Hello everybody and welcome to Spotlight Vancouver, Washington.
I'm your host Doug Varenas, licensed real estate agent in Washington and Oregon.
Happy New Year to everybody.
Hope you're safe and doing well.
It's just me today and today I'm going to be doing a little bit of a recap and some
predictions for 2025.
2024 was a crazy year for myself and just in general.
The real estate market was very interesting.
Nationally, it was pretty slow.
Historically slow as far as listings and sales go.
There was a lot of anxiety about the presidential election.
Obviously, inflation was a huge factor and huge topic for everybody.
It was just kind of a year of uncertainty and we had a lot of stuff going on in Vancouver.
Yeah, it was also an interesting market slower than it has been in the past.
Personally, my business did very well.
Thank you to everybody out there and I just want to take a moment to thank everybody for
liking and subscribing if you find any value in this.
Give it a like, give it a review, give it a follow.
I really appreciate it and if you have any suggestions, people you think would be good
to be interviewed on the show, any ideas or thoughts, I would love to hear them.
This is definitely a work in progress.
So I appreciate all of you out there who have listened and supported along the way and I'm
looking forward to this new year.
As I was saying, the real estate market in Vancouver was up and down.
It was a little unpredictable.
We had about a 3.7 increase in real estate prices for the year.
Now I had done a short predictions video for 2024 and one of my predictions was that the
real estate market would appreciate roughly 5%.
So I was a little bit off there, I was a little bit optimistic.
And again, it's different for every home, every area.
Some homes appreciate more or less than others and some areas appreciate more or less than
others.
And the Clark County area appreciated just under 4%.
Another one of my predictions for last year was that rates were not going to come down.
I think that was a little unpopular, but it was correct.
Stood fast at 6 to 7%, actually probably closer to 6.5% to 7% all year, actually ticking up
into almost the 8% range at one point.
We had some phantom hopes of a massive rate cut that never materialized.
It just the Federal Reserve reduced rates, but that didn't impact the mortgage industry.
That's frequently what happens.
A rate cut does not automatically mean a cut in rates.
So that was one of my predictions that actually came true.
Another one was that 70s homes were going to be the new mid-centuries.
That was just a personal one.
Love me a 70s home and still do quality builds and I just happen to like them.
But I'm not sure that was the overall trend in 2024 for everybody.
We'll see what happens in 2025.
Kicking off the new year.
Wow, it's got a lot going on.
We got a new president.
We have the Trump presidency.
We have MAHA.
We have DOGE and whatever you think about those, it's going to be fascinating.
It's going to be an interesting start to the year.
It's going to be an interesting 2025.
Cautiously optimistic.
I'm just optimistic.
You have to be.
And I think some of the things that are being said, I would find it hard to disagree with.
We'll see what the implementation looks like.
But when somebody says, oh, there's waste in government spending and we're going to try
to tackle it, you go, cool.
That sounds like probably a good idea.
Hard to disagree with that.
Or when somebody says, our food is making us unhealthy, we should take a look at that.
And we should take a look at the relationship between, you know, big pharma and the media.
It's hard not to go, oh, okay, that sounds reasonable.
Sounds like something we should look at.
You know, what the implementation looks like of those things, we'll have to see.
Cautiously optimistic overall for 2025.
Of course, I remain bullish on Vancouver, Washington, specifically in the Pacific Northwest.
But we're going to, because it's a great place to live, it's a great area.
There's a lot of advantages to living here.
And I see it growing.
They believe the population of Vancouver continues to grow at around 2% a year.
That's pretty good.
Overall, people are starting to come around to the fact that there's a lot of advantages
to living here.
So some of which I went over in a previous podcast and we'll continue to go over.
But I know you're looking for some hot takes for 2025.
And one of my first ones is going to be one that I didn't think I was going to say because
I came very close to doing a video that was going to be very clickbaity about Portland
and how it was over.
Portland was done and it was such the low hanging fruit during the pandemic and even
recently to pick on Portland and to proclaim the demise of Portland.
And it's not a great place to live.
And I did this whole video.
It was pretty clickbaity.
And I think the thumbnail was going to be like explosions in the background and rioters
and fentanyl zombies and just all this kind of stuff.
And I talked to my wife about it.
And I said, I don't know if this is a great thing to publish.
And she's like, yeah, I don't not sure.
It just seems kind of like kind of negative and kicking somebody when they're down.
And I've lived in Portland.
I live for quite a while.
Like, you know, over a decade, I lived in Portland and, you know, love the city.
I love my time there.
And so I didn't publish the video.
But my first prediction of 2025 is going to be Portland is back.
Portland is doing, taking the steps to become more livable and becoming the city that I
think that it could be in reaching its potential because it really took some hits there when
they decriminalized all drug possession and use.
And it got to be just open air drug market and trash can fires.
And it was the stuff that you saw on TV.
It was a tumultuous time.
And I think they've taken steps to deal with that and deal with that the best they can.
And my time spent in Portland the last couple of times I've been there.
I get the feeling from the people around and just the environment that it's coming back.
It's becoming more livable because there was a time where it just it just wasn't.
So one of my hot takes for 2025 is that Portland is going to is going to come back.
You know, it's a big city.
They do they have a lot going on.
There's a lot of opportunity there.
It's not where I choose to live.
And it's not right for everybody, but it is it's on the comeback.
And I believe they're taking steps to make it more livable.
Another prediction for 2025 is maybe this is not exciting, but it's going to be Trump
versus Jerome Powell in a battle, a rate battle for the ages.
And there's nothing that the incoming administration would like better than to have interest rates
come down for homes and kind of juice the economy.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has stated, you know, they're not going to succumb to pressure.
And so I think you're going to have this stalemate.
We're still going to be in that six to seven percent rate range for people, and that's
just going to be how it is.
And I think people are beginning to adjust to that new rate environment.
Again, I recommend rather than focusing on that or waiting for rates to come down that
you focus on, you know, your financial situation and where you're at in that process.
Reach out to a loan officer you trust, reach out to a real estate agent you trust and get
the information you need to make a decision.
I think it's a person by person decision, but I don't think rates are going anywhere
in 2025.
We're going to be hovering along in that range, barring some unforeseen event.
My next prediction for 2025 in regards to real estate is it's going to be small houses
are going to be in demand and larger houses are going to be in demand.
So we've seen a relaxing, a further relaxing of zoning for ADUs, accessory dwelling units
and detached ADUs and specifically these cottages that are coming on the scene that
can be up to a thousand feet and they're basically they can be freestanding homes.
Again, this is depending on zoning and the size of your lot, etc.
There's other factors, but conceivably you can put at least one cottage basically.
It's almost a freestanding home up to a thousand square feet on your property.
I think we're going to see those popping up more than we have in the past.
They haven't quite caught fire yet, but I think people are going to start doing those
either as a rental income to kind of or to put family members in or we could see some
people with bigger lots subdividing and kind of selling off those smaller homes on smaller
lots.
You're already seeing this with new construction with like the 3000 square foot lot and a
smaller home on that.
And I think for first time home buyers, that's going to be attractive.
On the other hand, I think we're going to see the multifamily trend start to take off
again.
Again, these are just my predictions, but I'm seeing kind of two kinds of scenarios.
One, it's like older middle age folks with older parents looking to bring them into the
home.
So they're shopping for home for their parents.
And then on the other hand, I see those same parents, some of them are shopping for their
children.
And what they're finding is that, and I agree, is that passing on their estate after they
pass away doesn't do anybody any good.
So when you're 60 or however old you are and your parents pass away and you get that money,
you're sort of, it's not as helpful as it would have been earlier in your life.
And so I'm seeing more people plan their estate around gifting, purchasing a home, putting
it in a trust and sort of having that set up for their children already when they're
in their late twenties, early thirties, earlier in life to kind of help them along.
And they're looking to kind of cohabitate in that situation as well.
So they're looking out for their own future care while at the same time setting their
children up for success as far as owning a home.
So I think you're going to see that a lot more.
I haven't quite seen that to the degree, but I've in the buyers, some of the buyers that
I deal with are these sorts of people.
So multi-generation starting to heat up.
So those are kind of my general hot takes and predictions for 2025.
I would expect home prices to continue to continue to increase again, not to the, you
know, nothing COVID related.
So I wouldn't be surprised with another three to 5% increase this year.
I think it's going to be the year of the balanced market.
We're already seeing that home prices in 2024 in Vancouver.
The median sale price kind of went from mid to high to mid to high 500s.
And it kind of went along this wavy little graph and we saw a lot more balance.
So we saw 2025 could be the year of the buyer.
I think people are just going to realize, you know, these are where rates are.
I'm seeing a lot more concessions given by sellers as they come to realize like, hey,
I can't price my home like it's 2021, 2022 anymore.
Like the reality is kind of setting in and like home prices have stabilized or he may
be even dipped a little bit.
And so I think we're going to see a lot more of a balanced market.
So I don't think it's going to be this seller's market where they can collect, you know, 2030
over asking and inspections are waived.
Obviously, we haven't seen that in a while.
And I think we will continue to see more of a balanced market.
So that's good for buyers.
And of course, it's still good for sellers because, you know, there's been a lot of equity
built up.
So those are kind of my hot takes for 2025.
What do you think is going to happen in this next year as far as the real estate market
goes?
I would love to hear about it.
So drop a comment.
And again, like and subscribe if you find any value in this.
I appreciate you have a very happy new year and a joyous 2025 and looking forward to more
and more on spotlight Vancouver, Washington.
Take care out there and I'll see you next time.