BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 983: BiggerNews: With Slow Spring Homebuying, Zillow Predicts Price Drops in 2025

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Zillow’s latest housing market forecast shows a decline in home prices over the next year after a very slow spring homebuying season. While spring is traditionally the hottest time of the housing ma...rket, with more sellers and buyers hitting the market at once, this year was stunted significantly. Will this trend continue as housing inventory remains at rock-bottom levels, or are things gradually improving, with a return to normalcy in sight? We’ve got Dr. Skylar Olsen, Chief Economist at Zillow, on to share the latest forecast and which markets could be in trouble. With mortgage rates still hovering around seven percent, homebuyers and sellers are stuck. Sellers don’t want to trade into a more expensive mortgage payment, and buyers can’t afford today’s median home price. As a result, some under-the-radar, affordable real estate markets are seeing home and rent prices increase, while some traditionally hot markets are already seeing price corrections. Where will the next correction hit, and which markets will have the most opportunity for real estate investors? Skylar explains it all, plus why Zillow updated their recent home price forecast to show a DROP in home values over the next year. In This Episode We Cover Zillow’s updated housing market forecast and why they’re predicting prices to drop The spring homebuying season’s “extra slowdown” and why buying/selling is so stunted  Skylar’s 2025 housing market and mortgage rate predictions  What happens when mortgage rates get cut, and whether this could fire up the housing market again The real estate markets seeing the most price corrections, plus hot markets Zillow is keeping an eye on Markets with the strongest rent growth (for single-family AND multifamily investors) And So Much More! Links from the Show Join BiggerPockets for FREE Property Manager Finder Find Investor-Friendly Lenders See Dave at BPCON2024 in Cancun! Access Zillow’s Free Housing Data BiggerNews: 2024 Housing Market Update and Why Prices Are Still Rising (00:00) Intro (01:36) Homebuying Sees “Extra Slowdown” (06:51) Homes Sitting Longer  (08:34) More Inventory On the Way? (13:19) Zillow Updates Forecast  (17:54) Markets Seeing Price Corrections  (20:58) Hot Markets  (22:22) Where Rents Are Growing  (26:33) Investors, Watch THIS (29:16) 2025 Predictions  Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-983 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email advertise@biggerpockets.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 The spring buying season is a super important time for the entire real estate industry, but over the last couple years, it hasn't been as hot as it normally was. So what actually happened this year? Was it as hot as economists predicted? What did inventory and home price growth even look like? And how will that change over the rest of the year? Today, we have a market update episode for you. Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Network.
Starting point is 00:00:32 I'm Dave Meyer. And if you're listening on the Bigger Pockets Real Estate feed, it's Friday. So that means we have a bigger news episode for you. But we are also playing this on our on the market feed. And if you're there, welcome. Good to have you all here. For today's episode, we are bringing on Dr. Skyler Olson, who is a member of Zillow's economic research team.
Starting point is 00:00:53 And Dr. Olson is going to share with us a whole bunch of information and research, including an update on the spring buying season that I was just talking about and what actually happened. Is there any signs of a recovery in home sales? We're also going to talk a lot about inventory as we do in these market episodes because it's just very important and is really driving so much of the market behavior right now. We'll talk about Zillow's forecast adjustments and why they think certain markets might be heading for a correction in the next year.
Starting point is 00:01:24 And lastly, we will, of course, pull out our crystal ball as we do with most of the economists and discuss what we think will happen for the rest of the year. and into 2025. Let's bring on Dr. Skylar Olson. Skylar, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Podcast Network. Thank you for joining us. Well, thank you so much for having me. We're first going to start by talking about the spring buying season. Can you just give us some context? What is the spring buying season in the first place? Yeah. You know, it really, buying season ramps up in the very early spring.
Starting point is 00:01:58 You know, we first start to see existing owners put listings onto the market. in January and February, like it starts building out of that holiday season. But it hits the crescendo pre-pendemic at around April and May. These days a little bit later, actually, more like April or, excuse me, May and June is when we get the most listings from existing owners or the course of that season. So we're kind of cusping and moving towards, you know, the slowdown at this very moment. But we actually see extra slowdown now because more, mortgage rates are up kind of near 7%. And that puts a real cooling effect on that buyer. And what impact does this busy spring buying season have on the overall housing market in
Starting point is 00:02:46 normal times, like back before the pandemic? So let me give you kind of a ballpark number. If we're thinking nationally, in the month of May, pre-pendemic, we used to see over a million homes drop into the market from existing owners. Okay. This is a period of time where interest rates went from 3% up to 7%. So we've got a lot of existing owners wanting to hold onto those low rates. So this May, we only saw a little over 400,000. Ever since mortgage rates have surged up, that existing owner has pulled back. Now, May is the crescendo month where we see the most listings come online. So next month, we actually expect to see about 90,000 less, right? And then it kind of cascades into the year.
Starting point is 00:03:32 We see the fewest listings come on in November and December, right? Those are the holidays. We've wrapped up. We're done. Home shopping season is also during the summer because that's when, you know, you want to be moving. You don't want to be carrying your boxes during the snow and during the rain. And when we go through a home shopping season, you better believe the housing economists out there. And honestly, agents and any housing professional loan officers are watching it very closely,
Starting point is 00:03:58 especially these days to see whether or not this activity is going to start coming back. Because as I mentioned, we are down from what was normal. We're about 23% down from what was normal. But that is actually way better than at its worst when we were around 36% down nationally. So that's an improvement. And it's steadily, slowly improving from here. And 36% down, that's from its peak in the pandemic or down from what? In April of last year, we had 36% fewer homes from existing owners than an April pre-pendemic. So like a typical April in 2018 and 2019, which was our last quote-unquote normal housing market. Because right before the pre-pendemic, we were about to call it in terms of the recovery from the last housing cycle, which was a long and a very big one.
Starting point is 00:04:52 So 2018 and 2019, fairly normal. And then now since mortgage rates have surged up, you know, we're down 23%. But back last year, we were down 36%. So to be only down 23 is the improvement. And then what we're waiting for is that to come all the way back up to just zero, right? Back to normal. And that's steady and slow. We're up a lot from last year. That's probably a way that you hear that reported really often. So that kind of number is like, oh, we're 13% more new listings from existing owners than last year. But as I just mentioned, last year was our lowest year in terms of that interest rate lock-in, in terms of that owner really just feeling like it wasn't the time to give up that rate. It's getting a little better now because, A, time passes. Those existing owners had things happen in their lives. They got divorced. They had children. their children became teenagers and started fighting over the bathroom sink. You know, like all sorts of things that happen in your life that make you want that next home
Starting point is 00:06:01 and make that low interest rate just less and less worth it. And so as time goes on, we get less locked in from that interest rate. And so we're starting to see more new listings come online. The problem is interest rates remain near 7%, right, and jump around a lot. and that buyer is really struggling to move forward. It's really hard to afford a house at 7% interest rate. And so prices are soft. Our forecast is that prices will come down very mildly, actually.
Starting point is 00:06:34 It's just a soft down 1.4%. But that'll still give the buyer a bit of a breathing room. Homes are spending a little bit more time on the market, a little bit more price cuts. But ultimately, you know, we're still tight on inventory. But things are getting a little better. But we're still tied on inventory. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:51 So do you think that our, you know, the average home buyer, the average investor will feel that increase in inventory year over year in terms of competition or negotiating leverage when they're trying to buy a home? If you were participating last year and you were active, yeah, you'll feel it. It'll because relative to that period of time, things I think really will feel like they're loosening up. nationally, your homes are spending three days longer on the market than they were last year. That might not seem like a lot, but we were at only 10 days, right?
Starting point is 00:07:28 So three more days from 10, that's, you know, relatively speaking, a bit more breathing room there from last year, right? So that additional inventory will be felt by someone who has been participating. Let's say, you know, we're in the market during the heat, heat of the pandemic when interest rates were really low, trying to find your opportunity, but competition was very fierce. Oh, it'll feel way better than that. Absolutely. That was certainly a cold down from that one. But if you were shopping, say, pre-pendemic, and then you got nervous by just all of it, right, pandemic, a reasonable period of time to be uncertain, though generally that's what when investors just are really important part of the market, because they will participate when things are risky. And then you
Starting point is 00:08:16 smooth out the market and ends up not being as volatile. So that's generally what economists think the role of the investor is when we go through something crazy like the pandemic. But if you were, you know, a mom and pop landlord and you've been sitting it out and you haven't been in the housing market since pre-pendemic, it will actually feel hot. So what you're sharing here is that the inventory is going up largely because life events, but we're still very low in terms of total inventory in a historical context. Yeah. Do you think that inventory is going to continue to trend upward? Yeah, yeah, I think I do, especially if the mortgage rates remain elevated.
Starting point is 00:08:55 People are expecting it to come down, right? But let's just stay in, you know, the near future because that has been pushed off more to the end of the year in terms of when the Fed might give us a break. So let's just say mortgage rates stay around this period of time. The buyer is still hesitant, right, because that is an affordability challenge. and time goes on for that seller. The seller also is watching, you know, we've been saying that mortgage rates would come down for a while and yet they haven't. So that helps also shake the seller expectation that rates will come down.
Starting point is 00:09:27 So, okay, that seller starts to return, inventory slackens, right, starts to return that pool of available homes increases so that when the buyer shows up, there's more to see. I think homes will spend a little bit more time on the market and things will eat. And if we are in that holding pattern here, you know, that is a steady and slow path to a healthier and more stable housing market for sure, kind of into that near future. Right. Now, I think that's a fair assessment for the next few months because generally when we head into an election, a lot of people stop making kind of major decisions. So it is this holding pattern and steady return.
Starting point is 00:10:13 mortgage rates probably won't do anything crazy before then, you know, but the election throws its own kind of wrench and stability no matter what year, no matter what election, right? And we've got a lot of elections across the board coming up. We can hardly crystal ball it, but there are scenarios where we get a rate cut at the end of the year by the Fed. The market thinks will get two rate cuts from the Fed. The Fed says one rate cut. The Fed is the organization, the Federal Reserve operates monetary policy. So when they cut their policy rate, the Fed funds rate, that can trickle through to mortgage rates so that mortgage rates come down. That's what we're expecting. But it's also possible, too, that we might not get that. So that's the more holding pattern
Starting point is 00:11:02 element where we're just in this for longer. But let's say we get that rate cut. Mortgage rates could come down. That I think would help the seller return as well. Okay. So that's I think we'd see new listings from existing owners improve even faster. The debate becomes, does the buyer return with the same alacrity or, you know, with the same gusto? So you think that the debate is more on the buyer side than the seller side? Because it seems to me like if rates went down, like, of course there'd be more demand. The question to me is if there's going to be more supply.
Starting point is 00:11:38 Well, no, no, I mean the relative size of it. I think the debate is what happens to prices, right? Because if supply starts, I think the supply could definitely return because there'll be fewer owners locked in, right, when that rate comes down. I think there are plenty, you know, that I say time goes on, but they still have an incentive to hold. So as that rate comes down, that incentive changes as well. So both things start helping the seller come back. The debate, I think, is who's stronger, whose return is stronger. Because if the buyer, there are a lot of them too, there's a massive generation of millennials, right, who want to become the first time home buyer.
Starting point is 00:12:20 If when mortgage rates fall, they return, you know, with a lot of interest, then inventory, which is the pool of homes available at any one time that reflects like, are prices increasing or not, right? If the buyer comes back with the same speed as the seller comes back, that inventory can remain low, right? because the buyer drains it just as fast as we can fill up that pool. And then that means prices don't fall, right? So it's hard to imagine a situation where prices correct very quickly without getting a lot of economic stress, like without the R word, you know, recession.
Starting point is 00:12:59 So without a recession, you know, it's hard to imagine that prices in the housing market will fall because this buyer and seller return with the mortgage rate, right? And so that's what I mean by debate is like, well, prices could remain, you know, depending on who's stronger in their return. Right. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot waiting. All right. So we have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more of Skylar Olson's
Starting point is 00:13:24 market insights right after this. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments, chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants. happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on bill to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently without the usual bottlenecks. It syncs with
Starting point is 00:14:02 platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact, so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. Real estate investors, the April 15th tax deadline is coming fast. If you own rental property and haven't done a cost segregation study yet, you could be handing thousands of dollars to the IRS that you don't have to. These studies let you
Starting point is 00:14:48 write off as much as 25% of your building and generate huge tax deductions. Costsegregation.com is an online, self-guided software that makes cost segregation fast and affordable. So it finally makes sense for smaller rental properties purchased for as low as $100,000. With pricing under $500,000, and an average savings of over 25,000, it's just a no-brainer. What's more, audit support is included by the number one cost segregation company in the U.S., but you must complete it before the tax deadline. Go to costsegregation.com and use code tax deadline to get 10% off your first report. Don't overpay the IRS.
Starting point is 00:15:28 Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy. All the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Fundrise flagship fund. Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features 4,700 single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt.
Starting point is 00:16:02 They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought-out. after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave. The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals. And it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the
Starting point is 00:16:26 Fundrise flagship fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. Here's why savvy real estate investors are upset. obsessed with bonus depreciation. It lets you take that rental property or commercial building you own and depreciate most of the cost against your income. Legally, 100% IRS compliant. That's instant cash flow improvement. Cost segregation guys is the number one firm nationwide, specializing and
Starting point is 00:16:53 identifying these faster depreciating assets in your property. They've completed tens of thousands of studies across all 50 states from remote cabins to apartment complexes. So if you own investment property, this is a no-brainer. So visit Costsegregationguise.com slash BP for your free proposal and find out how much you could save this tax season. Welcome back, investors. Let's jump back into our market update with Dr. Skyler Olson. Well, I saw recently that Zillow updated its forecast to now be projecting a 1% decline in
Starting point is 00:17:29 housing prices from May 2024 to 2025. Can you tell us a little bit about what went into? that change in your forecast? Yeah. So our forecast has two elements to it. There's momentum. So what are we seeing in all of our time series that help us kind of predict the future? So that would be things like watching the new listings return, you know, and then we're modeling that forward. New listings returning faster than we see sales return, that inventory increases. Those are momentum near-term time series that we kind of relate to that price growth. And then that helps, you know, turn that down.
Starting point is 00:18:12 Other things that flow in that way are things like, think percentage of listings with the price cut, think the number of clicks from people on the site, right? So a buyer, say, shopping on zillow.com relative to the number of listings that we have. So that's a demand metric that flows into the forecast. All that's momentum, you know, and how that should flow in through what prices do. And then there's this other element, which is more structural. So we also forecast out and model, say, mortgage rates and population growth, which is a big element. That's the fundamental demand in housing, right?
Starting point is 00:18:51 And then also unemployment and kind of those more R-word numbers. And all those flow through, the things that really kind of push the, that forecast down was the return in inventory. So in terms of that pool of homes available relative to last year, that's up 22%. Right. So inventory looks like it's returning a lot relative to that very, very low base. Relative to say normal times when we just had so much more inventory in general, it's still recovering fairly slowly. But relative to last year, anyone who shop in last year, it'll start to feel much more slow and that impacts that price growth. And then also percentage of listings with the price cut is very elevated right now.
Starting point is 00:19:39 And it has been elevated for, I'd say, the past three months. They do this all the time. They bounce around. They came down to around six and a half and they went back up to seven and above seven. Ever since that moment, we've seen percentage of listings with a price cut just remain elevated as well. And that's just for this one year because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've seen from Zill, you project one year out. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:20:01 Is that sort of the extent of the correct? direction you see 1% over one year or what happens after May of 2025? Oh, no, interesting. Yeah. Actually, internally and I think publicly, we'd be happy to, you know, release it as well. We project out two years with this type of modeling, right? This momentum plus a little bit more structure. Okay. And but happily, it really depends on who you are, right? Because if I'm a first time home bar, I probably don't want to hear, oh yeah, no, after this year, we expect it. to kind of return to flat and moderate growth. But if you're an existing owner and, you know, hoping that you're at, you know, your top
Starting point is 00:20:41 of equity, because that's also what's going on here. We have, you know, huge amounts of equity that sellers or excuse me, would be sellers are holding on to those owners are holding on to a lot of opportunity, a lot of wealth that was created there. You know, that is, I think, I don't want to say safe, but it is very hard to get a forecast more negative than what we're seeing right now. Got it. We also model scenarios, like make it really a terrible macro environment.
Starting point is 00:21:12 That's why we have those two separate ideas. There's momentum, you know, from all of the things that should impact prices like supply and signals from agent pricing and pending, all that. And then also that structural stuff. So the structural stuff where we say, what will mortgage rates do, what will unemployment do, you know, what will population growth do? That, to use that, we can calibrate it. We can say, well, we have a baseline, but what if it goes, because it's very hard to forecast mortgages. What if it goes wrong? And even if we put mortgage rates, you have to put them really high,
Starting point is 00:21:51 like up to 8% or 9% to get that forecast to be significantly negative. And is that true even with the labor market? Because that's a question I get quite a lot, is like how if the Fed gets sort of what it wants with a softer labor market, are we going to see a decline in demand and subsequent softness in housing prices? Yeah, I mean, we could, honestly, we could, especially because you'd start to see it regionally. And even now, we see soft prices regionally. For example, Zillow recently released our market heat index, which captures some of the metrics that I talked about that went into our forecast. Percentage of listings with the price cut. The number of users, you know, buyers clicking on homes relative to the homes that are available and the
Starting point is 00:22:37 percentage of homes that sell really fast. So these three things capture like this market heat, whether or not buyers or sellers have the edge in a market. We call it the market heat index, right? Okay. So there are very limited places that we're willing to say are buyers' markets. Nationally is still a seller's market relative to its history and this experience on these metrics. But if you go to Florida, there are plenty of buyers markets down in Florida. Memphis, Tennessee went probably too hot over the course of the pandemic now is cooling off quite a lot. New Orleans has struggled throughout the pandemic and remains very soft. And now you're starting to see very southern Texas become a buyer's market as well. So there are these pockets. Let's say we go
Starting point is 00:23:23 into recession, you know, that will have national numbers with higher unemployment rates and, you know, and we'll all talk about that being a concern, but there will be metros that have much higher unemployment rates, right? Because different industries will be impacted more, and so that will happen. By the way, in terms of where else are prices still falling, so maybe there's an opportunity should you want to jump in now and, you know, anticipate a return, think about downtowns.
Starting point is 00:23:55 So those downtown areas, if I look at a zip code map of almost, any, not every, but almost any major metropolitan area in the U.S., home prices have been falling and continue to fall in those kind of central cores. And you can make a bet that that liveliness, you know, in those areas will return. Real estate, remember, is a long run investment. So for any of those that, you know, people who do like still like that, you know, moreover a lifestyle, which there are plenty of us, right, there is opportunities there. I want to just clarify that even these markets that Skyler's talking about that are experiencing some corrections, maybe New Orleans with an exception, is that a lot of them were still way above pre-pandemic levels,
Starting point is 00:24:40 like way above and are coming down very modestly just off of their pandemic highs. And so for the vast majority of people who bought, even in sort of towards the top, are probably doing fine in terms of equity. And obviously, in a national level, even a 1% correction is very, modest. Yes. We have one more final break, but more from Zillow, Skyler-Alson when we return. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios, but it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets
Starting point is 00:25:21 without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Fundrise flagship fund. Now, you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features 4,700 single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave. The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals. And it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns,
Starting point is 00:25:56 and start investing in just minutes. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. New Year, clean slate, and maybe a vacancy that needs to get filled fast. That's where a veil comes in.
Starting point is 00:26:13 With avail, rental listings can be published to 24 top rental sites with one click, completely free. That includes places renters are already searching, like Realtor.com, apartments.com, redfin, and more. No copying and pasting. No juggling multiple platforms. Just one listing that shows up everywhere. If getting rentals organized and filled fast is on the list this year, start with Avail.
Starting point is 00:26:34 Sign up for free at Avail.co.com slash bigger pockets. That's AVAI.L.com slash bigger pockets. Tired of traditional lenders holding you back, host financial is here to change the game. They've ditched the DTI restrictions and they zero in on what really matters, your property's income potential. So no more chasing papers for tax returns or personal income statement. Think about it. A lender that values your property's worth over your paycheck. That's the host financial difference. Approved in 47 states, they are ready to help you make your next big move. Curious if you qualify, just head over to hostfinancial.com and find out. Stop letting outdated lending practices hold you back.
Starting point is 00:27:11 That's hostfinancial.com where your property's potential meets unlimited financing. All right, rental property investors, listen up. Our friends at Dominion Financial already have some of the best DSCR rates in the industry. they're the fastest, too. They just launched 10-day DSCR closing. That's right, 10 days. And they're still the only lender with the DSCR price-beat guarantee. That means faster closing.
Starting point is 00:27:36 The best terms. Zero guesswork. That's Dominion Financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Welcome back to the show. Let's pick back up where we left off. Skylo, you mentioned a couple of markets
Starting point is 00:27:52 that could potentially see some of the biggest. corrections and softness. What about the other side of the equation? What are some of the hottest markets that you're seeing? Yeah, hottest markets are definitely Midwestern. And there, you've got to think, is about affordability, right? In terms of the access to becoming a homeowner, you've got a lot of people still willing to kind of move to access that option. Then you have the more relative affordability idea. So northeast, but think markets that are, you know, around or between very expensive markets. So your Hartford, Connecticut and your Providence, Rhode Island are smack dab in between Boston and New York. Now, I don't want to imply either
Starting point is 00:28:38 that Boston and New York are like, we still see positive home price growth in those areas as well. Because we don't have the listings from existing owners, there's a lot of pullback there. So in that same way, the expensive West Coast, we don't see negative price appreciation there yet either because that existing owner just holds. So Northeast and West think if expensive, you know, there we're seeing consistent home price growth as existing owners hold on. And then in areas like the Midwest, I think there just is so much demand because the opportunity remains. Yeah, I think that's consistent with everything that we're seeing and talking about here on the show as well is that affordability really remains one of the key factors in buyer demand.
Starting point is 00:29:24 And I'm wondering, Skylar, you know, we've been talking mostly about home prices, but if these regional patterns also hold true in terms of rent? Yes, yes, they definitely do, though it is a little bit nuanced. So here, Zillow produces the Zillow's Observe Rent Index. So we're looking at the change in individual listings when we produce this. index. So it's a really awesome tool to, you know, think about the rental market. And let's say I use this tool, Zillow's rent index, and I break it down by multifamily. So think apartments and single family. And here I'm going to have very different dynamics going on because over the course of the pandemic and very recently, we have been able to produce a lot of apartments, but they've only become
Starting point is 00:30:16 available over the last quarter, say, in a way that's just really record setting relative to the years before. And all that extra new supply on the apartment side has made it so that while rents are not falling, they're very soft and softer than pre-pendemic. Now, if I'm thinking about single-family rent, so think your suburban homes. And for our definition, it includes the ones that are attached. So include your townhomes and your picture of your mind, you know, single family rents continue to grow at pre-pendemic levels. So softer than the boom when everyone was moving because of remote work and everything. But at pre-pendemic, if not faster, depending on where we are, like some of the places we mentioned, particularly in the Midwest, right,
Starting point is 00:31:08 where rent growth in the single family home is still very high. Now, think about why. You've got a lot of people that move into this area, maybe even to become homeowners, but yet they rent first, right? And then they have this barrier to owning, right, to moving on because of the high mortgage rate. Pre-pendemic, if you wanted to become a new homeowner and you had the down payment, and maybe it took you well to save for it, to become a new home or mortgage rates were just such that you would probably save radically relative to renting. These days, it's honestly more of a wash. if you're looking at renting a single family home of the, of a,
Starting point is 00:31:47 you know, quality in, you know, a nice neighborhood, that kind of thing. And so if you can't move on to for sale, but you still want that lifestyle because say you're 35, you have kids,
Starting point is 00:31:57 you know, you expect that from your life. Then you'll move on to rent it. So you get that extra competition on that side as well. So single family rentals are doing very well, um, particularly in the places where home prices are also growing, the ones that we mentioned.
Starting point is 00:32:11 So where I don't have listings from existing homeowners on the, West or the Midwest. The Midwest is where single family rent growth is the strongest. Now, if I want to say, like, where is apartment rent growth the strongest? It's still in those areas stronger than other places, but there are more pockets where multifamily apartment rents would be falling. And then the fastest spot is the northeast that I had mentioned where, you know, the Providence, Rhode Island and Hartford, Connecticut, where the expensive rental markets that are also, you know, New York is, rents growing in New York now again as well. And Boston, too.
Starting point is 00:32:49 It's just that, that pinch, you know, between is where it's the fastest. Honestly, it's wild. My sister lives in Providence, and she moved up houses and rents out her old one. And she, I think it's two-bedroom one bath. She gets $4,000 a month for it. It's crazy. Like, way more than, like, a much bigger house that I own in Denver. for example, would rent for, which you would never expect. So super, super interesting, but definitely
Starting point is 00:33:19 hearing that anecdotally in addition to some of the data that Skyler is sharing with us. So, Skylar, you gave some advice on what investors should be looking for about downtown areas. Do you have any other tips for our audience? Yeah, I mean, I think in general, the tip for the audience, besides, you know, check out the opportunity because, you know, we're not, those areas that I mentioned, you know, are not, where things are soft. They're certainly not expecting, you know, crash, home values, you know, will, should return in these places because they're just correcting for a lot of the earlier heat that we had seen. And then, of course, you know, we're waiting to see what interest rates do.
Starting point is 00:34:03 So aside from those downtown, you know, where are the cool markets, where there are lots of price cuts, so that conversation that we've already had, I think being very aware of the financial market right now is incredibly crucial because the impact of that mortgage rate on the investment potential of buying real estate is huge. So how do you handle that? Well, you know, mortgage rates are elevated right now, but there's still, if you have this opportunity, you know, moving forward, you crunch the numbers and it works for you, but it's that edge, right? You, you know, have tools now to be able to, for example, shop by, buyability or shop by monthly payment. So for example, if I'm on Zillow, right, and we have both of these tools,
Starting point is 00:34:57 you can kind of shop more for what's affordable. You get the personalized information about what that mortgage rate might be today, but then as you continue to shop, if the mortgage rate changes, is the search criteria of what you can afford will also change, which means if mortgage rates drop, suddenly there are more opportunities. And I think why these kinds of tools are important is because think of the flip side, right? So you've crunched your numbers. You've figured out what works out.
Starting point is 00:35:24 I think when we approach the housing market, it's easy to also get a little bit too much momentum. It's so frustrating. There's low inventory to find the right home, but you really got to make sure you stay with. that due diligence. So let's say mortgage rates swing back up again. That search criteria is then limited again, right? And then buyability, you know, it's just a way to kind of figure out, you know, that other end of it, not just search by that monthly payment for what you can afford
Starting point is 00:35:51 monthly, if you'd like to then instead search for what that price point is for you. But that mortgage rate is just very, very impactful to the rent versus buy equation and the financial investment side of things, for sure. That's great advice. Skyler, before we get out of here, would you allow me to ask you some rapid fire questions about next year? Yeah, sure. Okay. If you had to guess or predict the fastest growing market in terms of home price appreciation in the next year, what would you think?
Starting point is 00:36:25 In the next year, I'm going to go to Cleveland or St. Louis. Whoa. Okay. I like it. Two relatively affordable cities in the Midwest. Okay, I like it. What about rent growth? Oh, that's so funny.
Starting point is 00:36:43 So I said that because that's where rent growth is currently the fastest on, you know, more of that apartment side. So I just, you know, translated that into a leading indicator over the next year. And then, of course, are also forecasts are focused in the Midwest. So rent growth. Can I split it between multifamily? Yes. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:03 Nuance is allowed. Single family, I'd say, back that same area. I just, I think anyone who's putting their hat on and thinking to themselves, I want to live in a suburban neighborhood with good schools and, you know, trees or, you know, that classic, I don't even want to call it the American dream anymore, but it's a little too stereotypical. But people that want to go towards that, we're at a big generational, you know, balloon of people that might be wanting that are entering their mid to late 30s, right?
Starting point is 00:37:33 is kind of the peak of that millennial generation. It really will kind of bear down on that more affordable Midwest. And the Midwest also looks fairly good for kind of more of the climate change elements. You know, Florida's got really higher and higher insurance cut these days, so they're going to get a little bit more challenged. And we've also been able to build more in Texas and Florida. So I expect much more softness on both sides, apartments and a single family. But if I was in, we don't have an official rent forecast, but I'll go and be fun on this on the apartments.
Starting point is 00:38:11 I think it could swing West Coast in terms of faster rent growth in the same way that it's cluster around the lifestyle cities on the Northeast. You know, the Boston and the New York is kind of where that apartment vibrancy is looking. And, you know, San Francisco has been so soft for so long. hope it for them, but maybe I'll lean more like the Seattle's. Okay. Uh, is, is kind of where for that one. Eh, northeast, it's still going to be big, though. Money down northeast, uh, uh, you know, a little upsetting and fun prediction, you know, go west. Okay. And last question here, where will interest rates? With the average rate on a 30 or fixed rate mortgage, what will it be one year from today? 6.6%. All right. I'm kind of with you. I like it. All right. All right.
Starting point is 00:39:01 Well, thank you so much, Skyler. This has been a lot of fun and very educational. Thank you for sharing the research that you and your team have done with all of us here at Bigger Pockets. I'm sure you all know how to get to Zillow. But if you want to connect with Skylar in particular, see the research she and her team are doing. We will put links to that in the show notes or description, depending on whether you're listening or watching on YouTube. Skyler, thanks again for being here. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Starting point is 00:39:28 This is a lot of fun. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calicoke content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only.
Starting point is 00:40:19 All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Bigger Pocket's LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.