Navigating the current real estate market in Kansas presents some unique opportunities and challenges for both buyers and sellers.

We're going to be discussing buying and selling a home.

Where do we begin?

Coming up next on Inspire.

Inspire is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Anne Goldsmith.

The Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation and the Louis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.

(♪) Hello and welcome to inspire.

I am excited to be here with my favorite inspire sisters, Betty Lou Pardue and Danielle Norwood.

Okay.

Traditional real estate transactions can be confusing.

In a recent poll, 49% said that they were intimidated by the steps to buying or selling a home.

To make the process even more complicated.

There's a housing shortage in a lot of Kansas communities, Topeka being one of them.

Here to discuss what you need to know when you're buying or selling a house.

Our Melissa Herdman, a realtor with Kirk and Kobb Realtors LLC.

And to help us get our finances in order.

Yikes.

We have Barbara Duncan, who is a partner and senior wealth advisor with Clayton Wealth Partners.

We are so glad you're both here.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

But it's scary.

Let's just go from the beginning, if we may.

And I would like both of you to address this from your both of your sides.

If you're driving by, I know a lot of people go online, but say you're driving in an area and you hadn't even thought about whether you're looking for a home, but you see something that piqued your interest.

What?

Where do we begin?

Let's start.

Barbara.

Yeah.

So I, I come at it from the planning aspect of it.

Okay.

And so part of it is you want to be excited and you want to be looking forward to it, but you want to make sure that you're making good decisions that you can afford it.

And so I think the first thing is, is to sit down and look at the numbers, you know, can you afford it?

What can you afford to spend?

Can you get pre-approved for a loan?

All of those things to know is that even an option?

Because I think a lot of people see a house.

They love it.

Say, I want this house, and then they might make decisions that ultimately aren't good for the long term because they were so excited.

And if they do a little planning, it could work.

But they need to know that going in.

Okay, Melissa.

So I'm coming in there and I've loved this house and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, it's way over my head, but I really want it.

How do you handle that as a realtor?

Well when I work with people on the buying end, my first recommendation is come in, let's sit down.

Let's talk about it.

Let's talk about your what's in your why's before you go shopping.

I know everybody always wants to go to shop.

Let's go look for a home.

That's the fun part.

Yeah.

Yes it is, but it's not fun.

If you go, you're disappointed.

Yes, yes.

You drive a Cadillac, and really, all you can afford is a used Yugo.

Wow.

On that note, that's fantastic.

This question.

There's a housing shortage around Kansas as well, especially in Topeka.

So what are we doing in terms of trying to find a quality house that's affordable?

And, you know, there's so much, you know, limited, you know, availability in this area.

What are we supposed to be doing?

I think the first thing that a consumer needs to do is educate themselves, you know, talk with their financial, you know, look at the financials, talk with the people that advise them on their financials and then see what makes sense for them and their lifestyle and their budget.

Okay.

Yeah, I know that.

And some of it is thinking through all the costs because it's very easy to go online and see a calculator that says, if it costs this, what's my payment going to be?

That may not include taxes, insurance, which those have gone up a lot in the last few years.

You need to make sure you've got a maintenance fund.

Is it going to have a homeowner's association due all of those things that add to the total cost?

Doesn't mean it has to be prohibitive, but it may inform where you're looking.

Maybe you look somewhere that doesn't have an HOA or, you know, if you aren't going to be able to have maintenance cost, you need to build in a newer home, you know, so some of those things really looking at the big picture so that then a realtor can help you find the right property.

Okay.

So I like to know when I've been raised, you know, you get up, you get up.

If you grow up, you get a job, you buy a house, you know, then you get a dog and get married, and all these things have happened.

And and we've been thrilled with this since the 50s.

Right.

That's kind of when all that started.

Is homeownership, right?

For everyone?

I would say it depends on everyone's situation.

You know, if you're going to stay in the same place for a long time, you know, and you want to have that investment and you want to be able to personalize where you live.

I mean, I think it can be a good long term move for someone who doesn't know what their life may look like in two years, or maybe moving.

Maybe it doesn't make as much sense just because of all the costs that go into it.

So it really depends on the situation and it's it's person to person.

There's no strict rule of thumb, but, it may not always be right in every situation for everybody, at least right now.

What do you think, Melissa?

I agree with that.

I would like to see everyone that wants to be a homeowner find a path to become a homeowner.

However, there are some situations maybe, you know, budget or lifestyle that make homeownership a little more prohibitive for one person over another.

If I travel at my job and I'm gone six months of the year, perhaps being a homeowner is not the best choice for me.

And now we're talking home loans.

I know a lot of people can get the 30 year.

Other people might opt for a 15 or a ten.

Is there any advantage?

One over the other?

Well, so the shorter term mortgages have lower interest rates.

That's one big advantage of them.

In addition to just getting your loan paid off right faster.

And so that's why a lot of people like that, you get rid of the debt sooner or you have a lower interest rate, 30 year, you can have more flexibility because your payment is probably a little lower.

So again, kind of depends on your situation, how much of a down payment you have, what your other finances look like.

But that that's a lot of times a big driver is it's better off from an interest rate and how quickly the loans paid off perspective.

Any thoughts on that?

Melissa I agree with that.

However, most loans don't have a prepayment penalty, so if you can make an extra the equivalent of maybe an extra house payment per year, you can save anywhere from 7 to 10 years off of your loan anyways.

Pretty good.

What are some key things we need to be thinking about when we're looking towards buying a home?

And I'm going to start with you some key things to look at.

Well first off budget.

I mean I think that needs to be the first, first step.

And you know, meet with with a realtor and meet with a realtor that you choose a realtor.

Well, I think the first thing is you need to think of who you are.

You know, are you a first time buyer?

Are you selling, horse farm or the same person may not be the individual that would be the best suited for both jobs.

So there are certain specifics that go along when choosing a realtor, like maybe some of the things that they're really more focused on versus another realtor.

Correct?

Okay.

Correct.

Can you find those things out online?

If you don't have you like a connection to somebody who's in realty, you can or talk to your friends, okay.

If I'm looking to purchase a home and I'm new in town and I know that somebody in the office next door just purchased a home, I may ask them who did you use?

What was your experience like?

Okay.

And with the changes that have come about, my recommendation is to talk to 2 or 3, maybe more.

Find the personality that fits you best, or if you are only going to be available on weekends and evenings, you need to specifically ask your agent, do you know what hours do you work?

You know, do you work on Saturdays?

Gotcha.

What about a financial planner?

Because a lot of us don't have them.

So what do we need to consider?

Yeah, so you need you need to consider all those financial aspects of the payment, all of that.

I would look at, you know, what other debt you may have, when you go to talk to a bank, they're going to want to look at your whole financial picture.

So have that information pulled together.

Do you have student loans?

Are there credit card debt?

Is there.

You know, because they do care about what is your overall debt picture.

Also, how much flexibility do you have in your budget if an unexpected expense comes up?

Are you doing other savings because homeownership is important?

But as director, it's not right for everybody and you don't.

If it means you have no money to save for retirement or to have an emergency fund, the timing may not be right.

So that's where you're working with, a financial advisor, you know, or wherever you go to get your information to help you organize it.

That is important because, they're going to want that information, but it is a bigger picture decision as well.

Okay.

We have really only scratched the surface with our discussion on buying and selling a home.

Now, coming up after the break, we'll learn more of the basics to help you get started.

So stay with us.

Women Build Week is really our effort to make the build site, more welcoming and comfortable place.

Sometimes it can be a little bit intimidating to to show up on a construction site if you're not sure what to expect.

And so Women Build is really about empowering the women in our community to, learn new skills, to work with each other and, to really be advocates for affordable housing in our community.

I think it's probably about, breaking the stereotypes of what it means to be in, you know, building and in construction and, tearing down that fear that some women have about, you know, getting involved in such a physical and laborious part of community building.

So I think to me, Women's Build Week is just getting out of your comfort zone and building relationships across different organizations with different groups.

Our volunteers for women build, we really run the gamut of of women in Topeka.

So a lot of our volunteers show up without really any skills or very minimal sort of construction, DIY skills.

They come from different companies in town, stay at home moms, retired individuals.

We really, have just about everybody represented during the week.

We have a lot of repeat, volunteers that come for every woman, build every year, because it's just such a good experience.

So Women Build Week is a week set aside specifically for women in the community to come and work on the habitat house.

And of course, we have men and women volunteering all the time for habitat.

But this is a special week to highlight the effort of women.

And it's often women leaders, women in the building profession.

We have attorneys, we have, people in finance.

We have just community volunteers who do other things.

It's it's really fun and it's very empowering.

Usually when volunteers sign up with us, when they get here for the day, we'll go over kind of, safety guidelines on how to stay safe and, and what we're going to be accomplishing for the day.

And then, construction manager will walk everyone through exactly how to do whatever the task is that needs to be accomplished for that day.

We like to work with people in pairs, so we'll pair everybody up.

So you always have a buddy.

It's a little safer that way.

But really, we will teach everything from, you know, using power tools to laying flooring.

Yesterday we hung cabinets in the kitchen.

So, we frame the houses with volunteers.

We do a lot of, the carpentry with volunteers.

There's something really neat that happens when it's a group of women working together.

And we all.

I like to think we all work on this house as if it was our own.

Each house.

Right.

Because this is going to be someone's house, someone's first house.

And we want it to be just as nice as if it what we were painting it or dry walling it.

But we want to make sure that we're doing our very, very best work because the homeowners are special and they work really, really hard, to get their home.

And we want to make sure that we do a good job when we're here volunteering our skills.

Hello, I'm Carol Bragdon with the Shawnee County Master Gardeners, and today we're going to talk about growing herbs.

The first thing we should say is what is an herb?

It is a plant that is useful.

Herbs can be used for many different things, but we think of them as things that provide us with an additional use other than just our enjoyment in the garden.

Culinary herbs are those that are used to enhance the flavor, fragrance, and healthiness of foods.

There are several types of herbs that you may want to grow.

The annual herbs are those that you put in your garden or pot each year, because they are not hardy in Kansas.

We have cold winters, so some herbs that may be likely to survive in some areas will not survive here.

So when you grow your basil for that wonderful pesto, you need to replant it each year.

The same with cilantro.

Some will reseed themselves like parsley and dill, but they do not come back as original plants.

The other types of herbs that are available are the perennial herbs, and those are the ones that will come back fairly reliably in the next spring.

Growing season.

One that comes back readily for us are chives and mint oregano.

So those things you can plant once and reap for many years growing herbs.

There's a few things that will help you grow your herbs.

One is to plant them in a sunny location.

It's best to have about 6 to 8 hours a day.

You want a nice, fairly neutral soil pH of about 6.5 to 7.

It's important to have good drainage for herbs.

They do not like wet feet.

You want good drainage because plants in the herb families do not like their wet feet.

Many of them have an origin from the Mediterranean.

And think of that rocky, sandy soil.

We do want some organic materials mixed in with it.

So if you're starting your garden, you till it up a bit, add a little nice organic and then you are ready to plant your herbs.

It's important to use fresh water when you are taking care of your herbs, because rain barrel or stored water can become container native and herbs tend to be things that we use for edible use, and we do not want to eat anything that could be potentially contaminated.

There are very few things and insects that bother herbs.

Those essential oils that they contain chase away most of the bugs.

We think of caterpillars in our dill, and that's something we really like that turn into swallowtail butterflies.

So we want those caterpillars.

So you plant a few pieces of dill for you and a few pieces of dill for the caterpillars.

We're back with our discussion about where to begin on your journey with buying or selling a home from our guest, Melissa Herdman, who's a realtor with Kirk and Kyle Builders LLC, and Barbara Duncan, a partner, as senior wealth advisor with Clayton Wealth Partners.

Now, we've talked a lot about buying a home, but a number of people are looking to sell a home this year.

What are some essentials that we might need to know before even getting into that process?

Well, so I'll tell you often what we recommend to clients is that they contact a realtor to find out.

Is there anything that they need to do to their home before they list it for sale?

Sometimes people think, oh, I need to do these things to make it more marketable.

And that could be true.

But that's where we say talk to a realtor.

They will be able to tell you if that makes sense, and I know you'll be able to speak to that.

There's some improvements that probably make more sense than others.

But that may be the first step to just finding out if you're if your home is ready to be listed.

Okay, Melissa, I would agree with that.

I would expand on this to say there's there's no cookie cutter approach because, you know, everybody's home is different summer.

And, you know, some are very well kept.

And you could bring people right in and then they could move in 30 days later.

And then there are others that maybe have been, you know, neglected or, you know, things that need to be spruced up a little bit before they go on the market.

About 99% of home buyers are going to find their house first on online, and you have less than one second to get their attention.

So it is important to have your home properly prepped for sale.

Okay.

So if someone wants to buy or sell a house, typically, how long does that take?

Now, granted, at this moment, so we're talking was spring of 2025 ish.

You know, I can I know that can fluctuate quite a bit.

How long is that entire process take?

From the time you're deciding you're going to do I want to buy I want to sell.

That varies by individual.

Okay.

Usually in my experience, I meet with people and I'll do a buyer or seller consultation.

We'll kind of set our timelines in a game plan.

And then once someone finds the home that they want and they make make an offer, the offer is accepted anywhere from 30 to 45 days from contract to closing.

There are a lot of things that go in between those two times.

And conversely, with sellers, we talk, okay.

When you put the sign in the yard, are you prepared to be moved out in the next 30 to 60 days?

And I have heard that happening because of the oh, it's sold like within 1 or 2 days.

And then they need to put their things in storage or, you know, move in with family or whatever, you know.

So, are there other guidelines?

I know ask a lot of questions because you really need to have the information to be able to make a decision.

Yes, yes.

Ask ask questions.

I ask a lot of questions.

That's how I learn a home.

And it's very important to look at the timeline and to look at the logistic.

And if you're a home seller, when the offers come in, look at each offer or that offer.

What does this mean?

What does this look like?

Am I willing to do this?

And I know Barbara is a financial planner, but what if we don't have a financial planner?

What does just the regular run of the mill person do?

Oh, well.

And you know, from a selling standpoint, part of that seems like not quite as much as the buying.

But those can go hand in hand, especially if you're selling because you're going to be buying a different house.

And I think the biggest struggle we see there that people face is I found the perfect house I want to buy.

I haven't even listed my house to sell yet.

Having a plan for how you will bridge that?

If you have equity built up in the house you're selling, where maybe you can tap that with like a home equity line to help make a down payment on the new.

You know, there's a lot of those things that you just need to have a plan for when you're going to sell.

If it involves buying another house so that you don't get caught off guard when you get an offer, or you get an offer on your house and you haven't found where you're going to be moving to yet.

So having a plan and have thought through that transition for both scenarios.

Okay, you hear the terms, it's a buyer's market or it's a seller's market.

What market are we in currently and how do we know what trends are going to affect our buying or selling?

Well, I'm a numbers nerd and it kind of depends on where you are, whether it's a buyer's or a seller's market.

You can break it down to price points.

You know, communities can be vastly different.

You can go to one one community and you can put a sign in the yard, and there's four people fighting in the yard within two hours.

There are other communities where I'm noticing that the houses are, you know, 30 days on market, 40 days on market, which ten years ago was successful.

Now that just seems like an eternity.

So in Topeka currently, what are we in.

It depends on the price okay.

You know okay.

So basically the neighborhood, the section that you're buying will determine what market kind of.

Yes availability, what it is when you look at the absorption rates and that type of thing, it's still leaning toward a buyer.

But you know when you break it down by price points, you see some you know, those numbers aren't quite 100% seller's market I would say.

So what are some of the biggest mistakes that first time home buyers make?

So mine might not be on the financial side, but I think over buying, you know, buying more house than they can comfortably afford.

You know, you can go out and you can look at all the recommendations for, well, how much can I afford in a mortgage?

And one that's out there is, well, you can afford a, you know, total debt to your income should, you know, banks will approve you potentially when you're at above 40%.

And maybe that's an approval point, but that's a very hard debt level to live with, to have any kind of disposable income.

So I think that's what we see a lot, is people over buy a house and also not thinking about the other expenses that we talked about with maintaining the house or wanting to do upgrades or utilities.

If it's a bigger house than you've had before, all those things.

So I would say that's one of those where with a where the pre-planning will will come in handy because, it's very easy to, to kind of overextend on that a little bit, ask but still and what about if you're buying to flip a house because there's so many people who flip houses nowadays?

What's your advice there?

You need to really look at your numbers, okay?

And you need to look at the market, you know?

Yes.

Right now as a seller, you have a little bit you have an advantage right now, you know, what is your timeline for getting the investment primed for the market?

Because if you're just doing it for hours a week, it may be 6 to 9 months from now and you would be looking at a completely different marketplace.

And what about or how would you advise somebody to do that?

Do you have a lot of people who come in do flip houses?

I would say there are some people who are who are successful at it.

What we typically see where people are most successful is people who treat it like a business, can do a lot of the work themselves or sort of contract that themselves.

Because if you are hiring someone else to do all of that, you know you're adding to the costs.

And so where we see most people, being successful at it is people who can do it themselves.

Do it quickly, know how to keep their costs down.

But it really is.

You just have to look at the properties and make sure that what you can buy it for, what you need to improve, and that you still have a profit margin in there.

That makes sense for how long your money was tied up.

I know a lot of people are going to have questions, and we only have a certain amount of time today to talk.

Do you have online resources to help people out when they're trying to make these decisions?

And I'll start with you, Melissa.

Well, I not to plug for myself because I'm sure that there are a lot of other agents and brokerages in town that do the same thing.

My, website, Melissa herdman.com.

I have some questions and answers right there.

And I try to provide value to people whether they want to buy, sell, invest whatever they want to do in real estate, regardless if they ever utilize my services.

And then KirkandKobb.com also has some information.

The Sunflower Association of Realtors website has has information as well.

Okay.

So I would say to take a holistic approach and look at your whole financial picture.

So I would recommend, talking with a financial advisor.

You know, there's you can find them online, you can find them here locally, you know, whatever you're looking for.

But really, ideally, you wouldn't make the decision about buying a house in a vacuum without looking at all of your other financial pieces.

So I we would prefer people to, as part of a bigger plan, rather than just saying, well, I want to buy a house.

Can I make this work?

It does it work along with all of these other goals that we have?

And so that's where it needs to be a little bit bigger discussion and finding a financial advisor that that fits what you're looking for is, is the way to do that.

Okay.

God, I could talk to Melissa and Barbara all day and all these questions, but unfortunately that is all the time we have for today.

And we hope you have been inspired by today's conversations.

And as a reminder, you can watch this program again at watch.ktwu.org.

And if you are so inspired to learn more about our guests, find out what's coming up on future shows and to get access to additional content, please be sure to visit us at our website at ktwu.org/inspire Inspiring women.

Inspiring you to take the next steps in buying or selling your home.

Inspiring you on KTWU.

We thank you for watching.

Inspire is sponsored by the estate of Ray and Anne Goldsmith, the Raymond C and Marguerite Gibson Foundation, and the Louis H. Humphreys Charitable Trust.