The Expert Podcast

Here we go with another batch of homes for 200,000 or less. Remember, if you haven't been to our channel before, we try to feature properties that you can buy for a mortgage payment of about a thousand or so or less and still have a home that's single-family. We don't do manufactured homes or condos or land or single-family homes, and we try to feature different parts of the country. This video is going to feature Florida — most of them are going to be near the Florida east coast — and we also don't do fixer-uppers where it's just unlivable to move into.

Remember, we're not trying to sell you anything. We're not realtors, we're not brokers, we're not a mortgage company. We're trying to just show that there are homes in the marketplace that you can purchase for a reasonable amount. Again, it may not be your dream house from day one, but it's a way to get into the real estate market for a monthly payment less than what you're probably paying in rent and participate in equity appreciation and not have to worry about your rent going up. Because once you have a mortgage, it stays the same.

Take a look at our website at Homes Cheap to get more information about what we're trying to accomplish and how we can be of assistance to you. So here are five homes in Florida. What we did today also was we pulled these houses 48 hours ago, and we made the list and we wanted to see after a couple days what the status of the homes were. And you'll see there's a couple of them that are already pending. And it really doesn't matter because remember, these houses aren't necessarily designed for you to pick out this house and buy it — it's to show you that this type of market does exist and you can take advantage of it.

So let's go through these real fast. Don't forget to put your comments below and your questions and what you think about this type of home market. Here's one in Quincy, Florida. It's a 3/2, 2,000 square feet, decent-sized house. Looks like it's got a lot of curb appeal — what we call pride of ownership. They took good care of it. 185 for this house. 185 in Quincy, Florida.

Interior looks good. Looks like it has hardwood floors, recent paint on the interior. It's an older home. This looks like a house that was maybe from the 40s or 50s. But this type of style of home, a lot of times people are interested in — you know, with this kind of case work, crown moldings, a lot of the old-style kind of bungalow. It looks like it has a back sunroom. Is it a brand new house? No. But look at the kitchen: stainless appliances. You know, it's not a sled house. And we'll see some of those too. We'll see some houses that are not quite as appealing as this one.

Decent little yard. It's not terrible. If you have a dog or kids, at least they got a place to play, some privacy from your neighbor. 185. Do the math on the mortgage — probably comes out to be, you know, 1,200 bucks a month depending upon your rate and terms.

Look at the next one. Here's one that is in Port St. Lucie, which is a great coastal town in Florida. You can see this one doesn't have the same type of curb appeal as the one a little bit farther inland. But it's closer to the beach. Looks like this is probably I-95 right here, so you're not too far from the beach. This is also a little more money — 199. But if you notice, pending 48 hours from the time we looked at it. Estimated mortgage about a thousand bucks just like we talked about. It's a 2/1, 1,200 feet, so it's also smaller.

But if you did buy a house like this, you could dress it up pretty quick. Get rid of these ugly plants and these bushes here in the front that are scraggly. Maybe even get rid of the planter box, paint it, maybe put some shutters around this window, jazz up the door, put some decorative stuff here, shutters here, paint these soffits and these eaves and these fascia boards. Now you have a house that looks good, right? So when you look at this house, if you're thinking, "Oh, it's ugly, it's no good, we don't like it," most of this is cosmetic. You could make this house look very good quickly. And again, have a thousand bucks for a payment.

Here's one at the same price point — Palm Bay. Another coastal town, a little bit farther up the coast, closer to Daytona. It's a little bit bigger house — well, it's actually not. No, it's 800 square feet. Looks bigger. 2/2. Got a garage on this one. Probably would want to do some jazzing up if you want the outside to look better — some shutters, some detail work. But again, 199,000.

Jump to the next one real quick — Cocoa, Florida. What a great town. Now, this is another beach town. Here's the map — you’ll be living here — boom, here's the water. Now, this is probably the Intracoastal. This isn't the actual Atlantic Ocean, but you're close to the coast. 169 — whole lot cheaper. Look what it says — sale pending 48 hours from when we looked it up.

Got a little bit of curb appeal, got this little bump out on the window. It's a 3/1. What's the square footage? 768 — small house. A lot of these coastal Florida houses were bungalows, little beach cottages. Kitchen is relatively updated. It's not high-end brand new. It's got stainless refrigerator, non-matching white stove. Looks like it has a place for a dishwasher, but there isn't one here now.

Hardwood floor, yeah. Cheap little laminate countertop like you get at Home Depot. But it's a house. Look at another picture — big, big 24-inch tile floor, archway, some of the architectural details.

What about this — 159 house in Eastpoint — boom, under contract. Large flat lot it says. How big is the lot? Does it say? Does it say one acre? This is a one-acre property in Florida for 159. 3/2, decent-sized house. Kitchen — I don't know, it's not brand new, but it's usable. Again, big 24-inch tiles — at least 18 inch. Darker than you probably want it for a kitchen. Got some carpet in the bedroom. But again, 159. Your payment's a thousand bucks — all easily, probably less for a mortgage payment. These houses are out there.

Last one — just listed, 189 in Ocala, Florida. Ocala is a little farther inland, very close to Orlando. It's kind of agricultural — there's a lot of horse farms in Ocala. This one is a single-family. It is a three-one. Yeah, it's a three-bedroom, one-bath, about a thousand square feet.

Not a bad-looking house. A little carport. Looks like the yard is decent size. We'll take a look at a couple other pictures. Again, in the front — this is, you know, nice little suburban home. Got some space, some elbow room. You got a dog, you could put a fence around it. Open floor plan. Looks like they at least jazzed up the kitchen, put some backsplash on it.

Again, the idea isn't to look at it as the ideal dream house — it's to look at it as "I could live here for less than I'm paying in rent," with a low down payment, lock into the housing market, and ride the wave until I want to buy a bigger house.

Now, you might be thinking — depending upon when you're watching this video — maybe the housing market's going to go down, maybe it's going to be a bubble, it's going to crash. We'll do other videos — it's not going to crash. Or we have predictions about what's going to happen with real estate. This is not like the bubble of 2008. The fundamentals are the same. There may be a pause as people kind of get used to the new interest rates and to get used to the fact that prices zoomed up a little bit. But this is just a temporary taking a breath.

People still need houses. There’s still five million people out there that need a house that don't exist because there's too few homes. So yeah, there may be a short break in the dramatic rise, but it may plateau a little bit, level out, kind of take a little bit of a pause, and then go back to appreciation. Because people can still afford these homes and the interest rates are not as high as they were in the 70s and 80s. There were 8, 9, 10 percent interest rates. So 4, 5, even 6 percent is below or at what interest rates normally would have been in the past. And there's more people that need houses.

It's probably unlikely that, you know, if you're entry-level, you're not going to be able to jump into a 400-500 thousand dollar house, which is what would have been 200-250 three or four years ago. You may have to downgrade your expectations if you want to be a homeowner. Again, there's no right or wrong answer. We're not telling you what you should do. It's just if you want to avoid being at the mercy of a landlord who could raise your rent from 1500 to 2200 the next renewal date — this is the way to do it.

Could that happen? Well, I'm sure you watch the news. There's people they interview every single night in Florida and all across the country about their rent goes up from 1500 to 2200. Do a search for "Priced Out of Paradise" in Florida — there's news stations all across the state that that's their theme. They have an ongoing theme for the last year called "Priced Out of Paradise." They keep saying it over and over where people just can't afford their rent anymore.

Here's a way not to worry about it. But what you do have to trade off is you're not going to be living in a mansion. But it could be better than waiting for your landlord to jack up your rent the next renewal date — or even the next month if you're month-to-month. Just food for thought. There's no right or wrong answer. Put your comments below. Let us know what you think and keep an eye on the channel.

We're going to do videos like we always do — different parts of the country. We did a series of houses over 5,000 square feet that are under 200 grand. We did a series that were houses that were on five acres or more under 200 grand. We went all around the country — different parts. The last one I think we did was Wyoming, Montana — places people like to go to.

So keep an eye on the channel. Follow us. Put a comment below so we can hear from you. I recommend not clicking the bell button. You know, you watch videos and they say click like, click share, click the notification button. I wouldn't recommend clicking notification because we post a lot of videos and you might get overwhelmed with the number of videos we put out there. Watch them at your convenience. But at least follow us so that you remember to get back to the channel. But don't click the bell button to be notified because you'll see a lot of videos and it might be fatigue for notifications. Let us know what you think and we'll see you on the next video.