Real Estate News

There May Just Be a Ton of Listable Houses in Your Future

May 13, 2024

One lesson real estate folks have learned, painfully, is that new legislation often brings significant changes.

One such piece of legislation making waves is the “End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act”.

Proposed to reshape the housing market, this act aims to address the growing concern that institutional investors, particularly hedge funds, are exerting significant control over residential properties.

So, what does this mean for real estate agents and brokers?

Understanding the Act

In a nutshell, the “End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act”… would force owners of a large number of “… single-family residences to sell their swath of homes to family buyers,” according to Shannon Thayer (New York Post) citing The Wall Street Journal.

It’s been bad enough that homebuyers face low inventories and high mortgage rates. To have to compete against the deep-pocketed investment firms makes it all but impossible for many buyers to remain in the market.

Under the proposed act, institutional investors would face restrictions on the number of single-family homes they can acquire.

Additionally, they would be required to hold these properties for a minimum duration before selling, aiming to prevent speculative practices that can destabilize local housing markets.

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What does this mean for real estate brokers and agents?

1. Increased Opportunities for Individual Buyers.

With hedge funds facing limitations on their acquisitions, individual buyers may find competing in the housing market easier.

This could lead to an increase in demand for your services, which is always a good thing, right?

2. Greater Stability in Local Markets

By curbing speculative practices and reducing the influence of institutional investors, the act aims to promote greater stability in local housing markets.

Real estate agents may benefit from a more predictable market environment, where fluctuations in inventory and pricing are less volatile.

3. Potential Challenges

While the act holds the promise of a more balanced housing market, it may also present challenges for real estate agents. Adapting to new regulations and navigating changes in market dynamics can require time and effort.

Additionally, some real estate professionals who have relied heavily on transactions involving institutional investors may need to diversify their client base.

Learn more about the Act online at nypost.com.

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Take Control of the Real Estate Market Narrative and Keep it Positive

May 22, 2023

“The party’s over for America’s Housing Market …,” blasts a headline from MarketWatch.com.

“Is The Housing Market About To Crash?” asks one at BankRate.com.

This is the real estate news that consumers are hearing daily. It’s quite challenging, in fact, to find positive news.

Even though there is positive news.

It appears that agents who want the good news pushed out to help counter the bad need to take control of the narrative.

If you pride yourself on keeping in touch consistently with those in your CRM, whether by direct mail, social media marketing, or anything else, blasting out the good news is not difficult.

Real estate consumers beg to differ with the media tale

A funny thing happened to the media narrative on its way to becoming an ever-more negative Nellie. Fannie Mae released its Home Purchase Sentiment Index®, proving that real estate consumers are more positive than the media thinks.

“Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index® (HPSI) jumped 5.5 points to 66.8 in April, marking the highest monthly gain in two years,” Adam Barnes said at TheHill.com.

62% of those surveyed said it’s a good time to sell. This represents an increase of “… 5 percentage points month over month,” Fannie Mae suggests in a recent press release.

Optimism about the housing market from those who will actually be involved in it. Who would’ve thought?

There is more positive news

March was a great month for home sellers. According to ShowingTime, there was an increase in foot traffic through homes for sale (mostly in the Midwest).

The low inventory prevents many would-be buyers from continuing their home searches, so the news that showings increased is very good.

If you have fence-sitting homeowners, share this news with them. And, just FYI, “Not all regions fared the same in March,” according to the pros at ShowingTime.

“The overall increase in showing activity was driven by the Midwest, up 18% from February, and the Northeast, up 15%. The South stayed relatively flat with a monthly increase of 1.4%, and the West dropped 2.7%.”

Your part in the process

Sharing the positive aspects of the market with your potential clients is more important than ever. Blog, post to social media, and create direct mail pieces to grab their attention and fight the negative narrative.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts and engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you. Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan allows you to enter your business goals for this year and get a breakdown of how many prospects, listings, closing, and so on are needed to reach your goals. – Click Here

4. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

The Real Estate Market: Shifting Gears in 2023

Dec 9, 2022

What a weird time to be in the real estate industry. Whether you consider yourself a specialist or you’ll take on any client, nobody seems to know if we’re heading into a buyers’ market or not. At the very least, the experts seem to loathe to take a guess.

In July of this year, Emily Peck at axios.com declared that “Homebuyers retake the upper hand.” By the end of October, the media appeared to be as confused as our clients when Robin Rothstein at forbes.com asked the now very popular question, “Will Prices Drop?”

The elephant in the room is inflation and, as a result, rising interest rates. Buyers are feeling the pain, evidenced by mortgage applications being “… at their lowest level in 22 years,” Rothstein says, citing the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

How can an agent prepare for the new year when we’re uncertain? Should you shoot arrows out in all directions and see what you hit?

There is a major gap between what buyers and sellers expect in 2023

A recent Zillow Group, Inc. survey of real estate agents finds that homebuyers are expecting prices to significantly drop. Zillow, however, says that won’t necessarily be the case: “Zillow research finds a rapid drop in prices is unlikely.”

Other prognosticators, however, have opposite opinions:

The experts at Morgan Stanley say that “… home prices will fall 7 percent, from the peak of pricing in June 2022 to December 2023,” according to the New York Times.
Moody’s Analytics extends its forecast into summer 2024, predicting a 10% drop during that time period. If we experience a recession, bump that percentage up 10 points.
“Economists at Goldman Sachs expect home prices to decline by around 5% to 10% from the peak hit in June,” claims Anna Bahnay at cnn.com.

As you can see from this short sample of opinions, nobody knows what will happen with home prices in the new year. If you have a fence-sitting buyer, you may want to ask them if they’re willing to gamble that prices and/or mortgage rates will fall dramatically?

A 2023 Calendar is shown above. See more **HERE**.

What if right now really is the best time to buy a home?

Sellers, on the other hand, seem to be living in la-la land, according to the Zillow agent survey. “… sellers continue to expect bidding wars, offers above asking price, and quick sales, despite the cooling market.”

In fact, 81% of agents surveyed say their selling clients expect multiple offers on their homes, while 79% say their clients swear their homes will sell for more than market value, with an equal share saying their clients expect a quick sale.

Most troubling is that 74% refuse to lower the price of the home. Which, by the way, flies in the face of reality. Nearly 30% of sellers have had to cut their home’s list price.

One can’t blame them for their delusion, really. There are so many distractions in the news, competing for our attention, that real estate news most likely takes a back seat. As an agent, your job is to educate consumers, so blog it, Tweet it, and post it on Facebook.

In fact, here’s a little tidbit from the survey that you may want to share with unrealistic home sellers:

“Competitively priced listings are going under contract in 19 days nationwide, 10 days faster than before the pandemic, while other homes are lingering on the market a median of 54 days.”

Veteran agents will most likely sail right through this transition. New agents should concentrate on communicating with and educating clients.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan

The Real Estate Marketing Planner is a powerful 12-Month-Guide that strategically defines what marketing to do and when. Four key market segments include niche Markets, geographic farming, sphere of influence, and past clients. – Click Here

3. The BusinessBase, SOI building system

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4. The Free Interactive Real Estate Business Plan

5. The Become a Listing Legend Free eBook

6. The Take a Listing Today Podcast

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Hey Listing Agents: How Will You Handle the Real Estate Market Transition?

Sep 21, 2022

Have you ever had something bad happen to you only to find out later on that the event was actually a blessing in disguise?

Jackie, for instance, was fired from her job. Sure, she panicked during the first few days of unemployment, but a month or so later, she was doing something else for a living. Something she dreamt about but never had the courage to pursue.

Had she not been fired from her previous job, she may have never gone after her dream.

The transitional real estate market is a lot like that. What appears to be a time of challenge or, at the least, discomfort may turn out to be an amazing time for real estate agents.

Coming back down to earth may mean “crashing” for some clients

Home price gains are shrinking, and sellers are starting to come back down to earth. However, coming back down to earth doesn’t happen overnight, as you seasoned listing agents know.

After years of media reports of rapidly escalating home prices, multiple offer situations, and uber-quick sales, those sellers who choose to wait until the tail end of the sellers’ market to jump in are hard to convert.

They’re not going to get that their home is no longer the belle of the local real estate market, that their hoped-for price is now a fantasy, and that it may take longer than 24 hours to get it under contract.

And, those sellers who put big bucks into the house to ready it for the market are going to be more than a bit upset

Especially when buyers start nit-picking them over price, terms, and more.

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Then, there are the buyers

If you’ve been a listing agent for more than a minute, you can recall the last buyers’ market. Newbies, on the other hand, are in for a rude awakening.

No longer can you chuckle over seemingly stupid requests in an offer because you have three others that are cleaner-than-clean. You will actually be expected to negotiate on your client’s behalf.

“Good grief, how do I do that?” you may ask yourself as a new listing agent.

Very carefully.

While price is the typical hot button in a contract, “the devil is in the details”.

Details are important

“Details” when it comes to a real estate purchase agreement are the terms. If this turns into a full-blown buyers’ market, contract terms are where listing agents can work their magic during negotiations.

And, if you have examples of how you’ve done this in the past, use them for all they are worth. From your clients’ testimonials to full-blown case studies, let potential listing clients know how you’ve met with success in the buyers’ market.

Now is the time for all good listing agents to figure out how they are going to deal with the oncoming buyers’ market. Don’t put off your planning. Face it and go for it.

We’ll be with you all the way, so keep checking back.

PLUS: When you have time…below are some marketing tools to help support your success.

1. Put Your Real Estate Business a Step Above with Your Own Branded Magazine

Homes & Life Magazine is a customizable magazine with rich, full-color content and a sharp, professional aesthetic. It includes compelling, direct response-driven articles written by real estate industry experts combined with engaging lifestyle content. Send out Homes & Life Magazine in Just Minutes – No Minimums Required. Or we’ll ship it to you.

Homes & Life Magazine is the ultimate “Coffee Table Lingerer”! …and it costs less than sending a greeting card! – Click Here

2. The Free 12-Month Done-For-You Strategic Marketing Plan