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The Data’s In, 2017 Looks Like It Will Be a Seller’s Market!

Still bitter with the real estate industry following the market’s 2008 downturn? Real estate selling in 2017 and beyond may offer some karmic retribution. A seller’s market is predicted, though a buyer’s market is not too far off on the horizon.

What “the experts” are saying
Most economists agree 2017 will be a strong seller’s market, though buyers are expected to have their day in 2018 or 2019.

• Matthew Gardner, chief economist at Windermere
Gardner expects inventory to rise in 2017, but not to sufficient levels to support the currently stretched market. Inventory will take a little longer to sell, but as the job market continues to tighten, demand will continue to outstrip supply.

• Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American
Assuming a market with modestly and predictably rising mortgage rates, Fleming believes first-time buyers will drive the market, pointing to a demographic that’s young (millennial), diverse, technologically savvy, and predominately college-educated.

• Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at realtor.com
Smoke sees market potential for a high volume of first-time buyers, but with geography playing a role: Some markets will be above-average in price expectation or sales expectation – but few will be above-average in both. In seller’s markets, supply constraint will be driving the price; In buyer’s markets, “great buys” are pushing sales growth. The good news? Either is good for the real estate selling business.

• Svenja Gudell, chief economist at Zillow
Gudell sees a market skewing to sellers, with more purchases on the outskirts of the city compared to the urban center, with its much higher price tags. She warns to expect higher cancelation rates and lower conversion rates in today’s challenging financing environment, with pent-up demand declining, in favor of more organic activity as interest rates rise.

Looking forward to a better real estate selling future in the coming years? Looks like the market may finally be on your side. Take advantage, with the help of Properties Online today.

Should You Be Advertising Your Listings on Zillow? Part Two

Continued from Tuesday.

What about industry-favored Realtor.com?
Realtor.com offers fair competition, but lags behind its gargantuan rival. This past March, Zillow and Trulia had 75.4 million unique visitors, making it the most-trafficked real estate listing advertising website network. Realtor.com, the industry favorite, came in at less than half, 32.6 million. Though not as trafficked, the site does have benefits, among which are more accurate listing information and timely updates of listing status – at least according to Realtor.com (aka MOVE, Inc.).

How Google plays in
Google’s 2014 algorithmic change further muddies the waters. Though Zillow pays well for dominance in real estate listing advertising search results, the algorithmic change gives local search results – and local brokers – priority. Once local brokerage websites catch up to Zillow in quantity of data, the big fish might be in trouble. Data availability is increasing as web development costs decrease, making the market ripe for competition by these brokerages. Time will tell if sites like Zillow fall by the wayside to local agencies far preferred by home buyers and sellers.

The takeaway
Should you be advertising your listings on Zillow? More than 90 percent of home buyers use the internet to search for homes – so you should definitely be listing online. However you may want to wait for the growing pains to subside before you invest your hard earned real estate listing advertising dollars in Zillow. Today’s fickle technology users don’t have a whole lot of brand loyalty, which may pose a challenge to a mega-giant in a market where, all things equal, consumers prefer a local business over a national firm that serves customers up to the highest bidder.

Should You Be Advertising Your Listings on Zillow? Part One

In the months following its merger with Trulia, Zillow Group is looking to cash in on the benefits of its former rival. Currently, 63 percent of new real estate listings are from existing Zillow advertisers, but the megalithic realty site wants more. Over the next several years, it will be making its play for your real estate listing advertising dollars job number one – to the tune of spending about $100 million this year to grow its audience. Are you game?

The benefits:
Unlike most broker sites which feature only local MLS listings, Zillow has close to complete coverage in most markets, including every property – not just those for sale or rent. This is a huge boon to buyers searching by neighborhood, giving them access to nearly 100 percent of property data versus the roughly 3 percent of homes listed on the MLS. With the addition of Trulia, the benefits are even greater, including consumer – not agent driven – information such as neighborhood crime maps and crime density as well as a far more robust offering of data on schools, market trends, past sales, and more.

The drawbacks:
Aside from the most obvious, including inaccurate ‘Zestimates,’ incorrect data, and paying for the leads garnered from your own Zillow listings, Zillow is far from a real estate listing advertising utopia. Barclays sites slowing web traffic growth resulting from market saturation as a long-term concern, and Zillow’s termination of agreement with ListHub in April hasn’t helped matters, resulting in declined listings following the dissolution, putting Zillow behind Realtor.com as it attempts to duplicate ListHub’s comprehensive and accurate real estate listing advertising database. The merger itself has also sent customers on the hunt for alternatives.

Make sure to check back Thursday as we continue “Should You Be Advertising Your Listings on Zillow?”