Home builders partnering with Zillow will now have their listings and communities automatically syndicated to Redfin, expanding the visibility of these homes to potential buyers
SEATTLE, Aug. 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Zillow® Group’s new-construction listings will soon be automatically syndicated to Redfin, connecting home builders with motivated buyers on both platforms. The strategic partnership will dramatically expand the reach of home builder listings on Zillow and allow Redfin customers to explore a broader range of new-construction homes for sale, creating a seamless home-buying experience.
The new partnership comes at a time when new construction is gaining prominence among buyers. In June 2023, new single-family home sales were up 23.8% from a year ago. This is partly because the inventory of existing homes is dwindling and consumers are shifting to new construction to find a home that meets their needs. Zillow’s latest market report shows there were 28% fewer new listings added to the market this June compared to last year. A Redfin analysis found that in the first half of 2023, one-third of single-family homes available for buyers to choose from were new construction, a record-high share.
“Zillow provides a standout platform for home builders to highlight their communities and connect with potential buyers. Zillow’s Community pages, in particular, help buyers understand the benefits of a new-construction home and give home builders a place to highlight all the amenities within a new-build community,” said Owen Gehrett, vice president and general manager of New Construction at Zillow. “The partnership with Redfin extends this unique and valuable resource to a wider audience. It benefits home builders by expanding their reach to additional home buyers, while empowering home shoppers to make confident and informed decisions, regardless of where they choose to shop.”
Zillow boasts the largest selection of new-construction communities of all real estate websites in the U.S.,1 making it the ultimate choice for buyers seeking new homes and home builders looking to connect with those prospective shoppers. Through this strategic partnership, home builders will also market their new-construction communities to Redfin’s extensive customer base of 50 million monthly visitors. Builders partnering with Zillow will begin to see their listings and communities syndicated to Redfin in the fourth quarter of 2023.
“With buyer demand outpacing the supply of existing homes for sale, Redfin’s home-buying customers are increasingly turning to new construction,” said Adam Wiener, Redfin’s president of real estate operations. “Our Zillow partnership will help our customers discover more homes that fit their criteria. This is a win-win-win for our customers, agents and the builders who advertise with Zillow, who will now reach the homebuyers on Redfin. The partnership provides a new revenue opportunity while allowing us to focus on what we do best, helping customers buy and sell homes with local Redfin agents.”
As part of the rollout, Redfin will launch new features to help buyers discover new-construction communities and connect with home builders, powered by Zillow’s Community pages. These pages highlight important community amenities, featuring photos, videos, community maps and amenity details, which is incredibly important to new-construction buyers. According to Zillow’s 2023 New Construction Consumer Housing Trends Report, 53% of new-construction buyers greatly value shared amenities such as clubhouses and fitness centers, compared to only 24% of existing home buyers.
Community pages also list all available homes for sale within the community, including homes that are move-in ready, nearly complete and lots, and provide a direct link to the builder’s website, contact information and sales center hours. These features enable builders to showcase their homes, amenities and details in one convenient place, and soon, the features will be accessible to both Zillow and Redfin shoppers.
Upon the launch of the partnership, Redfin will source non-MLS new-construction listings exclusively from Zillow. New-construction listings available through an MLS will still be discoverable on Redfin.
About Zillow Group:
Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make home a reality for more and more people. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow and its affiliates help people find and get the home they want by connecting them with digital solutions, great partners, and easier buying, selling, financing and renting experiences.
Zillow Group’s affiliates, subsidiaries and brands include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans℠; Zillow Closing Services℠; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+℠, which includes ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, and dotloop®.
All marks herein are owned by MFTB Holdco, Inc., a Zillow affiliate. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). © 2023 MFTB Holdco, Inc., a Zillow affiliate.
About Redfin:
Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate company. We help people find a place to live with brokerage, rentals, lending, title insurance, and renovations services. We also run the country’s #1 real estate brokerage site. Our home-buying customers see homes first with same day tours, and our lending and title services help them close quickly. Customers selling a home in certain markets can have our renovations crew fix up their home to sell for top dollar. Our rentals business empowers millions nationwide to find apartments and houses for rent. Customers who buy and sell with Redfin pay a 1% listing fee, subject to minimums, less than half of what brokerages commonly charge. Since launching in 2006, we’ve saved customers more than $1.5 billion in commissions. We serve more than 100 markets across the U.S. and Canada and employ over 5,000 people.
For more information or to contact a local Redfin real estate agent, visit www.redfin.com. To learn about housing market trends and download data, visit the Redfin Data Center. To be added to Redfin’s press release distribution list, email [email protected]. To view Redfin’s press center, click here.
(ZFIN)
Redfin-F
|
1 Based on direct site-to-site comparison. |
SOURCE Zillow
Increases in rent prices have settled down since their rapid rise earlier in the pandemic, thanks to more choices on the market and less demand. It’s a trend that will stick around for a while.
Two measures of growth, collected by ApartmentList and
Zillow
,
show that asking rents continued to cool in June, compared with year-ago levels. Zillow clocked national rent growth at 4.1% in June, its lowest level since April 2021, while rents gauged by ApartmentList were flat—a level the rental website hailed as a “big milestone” following months of rapid increases in late 2021 and early 2022.
Part of the slowdown is weaker demand, says Christopher Salviati, a senior economist at ApartmentList. Rents are 24% more expensive than in January 2021, Salviati said. “Renters are finding that their money isn’t going as far,” Salviati said via email—adding that inflation, consumer confidence, and recession fears don’t help. “All of this is leading to more cautious behavior when it comes to household formation, meaning less rental demand.”
Increasing rental supply is also behind the slowdown. Construction in buildings with five or more units has been completed at a higher rate than average since September 2022, Census data show. Completions in February rose to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 542,000, the measure’s highest level since 1987. Those units will eventually be available, adding to supply.
And there’s more coming: there was a record level of such units under construction in May, seasonally-adjusted Census data show. The supply of rentals under construction means any growth in prices is likely to remain tempered. Those units will hit the market over the next one to two years, according to Zillow.
Advertisement – Scroll to Continue
Single-family homes built as rentals also are coming to the market. In the fourth quarter of 2022, 8.8% of all new construction started on single-family homes was for rental stock, a record high, according to a BTIG analysis of nearly five decades of Census data. That share remained high to start the year, the analysis shows.
There are questions about what the rental landscape means for the broader housing market, says Carl Reichardt, a BTIG analyst covering home builders. One question is how the cost of renting a home compares with that of owning a home, the analyst says, citing the increase in single-family rental construction.
“If there’s an excess of competition in that business and rents fall, and renting a single-family home becomes potentially even more attractive than owning it, that creates competition for the builders,” says Reichardt. The shares of public builders have been on a tear this year as demand has picked up for new homes. New home sales in May spiked, even as existing-home sales remained tepid.
Advertisement – Scroll to Continue
Despite the gain in new home sales, buyer sentiment has remained largely sour: 22% of respondents to Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey in June said it was a good time to buy—higher than all-time low levels of 16% late last year, but well below the historic average of 57%. Respondents were more positive on the prospects for sellers, with 64% saying it was a good time to sell a home.
Another unknown is whether slowing or declining rents lead landlords to list for sale homes they have previously rented, says Reichardt. The ownership of single-family rentals by big institutional investors and online short-term rental listing platforms are relatively new developments, he says. “These are two new dynamics that have impacted the amount of supply on the market, and ways to monetize shelter capacity, that we haven’t seen before,” he says. “We’re not seeing this in any kind of enormous way, but it’s something to watch.”
Write to Shaina Mishkin at shaina.mishkin@dowjones.com
Buyers outnumbering sellers spurs impressive price growth, even amid muted sales
- Monthly home value growth of 1.4% is the highest since June 2022.
- Buyers are motivated despite few options and rising mortgage rates — sales rose nearly 10% from April to May.
- Inventory reached a record low for May as high mortgage rates deter sellers.
SEATTLE, June 12, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Competition among buyers over few available houses has made this home shopping season unusually hot, according to the latest market report1 from Zillow®. Meanwhile, high mortgage rates are continuing to deter homeowners from listing, pushing inventory to record lows.
“Many homeowners are still opting not to sell and give up historically low mortgage rates. But those who do have been rewarded with bidding wars as buyers compete for limited options,” said Zillow senior economist Jeff Tucker. “Spring is traditionally the hottest time of year in the housing market, and 2023 has been no exception. Time will tell if seasonal price slowdowns arrive on time this year, later in summer.”
Typical U.S. home values grew by 1.4% from April to May, the strongest monthly appreciation since last June. That’s a few degrees cooler than the previous two springs, but hotter than in 2018 or 2019. The typical home value is $346,856 — up 0.9% over last May and up 3.4% from a recent low in January.
A new loan on a home priced at the typical value in the U.S. would feature monthly mortgage payments just shy of $1,800. That monthly payment is 22% higher than last year, double that of May 2019, and the second highest on record after October 2022.
Regional appreciation trends
Affordability is still the key driver of demand, and that’s reflected in the markets that are appreciating fastest. The largest monthly home value gains are in the Midwest — home to six of the seven metros with the biggest gains in May. Columbus, Ohio, led the way (2.2% monthly gain), followed closely by Cincinnati, Detroit, Richmond and Milwaukee.
Price growth also sprang back in West Coast tech hubs after prices fell significantly there late in 2022. Home values rose faster than the national average for the second straight month in San Jose (1.9%), Seattle (1.7%) and San Francisco (1.4%).
Inventory shortage drags on, driven by high rates
A shortage of new listings has dogged the housing market for almost a year. The flow of new listings was down 23% year over year in May — a milder drop than in April, but nearly equal to that of March.
The chief driver is still higher mortgage rates, which make a new loan unattractive when the majority of mortgaged homes are financed for less than 4%. Even without intentions to buy again, anyone with a mortgage at a rate under 4% might be loath to sell when there’s a possibility to rent out the home for more than their carrying costs.
The lack of new listings, paired with resolute demand from buyers, has driven prices up and total inventory down to record lows for this time of year. The number of homes for sale on Zillow in May was 3.1% lower than last year — the former low-water mark — and a massive 46% below that of May 2019.
Buyers still motivated, despite challenging conditions
Sales measured by newly pending listings climbed 9.5% from April, shrinking the year-over-year decline to 18% in May and marking steady improvement since March. While this looks low in comparison to the hot pandemic era, sales figures are close to pre-pandemic standards.
Pending sales peaked in May in 2018, 2019 and 2022; the weeks ahead will reveal if that seasonal pattern repeats itself, or if the buying season stretches into summer, as it did in 2020 and 2021.
|
Metropolitan Area* |
May Zillow |
ZHVI Change, |
Monthly Mortgage |
Monthly Mortgage |
Newly Pending |
New Inventory |
Total Inventory |
|
United States |
$346,856 |
1.4 % |
$1,798 |
$901 |
-18.0 % |
-22.8 % |
-3.1 % |
|
New York, NY |
$601,507 |
1.5 % |
$3,105 |
$1,346 |
-2.6 % |
-30.5 % |
-20.5 % |
|
Los Angeles, CA |
$890,238 |
1.6 % |
$4,598 |
$2,098 |
-23.3 % |
-30.9 % |
-19.8 % |
|
Chicago, IL |
$302,085 |
1.9 % |
$1,565 |
$677 |
-20.6 % |
-25.3 % |
-21.2 % |
|
Dallas, TX |
$376,445 |
1.1 % |
$1,956 |
$954 |
-13.5 % |
-12.4 % |
26.7 % |
|
Houston, TX |
$306,984 |
0.8 % |
$1,596 |
$760 |
-19.4 % |
-17.7 % |
12.1 % |
|
Washington, DC |
$547,358 |
1.4 % |
$2,830 |
$1,204 |
-27.3 % |
-32.4 % |
-28.4 % |
|
Philadelphia, PA |
$342,564 |
1.8 % |
$1,769 |
$848 |
-23.1 % |
-26.8 % |
-18.5 % |
|
Miami, FL |
$458,284 |
1.2 % |
$2,366 |
$1,274 |
-10.9 % |
-20.8 % |
21.7 % |
|
Atlanta, GA |
$373,640 |
1.3 % |
$1,938 |
$1,030 |
-29.3 % |
-28.0 % |
-7.0 % |
|
Boston, MA |
$646,902 |
1.9 % |
$3,347 |
$1,477 |
-23.9 % |
-20.4 % |
-18.9 % |
|
Phoenix, AZ |
$438,628 |
0.6 % |
$2,279 |
$1,179 |
-27.0 % |
-44.6 % |
-6.5 % |
|
San Francisco, CA |
$1,128,962 |
1.4 % |
$5,848 |
$2,404 |
-9.3 % |
-31.4 % |
-22.6 % |
|
Riverside, CA |
$552,267 |
0.9 % |
$2,865 |
$1,401 |
-24.0 % |
-35.1 % |
-15.3 % |
|
Detroit, MI |
$244,000 |
2.1 % |
$1,263 |
$585 |
-17.1 % |
-22.0 % |
-13.4 % |
|
Seattle, WA |
$705,103 |
1.7 % |
$3,653 |
$1,690 |
-34.1 % |
-39.4 % |
-28.9 % |
|
Minneapolis, MN |
$371,419 |
1.6 % |
$1,932 |
$826 |
-23.9 % |
-22.8 % |
-17.9 % |
|
San Diego, CA |
$864,912 |
1.5 % |
$4,462 |
$2,165 |
-29.9 % |
-34.3 % |
-29.4 % |
|
Tampa, FL |
$370,792 |
0.9 % |
$1,923 |
$1,064 |
-16.8 % |
-26.9 % |
11.9 % |
|
Denver, CO |
$592,325 |
1.3 % |
$3,070 |
$1,344 |
-26.6 % |
-17.3 % |
-0.3 % |
|
Baltimore, MD |
$368,622 |
1.6 % |
$1,905 |
$828 |
-23.2 % |
-27.4 % |
-22.0 % |
|
St. Louis, MO |
$240,837 |
1.8 % |
$1,246 |
$589 |
-13.7 % |
-15.0 % |
-6.6 % |
|
Orlando, FL |
$386,090 |
1.0 % |
$2,002 |
$1,039 |
-22.3 % |
-28.3 % |
5.5 % |
|
Charlotte, NC |
$373,876 |
1.4 % |
$1,937 |
$1,050 |
-60.5 % |
-31.0 % |
10.4 % |
|
San Antonio, TX |
$296,036 |
0.7 % |
$1,541 |
$762 |
-21.0 % |
-15.8 % |
34.5 % |
|
Portland, OR |
$552,191 |
1.5 % |
$2,860 |
$1,263 |
-30.5 % |
-24.4 % |
-10.5 % |
|
Sacramento, CA |
$565,368 |
1.2 % |
$2,932 |
$1,288 |
-21.3 % |
-32.5 % |
-26.7 % |
|
Pittsburgh, PA |
$201,980 |
1.6 % |
$1,049 |
$470 |
-17.3 % |
-21.7 % |
-8.3 % |
|
Cincinnati, OH |
$272,945 |
2.2 % |
$1,408 |
$697 |
-21.4 % |
-23.4 % |
-18.0 % |
|
Austin, TX |
$483,166 |
0.6 % |
$2,523 |
$1,295 |
-20.7 % |
-22.8 % |
28.7 % |
|
Las Vegas, NV |
$400,274 |
0.5 % |
$2,081 |
$920 |
-20.3 % |
-44.0 % |
-9.1 % |
|
Kansas City, MO |
$298,596 |
1.9 % |
$1,543 |
$762 |
-18.6 % |
-17.5 % |
-9.8 % |
|
Columbus, OH |
$306,980 |
2.2 % |
$1,583 |
$793 |
-24.1 % |
-23.3 % |
-14.8 % |
|
Indianapolis, IN |
$276,179 |
1.8 % |
$1,429 |
$749 |
-24.3 % |
-22.6 % |
-8.3 % |
|
Cleveland, OH |
$216,276 |
1.9 % |
$1,120 |
$528 |
-20.0 % |
-19.7 % |
-12.8 % |
|
San Jose, CA |
$1,457,497 |
1.9 % |
$7,538 |
$3,156 |
-18.1 % |
-29.2 % |
-25.1 % |
|
Nashville, TN |
$437,507 |
1.2 % |
$2,269 |
$1,198 |
-15.7 % |
-16.2 % |
22.7 % |
|
Virginia Beach, VA |
$333,914 |
1.3 % |
$1,728 |
$794 |
-20.0 % |
-23.2 % |
-19.3 % |
|
Providence, RI |
$445,895 |
1.6 % |
$2,309 |
$1,115 |
-20.1 % |
-25.2 % |
-20.9 % |
|
Jacksonville, FL |
$360,695 |
0.7 % |
$1,878 |
$1,011 |
-17.9 % |
-25.2 % |
22.7 % |
|
Milwaukee, WI |
$319,686 |
2.0 % |
$1,656 |
$732 |
-16.9 % |
-23.9 % |
-28.2 % |
|
Oklahoma City, OK |
$230,429 |
1.4 % |
$1,191 |
$595 |
-20.8 % |
-15.7 % |
17.6 % |
|
Raleigh, NC |
$434,117 |
1.2 % |
$2,252 |
$1,154 |
-11.4 % |
-26.8 % |
-8.3 % |
|
Memphis, TN |
$234,690 |
0.9 % |
$1,221 |
$642 |
-25.6 % |
-9.1 % |
13.9 % |
|
Richmond, VA |
$358,287 |
2.1 % |
$1,848 |
$913 |
-8.1 % |
-25.0 % |
-21.2 % |
|
Louisville, KY |
$251,318 |
1.5 % |
$1,301 |
$601 |
-24.7 % |
-24.6 % |
-15.7 % |
|
New Orleans, LA |
$239,559 |
0.6 % |
$1,252 |
$513 |
-26.6 % |
-17.6 % |
30.6 % |
|
Salt Lake City, UT |
$542,307 |
1.0 % |
$2,814 |
$1,418 |
-28.1 % |
-26.4 % |
-7.7 % |
|
Hartford, CT |
$331,583 |
1.8 % |
$1,719 |
$776 |
-8.1 % |
-27.3 % |
-30.8 % |
|
Buffalo, NY |
$247,526 |
1.9 % |
$1,279 |
$609 |
-25.3 % |
-12.6 % |
-9.8 % |
|
Birmingham, AL |
$246,363 |
1.0 % |
$1,278 |
$644 |
-21.7 % |
1.2 % |
*Table ordered by market size
1 The Zillow Real Estate Market Report is a monthly overview of the national and local real estate markets. The reports are compiled by Zillow Research. For more information, visit www.zillow.com/research.
About Zillow Group
Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make home a reality for more and more people. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow and its affiliates help people find and get the home they want by connecting them with digital solutions, great partners, and easier buying, selling, financing and renting experiences.
Zillow Group’s affiliates, subsidiaries and brands include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans℠; Zillow Closing Services℠; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+℠, which includes ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, and dotloop®.
All marks herein are owned by MFTB Holdco, Inc., a Zillow affiliate. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). © 2023 MFTB Holdco, Inc., a Zillow affiliate.
SOURCE Zillow
The Cape Neddick Lobster Pound is for sale for $2.5 million.
The popular coastal restaurant has been in business for 64 years, according to Portsmouth Herald.
The restaurant, known locally as “The Pound,” is known for having a great view and great food. It overlooks Cape Neddick Harbor and Tidal River.
J.B. Young, the son of the founder Joe Young, told the Portsmouth Herald that times have changed and running the restaurant is not as financially stable as it once was. Rising costs, especially after the pandemic, have reportedly been a real problem, according to the Portsmouth Herald.
According to the real estate listing on Zillow, the property at 60 Shore Road is 11,443 square feet and is listed for $2.5 million.
The listing reads:
“Own a former waterfront restaurant located in the quintessential Cape Neddick District of York, Maine. Reopen your own restaurant or food service business. Perfect site for a wedding venue or meeting place. Redevelop into a residential use. There is boat/slip rental revenue as well as parking revenue benefits from the local beach which is walking distance from this location. This is a popular tourist destination with a postcard lobster shack. This property is also in the MLS as a Commercial Property. Restaurant is not operating.”
Young told the Portsmouth Herald he has “not made the determination if it does not sell whether to open for the season or not.”
12-month U.S. inflation for February came in at 6.0% and 5.5% once food and energy are stripped out. That’s broadly in line with expectations but well above the Fed’s 2% goal. On a month on month basis February’s inflation was 0.4% or 0.5% without food and energy. That supports the narrative that inflation is not declining quickly, despite easing from peak levels of summer 2022.
Housing Costs
Part of the reason why inflation remains high is home prices. Shelter costs ran at 0.8% month-on-month for February and 8.1% year-on-year per the CPI’s data. The CPI’s measurement is at odds with other industry data sources due to calculation methodology.
Industry Data
Zillow estimates home values are up 6.8% year-on-year to February. RedfinRDFN has house prices up 1.4% year-on-year to January. The S&P/Case Shiller National Home Price Index has prices up 5.8% for the year to December and on a declining trend, February’s data may come in lower. Zillow is the only one of these other data providers showing data up to February at this point, but most other estimates are below the CPI’s calculation of shelter costs. It’s not just home prices, Rent.com has rental prices up 2.4% year-on-year to January 2023, the smallest increase in 20 months. All these figures are significantly below the CPI’s 8.1% number.
Calculation Methods
This is likely a reflection of how the CPI calculates shelter costs, they use a panel approach sampling over a period of six months, which introduces a lag to current housing costs. To the extent that the CPI is looking at data on home prices from up to six months ago, it means they haven’t picked up some softness in home prices since the summer. It now means that inflation could be overstated in CPI data. This because shelter costs make up over a third of the inflation index weighting. It is also particularly relevant at turning points in house prices as we may be seeing currently. That also, correspondingly, implies that inflation was understated at peak levels, as the run up in home prices at that time wasn’t fully captured.
Fed Reaction
The Fed is aware of this issue, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said he expects shelter costs to moderate in CPI data this year. Assuming that happens, the inflation picture could look different.
Still, the timing is uncertain. Illustratively, if shelter costs were flat in the CPI data, then monthly inflation would be running at a level much closer to the Fed’s target, although annual inflation would still some take time to trend down. Even assuming flat monthly shelter costs may be inaccurate at a time when industry sources see declining home prices and rents.
Today’s data won’t reassure the Fed as inflation remains well above their target and is not falling as fast as hoped. Still the unique treatment of shelter costs within the CPI calculation is increasingly responsible.
Nonetheless, the Fed’s decision at their next meeting to set interest rates on March 22 is further complicated by the banking crisis. The Fed had hinted that they were on target for a meaningful rate increase, but recent disruption in the banking sector including the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank has called that into question as the Fed may not want to cause further disruption depending on how issues in the banking sector evolve. Interest rate futures are currently calling for a 0.25 percentage point increase as most likely, with some chance the Fed holds rates steady. That’s down from meaningful expectations of a 0.5 percentage point rise last week.
Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.
Most home buyers know the price of houses is increasing, but a study by the Colorado firm Boulder Home Source analyzed data from Zillow for all 50 states for the past five years to determine which state had seen the smallest rise in house prices.
The data revealed the state with the smallest increase in house prices is North Dakota, where houses today cost just 22.7 percent more than the did five years ago. The average house price in the state is currently $238,509.
South Dakota is on the other side of the spectrum, with home prices rising 53.6 percent over the past five years, which is the19th fastest in the nation.
Idaho has seen the biggest jump in home prices – a 91.6 percent increase in five years.
Percent increase in home prices over the past five years
1. North Dakota 22.7%
2. Louisiana 23.6%
3. Alaska 26.7%
4. Maryland 33.9%
5. Mississippi 36.7%
6. Illinois 37.3%
7. New York 39.3%
8. Connecticut 39.4%
9. West Virginia 40.0%
10. Massachusetts 40.9%
11. Virginia 41.9%
12. Wyoming 42.6%
13. Minnesota 42.9%
14. Hawaii 44.0%
15. New Jersey 44.9%
16. California 45.6%
17. Arkansas 46.3%
18. Pennsylvania 46.6%
19. Oregon 46.9%
20. Iowa 47.3%
21. Colorado 48.6%
22. Wisconsin 49.4%
23. Rhode Island 49.5%
24. Kentucky 50.8%
25. Nebraska 50.9%
26. Michigan 53.7%
27. Vermont 53.9%
28. Nevada 54.1%
29. Ohio 54.3%
30. Alabama 55.8%
31. Texas 55.9%
32. South Dakota 56.3%
33. Missouri 57.1%
34. Washington 57.6%
35. Oklahoma 59.0%
36. Indiana 60.8%
37. New Hampshire 63.7%
38. Kansas 64.7%
39. South Carolina 65.0%
40. Delaware 67.1%
41. Utah 68.9%
42. Maine 70.4%
43. North Carolina 72.2%
44. Florida 73.5%
45. Arizona 74.6%
46. Tennessee 75.8%
47. New Mexico 76.2%
48. Georgia 76.5%
49. Montana 79.4%
50. Idaho 91.9%
CNN
—
If you came across a four bedroom, 3.5 bathroom home listed for sale recently on a quiet cul-de-sac in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you might not think twice about the online listing. It included typical real estate descriptions like “ideal for entertaining” and “ample space for relaxation.”
But JJ Johannes, the realtor for the home, created the description in less than five seconds by typing a few keywords into ChatGPT, a viral new AI chatbot tool that can generate elaborate responses to user prompts. It’s a task, he said, that would otherwise have taken him an hour or more to write on his own.
“It saved me so much time,” Johannes told CNN, noting he made a few tweaks and edits to ChatGPT’s work before publishing it. “It’s not perfect but it was a great starting point. My background is in technology and writing something eloquent takes time. This made it so much easier.”
Johannes is among the real estate agents experimenting with ChatGPT since it was released publicly in late November. Some residential and commercial agents told CNN it has already changed the way they work, from writing listings and social media posts to drafting legal documents. It could also be used to automate repetitive tasks such as answering frequently asked questions and doing complex calculations.
ChatGPT is trained on vast amounts of online data in order to generate responses to user prompts. It has written original essays, stories, song lyrics and research paper abstracts that fooled some scientists. Some CEOs have used it to write emails or do accounting work. It even passed an exam at an Ivy League school. (It has, however, raised concerns among some for its potential to enable cheating and for its inaccuracies.)
In less than two months, ChatGPT has sparked discussions around its potential to disrupt various industries, from publishing to law. But it’s already having a tangible impact on how a number of real estate agents around the country do their jobs – where much of the written work can be formulaic and time consuming – to the extent that some can no longer imagine working without it.
“I’ve been using it for more than a month, and I can’t remember the last time something has wowed me this much,” said Andres Asion, a broker from the Miami Real Estate Group.
Recently, a client reached out to Asion with a problem: the woman had moved into a pre-construction home and couldn’t open her windows. She had attempted to contact the developer for months with no response. Asion ran a copy of one of her emails through ChatGPT, asking it to rewrite it with an emphasis on the liability implications.
“ChatGPT wrote it as a legal issue and all of a sudden, the developer showed up at her house,” he said.
Asion has also used the tool to draft legally binding addendums and other documents, and sent them to lawyers for approval. “I fine-tune all kinds of drafts with ChatGPT,” he said. “Sometimes I’ll tell it to make it shorter or funnier, and it gives you so many samples to pick and edit from.”
ChatGPT is free for now, but OpenAI, the company behind it, is reportedly considering a monthly charge of $42. Asion said “it’s not even a question” he would pay for access. “I would easily pay $100 or $200 a year for something like this,” he said. “I’d be crazy not to.”
Frank Trelles, a commercial real estate agent at State Street Realty in Miami, said he’d also pay to keep using the tool, which has already impacted the way he does business. “As soon as I tried it out, I was sold,” he said. “I went to sign up for a package, thinking it would be at least $100 a month, and was blown away that it was free. Nothing in this world is free though – and that made me a bit nervous.”
Trelles said he uses ChatGPT to look up the permitted uses for certain land and zones in Miami-Dade County, and calculate what mortgage payments or return on investment might be for a client, which typically involve formulas and mortgage calculators.
“I can be in a car with a client when they ask me what their mortgage payments might be,” said Trelles. “I can ask ChatGPT what a mortgage payment would be on a $14 million purchase at a 7.2% interest rate advertised over 25 years with two origination points at closing, and in two seconds, it gives me that information. It also explains how it got the answer. It’s amazing.”
There are some limitations, however. The tool has, for example, struggled with some basic math before. Trelles said it’s helpful for approximations on the go, not for exact numbers.
Serge Reda, a commercial real estate executive and adjunct professor at the Fordham Real Estate Institute, said some use cases for ChatGPT are better than others. ChatGPT may help save brokers time when writing listings or responses, but automating client responses may not be the best tactic because generating leads and closing transactions typically requires a personalized approach.
“It’s accessible to everyone right now because it’s free and they can get a taste of how this powerful tool can work. But there are definitely significant limitations,” he said.
While ChatGPT has generated a wave of interest among realtors, incorporating artificial intelligence in the real estate market isn’t entirely new. Listing site Zillow, for example, has used AI for 3D mapping, creating automatic floor plans and for its Zestimate tool, which can scan pictures to see if a home has hardwood floors or stainless steel appliances so its price estimation better reflects market conditions. Earlier this week, Zillow rolled out an AI-feature that lets potential buyers conduct searches in a more natural language (something that’s long been mastered by Google).
Matt Kreamer, a spokesperson for Zillow, said the real estate industry has been slower to innovate, but “I think we’ll be seeing much bigger strides very soon.” He said Zillow sees no clear concerns with agents using ChatGPT to help streamline the work they already do and save time.
“We aren’t promoting or weary of ChatGPT but are interested in how it’s being used and watching it,” he said.
Although it’s too early to say if the tool will become a mainstay in real estate, realtor Johannes believes AI in general will transform his industry and others.
“It may not be with ChatGPT,” he said, “but I believe some form of artificial intelligence like this will become a big part of how we work and live our lives.”
FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WKRN) – While to some this home may look like damaged goods, to others it may be their dream come true.
The owner of this 25-year-old mansion has listed it for sale “as is,” according to the Zillow post, despite it being a total loss from a fire that broke out in September of 2022.
Williamson County Rescue Squad and other personnel responded to the home on Winslow Road in Franklin, after a reported explosion during construction work. News 2 first reported on the incident when it happened.
The mansion was listed on Zillow January 17th, and already has more than 115,000 views and 2,000 saves.
“Using that picture, we wanted to be transparent about the history of the home, and we wanted to show how grand the home was and how grand it could be again if they chose to rebuild,” Paula Duvall, owner/agent told News 2.
The listing states the substantial price tag of $1,499,000 includes five acres of property and two existing homes – the burned mansion and a guest house that was not damaged in the fire.
RALEIGH, N.C. — A Raleigh man said his ID was stolen by a scammer who was nearly able to sell his land out from under him.
Jon Arnold actually found his property near Avent Ferry Road listed on Zillow.
Preventing disaster has taken a lot of work. There’s a sign Arnold had to put up to stop people from visiting the property. That step was just part of a process that went as far as contacting the FBI.
Arnold’s owned a vacant lot on Tanager Street since the 1980s. That nearly changed last week as a complete shock to him.
“Just surprise,” Arnold said of his reaction.
On Dec. 16, real estate agent Paul Huber sent Arnold a message, saying he’d been contacted by someone claiming to be Arnold who wanted to sell the Tanager Street property.
Huber says the man sent him an ID, which was a perfect copy of a North Carolina driver’s license.
“I’ve never seen him before, but he’s made a very good ID of my driver’s license,” Arnold said.
But the scammer’s suspicious story, saying he needed cash quick to buy a new home in Michigan led Huber to believe it was fake.
“It just wasn’t adding up in my mind, and that’s why I just asked for that further,” Huber said. “Because I’ve seen this in other parts of the country.”
Another Raleigh real estate agent had posted the listing for the scammer. Arnold was able to get in contact with realtor Cindy Poole Roberts and have it taken down, then contacted the Wake County Sheriff’s Office, who said to file a complaint with the FBI as well.
After nearly having up to $200,000 stolen from him, Arnold said he’s going to have to watch his property, his ID and credit much more closely.
Arnold says he’s relieved the property wasn’t sold out from under him.
“It would be a phony sale, but it could take place and then there would probably be a big legal mess that would need to be cleaned up,” Arnold said.
“We chatted very briefly on the phone,” said Roberts. “But it was very brief. He did have a heavy accent which I did kind of wonder about. But I’ve been doing this 21 years and I’ve never had anybody lie about wanting to sell something.”
Roberts listed the property, and she quickly got two offers on the land. That’s when things took a turn.
“It evidently hit Zillow,” Roberts said. “So the real Jon Arnold gave me a call.”
Roberts said she’s now going to require a face-to-face conversation for any future deals at her agency.
So what can you do to protect your property from a scam like this? Huber says his biggest piece of advice is claim your property online on websites like Zillow. That way if it’s ever fraudulently listed, you’ll get an alert immediately and can take action.
The Pandemic Housing Boom unleashed an “investor mania” unlike anything seen in the U.S. housing market since the aughts housing bubble. Average Joes poured into the market in hopes of building Airbnb empires. Institutional investors, like Blackstone-owned Home Partners of America, quickly expanded their single-family home portfolios. Homebuilders, eager to strike while the irons were hot, broke ground on a record number of “spec” homes. While iBuyers, like Opendoor and Zillow, ramped up their algorithmic homebuying programs.
Fast-forward to October, and that investor mania has been replaced by investor panic. The ongoing housing correction—U.S. home prices have fallen 1.6% between June and August—has scared many investors to the sidelines. That marks the first national home price decline since 2012.
The investor pullback makes sense. While most housing economists don’t foresee a correction on scale with the Great Financial Crisis bust—during which U.S. home prices fell 27% between 2006 and 2012—they do acknowledge that this home price correction is sharper than it was in 2006. The lagged Case-Shiller Index already shows that home prices are down 8.2% in San Francisco.
To Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman, the Pandemic Housing Boom’s investor frenzy helps explain why home prices are correcting faster this time around. Historically speaking, home prices are sticky. Sellers simply don’t want to relent on price unless economics, like a supply glut, force their hand. That’s not as much the case for institutional investors and builders. If they think prices are about to drop, they want to get out first. The fact that the Pandemic Housing Boom saw investors become a higher share of buyers, Kelman says, ultimately makes the U.S. housing market more vulnerable to a faster swing down.
“When the shiitake mushrooms hit the fan, you [investors] want to get out first. The way to do that is to figure out where the lowest sale is, and be 2% below that. And if it doesn’t sell in the first weekend, move it down [again],” Kelman says.
In other words, Kelman is suggesting that real estate investors, including Redfin’s iBuyer business, helped drive home prices up faster during the boom and will push prices down faster during the correction.
“My take is that because builders and iBuyers account for more inventory, that leads to a faster correction. We’re one of them, we’re an iBuyer,” Kelman says. “We notice immediately when fewer people are on our website and fewer are signing up for tours…We’re sitting on $350 million worth of homes for sale that we bought with our own money, or worse bought with borrowed money. And what we always told investors is that we would protect our balance sheet by acting quickly. We don’t have hope as a strategy. We immediately started marking down things.”
Why was there an investor bull rush (see charts above and below) into the housing market during the pandemic? A combination of low mortgage rates, record appreciation, and soaring rents simply made it irresistible for investors. It brought out everyone from home flippers, to mom-and-pop landlords, to Wall Street juggernauts.
But let’s be clear: Investor mania alone didn’t send U.S. home prices up 43% during the Pandemic Housing Boom. Instead, record home price appreciation was spurred by a perfect storm. The ability to work from anywhere saw white-collar professionals both pony up for larger properties and take off for far-flung markets like Boise. And historically low mortgage rates, which bottomed out at 2.65% in January 2021, made mortgage payments more affordable even as prices rose. Not to mention this all occurred amid a period of low inventory and favorable first-time millennial homebuyer demographics.
While spiked mortgage rates have caused a historic pullback in buyer demand, it hasn’t translated into a massive inventory spike. Most homeowners aren’t scared. So how can home prices fall even if inventory levels are tight? It’s because leveraged investors don’t want to play the “wait and see” game. And all it takes is one home to fall below its comp price to reduce comps for an entire area.
“As soon as demand weakened, we were marking properties down, and that drives prices down. Every other home for sale in a neighborhood where we marked the listing down now has a comparable sale that every buyer is going to know about and talk about,” Kelman says.
Of course, so-called investor mania during the Pandemic Housing Boom wasn’t one-size-fits-all. The investor frenzy was particularly fierce in Western boomtowns like Phoenix, Austin, and Las Vegas. That helps explain why those frothy housing markets are correcting so dramatically right now.
Look no further than this property in North Las Vegas. In May, Opendoor bought the home for $540,800. Just weeks later, Opendoor listed it for sale in July at $581,000. But Opendoor was too late: The Las Vegas housing market had already rolled over. Fast-forward to October, and the listing just got taken off the market after a series of price cuts brought its list price to $472,000.
At first glance, one might assume Opendoor could soon take a loss of around 13% on the property. Not exactly. See, when iBuyers like Redfin and Opendoor buy a home, they charge sellers a “service fee” in exchange for the speedy transaction. On one hand, that buffers the potential loss for the iBuyer. On the other hand, that buffer means the iBuyer is less afraid to mark down the price.
Not everyone agrees with Kelman. Back in May, Zillow officials told Fortune that the company’s failed iBuyer program—which notoriously overpaid for homes until Zillow announced in November it would exit the program—didn’t drive up U.S. home prices during the Pandemic Housing Boom. In Zillow’s eyes, the buying program was simply too small to do so.
While Kelman attributes the swiftness of the home price correction that was brought on by rising mortgage rates to investors and builders, he says there were also other factors at play. For starters, he says the U.S. housing market has become more mortgage rate sensitive in the years following the 2008 housing crash. Second, he says the housing crash taught sellers and buyers alike that home prices can indeed fall.
“I think that the religion people had from 1946 to 2008, that housing prices always go up, is dead. My parents believed that it was literally inconceivable for [home] prices to go down,” Kelman says. But that housing “religion” got broken, he says, by the 2008 crash. “So folks respond [now] to that [correction] with almost PTSD, and they pull back much more quickly.”
Where will home prices head next?
Groups like Freddie Mac and the Mortgage Bankers Association foresee home prices going sideways in the coming years. And firms like Moody’s Analytics and Goldman Sachs predict a peak-to-trough national decline of around 10%. If a recession hits, Moody’s predicts that national decline would come in between 15% to 20%. Simply put: Home price outlooks are all over the place.
Hungry for more housing data? Follow me on Twitter at @NewsLambert.