciation values. Many buyers keep thinking we just cannot sustain this growth, the market must crash I do not want to be on the downside of the market, where I buy high, and when the market crashes, I will have lost all my investment and will not be able to recoup my loss. 

Why is the buyer thinking about that, now? Could it be the lingering thoughts of 2008, where home values plummeted and both buyers and sellers suffered a tremendous loss? Is this thinking wrong? Are the buyers only using one data point of thinking that blocks logic? Shouldn’t they be thinking long-term instead of short-term?

This fear of market correction

Are we seeing the signs of appreciation starting to abate with the inventory decreasing and buyers bailing out because of rising prices?  No, throughout this year we continue to see signs of continued appreciation despite lower inventory and buyers fearing the rising prices. 

Have we hit the peak or are we at our peak?

In most parts of the country, summer and spring are the highest peaks.  In Naples it is just the opposite, the buying and selling peaks occur from January through April.  Even if we were at our peak, and we dropped to ½ of the appreciation value, we are still above what we did the prior year. 

Now let us address the fear of the seller, not being able to find replacement home.  There are so many options now available to the seller to aid them in their next purchase.  Some of the options are delayed closings, subject to listings, and rent back.  The lender is creating new programs to help the seller; credit lines, HELOCS, and bridge loans.  Companies like Ribbon and Homeward will buy the home and resell it to you when you have sold your home.  With interest beginning to climb, this may help the buyer have a better selection of homes to choose from. 

The fear of the market overheating is not likely due to supply being low and demand high which drives the prices higher. 

We need to also look at the fear of volatility in the marketplace due to inflation.  War, Pandemic, inflation, worldwide economy, immigration, volatile market, and interest rates rising will affect the cost of housing in the next few years.  You will pay more for the home.

The fear of interest rates rising. 

Interest rates are rising, this will cause the sellers to be more emboldened and to push the envelope.  They are more confident than they were last year entering the Spring market.   Interest rates are up and closing in on 5%.  The reality of payments is up and buying power is down.  We are going to reach the point where some buyers will not be able to conduct what they want to do.  Their monthly payments will increase and the span between the worth of the home and what they are willing to pay will be too great. 

Let’s talk about new home construction for just a few moments.  The builders usually have a strong impulse on the market.  Even though the builders have a limited number of homes being built at one time, mainly because of the shortage of supplies, they continue to build by being creative in their distribution of homes.  Their prices rise every week and there is a waiting list of buyers for these homes.  Lennar one of the largest builders in the US is now building homes for the rental market only, where they will manage these homes themselves.   

Buyers who decided to sit it out two years ago are now regretting this because they would have been able to resell their homes and make a profit.  The percentage of homes being sold cash are at 27% a historic high.  The equity position is at an all-time high.  There were 9 million homes in forbearance in 2020 and today less than 2 million.  The banks created the foreclosure crisis by flooding the market, thus producing short sales, and depressing the market.  We are 5 million housing units short.  The rental market continues to increase.  The Millennials are coming of age, and now entering the buying market.  The appraisal gap is a game-changer.  The value of the market is usually delayed by 4 to 6 months.  When that shifts the market will be even better. 

Just a side note:  CBS “60 minutes” did an enlightened segment on Real Estate, on March 20, 2022.  You can watch it on YouTube. 

Buyers are not buying because of the buying frenzy and now with the rising mortgage rates, they are waiting to see what will happen.  Sellers are holding out because, where are they going to go, if they sell?  They all want to know when is the market going to crash?  It’s a Bubble? Right?  If so, when is it going to pop?  To answer that question, we must look at our history, trends, and patterns to understand where we are at the present and where are we going?

Let’s begin by defining a “Housing Bubble”, as a sustainable period of house price growth generated by artificial demand, such as loose underwriting or speculative buying.  Based on the evidence, there is no expectation that fallout from a housing correction would be comparable to the 2007-2009 global financial crisis in terms of magnitude or macro-economic gravity.  Among other things, household balance sheets appear in better shape, and excessive borrowing doesn’t appear to be fueling the housing market boom.  It does not imply “Bust”.  The house price appreciation does need to slow down, as the double-digit price we’ve been experiencing is clearly not sustainable in the long run.  But the high price appreciation is NOT the same as a “Bubble”.  And it is in fact supported by fundamentals. 

What does that mean?  Let's look at the difference between today’s housing market and the housing market boom in the mid-2000s.  First and foremost, what is driving the price growth now compared to what was driving the price growth in the mid-2000s?  The primary reason in the mid-2000s was the access to a wider range of mortgage finances.  You had things like No-doc loans (No documents were needed to finance a loan).  Typically, all you needed was proof of income, your W-2s, and pay stubs.  It was common to not have verification of income.  They had teaser rates, and fixed arm structures based on the market index, when the market went up so did the rate of the loan.  Today’s lending practices are much stricter.   It’s harder to get a loan today than in pre-pandemic and the median credit score of borrowers approved for mortgages reached 778 in the 4 quarter of 2021, which is significantly higher than during the previous housing boom.  The price appreciation we see today is not a result of financial innovation. 

So, what is the result?  The driving force is supply vs. demand.  The supply of homes on the market today remains extremely low. And the homes that hit the market, sell quickly.  This is an indication there is clearly more demand than supply.  Low inventory combined with lower mortgage rates, the Millennials are moving into their prime buying years, and tighter mortgage underwriting standards are fueling price appreciation.  This is very different from the price appreciation during the housing boom that peaked in 2006. 

The housing market has been underbuilt since 2009 and we currently are in the midst of a demographic boom.  High demand against limited supply is Economy 101 for price growth.   The pandemic accelerated the demand as the Feds began a quantitative easing to help the economy, which put downward pressure on the mortgage rates.  Not to mention everyone was spending more time at home which prompted a need for more space and allowed for some geographic flexibility.  So, the housing market started the pandemic with a supply vs. demand imbalance and over the course of the pandemic, the lack of inventory got worse, while demand get stronger.  It is really no surprise that the price growth exploded, nationwide. 

But does the strong price growth bode well for the housing market?  How does that make this time different from the last time?

The housing crisis in the Great Recession was fueled heavily by the fact that job losses due to the recession were paired with a significant share of homeowners who didn’t have any equity in their homes.  It was a dual trigger; you need both the inability to pay and the lack of equity to cause a foreclosure.  But homeowners today have very high levels of home equity, which provides a cushion to withstand potential price declines but also prevents housing distress from turning into foreclosure in the first place.  In fact, distressed homeowners are required to resolve the delinquency given that they have home equity.  By selling the home, the homeowners can pay the mortgage companies what is due to them at closing.   Remember the supply shortage issue?  It won’t be hard to sell your home, pay off the mortgage and take the equity with you.

 Today’s homeowners are not as highly leveraged as they were during the previous housing boom.   The mortgage debt to income ratio is near a 4-decade low, with equity at a historic high in the 4 quarter of 2021.  Our latest available loan to value, LTV ratio was about 31%, which is the lowest in over 3 decades.  And in inflation-adjusted terms, homeowners in the same quarter had an average of $300,000 equity in their homes, a historic high.  This makes the homeowner awash with equity today and their balance sheets are much stronger than they were in the 2000s.  There is another difference we need to address and that is the lack of speculative buying.  Speculation can be measured by the number of speculators or investor sales that are being flipped.  It’s true, there are more now, but not at the same levels as before in the mid-2000s.  People were buying homes not bothering to make improvements, just hoping to flip and sell them for a higher price.  Speculative buying, excessive use of leverage, and poor loan quality, all these things contributed to the last “Housing Bubble.” That is not the case today.

This time housing is not overvalued.  We discussed this previously, the measure being, that if the house is appropriately valued, house-buying power should equal or outpace the median sale price of a home.  The only period when the median sale price was higher than house-buying power was from 2005 -2007, indicating an overvaluation of housing or a “Housing Bubble.”  Today house-buying power is significantly higher than the median sales price of a home, signifying that housing is NOT overvalued.  So, no Bubble this time around because Bubble implies Bust. 

What is likely to happen?  Were in a housing market with double-digit nominal house price growth and now rising mortgage rates.  So, if the comparison shouldn’t be made to the housing boom and bust, then what would be a good comparison?  Bill McBride, a great housing analyst, says, “Don’t compare the current housing boom to the Bubble and Bust.”  He makes a parallel to the 1970s and says a decline in the real house prices and real meaning inflation-adjusted, seems likely.  That does not mean a decline in nominal prices.  Also, expect a decline in new home starts and new home sales.  With solid lending practices, nominal prices there should be a sticky downwards.  He does not expect a national decline in nominal pricing.  New home sales are more sensitive to rising rates so we may see those decline.  Rising prices and mortgage rates will undermine affordability.  It will be natural to see some moderation in price appreciation.  That’s okay given where we are now.  The market will cause the sellers to adjust their price expectations and the house prices will adjust accordingly.  But the shortage of supply relative to demand will remain and continue to keep house price appreciation positive.  The underlying fundamentals that we’ve been talking about will reflect a moderate decline in prices rather than a sharp decline.

There you have it, we know the real estate market tends to move in cycles, but not every housing boom ends in a bust. 

{REconomy from First American Financial Corporation with Odety Kushi, Deputy Chief Economist, and Mark Fleming, Chief Economist}

Good afternoon everyone!  I hope you are all staying healthy and safe.  As many of you know it is still a seller's market with the buyers not having as many options as they would like.  The information below is from NABOR August Report.  

Demand for homes in Collier County kept REALTORS® busy in August, even as inventory dropped 77.3 percent to 1,249 homes from 5,503 homes in August 2020. According to the August 2021 Market Report released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island), REALTOR®s escorted buyers on over 30,000 home showings in August! The month’s strong showing activity – coupled with a 76.8 percent decrease in days on market to 22 days – means most homes were listed, shown, and sold in less than 30 days.

Historically, median closed prices of homes sold during summer months tend to be lower than median closed prices of homes sold during high-season months (January through April), but that trend did not occur this year. According to the report, the median closed price reported in August was $75,000 higher than the median closed price reported in January 2021. The median closed price of homes sold increased 11.7 percent in August to $441,300 from $395,000 in August 2020 (median price is the price at which 50 percent of the homes sold were above that price, and 50 percent were below).

With the help of a REALTOR®, homeowners who sold a home in August most likely enjoyed a nice profit. That’s because local REALTORS® understands the market and can help price a home correctly, screen out unqualified buyers, assist in negotiating repairs and contingent offers, evaluate the offers presented and negotiate the best possible terms for the homeowner.

The August Market Report reported days on market in August decreased 76.8 percent to 22 days from 95 days in August 2020. As such, many of the 1,101 pending sales reported in August were also included in the report’s 1,033 closed sales figure. Pending and closed sales, incidentally, decreased by 25.6 and 7.9 percent in August, respectively. Broker analysts predict pending and closed sales will continue to decrease in comparison to past years because of limited inventory. 

This is an unprecedented time for the sellers.  To my buyers, there are still some wonderful homes for you.  If you or if you know of anyone who is thinking of selling, would you please give me a call?  I will be happy to do a free Market Analysis.  We always like to hear from you.   

"Helping you make the Right Move" 

Good afternoon everyone!  I hope you are all staying healthy and safe.  As many of you know it is still a seller's market with the buyers not having as many options as they would like.  The information below is from NABOR August Report.  

Demand for homes in Collier County kept REALTORS® busy in August, even as inventory dropped 77.3 percent to 1,249 homes from 5,503 homes in August 2020. According to the August 2021 Market Report released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island), REALTOR®s escorted buyers on over 30,000 home showings in August! The month’s strong showing activity – coupled with a 76.8 percent decrease in days on market to 22 days – means most homes were listed, shown, and sold in less than 30 days.

Historically, median closed prices of homes sold during summer months tend to be lower than median closed prices of homes sold during high-season months (January through April), but that trend did not occur this year. According to the report, the median closed price reported in August was $75,000 higher than the median closed price reported in January 2021. The median closed price of homes sold increased 11.7 percent in August to $441,300 from $395,000 in August 2020 (median price is the price at which 50 percent of the homes sold were above that price, and 50 percent were below).

With the help of a REALTOR®, homeowners who sold a home in August most likely enjoyed a nice profit. That’s because local REALTORS® understands the market and can help price a home correctly, screen out unqualified buyers, assist in negotiating repairs and contingent offers, evaluate the offers presented and negotiate the best possible terms for the homeowner.

The August Market Report reported days on market in August decreased 76.8 percent to 22 days from 95 days in August 2020. As such, many of the 1,101 pending sales reported in August were also included in the report’s 1,033 closed sales figure. Pending and closed sales, incidentally, decreased by 25.6 and 7.9 percent in August, respectively. Broker analysts predict pending and closed sales will continue to decrease in comparison to past years because of limited inventory. 

This is an unprecedented time for the sellers.  To my buyers, there are still some wonderful homes for you.  If you or if you know of anyone who is thinking of selling, would you please give me a call?  I will be happy to do a free Market Analysis.  We always like to hear from you.   

"Helping you make the Right Move" 

I know, it's been a while since I sent you my monthly marketing reports.  It's been quite a whirlwind here as it has across the United States.  It's been difficult for our buyers to find homes, it has definitely been a seller's market.  We are starting to see a little slowdown, but only because the inventory has been so low.  Take a look at the statistics for yourself.  

The buying frenzy the Naples housing market experienced during the past year has simmered and is being replaced with what brokers say will be our new normal: a low inventory market with a fast turnover of quality homes priced right. According to the July 2021 Market Report released by the Naples Area Board of REALTORS® (NABOR®), which tracks home listings and sales within Collier County (excluding Marco Island), inventory decreased 77.2 percent to 1,295 homes in July 2021 compared to 5,672 homes in July 2020, but demand continues to be steady as there were only 30 fewer closed sales and just a 2 percent drop in showings. Clues that buyers and sellers are adapting to a new normal can be found in recent Market Reports. The percent of the list price received has been over 99 percent for the last three months, which shows us that sellers are setting realistic prices and buyers are accepting these values as fair because offers are at near asking prices. The median closed price in July increased 28.8 percent to $469,950 from $365,000 in July 2020. And even though overall pending sales in July dropped 21.5 percent to 1,135 pending sales from 1,446 pending sales in July 2020, and overall closed sales dropped 2.6 percent to 1,142 closed sales from 1,172 closed sales in July 2020, activity in the high-end luxury home market picked up speed during the month as reflected in a 32.6 percent increase in closed sales for homes over $1 million, and a 17.1 percent increase in pending sales for single-family homes valued over $1 million in July. Homes are selling at record-fast rates. The July Market Report showed days on market decreased 69.6 percent to 28 days from 92 days in July 2020. For single-family homes, days on market dropped to 25 days in July. Homes are available but they are just not staying on the market long, especially quality homes that are priced right.

The market is still robust, don't be shy about jumping in.  It's our "new normal."  Even if your home is "not so perfect", I am finding buyers for these homes.  Buyers, don't waste your time driving around town, as you know by the time you call me it is already under contract.  Call me first, and let me find the right home for you.  I am experienced in this type of market and know the strategies to get the perfect home for you.  

Please send me a comment, I love hearing from you!  

Helping you make the right move! 

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