How Realtors can be Successful in the New Year | The iBuyer Experiment - Stop & Chat #43

This week we’ll talk about some thoughts on 2022

HAPPY ZOO YEAR!

CoreLogic released their top markets in 2021 report and Phoenix was the #1 real estate market in the United States. Over 30% appreciation for 2021, its amazing. Arizona is such a fabulous place it is easy to see why our population is growing.

Zillow also released their prediction for the ten hottest housing markets for 2022 … Tampa, FL is #1. Followed by Jacksonville, FL; Raleigh, NC; San Antonio; Charlotte, NC; Nashville, TN; Atlanta; Phoenix; Orlando, FL; and Austin, TX. Zillow uses the traffic numbers and other analytics and data to make these predictions. In the same report they also advise to say no to green cabinets, houses with green cabinets sell for less.

The buy and hold/rental market is interesting too, rents appreciated at a rate of about 10% in 2021 and they are expected to have a similar increase this year. We will have a lot of appreciation across the board this year, agents should point out to buyers on the fence that renting is a bad idea and that the appreciation in the housing market is going to continue.

People often consider all of the iBuyers to be the direct to consumer companies, things like Redfin, Open-Door and the like, but the reality is that huge hedge funds and REITS (Real Estate Investment Trusts) own as much as 12% market share in real estate where they want to invest. They are not flipping these homes, they are buying them and holding them to as much as 7-10 years as investments.

The new trend of "build for rent" are growing in many areas, but especially where iBuyers are already prevalent. These are single family homes, not multi-family or apartment buildings, that are not being sold to consumers, this can add to an area's supply chain and trades shortages. American Homes For Rent started an arm years ago to buy existing homes and have since shut that down to build these communities.

Home ownership is decreasing as well, in Q3 2021 the ownership rate nationwide was 65%. We REALTORS should promote home ownership wherever and however we can.

Which brings us to the big questions … How are REALTORS going to be effective in 2022? How will they get more listing inventory, how can they have a cutting edge value proposition? You can’t expect to have a large inventory by working just one lead source, if you are after truly big things you have to have a wide variety of lead sources to fill your sales funnel. Build a system and process … do the work, and it works. Find out who it is in your marketplace that are driving things and align yourself with them. It boils down to real estate conversations. How many are you having, and when can you have a unique conversation that no one else is having, if so you are definitely going to elevate your position in the market.

The Zillow iBuyer report came out and Phoenix was reported to have 12% of the market bought, owned or sold by iBuyers. In Gilbert, AZ (a city of about 250,000 people) in the last week of 2021 there were 172 active listings and 87 of those were owned by Opendoor, OfferPad or Zillow, that is more than 50% of the active market owned by an iBuyer, this has definitely grown dramatically. This is coming everywhere, Gilbert is extremely educated, has an extremely high average household income, and very high housing prices, if it is happening here, it can happen anywhere.