[00:00:06] Speaker A: The Michael Hatfield REMAX team presents Real estate and more.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Bay Area real estate is different than.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: In all of America.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: And why? What's up with home buyers? What's on sellers minds, how is the market? And much, much more.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Now here's your host, Michael Hatfield. Well, welcome to the Real Estate and More show. I'm so glad you tuned in. You know, I've been thinking a lot about community and what it actually means. Just coming back from a very nice four day celebration of a very respected woman in Scottsdale.
And there was over 130 family, friends and people that were there that I could tell really, really cared about her and her family. And I'm thinking, well, how do you get to that point, how in our busy lives that we have every day, how do you actually get to that point where someone actually cares? Well, I broke it down, started thinking in my own life, what do I do that is not optimum as far as talking with people? And then I realized that that device that I carry in my pocket is one of the things that slows everything down. And as far as relationship, I mentioned once before on the air that back in the days of flying airplanes, they say the more senses that you can use to take in a piece of information, the better. So, meaning if you can smell something, touch something, see something, hear something, then you can take it in through all of those senses. Then you're going to understand it and remember it a lot better. In my case, I think that when I distract myself from the talk or whatever is going on by looking at my in pocket device, I think that what I do is I actually cause some ripples with relationship. So I've somewhat taken on as a, as a going forward thought that I want to keep that thing in my pocket a lot more and look people in the eye and actually talk to them as people as someone that's important, someone that is meaningful and not just something to while away the time with. You know, going out to coffee, you take the time and you connect. If you keep that device in your pocket and you hear each other in what they say, a lot better. And I'm, I'm finding that in my vintage that that's something that I really want to do. There's a lot of optimism in the air from people that I hear about 20 and 25 going forward, not only in real estate, but in the actual economy. And the reason seems to be unilaterally that the economy that we live in, that we end up paying our bills with is actually driven by energy as far as real estate, there has been the last few days a lot more calls that we're receiving for services than we had been in the past year of 2024. So I'm optimistic about that. And as we related before, we have the local associations of Realtors that are predicting that in 2025 that there will be 10.5%, roughly more transactions, that's buy sell transactions than we've had in 2024. So that's kind of good news. And so now we say, well, what about the affordability side? The general consensus, and my crystal ball, and everyone should have their own crystal ball and not rely on mine, is that in 2025, we should see 5% mortgage interest rates. That will help the buyers that are looking to buy. It'll give them an opportunity to come in and say, hey, you know, that makes a lot of sense at that payment per month. So that's what I'm hoping. One negative that we've seen is the increasing of hoas to the point where cost per month has become, I wouldn't say untenable, but more.
Less manageable, put it that way, than we have seen in the past that we've seen the number of HOAs also grow in the United States of America. You know, back to this communication thing that we started out. I started out talking about how people enjoy community and how important it is.
When I grew up, my entire family was coming to visit on a weekly basis and we would have dinners and we would have meals and we would talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and know each other much, much better than we do today. So I'm thinking that if we could get back to that, to where people are talking with people more than paying attention to the gadgets. You know, having that Sunday meal like you see on Blue Bloods on television, those kind of actions can be very important to holding a family together, to making it more solidified towards the members of the family, towards each other and making it so much better.
We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back.
Welcome to the Real Estate Minute with Re Max expert Michael Hatfield. Michael, what traits should we look for in selecting an agent? Look for a dealmaker with a positive attitude who will work tirelessly for you. An agent who is adept in multiple offer situations, drafting contracts, marketing and advertising. A client's home is familiar with multiple cultures, experienced in mortgage financing. Inspections and escrow is a huge asset to his client. What can you do as a plus for clients? Your agent is your eyes and your ears. One who works behind the scenes on your behalf, a great attitude, working well with others and keeping Clients Priorities number one is a given for us. Call 925-322-7775 now. To schedule an appointment or complimentary home analysis for excellence in real estate, call the Michael Hatfield ReMax at 925-322-7775 or go to Michael hatfieldhomes.com.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Well, we were in the market to buy a house in Pleasanton for a very long time. So we saw this beautiful house. We walk in, we see Michael and Nancy. We just absolutely love this house. Michael brought in a wealth of knowledge and experience to the whole home buying process. He was very professional. And both Michael and Nancy went way above and beyond to help us and to help us achieve the house of our dreams.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Now back to our show.
Well, we look, we as on our real estate business side of things, we look to make friends and develop a great relationship first while we're in the process explaining the contract and the disclosures and things of such advisories, acknowledgements. And while we do this, we're looking to build a relationship of mutual trust and respect. And to get that respect, I feel that you really have to give out a little bit in order to receive it back. So I'm thinking a lot about that as we approach the holiday season.
And just recently I had Christy Graham, she is a podcast host and radio host.
It's on the ground with Samaritan's Purse with Christy Graham. And I realized in her talk that everything she did came from the heart. She really felt what she was saying, what she was doing, what the organization, the humanitarian organization Samaritan's Purse does in countries where they're war torn, they're needy due to natural disasters. She really felt that. And I have to say that to me, when someone feels it, you can identify it just immediately. Well, you know, I've been sitting here pontificating to everybody about community and being able to communicate and everything else. And in walks a good friend of mine, Mr. Pat Matucci, a well known radio and television host. Welcome, Pat.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Well, thanks, Michael. It's always a pleasure being here.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: I know you had to say a few things on this subject. So it's always a pleasure to hear what those are. I've been talking, Pat, about how important it is to gather in community and talk and work with each other in a way that's meaningful. And you know, how many times have you and I went off to coffee?
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's been very important in my life. And I know it's been important in your life as well. Sense of community. And we find it in the office, we find it in your church or place of worship. You know, he who gathers in his name in a sense of community is a very powerful way of communicating with each other, communicating with your maker, whoever that may or may not be. But there's a, there's a deep sense of a relationship that we build.
You and I have coffee, we've shared, you know, some things that we may not necessarily share with other people, but when you go into a larger group, you know, it's a pretty lonely world out there, Michael. And sadly, people are buttoned up and they don't share their life and they don't go out of their house or you may not even know your neighbors anymore. Years ago you knew all your neighbors and their kids names. And nowadays, frankly, sadly, I don't know some of my neighbors. You never see them.
The garage door opens via electronic button. The car goes in. Before they get out of the car, the garage door is down. You can't even say, hey, how was your day today? Or how are your kids doing? How's your job doing? You know, how's your wife doing? Would you like to go out to dinner? It's just not that since there was a comic. I heard recently, years ago, when the doorbell rang, you would run to the door and everybody actually, oh, we have company. Come on in, you know, let's have coffee, let's have dinner. Now the doorbell rings and you turn the TV down. You, you get real quiet. You look at everybody and say, you know, quiet. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't be talking because you don't know who's going to be at the door. You know, you don't even want to answer the door.
I mean, just in the last 30 or 40 years we've flipped on that.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: So it's so good. You know, when I was a kid, our family would come from all over the states and I'd wake up a Saturday morning, I'd be stepping over bodies to get to the kitchen, and that would be cousin from here and cousin from there. And everybody would talk all hours of the night. There wasn't that gadget which cell phones tend to rob. I think our communication amongst each other, don't you think?
[00:12:10] Speaker B: I remember Halloween night, we never locked our doors. My cousin and my two cousins came in the front door, the doors unlocked on this, in this costume, and they scared the heck out of all of us. But I'm thinking my Gosh, we not only had the little knob on the doorknob, but now we have, you know, dead, dead deadbolts and alarm systems. And, you know, it's, it's, it's sad that we've come this far back in the 50s and 60s, it was kind of a more friendly, more communicative world that we lived in. We kind of depended on each other. Now we're doing Facebook and, you know, all these other softwares that we don't look at each other eyeball to eyeball. It's funny, you see a family out to dinner, husband and wife and two kids. They're all sitting there on their phones reading or playing games. Nobody's talking to each other. No, no, no.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: It's incredible. You know, one of the things I've noticed over the last four or five years, and I'm not going political, I'm just saying over the lowest four or five years, you know, we've been hit in the pocketbook. Our economy has taken more out of our pockets than it used to before it got to the, to the dinner table. You go to the grocery store, you find that, oh, my gosh, I come out with one little bag, and that's 150 bucks. And you don't really have the buying power that you used to have. And that's a big deal. And a lot of people are looking in an optimistic, optimistic way to this next year coming ahead.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yeah, there seems to be a. Just a lot of enthusiasm. So many more people are plugged into the political world. I mean, years ago, I, frankly, I was not that interested. Now I've become political junkie, where I'm watching this stuff all the time. And yeah, I think you're right, Michael. There is a sense of excitement for 20, 20, 25, and because beyond.
And it, look, it all cascades down from, from the top, I think. You know, not to sound political, but you have to have a charismatic leader that seems to care, maybe genuinely does care about you and me and how much the price of eggs are. Right. And so that gets real infectious. And it, and it, and it does trickle down to guys that, look, when President Reagan was in office for eight years, he had that sense of leadership that you really were kind of proud despite his political party he was affiliated with. But there was a sense of American pride even when he did the terrible thing of shutting down the air traffic controllers because they weren't on strike and they, they were not allowed, it was illegal for them to strike. Any airline travel came. No screeching out, you you well know the airline business, so. And you kind of rallied behind him and said, yeah, he's right. They. It's illegal for them to strike. They struck. They lost their jobs. And so they had to rehire and retrain a lot of folks. But I think we're getting into that period of life again where we're kind of proud to be Americans again. And the priorities, I think, are more in line with the American spirit.
[00:15:45] Speaker A: Well, you know, it was actually yesterday. Went into the coffee shop, and this lady held the door for me. I couldn't believe it. And also comparing the amount of clientele in that coffee shop compared to a month two months ago, there's a lot more people in there. And there seems to be a spirit of happier faces, politeness. I don't know if you want to say correctness, but you see respect there. And whether or not they like you, whether or not they like your opinions, whether or not your thoughts on a certain subject are conducive to what they think doesn't seem to matter.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Michael, we need each other. We really need each other. I think that comes out screaming, you and I are both obnoxiously outgoing, maybe, and maybe it turns a lot of people off, but I personally need to associate with other people in my day, in my office, in my life. I go on vacation with friends and for weeks at a time. And, you know, it's nice to have alone time. It's nice to have quiet time, pick up a good book and have some quiet time. But I got to balance it out with sharing my obnoxious personality with other people that can tell me to be quiet or you're really wrong on that topic. And you debate, you have a deliberate interaction with people, and I think that's. That's healthy. And I think we've gotten away from that in the past.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: I totally agree. Well, let's look back a couple decades. You know, we went through 9, 11, and that big story, and that affected us for a lot of years. But then all of a sudden, community rallied around the American flag and said, we're all part of this wonderful, wonderful country together. Let's work together, and let's go forward from there. And a couple years later, then things were moving back again and going in the direction that it's an enjoyable country. And then we had the Middle east crisis. We've had the economic distress of 2007 through 2012, and then we went into the virus season. We went through that. This country's been through a lot, and now it's so Nice to see young people turning off their social media say I'm not going to mess with that. I'm not going to spend all my time on my cell phone looking at it. I'm going to raise my children, I'm going to have them sit at the table, I'm going to have them learn to communicate and develop those skills, unlike you may see years ago. And I think that's a really great thing.
[00:18:22] Speaker B: Moving ahead, I think your point about folks working from home just further exacerbated that. Absolutely. Loneliness.
I know specifically some people who got so lonely and frankly antisocial when they had to be stuck at home for what, a couple years really. And now just recently I've learned the federal government is now going to demand that federal workers all come back to work. Here I thought everybody was back to work. And I've learned recently that federal workers are now, effective January going to be forced to go back to work five days a week. Oh my God, how reasonable is that?
[00:19:10] Speaker A: You know what's really amazing is I just showed a property yesterday. It's a lease office suite and there's like a multiple offices in there, about 4,000, excuse me, 4,000 square feet of office space. And this potential tenant looks at me and says well you know, people are still staying at home, they're not coming to work. I said well maybe they should. And maybe we should look forward to the fact of coming back and have the community rally around, have a tribal effect when we look to conquer some business target or objective. You know, that's, that's one of the.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Things, look, you can face a challenge alone but it's so much easier when you've got a team that you can bounce ideas off of. I mean it's been shown that whole, all the ramifications of COVID 19 and the whole sequestering issue has really been really focus of some social issues that were not all that positive. And thankfully we're getting out of it slowly maybe but I think the more people depend on each other and the ideas you, you get just at the water cooler from one of your, one of your co workers, maybe you've got a half baked idea but somebody fills in the other half. And now your half baked idea sounds like it, like it may have merit if you twist and turn it a little bit and modify it a little bit. Now you've got a kernel of perhaps something that, that would work really well. And I think that's, that's the dynamic that we've been missing.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: You know, when I was a Kid, I used to get really anxious or, or nervous about, you know, who's going to be elected or this potential war or. I was at the time in the 60s, when Nikita Khrushchev was putting rockets on the island of Cuba and I was all nervous about that. And then there was, you know, flus and there were issues like that. And I remember one time mom just kind of put her arm around me and she says, there will always be wars, famines, disasters and plagues. Evil is also everywhere. The question is, what will you do to deal with that and to make things better? You know, start with your own thoughts about how you can make things better.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Yeah, there's, you know, the whole pragmatic issue of life is not always a bowl full of cherries. Right. We've got good days, we've got bad days, but fortunately we're blessed in this country with a whole lot more good days than bad. I mean, when you watch the news and you see all these war torn areas and streets and blocks and cities just absolutely decimated, and then you look out your window and you see these beautiful landscaping and trees and, you know, we're pretty, pretty fortunate not to be in the middle of some of those countries. And so, yeah, you've got to stay optimistic. And yeah, sometimes life gets you down, but I think when you have a sense of community and a sense of belonging, there's friends and family will bring you up again there because individually we can all get sad and depressed, but that's what family and friends are for, is to break you out of that funk, if you will, and get you to a more positive day.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Would you say that inspiration, joy, hope, happiness and all of that is absolutely paramount in how a person goes forward to enjoy their life?
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Well, look, I have been blessed with a spiritual life. And whether you believe in God or not, there's some inner voice that talks to you every day. And I think you've got to be able to listen to that inner voice and thank your maker for every breath that you take. And I think I just read the other day, a President Elect Trump is going to bring the Bible back into schools and bring the Pledge of Allegiance back in the schools. I didn't even know the Pledge of Allegiance was not being said. Every day, every morning we would stand up and pledge of Allegiance because we were happy to be part of this country. And so I think our school system has got to get back into those basic fundamental things and maybe even a blessing of some sort without specifically talking about a specific superpower of super Whoever your God is, you think standing in and have these children bless their day and thank their God for being able to be there that day.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: I got to say that I really find that when I was talking with Christy Graham, who represents Samaritan's Purse, one of the, I think they're number 23 as far as the largest humanitarian organizations that are out there. And they go into these war torn countries. They go into Appalachia where we've had Hurricane Helene create so much devastation and death, and also into the tornado regions of Oklahoma. But they go in there, but they take faith with them. And so whether or not you are a Christian or whether or not you're of some other faith, that's one thing and that's okay. But I think that a person as part of their psyche needs to have that.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I've been blessed. It's always been part of my life. And when I ran a business for 100 years, I would always emphasize, you know, being the most altruistic manager I could be. At the same time, concurrently, profit was not a dirty word. You have to make profit to, to pay your bills, pay your, pay your employees, pay your taxes, give your tithing to your, to your, to your church. So making money is not a sin.
It's the use of the money. What do you do with the money? And are you reflective enough to understand and prioritize where making money fits into your spiritual life?
[00:25:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Sunday dinners, friendship dinners, coffees, lunches. Not only do they make the economy go around, but it also develops this spirit of kinship and togetherness and community. And with that in mind, I gotta say, hey, thanks for coming in and waking me up, Pat. I always appreciative of your viewpoints and your thoughts and reflections as far as where we are in living our life in this world. So with that in mind, I'd like to thank all of our viewers and especially you, Mr. Vettucci for showing up and giving us those wonderful thoughts.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: It's always fun, Michael. Thanks for having me.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: You bet. You've been listening to the Real Estate and More show. I'd like to say thanks, viewers for tuning in and hearing what we have to say today. And we'll be right back with our next special guest. Stay tuned.
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