Venture With Joe and Cody

Ever catch yourself thinking, “Maybe I should just start my own company,” and then immediately remember the paperwork, the liability, and the cost? Joe Skipper from Skipper Realty Group (brokered by eXp Realty) sits down with Cody Wilhelm from Residential Mortgage to talk through the real decision behind going solo in lending or real estate, and why having a bigger brokerage behind you can feel like a safety net you don’t want to lose. We get specific about compliance, setup headaches, and wh...

Fed day always feels like the whole world is holding its breath, but here’s the truth we keep seeing in real time: the Fed does not directly control your mortgage rate. Joe from Skipper Realty Group and Cody Wilhelm from Residential Mortgage break down why the fed funds rate grabs headlines while the bond market and investor demand often do the real work behind 30-year fixed mortgage rates. We walk through the simplest way to think about it, including why short-term borrowing like credit car...

Mortgage rates don’t just “go up or down” in the background, they change how picky buyers get, how long listings sit, and how confident you feel writing an offer. We kick things off with some Friday Night Lights energy, then pivot hard into the housing and mortgage reality a lot of people are living right now: higher rates, slower decision-making, and a market that looks normal in the data but feels anything but normal day to day. We dig into the latest mortgage rate trends and what’s moving...

Vancouver listings are sitting longer than Portland, and that one detail changes everything about how we negotiate a deal. We break down what we’re seeing on the ground across the Portland metro, Vancouver and Clark County, and Salem-Keizer: days on market stretching out, sellers getting impatient after about 30 days, and buyers gaining real leverage without the market turning into a fire sale. If you’re trying to buy or sell in 2026, the strategy is no longer universal. It’s street by street...

“Housing crash” is one of the most searched, most repeated phrases in real estate, and it shows up no matter what the market is doing. We take a clear-eyed look at the Portland housing market using long-run appreciation data and a simple question: how often do home prices actually fall, and what usually has to happen for that to occur? When you zoom out, the story is less dramatic than the internet makes it sound, and a lot more useful for real people trying to plan a move, a purchase, or a s...