Latest / Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life / Santa Clarita tips for home buyers and sellers in November 2025

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Santa Clarita tips for home buyers and sellers in November 2025 · Connor with Honor: AI, Real Estate and Real Life

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good day, everybody.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're about to start November.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's very exciting.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into today's real estate show.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to get into what's happening in the market, in real estate, and give you some tips.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: What I did is I did put all this together at the blog, Santa Clarita Openhouses.com forward slash blog.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, real quick at the home page, just so you know, you can go through and search for every single listing that happens to be for sale.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, no matter who the brokerage is, you'll see everything here.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: In addition, you can also look at the open houses that are going to be scheduled and up to several weeks from today, so you'll be able to see everything there.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then with regard to any property, you click on any of these, and then it's going to pull up data.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: What I made sure of is I put uh information with regard to the property, of course, but then here's the estimated monthly payment in a calculator.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is put in your information.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then I also cover the prices in the area as far as market reports go, so you can look and get an idea exactly what's happening in any particular market relevant to any particular property listing.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get into today's show.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: We will cover what's happening here as far as inventory goes.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So let's do that right now.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So here in Santa Clarita Valley, 674 total active listings in the market for sale.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is all going to be residential uh real estate listings, so condominiums, townhomes, and single-family residences.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Four coming soon, 64 new listings have hit the market for sale.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: In the past week, we have 69 properties that have had their prices changes, 18 properties back on market, 35 properties have gone active under contract, 56 spending, 72 closed, 12 expired, 13 canceled, 13 put on put on hold, and seven have been withdrawn.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just a couple things to point out.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: This expired listing number, these 12, this is something if your real estate buyer and your agent hasn't put this together, this is something you might want to consider.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have them go and look at the expired listings that meet your criteria and have them look at the expired listings back a few months.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: If those listings haven't gone onto the market and been listed under another agent or resold, these are golden opportunities for you as real estate buyers.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But some agents aren't exploring that, so make sure you have an agent that is.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, allow me to make that introduction.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: But looking at those expired properties, and then you're like, well, what's the tactic?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The tactic is they go bang on that door with your portfolio, the information that you're willing to share with the seller, maybe photograph, whatever, of you and yours, and discussing that you're actual actually real buyers, showing the information that they potentially might send in in with an offer whenever they submit that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So showing that you're real.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: This ploy, this going door to door and knocking on doors, saying that, oh, I have a buyer.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: If your sellers are watching this, a lot of the times that's not the case.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, they probably have a buyer somewhere somehow, maybe in a future time that they're unaware of.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the the vagueness of the statement.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have a buyer, potentially not in pocket.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: But when you go on a specific mission for a particular buyer or set of buyers or whomever, and you say, Listen, I noticed your house expired.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Connor McIver with Realty One.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you just give me just a moment, I have actual clients, these people here, I would like to introduce them.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're not with me, but they're here in the folder.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a pre-approval letter.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they do have money on hand for a down payment, and this is the type of house they've been looking for.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Up to this point, we haven't found anything that really fits, but we were looking at yours that actually expired, and it seems like it might make sense to them.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to have a conversation with you, maybe make an introduction between you and them, and I would love to bring them over and let's have a look at the house and see if it's something that fits, and then we can do some further negotiations after that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: What do you say?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then you wait.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, this works out really well, so that's a strategy that you can use as a real estate buyer that a lot of time it seems maybe it's too much work for people.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand why they wouldn't want to put it together like that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it's something that you can use, and I like to say again a lot.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right, seven withdroll.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so as far as what's happening in real estate, we're getting into that fall slowdown as we get into the holidays.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know that they have Halloween stuff up and Christmas stuff.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's remarkable how early.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think Christmas stuff started summer of this year.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're looking to sell a house, the first foremost, biggest thing is going to be you want to make sure that you prepare it for sale, not only establishing a sales price, a sales price establishment's huge because if it's priced too high, it's going to sit on the market longer than the days on market time frames.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that also depends, however, on whether or not you have a unicorn property.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Unicorn property, something that differentiates itself from anything that's currently on the market, and maybe anything that's actually sold in your neighborhood in the past several months.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are looking for those types of properties.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, case in point, we had a listing up in Circle J Ranch that was a unicorn style single story, which isn't common.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's maybe one in four, one in five, depending on the neighborhood in Santa Clarita.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then other than that, it had a large view out the back of a valley, so it was pretty.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: The lot itself had a pool, so it did have a pool, which, you know, not exceptionally rare, but it also had a large workable grassy area as well.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, it had RV parking, plus, it was at the end of a cul-de-sac, plus it had a large driveway footprint as well.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a unicorn.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It has a lot of different things that all the other houses might have one or two of them, but this had five or six of those rare items uh that go with residential real estate.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's a unicorn property that you can price a little bit higher than what the market will bear.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you have that type of thing, it's important to have that addressed.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then when your agent's talking to you about it, you can address all those things in the write-up and the description.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when buyers are searching online, they will be seeing those.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Also, when you're getting your house prepared for sale, let me give you this tip as well.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I see a lot of this.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: You need to actually get it Q-tip clean.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure everything is pristine.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Clear off those counter spaces if you're using a particular type of pressure cooker or a uh crock pot or you have something that you daily use, even a coffee maker.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever buyers are coming over, it's okay to take it.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's a pain, but you need to prepare your house as if you're going to have somebody date it.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Take that item into a garage or somewhere else, and then leave those counter spaces completely clear.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a room in your residence, you need to, and that's maybe being made used, being made to use, has been made as an office.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's being used as an office.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: You want to return that room to its intended original purpose.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: If it was originally a bedroom, I know you're gonna think, well, can't they just well, maybe, but it's really so much easier.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've walked through with buyers, I've had to say, well, you know, this this is now an office, but it was a bedroom.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and and it really doesn't have the same impact.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a bedroom, there's no question.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and then from there they can turn it into whatever they want.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's making sure all those rooms have been returned to their original purpose that's going to be key.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Also, prior to putting it on the market, you might want to have it inspected.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: A pre-sales inspection, not a bad idea.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of home inspectors, uh, cat named Brian Kelly, good guy.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: He does these things all the time.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that way the house can be attended to, especially if you're one that hasn't really done much over the last 10, 20, 30 years to your residence.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: That does come up from time to time.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about getting somebody in there so you can, you know, renovate your house and put 50 grand into you know renovations and remodeling.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the purpose.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose is just to catch those big things.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've had some kind of a pinhole leak that you haven't been aware of that you want to take care of.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because if it's created mold or other issues, the buyer's gonna find out about it and it's gonna be a problem.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe hitting that off at the past is important.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: In addition, when you provide the paperwork, that actual inspection report to the real estate buyer, that's gold.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: They look at wow, this seller actually cares about my wherewithal, about my welfare, and is doing things to basically help me choose their home above and beyond just pricing it and getting a lot of pretty pictures and having a fast talking, beautiful agent and those sorts of things.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So this is very helpful for you as a real estate seller to consider.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, staging, you know what, that's a big deal.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: There are some markets where staging is a huge benefit.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, vacant houses do well also.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's also virtual staging that most agents should be able to do with the help of artificial intelligence, but there are still companies that do that sort of work also.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just make sure that if you are going to have a property virtually staged, I know this isn't your business, but if you're looking at it and it looks like the room has been modified in some way just to have that particular uh particular photograph uh retouched, that could be a problem.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not for you, but for you, on the effect of people going in and saying, well, this doesn't look anything like what we were seeing.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: This looks completely different.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: That being the case, it might not be the best thing for you to do to have those the rooms actually modified.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the agent side of it, we're held culpable for that.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: There has to be uh potentially the best way to get around is you put the before and the after virtual staging, both photographs in the MLS.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: That seems to work out well.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're just gonna rely on the other one, it's it's gotta be there.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's gotta be ruler perfect as far as the rendering from AI when they're putting that together.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So please make sure you look at that.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if it looks funny to you, then it's probably gonna look funny to a buyer as well.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you buyers out there, there's a lot going on.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know that interest rates right now are holding steady.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's been some fluctuation, and I know everybody always talks about the federal fund, the fund, the Fed meeting.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Fed meeting, that's a big deal.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: When they meet, that interest rate adjustment is merely the rate at which banks are trading and borrowing money back and forth.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: The interest rates are basically based on the 10-year bond more than anything.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that market fluctuates quite a bit.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to a lender on a Monday and get a particular rate quoted and then go back to them on Wednesday, and it's gonna be a different rate.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: It will have fluctuated a little bit.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: However, when that Fed funds rate does have an impact, usually there is some adjustment in the mortgage rates.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's something to look for.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like there's gonna be a couple more meetings of the Fed here in 2025.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're about to start October.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: That being the, or excuse me, November, we're starting November of 2025 here in a few days.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: That being the case, we're probably going to see those interest rates continue to come down.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: If they come down enough, if the economy heals enough and unemployment doesn't go nuts and inflation continues to come down, we could see more investment into that 10-year bond with that federal funds meeting and this and that, we could actually see that interest rates come down at that time.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: If in fact that happens, with our 69, what is that, 79 as of today?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Total, 674 units as of today, that's going to be eaten up really quickly by buyers that are waiting in the wings, and yes, there are those.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to be prepared to take action.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you really want to buy something now, maybe better better informed would be just move forward and then maybe do a refinance.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's something.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to see what those costs are going to be.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: If that refinance is going to be free, you've only paid on your mortgage a few months, not a big deal.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if that refinance is going to cost you thousands of dollars, then it might take you the next 10 years to recoup with you know from that interest rate you originally bought the house at.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you need to look at all these numbers before you jump in.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your agent should guide you, your real estate agent should give you that information, whether it is whether they know a little bit or a lot, that's going to be the big differentiation factor between who you select and how they work.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so that's what's happening.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You go to Santa Clarita Open Houses, you can see the entire thing.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of information here I put together for today's show.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Connor with honor.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: We will see you in the next one, and I do appreciate you watching.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, tell a friend.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.