Zillow sent out this email today regarding the uploading of listings:
We wanted to let you know that Zillow Group will no longer accept manually entered listings from agents and brokers as of May 1, 2017. We are taking this step to provide buyers and sellers with the highest-quality listings data possible, and to provide agents and brokers with a simple way to market their listings. Broker and MLS feeds are the best way to achieve this.
Sandicor, our MLS, refuses to upload every listing. Instead, each brokerage has to sign a separate agreement between them and Sandicor to authorize the Zillow feed. There are already plenty of agents who don’t know that the Zillow auto-feed was terminated, and now there will be other brokerages who refuse to comply, and/or don’t realize that their listings aren’t on Zillow/Trulia.
Oh well.
There are other questions though:
What about the Coming Soons? If only MLS-fed listings are allowed, then that should be the end of the Coming Soon feature. Or will Zillow allow their Premier Agents to use it?
Will they still allow for-sale-by-owners to manually feed?
Zillow gives preference to their high-paying Premier Agents. Will this eventually lead to more limits on the properties seen on Zillow – perhaps to those listed by Premier Agents only? Or is Zillow just rattling their sabres?
Zillow has their foot on the neck of the real estate industry, and they can do whatever they want. Who would stop them? They are beholden to the high-paying Premier Agents, so expect more favoritism in that direction.
You’ve been thinking about moving for a while, and are sensing that 2017 is going to be your year. What can you expect from the sales process?
We already know that to buy a house, you need four things:
Right house
Right price
Right seller
Right listing agent
How hard can it be? Won’t agents be helpful?
We know that most agents don’t sell enough homes – half of them haven’t sold anything in the last year – and that bumbling incompetence is everywhere. In most cases, they literally don’t know how to get out of their own way.
Here’s what you can expect to happen:
Seeing houses won’t be convenient for you, they will be convenient for the sellers and listing agents. Last weekend I had two different agents tell me I couldn’t show their listing because their assistant was out-of-town, and many want a 24-hour notice to show vacant houses.
When you hear that a seller is motivated, it means that they are motivated to get their price. They’re not going to give it away!
Have questions about the property or the process? Rarely can you get a straight answer. Agents think they might give something away, so they specialize in vague responses so no one can pin them down later.
If you do make an offer, don’t be surprised if you don’t get a timely response. All offers have an expiration date, but it is regularly ignored because listing agents think you will put up with anything.
Expect a counter-offer. It is extremely rare that a seller will accept your offer outright – mostly because the listing agent feels they have to tweak it, just to say they did something.
It won’t matter how many hundreds of thousands – or millions – of dollars the seller stand to profit at your offer price, they will want more. It will get ridiculous too, probably down to a difference of 1% to 2%, and everyone will just expect you to pay it. Heck, every other buyer has.
The dickering won’t be just about price either. The last time the listing agent had a buyer, they remember getting beat up on every term, so this is their chance for revenge. I just had a listing agent counter over the home-warranty company on a million-dollar deal.
Don’t expect to move in to the house once the sale has closed. The seller will need time to vacate, and that becomes your problem. They will expect at least a few free days to gather up their stuff, or they will want to rent back for weeks or months at a below-market rate. And no security deposit either – it’s not like they are a tenant or anything.
Repairs? You expect repairs for the outrageous price you paid? Fat chance the seller will agree to do much, and if they do repairs, they will cut corners.
Close on time? The buyer will be expected to close on time, unless the seller doesn’t feel like it. I saw one where the seller – who was an agent – refused to move out of the home because her new one wasn’t finished yet, and she made the buyer close the deal and stay in a hotel for a week-plus.
It’s been a seller’s market for so long now that agents think there will always be another buyer; so if you don’t like the way they treat you, too bad. Unfortunately, the inventory is so low that buyers are more likely to endure, rather than object. Usually the agents don’t intend to be so unappreciative, they just don’t know any better.
Janet Yellen just gave the markets a wake-up call — the Federal Reserve does intend to raise rates three times this year, and possibly even in March.
Bonds sold off and their yields jumped as traders reacted to the Fed chair’s vague statement that the central bank will likely need to raise rates at an upcoming meeting and that “waiting too long for accommodation would be unwise.”
“She’s less cautious, that’s for sure,” said John Briggs, head of strategy at RBS. He said her comments and tone reinforced the Fed’s forecast for three rate hikes, even if she did not exactly speak to it.
“Normally, Yellen talks about downside risks,” said Briggs. “She just talked about the upside risk.”
Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont, noted Yellen dropped concerns about the economy in her comments.
“This turns on its head the default stance of Yellen and the doves for the last several years. … What she said today is that the economy currently justifies further rate hikes unless something changes. I view that as a low bar to rate moves. And note that she uses the phrase ‘at our upcoming meetings,’ which very clearly puts a March rate move on the table,” he wrote.
The two-year note yield jumped to as high as 1.25 percent from a low of 1.18 percent earlier in the day. The 10-year yield rose to 2.50 percent from 2.43 percent before her remarks were released.
Housing markets in the western part of the United States remain hot. Data released on Tuesday by brokerage firm Zillow showed eight of the 10 hottest US markets are located west of the Mississippi River. Additionally, five of the markets are within the state of California.
“The overall recovery has been more robust in many coastal markets, especially on the west coast, with fast home value appreciation, strong job growth and solid income gains,” Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell said. “Many of these markets are also experiencing above-average housing demand coupled with limited inventory, putting sellers in the driver’s seat.”
Zillow says they have improved their zestimates. The median error rate is 5.1% in San Diego, which means half of the zestimates are within 5.1% of being right, and the rest are worse than that – you just have to figure out which is which!
Ninety-nine percent of pet owners feel that their animal is part of the family.
Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed said they would not give up their animal because of housing restrictions or limitations.
When finding a home, 95 percent of animal owners believe it is important that a housing community allows animals and 81 percent of U.S. households say that animal-related considerations will play a role in deciding on their next living situation.
Twelve percent of pet owners have moved to accommodate their animal.
According to REALTORS®, 61 percent of buyers who own animals say it’s very difficult or difficult to find a rental property or a home owner association that accommodates animals.
When it comes to selling, 67 percent of Realtors say animals have a moderate to major effect on selling a home. Approximately two-thirds of Realtors say that they advise animal owning sellers to always replace things in the home damaged by an animal, have the home cleaned to remove any animal scents and to take animals out of the home during an open house or showing.
Nearly half of all survey respondents, 52 percent, indicated that they had completed a home renovation project specifically to accommodate their animal. Of those who undertook projects, 23 percent built a fence around their yard, 12 percent added a dog door and 10 percent installed laminate flooring. Ninety-four percent of consumers indicated that they were satisfied with their renovation; 58 percent indicated they have a greater desire to be at home and 62 percent enjoy spending more time at home since completing their renovation.
And the freeway bridges are just the beginning. The $700 million Phase 1 work will include:
? Adding a single carpool lane in each direction by cutting into the freeway median from Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach to state Route 78 in Oceanside.
? Replacing single-track wooden railroad trestles across the San Elijo and Batiquitos lagoons with double-tracked, concrete bridges.
? Building bicycle and pedestrian bridges and connected trails, as well as a wide range of wetlands and lagoon restoration projects.
All of the Phase 1 construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020. The price tag includes $480 million for the highway improvements, $140 million for railway improvements and $80 million for environmental work.
Doing the work all together minimizes the disruption to travelers and the environment, said Allan Kosup, director of the North Coast Corridor for Caltrans. Also, it allows the coordination of large projects with small ones.
“It’s a holistic approach,” Kosup said. “In doing so, you are finding once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that you wouldn’t have otherwise. A perfect example is the bike and pedestrian bridges.”
Commuters, however, are certain to feel some pain before they see the gain.
Though most of the work requiring lane closures will be done at night, Kosup said, any large construction project along the freeway causes disruptions.
“Anytime we are doing that amount of construction, people slow down,” Kosup said, adding that even during the day drivers sometimes hit the brakes just to look at the work under way.
The freeway between La Jolla and Oceanside carries an average of more than 700,000 vehicle trips a day, according to SANDAG. Growth forecasts vary, but the county’s population has more than doubled since the freeway was built, and traffic is certain to increase in the decades ahead.
Suppose there were a way to pump up the economy, reduce inequality and put an end to destructive housing bubbles like the one that contributed to the Great Recession. The idea would be simple, but not easy, requiring a wholesale reframing of the United States economy and housing market.
The solution: Americans, together and all at once, would have to stop thinking about their homes as an investment.
The virtues of homeownership are so ingrained in the American psyche that we often forget that housing is also a source of economic stress. Rising milk prices are regarded as a household tragedy for some, and spiking gas prices stoke national outrage. But whenever home prices go up, it’s “a recovery,” even though that recovery also means millions of people can no longer afford to buy.
Homes are the largest asset for all but the richest households, but shelter is also a basic necessity, like food. We have a variety of state and federal programs devised to make housing cheaper and more accessible, and a maze of local land-use laws that make housing scarcer and more expensive by doing things like prohibiting in-law units, regulating how small lots can be, and capping the number of unrelated people who can live together.
Another big problem: High rent and home prices prevent Americans from moving to cities where jobs and wages are booming. That hampers economic growth, makes income inequality worse and keeps people from pursuing their dreams.
So instead of looking at homes as investments, what if we regarded them like a TV or a car or any other consumer good? People might expect home prices to go down instead of up. Homebuilders would probably spend more time talking about technology and design than financing options. Politicians might start talking about their plans to lower home prices further, as they often do with fuel prices.
In this thought experiment, housing prices would probably adjust. They would be somewhat cheaper in most places, where population is growing slowly. But they would be profoundly cheaper in places like super-expensive San Francisco.
That was the conclusion of a recent paper by the economists Ed Glaeser of Harvard and Joe Gyourko at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The paper uses construction industry data to determine how much a house should cost to build if land-use regulation were drastically cut back. Since the cost of erecting a home varies little from state to state — land is the main variable in housing costs — their measure is the closest thing we have to a national home price.
Leslie Appleton-Young, vice president and chief economist, California Association of REALTORS® (C.A.R.), recently delivered her annual “2017 Housing Market Perspectives” presentation to a group of local REALTOR® members.
“It may be a bumpy ride, but I believe there will be enough sales in San Diego County in 2017 for everyone to have a great year,” she said. “San Diego is outperforming the state and California is outperforming the nation. Although 2017 started with a bang with higher consumer confidence, there is still uncertainty and wildcards in such areas as trade, healthcare, immigration, federal funding and interest rates. An economic boost is good for housing in the short run, but some federal policies could exacerbate affordability problems.”
Under President Trump, proposals include an economic stimulus package and tax reform. Appleton-Young said the $550 billion planned in infrastructure investments over 10 years to rebuild highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools and hospitals will boost economic growth and create more jobs.
“At full employment, wages will start to rise and wage growth will typically be passed on to consumers, which means the potential for higher inflation,” she said. “Unemployment rates are near an eight-year low. More jobs will mean more housing demand and upward pressure on home prices. Affordability will remain an issue and we shouldn’t expect much in terms of new supply.”
Appleton-Young also said overhauling the current tax code will create more demand for housing at a time when supply already is tight. She said Mr. Trump has proposed reducing the top tax rates for individuals from 39.5 percent to 33 percent and for corporations from 35 percent to 15 percent, as well as eliminating tax brackets from seven to three. Additional planned tax reform measures include a child care deduction, eliminate federal estate and gift taxes and tax breaks to manufacturers for plant and equipment expansion.
“The mortgage interest deduction (MID) will remain intact, although a smaller MID incentive could threaten ownership,” Appleton-Young said. “The MID is good for people’s pocket books. Historically, people don’t save unless they have a home.”
In addition, reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are likely under a Trump administration, said Appleton-Young. “Banks will loosen lending standards, increase mortgage options and lower the credit score requirements,” she said.
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates only once in 2016, Appleton-Young said, but rates could increase three or four times in 2017, pushing mortgage interest rates as high as 4.5 percent or 5 percent for a typical home loan. Historically, when mortgage rates increased, the percentage of California households able to afford to buy a home dropped from 34 percent in 2010 to 21 percent by the end of 2016, and monthly mortgage payments increased from $1,740 to $2,609 in the same time period.
Appleton-Young also offered a caution to REALTORS® about posting political statements on social media because some potential clients might reject a REALTOR® based on their political leanings. Good questions to ask before political-related posting: Do I have the correct facts? Does this need to be said? Why do I need to be the person to say this? Could I be misunderstood? What are my motives for saying this? Can this wait until tomorrow when I might be thinking in a clearer manner?
Prior to her group presentation, Appleton-Young met privately with a group of brokers who noted an ongoing trend in higher monthly rents for apartment living. A recent report shows San Diego has the fifth highest apartment rental rate in the state, with a typical one-bedroom unit going for $1,530 a month. The report by Apartment List, an online rental marketplace, found that local rents grew 0.1 percent in January, which is 1.9 percent higher than a year ago. San Diego is still lower than other rents in the state. Rents are highest in San Francisco, where a one-bedroom runs $3,420 a month, followed by San Jose at $2,110, Oakland at $2,000 and Los Angeles at $1,870. The U.S. renter population is about 44 million households or 37 percent of all households in the nation. Apartment List’s data is drawn monthly from millions of listings nationwide on its site.
Also in the brokers meeting, it was noted that U.S. News & World Report recently revealed its “Best Places to Live in the U.S. in 2017” list of top 25 metro areas that offer the best combination of jobs, desirability, cost of living, quality of life and more. San Diego is ranked #22. “What San Diego lacks in affordability, as one of the most expensive metro areas on the list, it makes up for desirability,” the magazine said. “San Diego’s beautiful beaches and laid-back vibe make many Americans wish they lived there.” The top 5 places were: Fayetteville, Ark. (#5); Washington, D.C. (#4); San Jose, Calif. (#3); Denver (#2); Austin, Tex. (#1).
Appleton-Young directs the activities of C.A.R.’s Member Information team. She oversees the analysis of housing market and brokerage industry trends, broker relations and membership development activities. She also is closely involved in the Association’s strategic planning efforts and is a well-known speaker in California’s real estate community. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of California Berkeley and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. C.A.R. is a statewide trade organization with more than 180,000 members dedicated to the advancement of professionalism in real estate.
Leslie Appleton-Young, vice president and chief economist, California Association of REALTORS® (C.A.R.), recently delivered her annual “2017 Housing Market Perspectives” presentation to a group of local REALTOR® members.
