Dallas Real Estate News You Can Use: Realtor/Broker Brad Holden Has a Secret Sauce for Those 600 FICA Scores

Note: Our soon-to-be launched local Real Estate blog, CandysDirt.com, will feature regular profiles of top agents and brokers across North Dallas as well as contributions for real on-the-ground (dirt!) perspectives. But we just couldn’t wait to let the cat out of the bag:

Brad Holden is a Dallas-area broker/realtor who has been active in Texas Real Estate since 2003 selling mostly in North Dallas, Frisco, Allen and Plano. He focuses on new home sales

Brad, how did you get into RE?: My brother is a mortgage broker and I learned the mortgage side first then that led me to obtain my real estate license and focusing on new homes. That was in 2002, right out of college.

How was the market different then: The mortgage requirements were a lot more lenient and they were lending to anyone with a heartbeat. Credit was no way as big of an issue as it is today — there were so many financing options for first time homebuyers.

What do you love about real estate? I love showing buyers specific communities that will fit their needs and you can see in their eyes that they are happy and it all works for them and their family with the schools and neighborhood. I really believe I help them improve their life by placing them in a better location.

What are our current problems in the market: The foreclosures that are about to flood the market once the government moratorium is released — DFW really has so many foreclosures, you don’t see it in “the Bubbles”. We are one of the top foreclosure areas in the country. Sales were higher last year because of the buyer incentives, yet we are still comparing to those sales, apples to oranges. Mark my word, those foreclosures are coming. But I think after June and July, buyer confidence will increase

Why? Because the media won’t be comparing to last year’s incentive-spiked sales numbers. It will be a more normal comparison.

What about RE financing now? There actually is a builder allowing a 600 credit score right now for FHA and they are having a huge success with it — they are keeping the loans, not selling them. The 600 to 620 credit score cuts off a lot of first time home buyers.

How do I find that builder? Ha! Get in touch with me.

Where do you think our market will be in the next 10 years? For the last 20 years the DFW Metroplex has seen a 3 to 5% increase on average on appreciation and we are still going to see the exact same thing. We are not like the east and west coasts, where values seesaw up and down. We have so much land, which is why the appreciation isn’t as high here as CA or NY. But Texas has plenty of land and we will always have builders to build on it.

Where is your favorite area to sell in Dallas: Frisco — it is one of the fastest growing cities in America. Frisco fits the bill of everything people who contact me want: the infrastructure, quality of life, great schools, kind of like a wonderland. Come on up here and I’ll show you!