Welcome, everybody, to Midday Magazine for this Tuesday, April 8th, 2025.
Have your host, James here, and it's time for Realty Radio with our friend, David
Farmbrill.
We're going to dive into the real estate, local industry right now in business, and hang
out with David for a little bit and get some information.
David, how you been?
I've been well.
It's wonderful to be back with you, James.
I look forward to this every month.
It's something that, it's a topic that I always appreciate learning more and more about
because it's something that I think for me and a lot of people out there, this segment
gives them an opportunity to learn more about this and get in depth in it.
Regardless if they're buying or selling a home now or in the future, it's in good information
for us to know economically, and it goes so far on that.
I also think that there's a part of this too that people look at morally and its industry
and how that's handled.
It's something that we've been very fortunate here at WFHR, the businesses we've worked
with, the realtors we've worked with, all have this same kind of agreement of how reputation
businesses is and treating people fairly.
It's part of why I appreciate working with you, David, and this is something you take
very seriously and that you wanted to focus on, and especially this month in particular
when we're talking about fair housing.
That's right, James.
This is fair housing month and that's something which the realtor organization is very big
on.
That they promote a lot and they encourage every realtor to take part in and to promote.
It means you have to be careful.
It means you have to be conscious of where you might unintentionally be doing something
that disadvantages someone because of their protected group or because of their identity.
Right.
I think leads us perfectly into this, David.
What is for those that may not be familiar?
What is fair housing?
What are we talking about, it's specifically?
Well, the fair housing movement really grew up because of some of the segregation practices
of the 1950s and before.
Also there were, you'd probably heard of redlining which was guidelines on who could be
lent money to and who couldn't due to neighborhoods.
When you looked at those neighborhoods, the neighborhoods where you couldn't lend money
to were predominantly the black neighborhoods.
Even though the lines weren't drawn with a little note saying this is the black neighborhood,
the effect was that it discriminated against people on the basis of color.
People have tried to address that since the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s
and going on, things have been refined somewhat and also they've been dealt with at several
different levels.
We do have some federal laws that outlaw discrimination.
I was going to say they prevent discrimination but they don't, any more than laws against
murder stop people from murdering people.
We do have the federally protected classes and these are people who you can't discriminate
against in housing and that includes how I do my job as a realtor.
It includes people who are selling houses, it includes people who are buying houses,
it includes people who are maybe who have homes to rent.
They have to be very careful that they don't discriminate.
Now the federally protected classes under the Fair Housing Act include race, color, national
origin, religion, sex, disability and familial status.
That last one is a big surprise to anyone because who would discriminate against someone
because they have a family or don't?
Well you would be surprised how many people selling homes say I just want to see it going
to a nice family.
Well that's all well and good but then you're discriminating against someone who doesn't
have a family and that's not right.
Those are the federally protected classes.
The state of Wisconsin also has some protected classes which are in addition to the federal
classes and those are ancestry, marital status, lawful source of income.
For example someone can be on SSI and they can still buy a house if they have sufficient
income for their mortgage lender, sexual orientation and their status as a victim of domestic
abuse.
Now that's another one that you wouldn't expect but it does come up.
Now sexual orientation you would think that would be covered under the federal protected
class because that's quite a well-known area of discrimination.
In fact, HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has actually identified sexual
orientation as a protected class.
This is their interpretation of sex as a protected class and also gender identity is also considered
to be part of the sex discrimination.
But the Wisconsin protected classes just make it a little bit clearer on sexual orientation.
They just say no, we can't discriminate.
Anyone dealing in housing in the state of Wisconsin has to follow those rules.
Then we have another layer.
We have the National Association of Realtors who says, well we want to make it absolutely
clear that we're not going to discriminate against somebody on the grounds of gender identity.
So it doesn't matter what someone identifies as, we're just going to treat them the same
as we would anybody else.
So I think it shows that there is an effort both with our legislatures and with our professional
body to try and outlaw discrimination.
I like to go even further.
So with my brokerage, Rapids Homes, I try and make sure I don't discriminate against
anyone because I'm not going to go down the list of protected classes and it's a long
list and try and work out which class somebody fits into and how I'm not going to not discriminate
against them.
I'm just not going to discriminate against anyone.
So it could be somebody living in poverty or financial hardship and maybe the attitude
I could take would be to say, oh, well they probably can't afford a house.
I'm going to hang up on them and I won't bother calling them back.
But I don't do that.
Anyone who approaches me who says I like to buy a house, I say, well let's look into it.
Let's look at the possibilities, maybe you can borrow, maybe your income is sufficient
or maybe you can save some money up and then after that you'll be able to borrow sufficient
to make the difference between our down payment and the price of a home.
So I try and be a can-do agent for everybody.
I'm also very conscious of people with different immigration or citizenship statuses because
I am an immigrant myself.
I only became a citizen three years ago but I was living in Wisconsin Rapids for 13 years
before that as a homeowner.
So I was both a homeowner and a green card holder at the same time.
I also don't want to discriminate against neurodivergent individuals because there's
so many people out here who just think and behave in a different way and to me this is
something that's all part of our, you know, all part of life's rich pageant and I should
again be doing my best to help those people on their path to home ownership.
And there's all sorts of other little bits and pieces and my task is to just say no discrimination
against anybody.
And David, I can't thank you enough and appreciate you and your fellow realtors out there
and in this community that take this so seriously, that are approaching this so much.
I've mentioned this before, it's no secret to our audience.
This affects me and my family quite a bit when we moved to this area.
We're Chicago bear fans and people, no, I'm joking.
In all seriousness, obviously my family was affected by this and I've talked about it before
on the air and we are fortunate that we never ran into any discrimination or anything
like that that we were treated very well, whether it was because of race or creed or being
from out of state or income and there's another part of this to think of there with that
part.
I don't know if I'm wording this right or if I'm just using this terminology because
of the subject matter, but it's a bit of a correcting of the market of what we're doing
here with this and what we're trying to do for century, for decades.
There were classes of people that were not given the same rules as everybody else.
This actually backfired pretty badly on people in those cities and those communities.
I'm thinking about Chicago in particular where they tried to segregate things quite a bit and
all it did was bring down all areas because you're a rising tide races all boats and to
reliters out there to it's just smart business.
The idea that you would say, you know what, I'm not going to work with these people.
I'm not going to work with these people.
I'm only going to sell for these people, you're limiting your market.
I go back to the Ben and Jerry's argument all the time.
Ben and Jerry's was the biggest ice cream in the world and even they decided, you know
what, there's a whole group of people we're not affecting.
Let's go ahead and have vegan ice cream.
Let's have non-dairy ice cream and boom, they're even bigger.
That's smart business.
The idea of not selling homes or selling homes for people, that seems like the worst type
of business model there is.
I think it is and I don't think that people, these days, maybe 50 years ago, but these days,
I don't think people so much consciously decide not to deal with a certain group of people.
Now, I am very proud of my real to friends and colleagues because they all make this effort
to deal in fair housing and not to discriminate, but we all of us do have unconscious biases
that we put into things unknowingly and I'm no exception.
I grew up with a profoundly deaf sister and all the time we included her in that conversation
and our jokes and I'm the first person to say yes, I love disability awareness and inclusion,
but I remember not so long ago I was standing in a store and I spoke to a lady in front of me
and I couldn't get through and I said excuse me and the lady didn't turn round or move
and I was getting irritated and I said excuse me and then she still didn't move and so I didn't
shove her out of the way but I pushed past in a way I wouldn't do normally and then I noticed
she was wearing hearing aids and I thought oh gosh, I really didn't mean to do that
so we have to be aware of the things that operate on our brains subconsciously.
It's a really good point. I think everyone can relate to what you were saying right there.
We've all had those moments. And there are other things as well, like you may be perfectly
happy to deal with say the black family who come into your office and they say well we want to buy
a house in this city but are you going to say to them you'll be much happier in this neighborhood?
Right and that's a practice called Steering which is outlawed and the Wisconsin Reels Association
looks very unfavorably on that. We have to tell people these are the houses, this is what they
cost. This one's nearer to the lakes, this one's nearer to the city, let people make their own
decisions. Even if someone says to us if they have a question like is this a Christian neighborhood?
We can't answer that. We just have to say well you have to do your own research on that.
I can tell you about the house. And again this is just smart business not just for
realtors out there and businesses like that but for communities and neighborhoods. You want the
value of your home to be as good as it can be. Bringing good people does that. Then taking care
of their home does that. It's a domino effect that this has where the people that we're bringing in
the people that we're talking about here that giving them an equal playing field, all that does
is improve your economy, improve your neighborhood and these things. It has a very strong good
domino effect and I think it needs to be said too with all of this in case it isn't known. Nobody
is looking for extra here. We're trying to even things out. We're trying to make this equal
for everybody. I think that's very important because discriminating in favor of a group who
has historically been discriminated against is just as bad. You want to make things fair for
everybody so that nobody is kept out. Again, we don't want to exclude anybody. A real
correcting of the market here are really trying to make this even an even playing field for everybody
regardless of any of these other things like David was talking about. We're speaking with David
Farmer on Realty Radio right now. David, I know that you briefly want to get into the economic
forecast a little bit. Yes, that's right. And at the time of recording where we're at the beginning
of April, we're talking about the economy and there have been some ups and downs in the stock
market, as I'm sure you're aware of. What I did read yesterday was an article by Lawrence
Jan. He is the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors and he was talking about
how the current market uncertainty might affect the economy. His projection, which is actually
something I've seen other economists make as well, was that people are more likely to buy into bonds
into government bonds. He said this in turn is likely to lead to a reduction in interest rates.
Now, I read the headline and I thought, oh, that's great. So we're going to be looking at 3%
interest rates again. Well, I read the article in detail and he was talking more about interest
rates coming down from 6.7% to 6.1%. So it is a reduction. It'll make a difference to people's
payments. But it's not going to have a big impact on the housing market with interest rates where
they are at the moment. People who bought in 2020 and 2021 when interest rates were at 3.5%
or thereabouts are saying, I'm not going to move house because then I'm going to be paying nearly
double the interest rate. So the differential between the interest rates of that period and where
we are now, of course, a lot of people refinanced at that time as well. So the differential between
those low interest rates and where we are now or where we would be even if interest rates came
down 0.6% is enough to keep a lot of homeowners where they are unless they really need to move.
So this is going to feed into the shortage of properties on the market which is going to feed
into it being a seller's market and they're being more buyers out there than homes on the market.
So it means really that we're not going to see any big changes. Now,
nothing is certain. You really can't predict even if I have a crystal ball what's going to happen.
But as far as the housing market is concerned, I don't think we're looking at any huge differences
if you're looking towards the end of this year. I think that it's important to be able to touch
on these things especially from somebody in the industry that is up to date on everything
because oftentimes headlines or even just different articles can lead you to worry or think about
this or that getting the actual facts, getting the actual information is important. And also
feels like this is something that if you were planning on selling your home or buying a home or
anything like that this year in particular, stay the course. There's no real reason to change that
up. It sounds like David, you can speak to their bed. I think that's right. But what I've
said about this previously is that really the best time to buy in Sellerhouse is because you have a
need that isn't related to finance. So it's when you need that extra bedroom because you're having
another child or whether you're downsizing because you're empty nesters or whether you're moving
into a time at home, it's really your personal circumstances should depend on when you move
because otherwise you could be waiting a long time if you're waiting for the market to do something.
Well, all that information was fantastic but I would say almost the headline for us coming out
of that is the idea more inventory. I would say as long as we've been talking real estate on the
air here, that has been an issue of having enough inventory. It sounds like this might free up some
more. This might make some more houses on the market. It's possible that it might. It's the
possibility of doing it. But I think it's going to be a small amount. You know, but any bit,
just like that percentage change that the chief economist was talking about could have an impact,
especially on a rural level, I would imagine where there's just almost nothing in some areas.
And for just even a couple of more houses on the market, it seems like it could be a positive.
I'm sure that there are plenty of different directions this can go too, as you mentioned.
You're right. But then as with all these things, there's a margin of error as well. So it could be
that interest rates come down to 5.8% or a little bit lower than that. And obviously that's what I
would like. I don't necessarily want to see them tumble, but I think it would be nice to see a
little bit of an easing of the lack of inventory. It will make it easier for my home buyers.
Yeah. David, this has been a great conversation. I appreciate the talking points that you sent to
us and everything. And fortunately, I don't think we've got enough time for tools of the trade.
What do you say next time we get together, maybe we talk about that?
I would love to talk about that. This is something which I really love. I am an early adopter of
technology. And I love my gadgets. And as a realtor, I have access to some really cool tech.
So that will be next time. That'll be fun to dive into. We're looking forward to it and looking
forward to hanging out again. Just never have enough time with David. It's always a good being
with you. If you wouldn't mind telling the audience how they can reach out to you, find out more
information. That'd be great. Yeah. Easiest way to contact me is to text me on 715-323-8594.
I accept texts any time of the day or night. Sometimes people text me at 2 in the morning and I'll
respond. I apologize. I apologize. But it can be really important because they can text me at 2 with
a house they want to see at 9am. And I can have it all arranged by 9am. Telephone calls obviously
I'm a little bit more limited. So you know, you can call me a same number. You know, 8 in the
morning till 9 at night. That would be fine. And also they can go to www.rapidshomes.com.
And encourage you to bookmark that page and keep in mind, everybody, these conversations we have
once a month with David. If you missed one and you'd like to check one of those out, encourage you
to go to civicmedia.us, check out our podcasts and look for Reality Radio. Every one of these
conversations we've been able to have with David have been informative and interesting.
Especially if you are interested in buying or selling a home,
can't encourage you enough to do your homework. Go back and take a listen to those
and spread the word about this segment, everybody. David, appreciate the time. We'll talk again real soon.
It's been good to talk, James. Thank you.
We'll have more Midday Magazine coming up for you right here at 975 FM 1320 AM WFHR. We are
locally grown radio.
