July 4, 2021 in El Paso Texas | Fireworks Show

July 4, 2021 in El Paso Texas | Fireworks Show

Introduction

I guess let this go. Come on, get out of here. Oh, come on.

Hi and welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. My name is John Peña. This is our first annual Peña El Paso sponsored fireworks display show.

Hi and welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. My name is John Peña, and in this episode we're going to talk a little bit about real estate in the summer of 2021, and we are going to debut our first annual fireworks display in El Paso, Texas.

Hi and welcome to Living in El Paso, Texas. My name is John Peña. Thank you so much for checking out the channel.

One Year of Living in El Paso, Texas

After that amazing introduction, it's funny, because about a year ago this time I started this YouTube channel. We're just coming up on about one year, and I wanted to take a moment not only to celebrate the successes we've had and acknowledge and be grateful for all of you who have chosen to support the channel and watch the episodes, but also to reflect on what our experience has been.

About a year ago, I was standing right here and I made a video about the top five reasons why we chose to move to El Paso. One of the things I said in that video is that I wanted to start a business and that we wanted to settle down roots. For a number of reasons, we chose El Paso. Now we've been here for two years, even though the channel is about one year old. We lived here for about a year before I started the channel.

I've done it. I have started a business. And thanks to a lot of you, the business has become very successful, and we have certainly made stumbles and fallen on our faces a couple of times. But I think those are probably somewhat expected, the growing pains of really starting a business and things taking off. So I appreciate those of you who have stuck around with us. It really does mean a lot to us.

Growing the Business

I wanted to talk about the business for just a moment. I don't really try to pitch myself or promote my business too much in your face, at least I hope not. I do try to let people know that yes, I am a real estate agent, and if you're looking to buy or sell a home, please reach out to me.

It's funny, I was meeting with a couple the other day, an older couple, fantastic, and they said the two agents they contacted before me just didn't work out, and then they decided to call me. I didn't say this to them, but in my head I'm thinking, why did you reach out to two other agents before you reached out to me directly? So, we're not too busy. We would love to entertain your business.

We are actually growing a team. I have a gentleman named Miguel, a showing agent named Oscar, and Leah is this close to joining us. So we are bringing on more people. We are implementing more systems so that we can be more efficient and effective. And I can guarantee you that if you have a real estate transaction, we understand how to run the operation smoothly. The transaction from beginning to end, we will not let you down. Please consider checking out our Google reviews if you'd like to hear what other people have said about us.

We started this journey talking about going above and beyond, and I think the majority of our clients would agree that that's exactly what we do. So if you're moving to El Paso or selling your home, please consider reaching out to us.

Before we start the fireworks show, I'm going to stop the dogs from running around here going crazy. Check, check, check, check, check, check. Okay, the dogs have successfully been corralled.

Debuting the Fireworks Show

Before we start our fireworks show, with this episode I just wanted to have fun. It's July 4th, and we wanted to have a celebration that coincided nicely with our one year anniversary, so we're pretty excited. We are about to debut our first annual Peña El Paso sponsored fireworks extravaganza show. It is going to basically blow your socks off.

One of my former clients, and now a friend, Jason Nutt, was kind enough to record some original music. He was playing guitar, and I played bass guitar. So we're going to have that to really support the visual show, which, like I said, is pretty impressive. Stay tuned for that. That's going to be right after this.

Summer 2021 Real Estate Market Update

I want to reach out just real quickly. We're in the middle of summer 2021, and everybody wants to know a little bit about the real estate market, so I'm going to do a summer real estate market update. For this, I just wanted to tell you, especially if you're in the market right now or you're thinking about selling, what I'm seeing. And dare I say, I have my finger on the pulse.

I've been telling you all that we're in a pretty strong seller's market, a market where there's low inventory and most homes, if they're decently priced and nice, are receiving multiple offers. That is still the case. But I have been noticing over the last couple of weeks that it's changing a little bit, in that offers I didn't expect to be accepted, maybe two months ago, are being accepted now. I've been saying homes are going for five, ten, fifteen thousand over asking. So folks putting in an offer that's only a couple thousand over, on the low end, where I thought we might get outbid, every once in a while now those offers are getting accepted.

I have a theory about this, and I'd love to share it with you. What I think is happening, quite honestly, is we're seeing a citywide home buyer fatigue setting in. I think this is actually happening in a number of markets.

Imagine yourself as a buyer. You're getting excited, you're finding a home that you love, you're putting an offer in, you get excited, you start to get attached, you're hoping, and then your offer gets denied or declined. Then you do that process again, and again. After about three, four, five of those, most people are like, this is emotionally draining. And it is. It makes it not very enjoyable. Looking for a home, attempting to purchase a home in a new city, should be exciting. But sometimes the excitement wears off after you get denied five, six times.

So what I think is happening, speculation, but I do think a number of buyers are getting fed up and they're dropping out of the market. The good news for the buyers who are sticking with it is that you're better positioned to potentially get a winning offer on a home. And a note to sellers: it has been absolutely gangbusters for you folks, and that's great. However, I think the tide may be turning. I do suspect, again this is complete speculation, but I do suspect come fall we will not see the strength of the seller's market that we've had. We'll have to see. Like I said, this is complete speculation. I am not a fortune teller.

And with that, I will stop the sermon on real estate. I hope that all of you had a fantastic Fourth. And we're going to go ahead and start our show real quick.

Fireworks in Texas, Then and Now

Just a quick note about fireworks in Texas. I grew up in Texas outside of Houston, in a little town called New Caney, back in the day, and it was epic. Fireworks are everywhere. We went crazy, and it was awesome. I'm sure lots of kids blew fingers off too, but still, if you didn't blow a finger off, it was pretty amazing.

That has changed. I went to a fireworks display store here in New Mexico, and they were kind enough to tell me that in New Mexico it's still legal to set off fireworks. But we had been in a drought situation, so they put a cap on it: you can't do fireworks that are over 10 feet, which is kind of lame. Then we got all this rain over the last two weeks, so now that really isn't the case, but the ban was already in place, so it was a bit of a downer. There are some four-wheel, off-road areas that I'm going to start showing you if you're into that, and she said people are still going to probably go out there, have bonfires, and get crazy in Texas.

Here in the El Paso city limits, you're not really supposed to shoot off fireworks. You might get away with some sparklers and those pops you throw down and pop. But for the most part, El Paso was kind of a no-go for fireworks. However, we did have three, four, or five really epic fireworks displays. Wet and Wild, I think, did one. Fort Bliss did one. Down at the casino at Sunland Park, I think they did one, and I think downtown too. So there were fireworks shows you could go to. There are actually lots of different places in El Paso. You can park along Trans Mountain and have an epic view of fireworks. So even from our backyard, we got a great show of the fireworks going off, but nothing that's going to compare to what you are about to see right now.

So without further ado, the first annual Peña El Paso sponsored fireworks extravaganza. Thank you so much for all of your support over this last year. We hope that we can continue to bring you as much value and really showcase El Paso for the amazing city and the amazing community that it is. Thank you.

The Show

All right, so hopefully that was pretty informative about the current state of affairs of real estate in the summer. And without further ado, we're going to go ahead and start our fireworks display. Please enjoy the show.

*From here, the video is the fireworks display itself, set to original music, with no further narration until the very end, when John closes with, "All right. Thank you. Thank you."*