Prospective home buyers leave a property for sale during an Open House in a neighborhood in Clarksburg, Maryland on September 3, 2023.
Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images
It’s no secret that the housing market looks far different than it did a few years ago.
While surging mortgage rates and housing prices have taken away consumers’ purchasing power, low supply has kept the market competitive. As a result, affordability has tumbled dramatically from the early days of the pandemic.
These six charts help explain what this unique moment looks like — and what it means for you:
The 30-year mortgage rate, a popular option for home buyers utilizing financing, is key to understanding the market. This rate is essentially the borrowing costs tied to purchasing a home with financing. A higher rate, in reality, results in more interest due on a home loan.
For the past several months, this rate has hovered around the 7% level. While it has cooled after touching 8% late last year, it’s still far higher the sub-3% rates consumers could lock in during the first years of the pandemic.
Housing prices are also central to the equation for everyday Americans decision how much, or if, they can afford to spend. The Case-Shiller national home price index, which is calculated by S&P Dow Jones Indices, has notched record highs this year.
High prices can elicit different feelings by group. For hopeful homeowners, it can raise red flags that they are planning to buy at the wrong time. But current owners can see reason to celebrate, as it likely means their own property’s value has risen.
With both mortgages and prices up, it’s not surprising that affordability is down compared with the early innings of the pandemic.
There’s a few different readings of affordability painting a similar picture. One from the National Association of Realtors found affordability tumbled more than 33% between 2021 and 2023 alone.
The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s gauge showed the economic feasibility of home ownership plummeted more than 36% when comparing April to the pandemic high seen in summer 2020.
Another way the Atlanta Fed tracks this is through the share of income needed by the typical American to afford the median home. Nationally, it last required 43% of their pay, well above the 30% marker considered the threshold for affordability. It has been considered unaffordable, or above 30%, since mid 2021.
The Atlanta Fed also breaks out what’s driving the current lack of affordability. While significant pay increases in recent years have helped line wallets, the bank found that the negative impact of higher rates and list prices have more than outweighed the benefits of a bigger paycheck.
While the current mortgage rates are high, a team at the Federal Housing Finance Agency found a very small proportion of borrowers are actually locked in at these lofty levels.
Just shy of 98% of mortgages were below the average rate seen in the fourth quarter of last year, the FHFA found. Nearly 69% had a rate that was a whopping 3 percentage points below that average.
There’s two major reasons for why such a small share are paying current rates. The most obvious is that the housing market got hot when rates were low, but cooled significantly in the current period of higher borrowing costs.
The other answer is the race to refinance when rates were below or near 3% early in the pandemic. That allowed people who were already homeowners to take advantage of these relatively low levels.
![Housing prices rise despite more supply: Here's why](https://ukpropertyguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Why-home-prices-are-still-rising-even-as-inventory-recovers.jpg)
Anyone out shopping for a home today knows there is still precious little for sale.
The housing market is just beginning to come out of its leanest few years in history. Inventory of both new and existing homes is finally rising, but there is something suddenly strange in the numbers: The supply of newly built homes appears to be way too high.
The numbers, however, are deceiving due to the unprecedented dynamics of today’s housing market, which can be traced back two decades to another unprecedented time in housing, the subprime mortgage boom.
All of it is precisely why home prices, which usually cool off when supply is high, just continue to rise.
The supply scenario
There is currently a 4.4-month supply of both new and existing homes for sale, according to the National Association of Home Builders, or NAHB. Months’ supply is a common calculation used in the market to measure how long it would take to sell all the homes available at the current sales pace. A six-month supply is considered a balanced market between a buyer and a seller.
Supply was already low at the start of this decade, but pandemic-driven demand pushed it to a record low by the start of 2021 at just two-months’ supply. That shortage of homes for sale, combined with strong demand, pushed home prices up more than 40% from pre-pandemic levels.
Now supply is finally beginning to climb back, but the gains are mostly in the new home market, not on the existing side. In fact, there is now a nine-month supply of newly built homes for sale, nearly three times that of existing homes. New and old home months’ supply usually track pretty closely. New construction now makes up 30% of total inventory, about twice its historical share, according to the NAHB.
Single-family homes in a residential neighborhood in San Marcos, Texas.
Jordan Vonderhaar | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“June 2022 recorded the largest ever lead of new home months’ supply (9.9) over existing single-family home months’ supply (2.9),” wrote Robert Dietz, chief economist for the NAHB. “This separation makes it clear that an evaluation of current market inventory cannot simply examine either the existing or the new home inventory in isolation.”
This unusual dynamic has been driven by both recent swings in mortgage rates and an unprecedented disaster in the housing market that began 20 years ago.
The foundation of today’s tricky numbers
This housing market is unlike any other because of economic forces unlike any other. First, in 2005, there was a massive runup in home sales, homebuilding and home prices fueled by a surge in subprime mortgage lending and a frenzy of trading in new financial products backed by these mortgages.
That all came crashing down quickly, resulting in one of the worst foreclosure crises since the Great Depression and causing the ensuing Great Recession. Single-family housing starts plummeted from a high of 1.7 million units in 2005 to just 430,000 in 2011. By 2012, new homes made up just 6% of the total for-sale supply and, even by 2020, housing starts had yet to recover to their historical average of about 1.1 million units. They sat at 990,000.
Then came the Covid-19 pandemic and during that time, consumer demand surged and mortgage rates set more than a dozen record lows, so builders responded. Housing starts shot up to 1.1 million in 2021. The Federal Reserve was bailing out the economy, making homebuying much cheaper, and the new work-from-home culture had Americans moving like never before. Suddenly, supply was sucked into a tornado of demand.
Mortgage rate mayhem
The current strange divide in supply between newly built and existing homes is also due to roller-coaster mortgage rates, dropping to historic lows at the start of the pandemic and then spiking to 20-year highs just two years later. Millions of borrowers refinanced at the lows and now have no desire to move because they would have to trade a 3% or 4% rate on their loans to the current rate, which is around 7%. This lock-in effect caused new listings to dry up.
It also put builders in the driver’s seat. Homebuilders had already ramped up production in the first years of the pandemic, with single-family homes surging to more than 1.1 million in 2021, according to the U.S. census, before dropping back again when mortgage rates shot up. Builders have been able to buy down mortgage rates to keep sales higher, but as of this May, they are building at an annualized pace of 992,000.
Resale listings improved slightly this spring, as mortgage rates fell back slightly, and by June, active listings were 16.5% higher than they were the year before, according to Redfin. Some of that increased supply, however, was due to listings sitting on the market longer.
“The share of homes sitting on the market for at least one month has been increasing year over year since March, when growth in new listings accelerated, but demand from buyers remained tepid, as it has been since mortgage rates started rising in 2022,” according to a Redfin report.
A home available for sale is shown in Austin, Texas, on May 22, 2024.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Growth at the low end
On the resale market, the supply is lowest in the $100,000 to $500,000 price tier, according to the National Association of Realtors. That is where the bulk of today’s buyers are. Higher mortgage rates have them seeking cheaper homes.
Interestingly, however, while supply is increasing across all price tiers, it is increasing most in that same lower-end price tier, meaning it is simply not enough. As fast as the homes are coming on the market, they are going under contract.
For example, there is just a 2.7-month supply of homes for sale between $100,000 and $250,000, but supply is up 19% from a year ago. Meanwhile, there is a 4.2-month supply of homes priced upward of $1 million, but supply is up just 5% from a year ago.
This explains why home prices remain stubbornly high, even with improving supply. Prices in May, the latest reading, were 4.9% higher than May 2023, according to CoreLogic. The gains have begun to shrink slightly, but not everywhere.
“Persistently stronger home price gains this spring continue in markets where inventory is well below pre-pandemic levels, such as those in the Northeast,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist for CoreLogic.
“Also, markets that are relatively more affordable, such as those in the Midwest, have seen healthy price growth this spring.”
Hepp notes that Florida and Texas, which are seeing comparatively larger growth in the supply of homes for sale, are now seeing prices below where they were a year ago.
While analysts have expected prices to ease and mortgage rates to come down in the second half of this year, it remains to be seen if rates will actually come down and if the supply-demand imbalance will allow prices to cool. If mortgage rates do come down, demand will surely surge, putting even more pressure on supply and keeping prices elevated.
“Yes, inventory is rising and will continue to rise, particularly as the mortgage rate lock-in effect diminishes in the quarters ahead. But current inventory levels continue to support, on a national basis, new construction and some price growth,” Dietz added.
A sign advertising a home for sale is displayed outside of a Manhattan building in New York City on April 11, 2024.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Manhattan is becoming a buyer’s market as apartment prices fell and inventory rose in the second quarter of 2024, according to new reports.
The average real estate sales price in Manhattan fell 3% to just more than $2 million, according to a report from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. The median price fell 2% to $1.2 million, and prices for luxury apartments fell for the first time in more than a year, according to the report.
The price declines are a result of rising inventory of apartments for sale, which are also taking longer to sell. There are now more than 8,000 apartments for sale in Manhattan, which is higher than the 10-year average of about 7,000, according to Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel, the appraisal and research firm.
Manhattan now has a 9.8 month supply of apartments for sale, which means it would take 9.8 months to sell all of the apartments on the market without any new listings, according to Brown Harris Stevens. “Any number over 6 months tells us there is too much supply and we are in a buyer’s market,” according to the Brown Harris Stevens report.
The falling prices and rising number of unsold apartments in Manhattan stand in contrast to the national real estate landscape, where continued tight supply continues to keep prices high. Brokers and real estate analysts say the strong prices in Manhattan post-Covid became unsustainable, and both buyers and sellers are finally capitulating to a higher interest rate environment.
The sun sets on the skyline of midtown Manhattan and the Empire State Building in New York City, as seen from Jersey City, New Jersey, on April 23, 2023.
Gary Hershorn | Corbis News | Getty Images
“The buyers and sellers resolve is weakening,” Miller said. “At a certain point, they can only wait so long before they feel like they have to make a move.”
With the gap narrowing between buyer and seller expectations, more deals are closing. There were 2,609 sales in the second quarter, up 12% from a year ago, according to the Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel report. That marked the first sales rebound in two years.
“As the second quarter began, New York’s real estate market awakened from the doldrums in which it had languished for the first quarter of 2024. Deals in all price categories began to emerge,” said Frederick Warburg Peters, President Emeritus of Coldwell Banker Warburg.
High rents in Manhattan are also continuing to help sales. The average apartment rental price in May was still upward of $5,100 a month and rents tend to rise in the late summer. Many potential buyers who were waiting out the sales market in rentals are finally deciding to buy, hoping interest rates will start to come down at the end of 2024 or early 2025.
“If people were sitting on the fence, the high rents maybe helped push them into the sales market,” Miller said.
Still, mortgage rates have a more muted effect on Manhattan real estate than the rest of the country since most Manhattan sales are in cash. In the second quarter, 62% of deals were all cash.
While prices fell for all segments of the Manhattan real estate market, the high end is among the weakest, as the wealthy hold off on purchases until after the uncertainty of the elections. The median sale prices in the luxury segment — or the top 10% of the market — fell 11% in the second quarter, according to Miller Samuel. Listing inventory of luxury apartments surged 22%.
“With the high end, this weakness could be the beginning of a trend or just a one-off,” Miller said. “We will have to see what happens in the second half.”
A townhouse for sale in the Upper East Side neighborhood of NYC.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Some of the heat is coming out of home prices, even though they’re still higher than they were a year ago.
Several new reports show the price gains are shrinking and home sellers are starting to give in after a stagnant spring market.
For the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when home sales ground to a halt, the typical house sold for slightly less than its asking price — 0.3% lower — during the four weeks ended June 23, according to real estate brokerage Redfin. A year ago at that time the typical home was selling at list price. Two years ago it was selling at about 2% above list price.
That’s not to say that the housing market is crashing. A little less than two-thirds of homes still sold over asking price in the last month; that is, however, the lowest share since June 2020. While most sellers are still listing their homes at higher prices than comparable homes sold for a year ago, some are conceding that they simply can’t command those prices.
Mortgage rates remain stubbornly high, with the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage stuck just above 7% for the third straight month, according to Mortgage News Daily.
The much-watched S&P Case-Shiller index showed home prices in April up 6.3% from April 2023. May’s prices continue that trend. Home prices are now 47% higher than they were in early 2020, with the median sale price now five times the median household income.
CNBC got an exclusive, early look at home price data coming out next week from a different index by ICE Mortgage Technology. It shows annual home price growth slipped to 4.6% in May from 5.3% in April. That is the slowest growth rate in seven months.
Supply is starting to build, which is leading to the cooling in prices. Total active listings are now 35% higher than they were at this time a year ago, according to Realtor.com. To put that in perspective, however, even after the recent growth, inventory is still down more than 30% from typical pre-pandemic levels.
“Some buyers think they can get a deal because they’re hearing the market is cool, and some sellers think every home will sell for top dollar no matter the condition,” said Marije Kruythoff, a Los Angeles Redfin agent, in a release. “In reality, everything depends on the house and the location.”
“When people think about selling their home, they’re thinking about how much money they’re going to make from their home sale, and not how much they’re going to spend,” said Jaime Dunaway-Seale, data writer at Clever Real Estate.
“That cost does end up being very high and then they’re caught off guard and disappointed because that’s going to take a cut out of their profit,” Dunaway-Seale said.
In May, Clever Real Estate polled 1,014 Americans who sold a home between 2022 and 2024 about their attitudes related to the home-selling process. It also conducted an analysis of seller costs based on median real estate prices in May.
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About 39% of the total cost — $21,603 — is spent on real estate agent commissions, according to the report.
However, as a landmark case involving real estate agent commission fees will soon take effect, sellers will no longer be required to pick up the entire tab. If a seller decides not to pay the buyer’s real estate agent’s commission, it could “drop their cost by about $10,000,” Dunaway-Seale said.
Other typical expenses include doing some home repairs both ahead of the listing and in response to inspections, which Clever Real Estate estimates to cost $10,000; closing costs ($8,000); buyer concessions, or expenses the seller agrees to pay for the buyer to reduce upfront purchase costs, ($7,200); moving costs ($3,250); marketing and advertising costs ($2,300); and staging costs ($2,263).
But home sellers should focus on “maximizing the efficiency of the transaction,” and “not just trying to save on costs,” said Mark Hamrick, senior analyst at Bankrate.
“Ultimately, [with] many of these fees, there’s no harm in trying to negotiate, and that includes real estate commissions,” Hamrick said.
Cost-constrained homebuyers in today’s housing market do not want to inherit homes in need of renovations, according to the Clever Real Estate report.
“There are plenty of costs involved,” said certified financial planner Kashif A. Ahmed, founder and president of American Private Wealth in Bedford, Massachusetts. “You might have to do some renovations to sell it.”
If a buyer makes it as far as the home inspection process and sees issues in the house that were not noticeable during the initial walkthrough nor disclosed, they may have room to ask the seller to do the necessary repairs, Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, recently told CNBC.
That is especially true in housing markets where listed homes are lingering on the market for longer because it gives homebuyers “bargaining power,” according to Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow.
Sellers often incur pre- and post-listing repairs, improvements and renovations that can cost around $10,000, according to Clever Real Estate.
“There may be a situation where a buyer might say, ‘Well, I want you to fix this before I buy it,’ and then you’re like, ‘Well, in the interest of getting rid of this place … I’ll spend the extra money,'” Ahmed said.
But the highest expenses an owner will face when selling a home are the real estate agent commission fees, Ahmed said.
A landmark case is poised to change the way homes are bought and sold in the U.S.
The National Association of Realtors in March agreed to a $418 million settlement in an antitrust lawsuit in which a federal jury found the organization and other real estate brokerages had conspired to artificially inflate agent commissions on the sale and purchase of real estate.
“We went ahead and included it [in the Clever Real Estate analysis] now because, as of right now, the rule change has not yet gone into effect,” said Dunaway-Seale.
A finalized NAR settlement takes effect in August, and there is a “much more defined notion that sellers are not responsible” for a buyer’s real estate agent commissions, said real estate attorney Claudia Cobreiro, the founder of Cobreiro Law in Coral Gables, Florida.
Commission rates have also been removed from the multiple listing system, or MLS, in some areas like Miami, she noted.
The new mandatory MLS policy changes will take effect on August 17, 2024, according to the NAR.
However, “that is the policy side of it,” she said. “The practical side of it is that we are still seeing the notion that Realtors are needed,” and most buyers might not have an extra $10,000 on top of closing costs and the down payment required for the purchase, Cobreiro said.
Dunaway-Seale agreed: “Sellers might not be obligated to pay the buyer’s agent commission, but a lot of them still might as just another incentive to bring buyers in.”
A seller has to pay closing costs; everything else depends on the home seller’s priority, or how quickly they need to sell off the property, said Dunaway-Seale.
Here are some ways to cut or reduce expenses associated with selling a house:
1. Sell without a real estate agent: Homeowners could try to sell the house themselves and potentially drop real estate services altogether, said Dunaway-Seale.
“But they’re not going to sell for as much profit,” she said.
Among sellers who did not hire an agent, 59% did so to save money, Clever Real Estate found. But sellers who did work with an agent sold their house for about $34,000 more than those who did not, according to the report.
Keep in mind that going through the transaction without a real estate agent can pose a risk.
Signing the contract is the least of it. There are so many things that happen throughout the transaction that really require the expertise and the navigation by someone who understands the process, Cobreiro previously told CNBC.
“You’re talking about one of the most expensive and consequential transactions of a lifetime,” said Hamrick. “These fees can on the face of it look a bit daunting, but the good news is most people are not going into this where they’re going to essentially lose money on the transaction.”
2. Reduce concessions, staging and marketing costs: “If sellers don’t really care about selling their home quickly, they could possibly offer fewer concessions,” Dunaway-Seale said. Concessions are expenses the seller agrees to pay for to reduce a buyer’s upfront costs.
Lowering the budget for staging and marketing costs can also save on expenses because such tools help draw buyers in, she said.
Although this is a three-month moving average, it’s important to note that those price gains come even as the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage jumped sharply in April, from 6.9% to 7.5%, according to Mortgage News Daily.
“2024 is closely tracking the strong start observed last year, where March and April posted the largest rise seen prior to a slowdown in the summer and fall,” said Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a news release. “Heading into summer, the market is at an all-time high, once again testing its resilience against the historically more active time of the year.”
The only potential sign of relief is that the annual and monthly gains on the price index are slowing a little bit. March’s annual gain was 6.5%.
Still, it feeds into what is now one of the least affordable housing markets in U.S. history for both homeownership and renting. The housing cost burden has hit a record, according to a new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Home prices are now 47% higher than they were in early 2020, with the median sale price now five times the median household income, according to the study.
For renters, even though rent growth is slowing due to a big increase in new apartment units this year, prices are still 26% higher than they were in 2020 and rising in three out of every five markets.
Half of all renter households — more than 22 million — spent more than 30% of their income on housing, which is considered “cost burdened” by HJCH. Twelve million of those households spend more than half their income on rent.
For homeowners, 20 million are considered cost burdened by their monthly payments.
All of those cost-burdened levels represent records.
Homeowners are also facing a sharp increase in insurance premiums, up an average 21% between 2022 and 2023, according to the HJCH report, and property taxes are also rising.
Prices continue to be supported by an imbalance in supply and demand. Housing supply was already low before the Covid pandemic hit, because homebuilders had yet to recover from the 2008 financial crisis. Then there was a pandemic-induced run on housing, causing supply to drop to record lows for several years. Homebuilders couldn’t keep up.
Supply is now rising, with an 11% increase in new listings in April from March, according to Zillow, and a 16% increase from April 2023. That pushed total for-sale inventory up 18% year over year. While that might sound like a lot, supply is still quite lean, especially compared with the strong demand.
“The rapid and sudden increase in mortgage rates in April pushed housing affordability further out of reach for many potential buyers while some who could still afford held back,” said Zillow’s senior economist Orphe Divounguy in a release. “As a result, the share of listings with a price cut shot up to 22.4% in April, the highest rate for April in the past six years, and a significant step up from 17.2% a year earlier.”
But he added that despite the relative slowdown in April sales, homes that were priced well sold in just 13 days, only three days slower than in April 2023.
In May, inventory rose to a 3.7-month supply. A six-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyer and seller.
Sales of previously owned homes are sitting at a 30-year low and didn’t move much in May as prices hit a new record and mortgage rates remain high.
So-called existing home sales in May were essentially flat, down 0.7% from April to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 4.11 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors, or NAR. Sales fell 2.8% from May of last year.
This count of closed sales is based on contracts likely signed in March and April. The sluggish sales pace came as rates took a big leap in April.
The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed loan started the month just below 7% and then rose to just over 7.5% by mid-April, before settling back slightly in May, according to Mortgage News Daily. That rate is now right around 7%.
“Home sales refuse to recover,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the NAR. “I thought we would see a recovery this spring. We are not seeing it.”
Homes in the Issaquah Highlands area of Issaquah, Washington, US, on Tuesday, April 16, 2024.
David Ryder | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Sales were unchanged month to month in all regions except the South, where they fell 1.6%.
The biggest change in May is that the inventory of homes for sale jumped, up 6.7% month to month and 18.5% higher than in May last year. At the current sales pace, there is now a 3.7-month supply. While inventory is gaining, it is still very low given demographics and demand.
“Eventually, more inventory will help boost home sales and tame home price gains in the upcoming months. Increased housing supply spells good news for consumers who want to see more properties before making purchasing decisions,” Yun added.
That demand continues to push prices higher. The median price of an existing home sold in May was $419,300, a record-high price in the Realtors’ recording and up 5.8% year over year. The gain was the strongest since October 2022. Prices gained in all regions.
The Realtors noted in a release that the mortgage payment for a typical home today is more than double what it was five years ago. Not only have rates climbed, but home prices are more than 50% higher than they were five years ago. That comes in part because the median is skewing to the higher end.
Sales of homes priced below $250,000 were lower than a year ago, while sales priced between $250,000 and $500,000 were up just 1%. Sales priced between $750,000 and $1 million were 13% higher, and sales priced over $1 million were up nearly 23%.
Cash is still king, accounting for 28% of sales. First-time buyers are hanging in at 31% of sales, up from 28% the year before.
Two-thirds of homes went under contract in less than a month, so competition is still strong despite higher prices. Redfin, a real estate brokerage, is reporting that an increasing number of listings are becoming stale, so if a home comes on the market that is well-priced and doesn’t need much work, it goes fast. Other homes are sitting longer.
Walter Soriano Discusses Implications of UK General Election on Property Market, Offering Strategic Insights for American Investors
LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / June 21, 2024 / Walter Soriano, CEO of WSLM, a premier property specialist firm in high-value property renovation and management, highlights the potential impacts of the upcoming UK general election on the property market, providing critical insights for American investors. With the election scheduled for July 4, 2024, the UK property market is at a pivotal juncture.
Economic and Political Context
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s call for an early general election has introduced a new layer of uncertainty into the UK property market. Historically, elections have a significant impact on investor confidence and property prices. This election is particularly crucial given the current economic climate and political landscape.
“Political stability is key to a robust property market,” says Walter Soriano. “The election results could either enhance or undermine investor confidence, depending on the policies and stability offered by the new government.”
Key Factors Influencing the Property Sector
Economic Policies and Stability: Sunak has emphasized his administration’s success in reducing inflation and promoting economic growth. A Conservative victory might provide continuity and reassure investors. Conversely, Labour’s lead in the polls suggests possible changes in economic policies, presenting both challenges and opportunities for investors.
Regulatory Changes: Election outcomes could bring about significant regulatory changes affecting property taxes, development regulations, and foreign investment policies. American investors should be prepared for potential legislative shifts that may impact property valuations and rental yields.
Market Sentiment: Current polling indicates a significant lead for the Labour Party, which has committed to addressing public services, housing, and economic stability. A Labour victory could lead to increased government intervention in the housing market, affecting property prices and availability.
Implications for American Investors
Walter Soriano advises American property investors to stay informed and adopt the following strategies in light of the upcoming election:
- Leverage Currency Advantage: With the British pound at a comparative low against the US dollar, American investors can maximize their buying power in the UK property market.
- Monitor Policy Announcements: Keeping abreast of policy announcements from both major parties will help investors anticipate and respond to potential regulatory changes.
- Focus on High-Quality Assets: Investing in high-quality, well-located properties can provide more resilience against market volatility.
About Walter Soriano London Management
WSLM is a London-based firm specializing in the renovation and management of high-value properties. With extensive experience in the property market, the firm offers bespoke services tailored to the needs of discerning investors and property owners. Walter Soriano, a recognized property expert, has a proven track record of guiding clients through complex market conditions and identifying lucrative investment opportunities.
For further information, please contact Walter Soriano at [email protected] or +44 (0)20 4577 4123. Visit our website at https://www.wslm.co.uk | https://waltersoriano.com.
Contact:
Walter Soriano
WSLM
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 (0)20 4577 4123
SOURCE: Walter Soriano London Management (WSLM)
View the original press release on accesswire.com
This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
Baby naming isn’t what it used to be.
Gone are the days of picking a name for your new baby from an index in a book.
Now, there are baby naming consultants who rifle through popularity lists, analyze trends, and recommend the right fit for families. They can charge up to $10,000 for their services.
What was once deemed a quirk of the super-rich and famous is now becoming commonplace, with parents wanting their children to stand out and have their own unique identities.
Normalizing the unusual
In May, influencer Francesca Farago, who became famous for appearing on various Netflix reality shows, shared some of the baby names she and her partner were considering for the twins they are expecting.
They were all unusual, including Heart, Orca, Afternoon, Lyrics, and Baby.
The response was mixed, with some thinking the names were too “out there” and that Farago was stretching the definition of what names should be.
I forgot so many of my faves, lmk if I should do a part two?
Unusual names are for everyone now, not just celebrities. When Gwyneth Paltrow named her daughter Apple in 2004, many considered it bizarre. Now, there are plenty of children with names that are nouns or adverbs and once considered “just words.”
The consultants who spoke with Business Insider agreed that there’s been a shift in the last few years that has both widened the criteria for what a name can be and helped boost their businesses.
“There are things that are even too extreme for me,” Steph Coffield, aka Names With Steph, told BI. “But I also listen to the client, and if they’re like, I want ancient Greek mythology-inspired names, I want super uncommon word names, I get so excited about that.”
Embracing originality
Morgan Timm, from Illinois, started her baby naming consultancy in 2022, finding her way there through her interest in collecting vintage yearbooks, spending time on the subreddit Name Nerds, and scrolling through baby name forums.
She said many of her clients had popular names in the 80s or 90s and didn’t want their child to be known as “Jessica L,” “Matthew R,” or “Hannah S.”
“I think that’s where a lot of people got their interest in having a more uncommon name,” she said. “Just with their experience of having a common one.”
Jessie Paquette, another consultant, was also always fascinated by names, watching YouTubers talk about popularity lists and speaking to her friends at school about what the No. 1 names for boys and girls were that year.
Unusual names were more of a “luxury” 20 years ago, said Paquette, for the rich and famous who “care about appearance and care about status.”
“As TikTok and social media came into the picture, it became more for the common person,” she said.
@dreambabynames #greenscreen @Babylist babies born this week! Baby name announcements this week were taken over by the girl names! #babynameconsultant #babynames ♬ original sound – Jessie @dreambabynames
Colleen Slagen, who helps parents find their babies’ names through her consultancy Naming Bebe, told BI there is a “cultural trend towards embracing individuality.”
As well as out of the ordinary names, she has also noticed that parents are leaning towards names that are “traditional but uncommon,” such as Margaret, Ingrid, Eugene, and Bernard.
She also considers the names of any other children and surnames to avoid awkward rhyming disasters.
“People really want to get it right,” Slagen said. “They want to choose a name that represents them but also sets their kid up for a lifetime of success.”
A lucrative career
Baby naming is an “extremely lucrative” career path, Paquette said, but if you go into it to make money, you won’t be successful.
“It has to happen organically,” she said.
Making content on TikTok also provides income, Paquette said. She has just over 100,000 followers on the platform, while some of her peers have 200,000-300,000.
“Certain creators in this niche are making upwards of thousands of dollars a month just off of views,” Paquette said. “It’s become a multilevel stream of income for people.”
Slagen’s consultations start at $250. During these, she has couples fill out a detailed questionnaire about the kinds of names they like and how popular or rare they want the name to be.
@namingbebe ****2023 stats for some of your favorite girl names! #nametok #babynames #nameconsultant #topbabynames #girlnames #babies ♬ original sound – Colleen
Some of the better-known baby namers can charge hefty fees. One consultant, Taylor A. Humphrey, has services that range from $1,500 for a list of names to $10,000 for something more bespoke, The New Yorker reported.
Humphrey also offers a “baby name branding” service for $30,000, according to Vox, which “helps people in the public eye choose a name that reflects their personal brand.”(Humphrey didn’t respond to BI’s request for comment.)
There are companies that specialize in baby names, too. Nameberry, for example, offers a naming session with resident baby name expert Sophie Kihm for $350 or a package called “the name concierge,” which comes with “nine months of on-call name advice, with unlimited meetings and name suggestions.” That’ll set parents back $10,000.
Coffield said she knew she could make a living from baby names when she started talking about it on TikTok. She had previously focused on educating women about how to be empowered while giving birth and casually spoke about baby names a few times.
That “really took off,” and her inbox was soon full of people wanting her advice.
@nameswithsteph Frey and Rennick are my top picks! #nameswithsteph #nameconsultant #uncommonbabynames #vintagebabynames #babynameconsultant #babynameinspo2023 ♬ original sound – Steph | Name Consultant
Coffield, who is from Minnesota, started by charging $60 for 10 names on Fiverr. She has since moved off that platform to her own website, where a personalized list costs $140, a list plus a video costs $200, and a luxury service, which includes three phone calls with her to help with the decision, costs $700.
The biggest way to build success in the baby naming business is to make sure people find you credible, Coffield said. There are some accounts that use ChatGPT and other AI software to come up with lists, but these aren’t likely to find as good a match as a consultant can.
Consultants aren’t an algorithm, so they are limited by how many clients they can take on, Coffield added.
Timm said she “severely undercharged” her clients when she started but has since figured out her worth.
She said that while she thinks there is “less pushback overall” with unconventional names, there is still some sort of exclusivity gap when it comes to celebrities.
One recent client of Timm’s made her sign an NDA so she couldn’t share their name, or even the fact that they had hired her at all.
“That was a really cool moment,” she said.
@hellomorgantimm super rare baby nsmes used only a handful of times in 2022! I’d love to know what you think of these, and if you had to choose one of the baby names which would it be? i think i might go with Afton or Lew for a boy, and Clancy for a girl. #rarebabynames #nametok #babynameconsultant #creatorsearchinsights ♬ original sound – Morgan | Name Consultant