📈 Mortgage Rates Hit 6.95% — Here's Your Best Excuse to Call

GROW WITH LIBERTAS & EXP REALTY

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Last Wednesday, the Fed raised rates for the first time since July of 2023. By Thursday, the 30-year fixed hit 6.95% — the highest level in over a year. Watch what happens in your market over the next few weeks.

Nine out of ten agents are about to go quiet. They'll stop calling. They'll start complaining. A few will quietly start looking for a job. Before you join them, look at the last three months of actual data. Rates have climbed nearly half a point since June — 6.49, then 6.6, then 6.7, now 6.95.

And buyers kept buying the entire way up. August sales ran just 1% below the prior pace. The rate hike didn't stop the market. It just thinned out the agents.

So the only question that matters today is how many of this quarter's transactions are going to be yours — because you just got the best excuse to call your entire database that you've had all year.

Interest rates and house prices don't matter nearly as much as the monthly payment. That's the entire strategic pivot for this quarter.

Yes — if the price were lower, or the rate were lower, the payment would be lower. But there's a third way to bring the payment down, and it doesn't require waiting on the Fed or waiting on a price correction that isn't coming.

Prices are not going to crash. Rates are not going to suddenly plunge. Payment can still come down — through structure, not through hoping.

When Tim and Julie sold real estate, they almost never did a plain 30-year fixed. Almost every transaction involved some form of creative buydown structure — because that's what actually solved the buyer's real problem, which was never the sale price. It was the payment.

Structures worth knowing cold:

Builders are running some of the most aggressive buydown offers seen in years right now — some advertising starting rates in the low 4s, occasionally lower, that lock in around the mid-5s after the introductory period. That's how builders are moving so much new-construction inventory right now, even in markets where resale has slowed.

Here's the practical version of the payment-first strategy for a listing that's sitting.

If price, condition, and location are all where they need to be, and the house still isn't moving, the remaining lever is payment.

Instead of conditioning the seller to cut $20,000 off the price, ask the seller to set aside that same $20,000 as a buyer-financing concession instead.

Same seller cost. Completely different buyer psychology. A buyer scrolling listings responds to "as low as $2,850/month" in a way they don't respond to a $20K price reduction buried in the listing history.

The single highest-leverage relationship you can build this quarter is with a lender who does more than plain 30-year fixed loans.

Real example from the field: a credit union lender recently pitched a room full of agents in a continuing-education class with a stack of programs most agents had never heard of — 5% conventional down payment options for buyers who assumed they needed 20% down, multiple buydown structures, and creative adjustable options (all still fully underwritten — nothing subprime, everyone still qualifies).

If you're not actively working with a lender like that, you're losing deals to the objection "I don't have 20% down" or "prices are too high" — all day, every day — when a 15-minute conversation with the right lender could have resolved it.

The agents who learn the buydown and concession structures above walk into every listing and buyer appointment with a tool the other 90% of the market doesn't have.

You're going to run into motivated sellers dealing with agents who don't know how to compete in this rate environment — agents whose only move is "let's just wait and see." You'll be the one who can say: "I know the headlines are scary, but here's how many houses actually sold in our market last month with these exact rate conditions — and here's what we can do to make your house the easiest possible payment in your price range."

Most agents, without realizing it, start winding down for the year the moment Q4 headlines get noisy. Rate hikes. Election-cycle news. Holiday season approaching. It compounds into a mental permission slip to coast.

Don't take it. You have dramatically less competition right now than at any other point in the year — precisely because everyone else is checking out.

Treat October 1st as the start of your business year, not December 31st or January 1st. Build momentum for the next 90 days with the specific intent of accomplishing goals while the rest of the market isn't trying. Do that consistently, and by spring you'll be looking at your production wondering what you did differently — and the answer will be that you started three months before everyone else did.

Coaching principle worth repeating every quarter: a smaller, deeper database beats a larger, shallower one.

Identify your Core 200 — the 200 people who actually know who you are when you call, who know, like, and trust you.

Coaching clients who commit to this typically see results within the first 2-3 days — not weeks. "I'm so glad you called — what's my house worth in today's market?" "We've been thinking about moving." "We don't know if we should refinance or just move — what do you think?"

If you don't have 200 people yet, that's not an excuse — it's your task. Go meet more people. Run more center-of-influence events. But the calling cadence itself is simple and completely doable regardless of your current list size.

Your database is reading the exact same rate-hike headlines you are. You cannot let them believe the rate news means they should wait indefinitely, or that the market has stopped functioning. That's not fair to them, and it's not good for your business.

Reframe the headline as the best excuse you've had all year to call. Not to sell anything — to give people accurate context. "I saw the rate news and wanted to make sure you had the real numbers, not just the headline. Here's what's actually happening in our market right now." That single call plants the seed for the next 90 days of business.

Related tool. The Real Plan — inside Premier Coaching — is the comprehensive, interactive 2027 business and life plan built for exactly this moment. Not a goals list. Not a vision board. A working document that takes your actual numbers and turns them into an actual schedule.

Once you input your specific numbers — market averages, financial requirements, current pipeline — AI inside the plan builds your personalized calling schedule, your listing targets, and your specific action plan for the next 90 days.

$1 for a 7-day Premier Coaching trial at premiercoaching.com. Money back if you cancel. Start with the Real Plan first — it's designed to make everything else inside Premier Coaching make sense. Print it. Save it. It's your working business document for the rest of 2026 into 2027.

Five concrete moves:

One — call your Core 200 today. Use the rate-hike headline as your reason. Give them accurate context, not a sales pitch. Book 5-10 calls per day going forward.

Two — build your buydown fluency. Learn the 2/1, 3/2/1, and hybrid buydown structures cold. Find one lender in your market who's actively running creative financing programs and set up a standing relationship.

Three — install the seller concession script into every listing appointment where the home isn't moving on price alone. Reposition $20K of price reduction into a $20K buyer-financing concession, and advertise the resulting payment.

Four — treat October 1st as your new year. Build a specific 90-day plan starting now, while your competition is checking out for the holidays.

Five — start your Real Plan inside Premier Coaching. $1 trial at premiercoaching.com. Let the AI build your specific calling schedule and 90-day action plan from your real numbers.

The rate hike did not stop the market. It thinned out the agents. Buyers kept buying through nearly half a point of rate increases since June. The only real casualty of this news cycle is agent activity — and that's an opportunity, not a threat.

You now have the best excuse to call your entire database that you've had all year. Use it. Pair it with real buydown knowledge and a payment-first pricing conversation, and you'll be one of the few agents in your market who can actually solve the problem your buyers and sellers think they have.

Nine out of ten agents are about to go quiet. Be the tenth. Start your new year on October 1st. Get to work.

Ready to stop guessing and start producing?

🎯 Start Premier Coaching (free trial): premiercoaching.com
💼 Build wealth with Tim's eXp team: whylibertas.com/harris
📲 Elite Coaching — text Tim directly: 512-758-0206

If nine out of ten agents in your market go quiet after this rate news, and you spent the next 90 days calling your Core 200, mastering buydown structures, and treating October 1st like New Year's Day — how much of this quarter's business would end up being yours instead of theirs?

— Tim & Julie Harris

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