How will inflation affect the housing market?

Rick Ripma  0:00  

What's going on with lumber prices? How about the economy? Is inflation under control? Or is it going crazy? What are the Feds gonna do? You know, we're gonna go over all of that and a lot more, we're going to talk about the housing market a little bit, in some ways, possibly how you can get your debt under control if you have a debt situation. So listen up, we appreciate you being here. I'm Rick Ripma, your hard work and mortgage guy,

Ian Arnold  0:22  

and I'm Ian Arnold with Advisors Mortgage Group.

Announcer  0:29  

Advisors Mortgage Group is proud to present Indys Real Estate Gurus hosted by Rick Ripma, the hard working mortgage guy, please contact Rick for all of your mortgage needs at hardworking mortgage guy.com That's hardworking mortgage guy.com. Now, here's the hard working mortgage guy Rick Ripma.

Rick Ripma  0:57  

Welcome in these real estate gurus, we appreciate you showing up today and listening in if you have any questions for us, or want to talk about mortgages at all go to hardworkingmortgageguys.com. That's hardworkingmortgageguys.com. You know Ia, one of the big things I was looking at, and I really wanted to talk about as we heard so much early in the year about lumber prices. It was one of those things that it was showing us kind of where inflation was going. It's actually it's been more than the early in the year it was even last year. But you know, the lumber price have dropped 52% Since early March.

Ian Arnold  1:35  

Wow. Quite a bit. That's a huge drop, especially when everything else is going up.dYeah, yeah. And they're saying, you know, part of the reason is, is because I found this interesting. Single family homes (new construction), not existing homes, but new construction. The starts, the completions, the building permits, they've all they all declined in April. Don't have many numbers yet, but they all declined in April. So there's not the the need for the lumbered. Why why are they declining? They're declining, because people don't want to wait till whenever we can get your house done.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's a tough time to put on somebody. Well, possibly next month, the following months, six months, nine months. That's hard to put on somebody. Yeah, it

Rick Ripma  2:24  

Used to be when I was in New Home Sales. It was basically a five month process, right? Yeah. Today; they weren't sure for a long time when they were going to get lumber. But even then, at the they don't know when they can even get appliances, when they can get a lot of the things that they need to finish the home to turn it over to a homeowner. And people are saying, you know, we're not willing to do that. So I'm sure that that will get corrected. But right now, there is a what appears to be a glut on the market. And April on Only 12% of the dealers of lumber reported low inventory. That was down from 61% earlier in the year. So it used to be 61%. We're low on inventory. Now only 12 are low on inventory. I mean, there's a ton of a lot more lumber out there. You know, many dealers are cutting prices aggressively to avoid piling up too much supply. So they got to get it.

Ian Arnold  3:18  

Yeah, you don't want too much sitting on hand. Right?

Rick Ripma  3:21  

So and as dealers slow their orders, lumber producers are cutting back on their operations. Confort Corp, which is a major Canadian lumber producer has been operating at less than than 80% capacity since March. So they're cutting their capacity. And they expect to continue a reduced operating schedule through the through the entire summer. Oh, wow. They're expecting it to go for some time. So what does this mean to all of us? If we aren't buying a home? What it means is is all those houses that you know, people who have been sitting there thinking, You know what I want to I want to improve my home. I want to do some you know, maybe add a room or do some some remodeling it

Ian Arnold  4:07  

because it's the time Yeah, I guess my parents have an older house and they want to replace a lot of their siding. Well, everything is wood with theirs house. Well guess what? They looked at it about a year and a half ago. Oh, it was outrageous. Because Wood was in high demand. Everybody was staying home. So everybody was doing their doing their project. So they've just put it off. And now they're getting new quotes. And there's so much lower right now. It's it's crazy.

Rick Ripma  4:35  

Yeah. And you know, and that's the thing. It's a great time to do it. Because it might just be a window. We don't know. It might just be a window and almost everything you do. I did a lot of remodeling last year. And I didn't think it was much lumber really, you know, I was because we took a wall out but we didn't really do. We didn't add any walls. We didn't what you would expect for wood, however, we still have wood cabinets that had to go in, right? All the trim is all wood. I mean, it's so there was a lot more wood than I was thinking there would be. So it does matter even in just a normal remodel that you're not adding a room, there's a lot of wood going in it, which adds a lot to the cost, right. And so it's that is, it's just one of those things that, you know, it's really important that if if it drops in your in that in that market for for remodeling, it might, it really might be a good time. And it also, I don't know about buying a new home, it might be a good time, because you know, the lumber is going down and builders price off of their costs. But I don't know how you can buy not knowing when it's going to be done

Ian Arnold  5:49  

that yeah, that'd be the scary thing for me, especially because most times, if you are looking, you're either renting or something like that. And guess what you have to do when you rent a place. A lot of times you got to sign a year contract. And once that's up, either they up the month to month super high, or you have to sign another year. So I wouldn't want to be caught in that three month span. They're like, Oh, well, we'll be done in about three months what my lease expires next month. If you had to sign a whole new lease or something extra month,

Rick Ripma  6:16  

a go month or move out, I mean, take a double move. I have a customer right now that is coming up, the house is about done. It's been over a year.

Ian Arnold  6:27  

That's crazy. To be sitting there just waiting, yeah, over a year.

Rick Ripma  6:31  

It's not the builders fault. You can't blame it, they can't get what they need to build the house. And I read somewhere. And I probably have the statistics here somewhere. The like, talk about a lack of employees, carpenters are like one of the hardest things to get. But all of the trades that build houses, they're just not out there. So all the builders are fighting for the same trades, you're fighting for those trades for the remodeling. So I think that's the other thing with new home construction, slowing down not having the starch not having the completions. That should add up to it might be a really good time to do some remodeling, because the trades are there. It should be there also, hopefully,

Ian Arnold  7:18  

oh, hopefully, you start to see a lot of this stuff starting to turn around. As are starting now. See with lumber now, I don't expect a lot of this stuff for a while. But you never know.

Rick Ripma  7:29  

No, you just you have it. There's just there's no way to know know that we can't see the future. We can guess we can, you know kind of think this is what's going to happen. But we can

Ian Arnold  7:39  

call Miss Cleo, we could

Rick Ripma  7:40  

well that was it. would she be any more accurate? That's the only thing I don't know. You know, it's funny to you, you know, you talk about that. We watched the market all the time, we have a very good company that we follow that knows that really has been very accurate over over what's going to happen. And you think the people who are supposed to know, like this is an area, the Federal Reserve, you would think the Fed members would know what's going to happen. They are were so wrong and are still so wrong. How? I don't know, I don't even understand. And it's not like they can argue that because we can even go back and get their quotes. Yeah. And then look at what happened and they were wrong. 100% wrong.

Ian Arnold  8:27  

Yeah. I mean, one, anybody can do it manipulate numbers the way they want. So whether they're getting told wrong or to go a certain way, it's astronomical to be wrong so much, instead of most times, yeah, you're gonna be right, because most people look at graphs and look at the past. So you're gonna, you're gonna know, all right, roughly, it's going to do this. So it's going to do this, but and everyone's Well, as a surpise will happen. It's just nature of life. But yeah, it's to be wrong as much. It's kind of laughable, almost.

Rick Ripma  9:03  

It's laughable. But my whole problem is, is we were listening to somebody who was telling us what actually happened. Okay. They knew better than the Federal Reserve. And then you see these, these surveys of economist, and most of them are right, most of the economists, you know, when you look at the surveys and what happened, they were accurate, but they're still let's say, let's say 70% 68% Whatever, we're accurate. That leaves 30% Supposed experts wrong? Hey, my weatherman is not right all the time. I know. But I think a weatherman is more right than these economists are. You might be close to the Federal Reserve anyway. So I just It is amazing to me. That's why I like what you know, it's why I think we're very accurate in what's going on because we have a you know, we pay for a company to give us that information and what they think and over over time, you can see they're accurate, correct. So it helps us help our customer make the right decisions and not make mistakes, you know, whether they should lock or not lock, you know, nobody can, nobody can get it. 100% But, you know, in the market like today, do you lock the right or do you hold the hold off? You know? Yeah,

Ian Arnold  10:17  

Right now, I, if it's me, I'm locking right away, because you never know what's happening right now. I mean, if it was a steadiest flow, then I might risk it. But right now. Well,

Rick Ripma  10:29  

you and I are conservative. Yeah, that is true. And that and that area. So because we're conservative in that area. We it's, it's, we tend to fall on that side, we will have times when it's very obvious you need to hold off right? It's very obvious you need to wait because rates are coming down. But but in a market like we've been in, you know, until you see the signs of a turning around, you lock the rate, but we're very also fortunate same company, they send us alerts telling us Hey, lock the rate lock right. Or, or even every morning, they say, listen, we're we're we think you should float, we think you should lock so we we can follow that advice. If we happen to agree with him. Yep. Correct. Yep. So that, you know, those things make a difference. Now, I know we wanted to talk about the Debt Crusher Mortgage, because we've had some people on that we were going to talk a little bit about that. And I think you were gonna go over that. Do you want to?

Ian Arnold  11:27  

Yeah, so what we had, we've had tons of phone calls about the Debt Crush or mortgage. And what, what it allows is for you to take a lot of your old your debt that you have, and reduce your overall payments by including that into your mortgage. And so that what that ultimately does is takes your overall payments and lowers it. So your monthly payments, let's say if they were with everything combined about lets say two grand, we tried to combine it and your mortgage, and maybe your overall payment drops down to 1300. We're gonna

talk more about that after the break. So we'll come back, and we'll talk about that after the break

Unknown Speaker  12:14  

Advisors Mortgage Group is licensed by Indiana Department of Financial Institutions equal housing opportunity. NMLS 33041 Rick Ripma NMLS 664589

Rick Ripma  12:22  

Hi, I'm Rick Ripma. With the hard working mortgage guys and advisors Mortgage Group, where we believe delivering the best mortgage for you is why we exist, and it's how we all succeed. We believe

Unknown Speaker  12:31  

honesty, kindness and hard work are how we honor each client at hardworking

Ian Arnold  12:36  

mortgage guys, we believe in custom tailored loans, not the one size fits all approach.

Unknown Speaker  12:41  

We believe in always presenting you with all your options. So you get the loan you want the way you want it. We believe

Unknown Speaker  12:46  

in continually monitoring the rules, rates and market trends. So you don't have to

Unknown Speaker  12:52  

we believe in working hard to meet your closing date so that your entire plan isn't upended.

Unknown Speaker  12:57  

We believe in offering the same quick online process that the bookstore mortgage companies brag about whether you're refinancing or buying your first home, we believe

Rick Ripma  13:05  

there is the best mortgage for you. And we believe we are the team to deliver it find us online at hardworking mortgage guys.com.

Announcer  13:17  

Brought to you by Advisors Mortgage Group, where we believe the more you know about financing a home the less stressful buying and refinancing will be

Rick Ripma  13:31  

Welcome back then, we're going to talk more about the debt pressure mortgage and, and how that may might be a value to you. But before we do that,

Unknown Speaker  13:40  

now it's time for

Unknown Speaker  13:41  

questions with the Guru's.

Ian Arnold  13:48  

Guess what it is sponsored by Debt Crusher mortgage, which actually is us, and is one of the programs that we actually run. It helps relieve your stress of your debt and helps you live more comfortably. So the question last week was, what can you hold in your right hand but never in your left hand? It's your left hand, hold everything and your left. Now if you don't have a left hand, and that makes a little bit more hard, but all right. All right. So what only has two words but 1000s of letters. That will this will be a good one, especially for the kids out there.

Rick Ripma  14:28  

Yeah, they're all They're all good. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure if somebody thinks about them, they might be able to get them or Google them. But it's, they're all pretty good. Okay,

Ian Arnold  14:40  

So we were talking about the Debt Crusher mortgage and because we've gotten a lot of phone calls about it, and how can it help certain people? So as we as we mentioned earlier, how it takes your old debt so what type of debt are we talking about? So Rick, I got a couple yet or a few yes, no question. So all you have to do is answer yes no. It's pretty easy. So I can't answer this. Yes, sir. Now, what debt can a Debt Crusher merge help lower your overall payments? What about credit card debt? Yes. All right. Car Loans. Yep. What about tax liens? Absolutely. All right. Medical bills? Absolutely. Collections?

Well, yeah, if you're gonna pay them off, yeah.

Student loans?

Rick Ripma  15:18  

I couldn't answer just Yes. Yes.

Ian Arnold  15:21  

And what about if they have a second mortgage? Yes. See, all this. And even there's more that I didn't even get into, that can easily you can reduce your overall payment. And that's what the Debt Crusher mortgage does for you. I know, Rick, you actually just closed a loan with a customer? Do you know what, roughly? Did they have auto loans? Or what type of loans did they have?

Rick Ripma  15:46  

Yeah, they had, they had a variety of loans. You know, the, the thing is, is it's, I want to make sure people understand it's not everything, right. I mean, it's sometimes it may not actually on that, that loan, like for instance, you take a home equity line of credit, it may be an interest only, so the payment may not really change by putting it into your new mortgage. If you did that, however, you're now paying principal on it. Correct? You know, so there it still can be better. And sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't we just have to look at that. But on the one I did it, had it had a car it had a had a button and had quite a few revolving credit cards. It even had a timeshare Oh, okay. Oh, that's yeah, had a timeshare in it. And it was amazing. How much it it really helped these people get their get their really their monthly expenses under control?

Ian Arnold  16:44  

And then how much would you say their total monthly expenses? Were before we did anything

Rick Ripma  16:49  

before we did anything, their total monthly expenses based on their their debts, their current mortgage, and the debts we ended up paying off with a refinance? They the actual they were at like 20 $3,515.

Ian Arnold  17:08  

Okay. All right. And then, so that was total with the mortgage that's with the mortgage. So and then what was it after? You CAN after after

Rick Ripma  17:19  

it was like 2400 and some 20? Let's say 2420, something like that. They ended up saving almost $1,100 a month.

Ian Arnold  17:28  

Wow. In today's economy, they they're now saving $1,100? Yes,

Rick Ripma  17:33  

it was, it was a few dollars less than $1,100. And it was life changing, because these people were on a fixed income. And it made all the difference in and getting their life under control, taking the stress out of their life. They they were so appreciative. And that's what's that's one of the things I really like about this mortgage, you know, when somebody is in a situation where it's a lot of stress, they're having it just it just

Ian Arnold  18:03  

Well, it's hard on Yeah, well just imagine I mean, when you when your debt so high, you're living paycheck to paycheck, you go home at night, and you go to sleep, is it a peaceful night you go to sleep right away? Most likely not. And this is what we've heard from these, these type of customers and everything. And look,  life happens, we understand that our job is to help you get control again, be able to get have that peaceful night's sleep, be able to go like that, that you're saving $1,000 Or most $1,100? How much that wouldn't make anybody sleep a lot better at night. I mean, yeah, and guess what we've even told people, hey, look, if you're good with just get an extra 500 You know what you can do with that. So we're just gonna divide it in half, take that 500 apply it to the principal every month, that'll help you pay down your mortgage even faster.

Rick Ripma  18:52  

Well, yeah, that's another big piece of what we advise is how you can do that, if that makes sense. Some people that isn't what

Ian Arnold  18:59  

it's not what their get and it, like, like we said, Everybody's story is different. So everybody's mortgage is going to be different. And we tailor it to you.

Rick Ripma  19:08  

But to your point, to your point, you you take somebody like this, okay, and let's say they did take that $500 And they they they put $500 extra a month towards the new mortgage. So they still are saving almost $600 a month. And I don't have the exact numbers, but I'll bet you they cut five, six years off the term of their mortgage, oh, if they took all 1090 or almost $1,100 and 1090 something they would they their new term would go from the current term that they had, which was like 26 years and some months. It'd be 14 years or 12 years and four months so they could they could pay their all their debt be paid off and pay off their mortgage by making the exact same payment for 12 years and four months. I'm sorry for helping you out. And they also took a little bit of cash out for themselves because they had some things they wanted to do on their house.

Ian Arnold  20:08  

Wow. Yeah, sounds sounds like they got a winner winner.

Rick Ripma  20:11  

So they improve their house, paid off all their debt, lowered their payment. And, you know, all that sounds great. But it really did make a difference. It really did help them feel like they're more in control of their life

Ian Arnold  20:24  

and their finances. And that's basically what the Debt Crusher is for. It's, it's not a big, it's not a hard thing. It's stuff that you and I do all the time. But you don't realize how much of a monkey off your back sort of talk that it does for people, I mean, that that weight is just gone.

Rick Ripma  20:45  

Yeah, it's, it's tough. I mean,  I've had times in my life, I had more debt than other times. And when you have more debt, you have more stress. And you have, you know, a lot of times that stress rolls over into a lot of other parts of your life, it may be financial stress, but it may affect your marriage, it may affect your kids, it may affect your job, if you can eliminate that it can really be life changing.

Ian Arnold  21:13  

So one of the things that has added a lot of people's stress to their life, as we've talked about, and what the Debt Crusher can definitely help with is the gas prices. Right? I know that everybody has seen the gas prices go up dramatically recently. I think Indiana was just I just got a notification on my phone a couple of days ago that the average now is over $5. I think the national average is like $4.93 or something like that.

Rick Ripma  21:44  

Right? Yeah. $4.93. Now, it may have gone up since I put this these numbers together, because I found this very, very interesting. Using a gas price at $4.93. And using last year's gas price at $3.07. So that's that's not even the total because we were at $2. Not that long ago.

Ian Arnold  22:05  

Yeah. Right. Actually, when everybody was working from home, I think it was like it was maybe even under two, I think times I filled up and I was like, I even took a picture and sent it to everybody. Everybody look what I just filled up for. Right?

Rick Ripma  22:17  

Yeah. Because you know, then I was filling my car up for 40 $45. Yep, a full fill up. I filled up my car last Sunday, and it was almost $100 to fill up my car. Now you do have a premium? I have to put premium in my car. But yeah, there's that. Yeah, that that it does have to have. But it's still it was, it's still the same increase, I had to put premium at $40 to so that $50 A month almost $60 Not a month, a fill up. Is that's what it is. You know, and that's a lot. But let's take the difference between the average for the gas now. proximately. I think it's higher, but for $4.93. And last year at $3.07. That's $1.86 More a gallon that we are spending if you take the average miles per gallon, some cars get more some cars get less, but the average miles per gallon is 20 miles per gallon if you take city and and highway driving the whole bit right. And so that added point, basically nine cents a mile. nine cents a mile. That's to drive in your car. That's what it added

Ian Arnold  23:34  

about. Stop driving to work. Yeah.

Rick Ripma  23:37  

It if you take that by 14,000 miles, which is the average approximately the average miles driven per year, that's $1,260 additional per year or $105 per month. That is unbelievable. And that can really affect somebody's budget.

Ian Arnold  23:59  

Oh humongously $100 extra a month. That's that's just crazy. You're having to spend now on gas.

Rick Ripma  24:07  

Yeah, it's it's not so and that's and that's I think it's higher now. Because gas has gone up since then. I've no mine is premium, but it was $5.36

Ian Arnold  24:18  

Well, triple A released that by Memorial Day. It should be about six $6 a gallon. Do you mean Labor Day Labor Day? Yeah, sorry. I just always flip those.

Rick Ripma  24:33  

Wait a second.

Ian Arnold  24:34  

I always remember it school in school out that's always remember that. School starts again.

Rick Ripma  24:39  

They're saying it's gonna be six. Yes. $6 or seven? $6. Okay. We've I don't I don't think I've ever seen what we're seeing today.

Ian Arnold  24:48  

Indian has never had above average over five. That was the big thing even back in. Oh 08 and 09.

Rick Ripma  24:54  

It's unbelievable. So sorry. It's just unbelievable. One

Ian Arnold  24:57  

thing we have not told everybody about The wonderful news that we recently have done is we've actually went ahead because we've gotten a lot of people that said, they missed our radio show, stuff like that. So what we started doing is recently, Rick, and I've been posting all of our radio shows on like podcasts and Spotify, iTunes, stuff like that. So you can easily go back and listen to some, we go ahead and we start, we're starting to put chapters in there to make it easier. So you can select what you want to do. But it makes it so much easier. So definitely, if you like, if you love listening to us go to these look us up under it's under hardworking mortgage guy, right? Are what is it?

Rick Ripma  25:37  

Well, it's on my website is hard working mortgage guy, but in most of those, it's indys real estate gurus.

Ian Arnold  25:42  

What is it one more time for them? 

Rick Ripma  25:44  

Indys Real Estate Gurus with an S. And that's how that's how they should be able to find it. It's, I don't, I don't know if they look up by our names. But it's probably easier to go Indys Real Estate Gurus. I don't think it's under hard working mortgage guys. I'd have to double check that all right, I should have checked.

Ian Arnold  26:05  

All right, especially and then there are big news also is member next weekend is our Father's Day special. So if grab your kids sit down with them, we'll go through what types of things you should definitely talk to your kids about financing credit, even if they started looking for a house.

Rick Ripma  26:24  

Right? You know, it's really important, I think a lot of it's, or it'll be all ages. So we're gonna, you know, we'll do for young young kids, because there's really great ways to teach your kids how to handle money. And I know, there many people who never get that from their their they don't get it from school. Oh, no, they may or may not get it from their family. I don't know why. But money seems to be a taboo subject for a lot of people.

Ian Arnold  26:52  

Yeah, you would think more about it'd be religion or politics and everything. I don't know its finances. I mean, I think that's one of the best things my dad ever does sat down. How much do you want to make? This is roughly how much I make. And he even told me, he goes, I don't think I should tell you this. And I debated on whether to tell you how much I made. So but we got tons of this stuff to go over with a yes.

Rick Ripma  27:15  

Yeah. But you know, and it's something that needs to be correct. Kids need to know this. And I mean, my, my, my dad, I think he did pretty well. He was the department chief of engineers at Western Electric. Right? He was, and he was well educated. But he had six kids. So they didn't have you know, we did our he did all right. We had a nice life, have no complaints, but I'm sure he wasn't, you know, it wasn't like some people that you know, but it was great. But he never really, he was he? He just said he wasn't very good with money. But he was actually very good. We're running out of time. We appreciate you joining us today. If you have any questions want to talk with us go to hard working mortgage guys.com. That's hard working mortgage guys.com. Or, as Ian said, you can listen to us on our podcast at almost all of the podcast areas. Thanks for joining us and have a great weekend.

Announcer  28:06  

Branch NMLS number 33041. Recruitment NMLS number 664589. Ian Arnold's NMLS number is 1995469 equal housing opportunity, some restrictions apply?