Author: msundermier

Big News! 🎉 We’ve Been Nominated—AGAIN!

We’re thrilled to share that we have been nominated again as Best Mortgage Broker and Best Real Estate Team in Style Magazine’s 2025 Best of the Best Readers’ Choice Awards!

You may recall we earned awards in both categories in 2024, and we are looking to repeat these high honors. As a small (but mighty!) team, we pour our hearts into helping you buy, sell, and finance your home—offering top-notch service and interest rates that make you and your wallet smile. It’s our passion, and it means the world to be recognized for what we love to do.

Now we need a quick favor that’ll only take a couple of minutes—but gives you lifetime bragging rights for helping us achieve the highest honor: 1st place in both categories!

👉 To cast a valid vote, you’ll need to vote in at least 10 categories.

To make it easy, we’ve put together a cheat sheet with other incredible local businesses we admire and think are vote-worthy, too. But of course, feel free to choose your own favorites!

Your support truly means everything to us. Thank you for being such an important part of our journey—we couldn’t do this without you! 🏡💛

Click here to Vote

(You do need to create a sign-on, its quick and easy)

You can search going through the category tabs or you can also type in each businesses name in the search bar.  

  1. Home & Finance – Best Mortgage Broker: Blue Waters Mortgage & Real Estate Group
  2. Home & Finance- Best Real Estate Agent : Blue Waters Mortgage & Real Estate Group (Please vote for both categories)
  3. Home & Finance – Best Accountant: Clint Herndon @ Next Peak CPA
  4. Community- Best Charitable Organization: Hand4Hope  (honestly, they are all really good)
  5. Arts -Best Performing Arts Center: Harris Center
  6. Drinks- Best Coffee/Tea Spot: Coffee Republic
  7. Drinks – Best Bar: Gaslight Company
  8. Medical – Best Dental Practice: Dimariano Family Dentistry
  9. Medical – Best Doctor: Robert Debruin MD
  10. Personal Services – Best Barbershop: Redwood Barbershop

GET REAL – Open Houses

Let’s Get Real about Open Houses. Oh man, I may get some blow-back on this one from others in the industry, but you deserve to know the real reasons why we host open houses.

Only 4% of todays’ home buyers find the home they purchased because of an open house or yard sign, but 10% of home buyers end up working with the agent who hosted an open house they visited or had their name on the for sale signs. In other words, a REALTOR is more than twice as likely to land their next buyer client by hosting an open house than they are to actually sell the home they are hosting.

I heard one of the biggest REALTORs in the Sacramento area of the past 20 years speak to a group recently. He shared that he got his start by prospecting for buyers by hosting open houses of other agent’s listings, which is a very common practice in our industry! Again, he wasn’t hosting to sell the house; he was selling himself.

Now don’t get me wrong; REALTORs that host open houses are hard-working and honest professionals. I have a colleague hosting one of my listings this weekend. But don’t think he’s sacrificing his weekend to do me a solid and sell the house. True, that does happen on rare occasions, but ultimately the open house is a prospecting tool for the agent, not the house.

What’s Up With Mortgage Rates???

Financial Markets Are Free Falling

The world’s financial markets are currently in chaos as a global tariff trade war escalates. For the first time ever, the Dow Jones stock market dropped more than 1500 points two days in a row. The S&P 500 stock market is down more than 20% in recent weeks, a textbook “bear-market” collapse. 

Fear, uncertainty, and panic are beginning to set in. Typically, these types of market sentiments lead to lower rates. 

Dow Jones stock market free falling!

But contrary to recent sensational headlines and advertisements, mortgage rates have not had a huge slide…yet. Last week, 30-yr rates fell .15% to their lowest levels thus far in 2025. That has spurred a tremendous amount of refinance marketing activity amongst mortgage companies. But the reality is most folks with rates under 7% still won’t realize much benefit from a refi.

Mortgage Rates are improving, but not as much as the media and advertisements may suggest

If things continue, however, there will be tremendous refinance opportunities for many homeowners. As always, I will keep a watch on the financial markets and reach out when I see realistic refinance opportunities for my clients.

If you are hoping to refinance to a lower rate, temper your excitement for now. Don’t fall for the premature hype being pushed by aggressive mortgage marketing companies. But, it would be a great time to begin the application process with me as we await rates to drop further.

GET REAL – Marketing

Let’s Get Real about Marketing in the Real Estate Business. It’s common for professionals to automate their advertising by subscribing to marketing content that is created and published by a 3rd party.

But this style of marketing gives zero insight to your brand, skills or personality, and can often backfire when many of your competitors are copying & pasting the same generic marketing materials.

I make a point of creating all of my own marketing content. Call me old-fashioned and inefficient for doing so, but it also makes me genuine and authentic.

GET REAL – Commissions Revisited

What’s Happened To Buyer Agents’ Commissions??!!

We are now 7 months into our industry’s practice of decoupled commissions, meaning a seller cannot be forced to pay a buyer’s agent. Are buyer’s agents still earning commissions in today’s market? Have the industry’s rule changes revolutionized real estate transactions like so many people prophesied?

Redfin reported last month that the average commission earned by a buyer’s agent in the final months of 2024 was 2.37%. Similarly, in all of my team’s transactions since the settlement, the average buyer’s agent commission has been 2.4%, with nearly all of them being paid by sellers not buyers. These are similar to historical levels earned pre-settlement, meaning sellers are still seeing value in buyer agent’s efforts and paying them appropriately.

Exactly one year ago on a prior Get Real episode, I calmly said “sellers will continue to compensate buyer’s agents at similar levels as they do today.” This stoic prediction was right and the loud fear-mongers were wrong.

In this era of sensational social media, please be wary of listening to the loudest people in the room. They may be the most entertaining, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are the most trustworthy.  Bottom line, the role and revenue of Buyer’s Real Estate Agents is alive & well.

We are being copied…AGAIN!

I am very excited to pass along a big announcement from two of my biggest competitors. Why?!? Let me explain.

Earlier this week, Rocket Mortgage, one of the largest mortgage companies in the country, spent nearly $2 BILLION to acquire Redfin, one of the biggest names in real estate. You may recall that Re/Max (the largest real estate brand in the world!) did something similar back in 2016 (I wrote about it then too).

They aim to create a “one-stop-shop” experience for clients so they can buy, sell, and finance homes from a single source. Hmmmm, why didn’t I think of that? 😉

The biggest brand names in real estate are joining forces and copying my one-stop-shop business model. Some may say this trend of big companies creating end-to-end consumer “ecosystems” is bad for my business. Should I be concerned about my market share?

Perhaps, but the overwhelming feeling I have is one of flattery. I’m absolutely flattered that the likes of Rocket Mortgage and Redfin, publicly-traded companies valued at BILLIONS of dollars, are trying to emulate us!

The Blue Waters Group has believed from our very beginnings that the customer benefits from competent and compassionate advisors who can offer both mortgage and real estate services. With Rocket Mortgage & Redfin literally spending billions of bucks, no longer is our business model the obscure alternative; it is the one that leading industry players are striving for. No longer is our platform one that I need to defend with blog posts titled Is What I Do Legal?; it is the one that’s copied by others.

We are still unique from these big company aspirations in that our associates are able to offer both mortgage and real estate services (all of us are licensed both as mortgage loan originators and real estate agents) while Rocket simply hopes to pair mortgage and real estate services more efficiently by providing them under the same corporate umbrella. Nevertheless, this week’s move by Rocket Mortgage & Redfin further validates the craft I’ve been honing for nearly my entire career.

Working as both a mortgage broker and REALTOR is not an easy task, but with a 22-year head start on these firms and others who are sure to follow suit, I’m confident The Blue Waters Group will continue to be imitated but never duplicated!

GET REAL – Big Banks

Should you call a big bank to get the lowest rate? Nope!

Let’s get real about big banks. Some folks think that they need to go to a big bank like this one to get the best mortgage rate on their next home loan. When in actuality, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Chase Bank, the largest bank in America, has nearly 5,000 branches just like this one all across the country. In 2022 alone, they spent nearly $3 billion in advertising. So think about it…big banks with big expenses like this they need to earn big time interest on the loans that they issue in order to make a profit.

Last month as an example, I had a longtime acquaintance of mine reach out to me because he was in contract by a new house. He’s a big time depositor with Chase Bank so he reached out and got a home loan quote from them thinking that they would give him a smoking deal. Well, I was actually able to find a lender of mine that offered him an interest rate nearly half a percent lower than Chase’s rate saving hundreds of dollars every month on his mortgage payment.

So here’s the deal…as a mortgage broker over the last 20 years I don’t work with big retail banks that spend billions on advertising and rent. Instead I work with reputable wholesale lenders that have much lower overhead expenses and as a result they and I can offer you better rates.

GET REAL – Luxury Realtors

Let’s Get Real about Luxury Realtors. Some in the industry tout themselves as Luxury Home Specialists. Have you ever wondered what makes them uniquely qualified to list a home on the Street of Dreams here in Los Cerros in Folsom?

After all, helping clients on multi-million-dollar deals should require more sophistication. Personally, the last few $1M+ deals I was involved with were some of the simpler ones I’ve had in recent memory. From my experience it can be easier to sell a $2M luxury home than a $200K mobile home.

Let me get real with you. It doesn’t take unique qualifications to be a luxury REALTOR; it only takes luxury-looking branding. Agents that promote themselves as luxury specialists do not dominate the luxury market. Here in Los Cerros over the past 5 years, only one agent has listed more than one house for sale in this neighborhood, and she only did 2.

If you are looking to buy or sell what you consider to be a luxury property, don’t get suckered by flashy agents. I hate that I even need to say this, but Selling Sunset and Buying Beverly Hills is not real real estate. Instead, stick with the basics. Interview a few agents. Read online reviews from past clients. Look for experience, effective communication, analytical insight, and above all else, honesty.

GET REAL – Reverse Mortgages

Let’s Get Real about…Reverse Mortgages!

I’m walking through the newest Active Adult Community in Folsom called Regency by Toll Brothers. There is a much higher concentration of reverse mortgages here than any other part of Folsom. Which makes sense because a Reverse Mortgage is a loan designed for homeowners at least 62 years old and who want to end monthly mortgage payments by utilizing the equity they’ve saved in their home.

These loans have been around for decades, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there about reverse mortgages so let me clear up the basics. In every instance, a reverse mortgage allows you to keep ownership of your home, remove a mortgage payment from your monthly budget, and the unused equity transfers to your heirs upon death.

As an experienced Mortgage Broker, I offer Reverse Mortgages & thoroughly counsel my clients and their families about the pros and cons of these mortgage programs. As is with every loan product, there always is a cost to borrowing money and we never take a one-size-fits-all approach.

A Reverse mortgage can change someone’s life. End financial stress, retire early, age gracefully, or even buy into a community like this one. Contact me to learn more about the ins and outs of Reverse Mortgages and see if one is right for you or a loved senior in your life.

GET REAL – Buying A Brand New Home

Lets Get Real! Buying a Brand New Home can seem like the easy option in today’s real estate market. Picking your finishes and having tons of incentives thrown at you by a big builder sounds like quite the treat!

But that’s not what my latest client experienced. He called me last month really anxious because he had lost trust in the nationwide company building his new home. The worst of it was the in-house lender that was supposed to be giving him a great deal in fact wasn’t and clearly were inept at doing their job.

I was able to offer him an interest rate comparable to the builder’s advertised “unbeatable” offer, and more importantly ease my client’s nerves by having someone they trust involved in the process. They are set to close today and move in just in time for the holidays.

Here’s the take-away…even when buying a new home you still need your own real estate and mortgage advocates. Remember, the sales office is employed by the builder, so who do you think they’re looking out for first.  I’ll give you a hint…its not you!  And these in-house mortgage companies created by the builders are operating as loss leaders to get buyers in the door, which means they are probably not compensating their mortgage consultants very well, which probably means you’re not working with the sharpest knives in the mortgage drawer.

So, if you are thinking of buying a brand new home in the coming year, hit me up before even heading out to their model homes.  We’ll discuss what you need to watch out for, and I’ll explain to you why having me involved in the process as either your REALTOR, mortgage broker or both is a huge benefit for you, and how you can have my representation services when buying a new home.