BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - Zillow: The Buying Window Could Be Closing in These States

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

The buying window could be closing in these housing markets. For the first time in years, inventory is dropping in once-strong buyer’s markets. Sellers are tired of waiting for offers and refusing to get lowballed, so more are staying put. With less inventory comes more competition, rising prices, and vulnerable buyers. So, which markets are most at risk? Senior Economist at Zillow, Kara Ng, joins us to share the latest data on the housing market. Buyers have realized mortgage rates probably aren’t going back to 5% any time soon, but with sellers opting to stay in their homes, are would-be homebuyers stuck between high rent and high mortgage payments? But there’s good news for new investors and first-time homebuyers. A new resource allowing buyers to get down payment assistance was recently released, helping those who don’t have tens of thousands saved for a down payment. Want a return to an affordable housing market? Kara shares the single biggest variable that’s stopping affordability (it’s not mortgage rates) and how, if we can solve it, every American could benefit.  In This Episode We Cover Zillow’s latest housing market update, price prediction, and mortgage rate forecast Buyer’s market no more? How sellers are taking their housing market power back  The real reason why no one is moving (and why the housing market is stuck) Zillow’s new down payment assistance resource for first-time homebuyers  The one true solution to our affordability problem (it isn’t lowering interest rates) And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1185 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We've been saying that it's a buyer's market, but is the buying window already starting to close? This is a key point to understand if you're thinking about buying a new property in the coming months. Are conditions better now or are there better deals to come? Today, we're going to find out. Hey everyone, I'm Dave Meyer. I'm a housing market analyst and the head of real estate investing at Bigger Pockets. Joining me today on the show is Dr. Kara Ing, a senior economist on the economic research team at Zillow. Kara is going to share some insights on some data, Zillow recently released, which indicates whether the current buyer's market dynamics are likely to remain steady or shift back towards sellers. And then we'll discuss the impact of recent Fed cuts on mortgage rates and also some

really fascinating demographic data about U.S. homeowners. This episode is going to be jam-packed with information that will give you a leg up against your competition in the housing market. So let's bring on Kara. Kara, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. Thank you so much for being here. Of course. I'm happy to be here. Can you just tell us a little bit about what you do at Zillow? Okay. So my name is Kara Ng and I'm a senior economist at Zillow.

And basically I get paid to nerd out on data and then share this insight with everybody. Dream job. It's kind of like my job. It is the best job for people like us. So tell us what are the big picture things that you're tracking? What are the big trends that you think are important for our audience? Okay, so there's lots going on today. But one thing I want to flag is buyers who are waiting until spring or until, you know, something happens in their life to be able to buy a home.

So what we're seeing in the data is that buyers have a lot of options right now. They have more time to decide. And they have a lot of bargaining power compared to past Augustes in previous seasons. And so this might be an opportunity for a buyer if they're looking to take a look again to see if they can find a house that fits. their needs. And then the caution for this is like if you want to wait until the mortgage rates fall more for negotiation power to increase more, like that's a riskier gamble because what we saw in August was that new listings fell. Yeah. It was the lowest level of new listings for the month of August in the history of Zillow data. So I think what's happening is that sellers are

sort of picking up on the fact that they are losing negotiation power and they might be thinking I'm going to wait. And so they kind of pulled back on listing their homes. I totally agree that this is the most interesting story in the housing market. And for those of you who maybe not like Karen Me are looking at this every day, let me just provide a little bit of context here. Basically, for the last year or so, we've been seeing inventory going up, or really since it bottomed out in 2022 or so. It's just been going up consistently. And that has been slowly shifting the housing market from what has been a strong seller's market more towards a buyer's market. But eventually what happens in a normal investing cycle is sellers are like,

well, I don't want to sell into a bad environment. And unless they're forced to sell, they have the option to not sell or to wait or to do whatever. And that's exactly what we're seeing. And I want to get to what Kara mentioned in just a minute about what that means for buyers. But does this signal that we are in more of a normal correction than having risk of a crash? Because we're sort of seeing the appropriate response from sellers, right? We are seeing the appropriate response. So you've got a very good point. Today's seller is very different from the seller we saw before the global financial crisis.

They're usually in a stronger financial position. They are not forced to sell. So they have the luxury of saying, like, this is not a market I want to enter into. I'm going to wait a few months, maybe in terms. to the new home shopping season before I try again. So, I mean, that's kind of encouraging and it kind of attracts with what we're seeing. And do you think that will preserve prices somewhere near where we're at? Because I've been following your predictions, Zillow's updated home price forecasts all year.

I think it started mildly positive and it's kind of drifted down a little bit to mildly negative for the year. Is that sort of where you're thinking will wind up at the end of this year? Yeah, flattish to mildly negative. I mean, we think prices are going to fall by a little bit, but it's not very much. And I think a lot of that has to do with sellers are kind of putting a floor on how much prices can fall. Right, exactly. And can you tell us about like the regional differences in where we're seeing sellers pull back the most? Oh, yeah.

So sellers are pulling back in a lot of places where inventory has recovered by a lot. So it's going to be a little of roller coaster. But, okay, think to Texas and Florida, right? These are places that had a big boom in the first part of the pandemic where everyone wanted sunshine and affordable living. No income tax. No income tax. That's pretty nice. Yeah.

And then builders flocked in because they wanted to capture some of this demand. So they started building. And then inventory rose. And then it got to the place where prices were falling. And so now we're seeing sellers pulled back in these places where they realize like, oh, if I don't have to sell my home right now, I might have. have to wait. I might want to wait because it seems like this market is just very saturated. The inventory is accumulating. Yeah, that's sort of why it feels healthy to me that this is happening because you would want to see sellers pull back in the markets where inventory is

going up and prices are declining the most. If we saw more people selling and piling on to that situation, that's when I would worry about more significant declines 5%, 10%, something like that. you're seeing the corresponding change, whereas the markets, like in the Midwest, right, in the Northeast, where selling conditions are still really good, that's where we're seeing new listings keep rising, right? Well, yeah, I mean, it's still a seller's market over there. And not only is it a seller's market. It's, I mean, Northeast is structurally underbuilt. There aren't enough homes to go around. And so it makes sense that if you're a seller and you want to sell, like you're not in a place that's disadvantaged. What do you think this means for buyers? Because you alluded to it a little bit earlier that people can wait and there's, a chance that buying conditions could improve, but there's a chance that they stay the same

or they even get worse again. How would you approach this kind of market if you were a buyer? I would just take a look at what I can afford at today's market, at today's prices, at today's mortgage rates, and see if I can find a home that fits. Because I think that is the most important thing. Buying a home is not like going to the grocery store and impulse buying a candy bar, right? You're stuck with this home for a long time. So you want to make sure that it fits your needs for now until the foreseeable future, right? And so that to me matters more than whatever mortgage rates are, whatever the prices are. I mean, these things are important and that it'll determine whether or not you can actually buy that home, if you can afford to buy that home. So that's

the first place I would check. Like if you were shopping earlier in the season and you held off because we're like, oh, I can't find anything that I can afford, mortgage rates have ticked up a little bit, but there's still a downward trend compared to May, right? So if you haven't looked, lately, check what listings you can afford now because it might be that a home that was out of reach before is now within reach and it fits your needs. That's great advice. I always recommend to people, you know, on our podcast, our audience, people who are mostly investing in real estate buying rental properties. But if you're going to buy it for three, four, five year hold periods, just make, if it works today, that's the most important thing that matters. Speculating about

the future is really very challenging. And you and I do this all day. And it's still very difficult to forecast how this is going to happen. And I don't know about you, but to me, the global economy is feeling less certain than ever. And trying to forecast what's going to happen in a given month, a given year is going to be even less accurate than it is traditionally. And it's pretty inaccurate, even during normal time. So I think that's very wise advice. And the range of what we're forecasting isn't very large. So we're expecting prices to flatten or fall by a little bit, right?

So that helps a little bit in terms of affordability. We're expecting mortgage rates to dip down a little bit by the end of 2026, but we still expected to stay within that 6 to 7% range that we've seen for a long time now, right? And might end up a little bit closer to the 6th than the 7. But like all that together combined, is it worth waiting if I've already found a home that I can afford that I like to see if there's a better deal out there? I don't know. Yeah.

It's very unclear if that will happen. If rates do drop more than that, prices could go up and offset some of the affordability gains that come from a mortgage rate drop, right? Why would mortgage rates fall by that much? You have to think about that. Because the recession. And then at which time do you, are you going to want to buy a home then? Right. Yes.

With mortgage rates, it's a very tricky idea because like mortgage rates falling helps with affordability. but what would it take from market rates of fall, right? The most obvious thing is if there's softening in the labor market, which, you know, hopefully it's not your job that's been softened, right? Because that would prevent you from being a buy-home. We've got to take a quick break, but stick with us. We'll be right back. This week's bigger news is brought to you by the Fundrise Flagship Fund.

Invest in private market real estate with the Fundrise Flagship Fund. Check out Fundrise.com slash pockets. to learn more. 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 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 bucks 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. Head to costsegregation.com before April 15th. Most investors spend all their time talking about their high-level returns. But that's not the number that actually matters. What actually matters is what you keep after taxes, and that's where multifamily real estate quietly stands out.

With built-in advantages like depreciation, the right deals can generate steady cash flow while reducing the tax drag. Bam Capital structures its multifamily investments around those fundamentals, pairing tax efficiency with disciplined operators and a long-term approach. This isn't about chasing hype or guessing market timing. It's about building durable, tax-aware wealth over time. Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash bam. Here's why savvy real estate investors are 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 in 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. What if I told you you could forget everything you know about investment property loans? because host financial is rewriting the rulebook, tossing out those pesky DTI restrictions. They focus on your property's income potential. No tax returns or personal income statements needed. Simple, efficient, and tailored for investors like you. Imagine a lender that sees the gold mine in your property, not just the numbers on your paycheck. That's the host financial difference.

And they're approved in 47 different states, so your next big deal could be just around the corner. Ready to unlock your property's true potential? Visit hostfinancial.com. Don't let old school lending hold you back another day. That's hostfinancial.com. Welcome back to the bigger pockets podcast. Let's get back into our conversation. Everyone wants to talk about mortgage rates.

And you are echoing what I've been saying on the show all year that I think that rates are not moving down that much. I know a lot of people in this industry really want them to. It would probably help the industry. But I think it's unlikely. Can you tell me why you think six to seven is the range going forward? Well, because we're fighting two opposing forces. right? So mortgage rates can take lower if we have a softening labor market, which we're seeing signs of. We're seeing the labor market cool. But at the same time, you also have inflation that's

relatively stubborn. And so these are two opposing forces that keep interest rates up and one keeps interest rates down. And so that's why you've been stuck in this range. Unless something happens to break one of these forces to win this tug of war, like it makes sense that mortgage rates will stay within this range. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. bond investors, the people who really have a big impact on the direction of mortgage rates, they're as confused as we are if there's recession coming or if inflation is going to win out. Like you said, there's these two opposing forces. And so until there is clarity one way or another, right, we're not going to see mortgage rates

move in much of either direction. Sure, each data print we get, it moves a little bit back and forth. But we're sort of settled in, I think, a little bit with rates. right now. And I think that's true, even if the Fed cuts rates two more times this year. Yeah. So remember how many rate cuts the market is expecting. It's going to be very hard for the Fed to live up through the expectations. So if the Fed doesn't deliver on all the rate cuts that the market is expecting, mortgage rates may go up rather than down. All right. So that's your outlook for mortgage rates looking at 6 to 7%. But how do you think that translates into buyer

activity going into next year. Because as you said, people probably even mathematically shouldn't wait, but people do. And we're also at extremely low home sales volume relative, especially to the pandemic, but even compared to historical norms. We're still pretty low. So where do you, where do you see sort of overall buyer sentiment and housing market activity going in the next year? Yeah. So from Zillow surveys, people are sort of coming to terms that mortgage rates aren't going to fall significantly. So in terms of transacting, that is not necessarily the barrier for people to hold off buying a home or hold off listing their home. Rather, a lot of the softening in sales activity has to do with other forces in the macroeconomy, right? Like the fact that job growth is just sort of stagnated. Zill also finds that people move because they're not. they get a new job. And I think there's kind of a rate lock situation going on, but for jobs in the labor market. Because, I mean, people are really getting fired or they're not really getting late off, but they're also not quitting. And you're not forming a lot of new jobs. So you're basically stuck where you are. So you can't really get move up.

You don't want to move down. You don't want to move out, right? So it's sort of like rate lock for jobs. And anytime you have low job turnover, it means that residential mobility would also slow. because, again, Zillow finds that the number one reason people move is for a new job. So when people move for a job, there's usually a strict timeline, right? They have to be in, you know, Dallas by October because they are starting their new role. If you take out jobs as the reason for people moving and you're just looking at the other life events, like people getting married, people, you know, having a kid, people becoming empty nester, these things do prompt people to move, but it's less urgent. And so I think that may be another reason why you see sellers able to pull back.

If they can wait six months, it might be worth it for better conditions. But that's not the case if they have to move for a new job. Well, bringing up the better conditions and the idea of waiting till spring, which people have always touted as the home buying season, I guess I'll just ask you straight up, is the housing market still seasonal? I feel like for, you know, prior to the pandemic, we saw very predictable patterns, both in inventory levels, home sales volume, pricing. Every single year, it was very seasonal. Now it just kind of feels a little bit different. Are you seeing the same thing? Well, I think what you're mentioning is sort of like mortgage rates create their own seasonality.

But there's a reason why people list in the spring and then the season sort of tapers off before the holidays, right? It's because it's a coordination exercise. Like you want a bunch of homes available so people can transact. If you're a seller, you want to be able to list your home, have someone buy it, and then move into your new home. And that only works if there's some kind of coordination. And it so happens that if you have a family, buying a home in the spring, moving that home into the summer, and getting sold before the school year, it's just a natural place that makes it convenient for their lives. And it also makes sense that it slows down before November, before December before the holidays because no one wants to eat turkey in front of a bunch of

boxes. Yeah, just off of the boxes. If you're anything like me. Yeah, there's no table. Okay, well, that's super interesting. So as we move back to what you, I think at Zill are describing as a more neutral market, maybe we'll start to see some of that traditional seasonality come back. And if you're correct, too, that mortgage rates are perhaps going to be a little bit less variable. I'm going to kind of stay in this range that we'll, we might start to see some of those normal patterns arrive again. We've got to head out for a quick break, but we'll be right back. Stick with us.

Here's the truth about passive investing. If the strategy isn't right on day one, the returns won't save it. Multi-family real estate offers structural advantages. Many investors are overlooking, including depreciation that can help offset taxable income while cash flow continues. Bam Capital builds its investment with that reality in mind. They are focused on solid operators. tax efficiency, and long-term performance. For investors who want real estate exposure without being landlords

and who care about consistency over hype, this is a smarter way to allocate capital. Learn more at biggerpockets.com slash bam. If you think property management is expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a five-figure problem because no one caught it early. That's expensive.

A good property manager isn't overhead. Their protection against small mistakes turning into big losses. And that matters more than ever in this economy. That's why I like Mind. Unlike other property managers, Mind manages your property like an investment. They obsessively measure the things that matter for your bottom line. Things like occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. And they have the results to prove it.

Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is much cheaper than learning the hard way. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites.

Indeed, sponsored job posts help you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide.

There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard. heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie.

Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. 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 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. Welcome back to the bigger pockets podcast. Let's jump back in. So, Kara, I know you're actually around the corner from me right now and you were speaking at a conference on how is. policy today. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, sure. So in this housing conference, we were talking about some of the challenges renters are facing when they're hoping to transition

into homeownership. And we talked about the affordability challenges, so saving for a down payment and affording the monthly mortgage payments. And we talked about how homeownership gaps by race are persisting because of just some ways that generational wealth gaps are persisting. So, So, for example, a down payment. Saving for a down payment is very, very hard if you're a renter, because we know that compared to five years ago, the amount of income you need to make rent as a renter went up by $20,000, right? So that is a stretch on your budget, which makes saving for a down payment very, very hard. And then if you are a first-time home buyer, then you don't have a home you can sell to leverage into your next home. And then also, if you're a minority household and you're the first general home buyer, it's harder to tap into the bank of mom and dad for down payment help because likely mom and dad don't have a home. And we're finding that the majority of buyers are tapping into at least two sources for their down payment. So for these minority groups that are the first in their generation to buy a home, they don't really have these avenues. And so we were talking about way Zillow is

helping to address this. And we talked about leveling the playing field with information. And so one One of the ways we're leveling the playing field with information is with down payment assistance programs. So on Zillow listings, you have down payment assistance information for the particular region you're looking at. Oh, cool. So it's just a way to maybe help those people who are buying a home for the first time, not just themselves, but in their family, to be able to access housing.

That's awesome. I was actually just a friend of mine who's trying to buy a house for the first time. called me this weekend. I was asking me for some advice. And I was like, you should go and just Google every down payment assistance program, both in the municipal level and the state level. There's all sorts of credits that almost not every state, not every municipality, but many of them do. So you say you're aggregating that kind of stuff so people could see that right on Zillow. Yeah. And I mean, it's such an underused resource. And the thing is like, if you've never bought a home before, if you're the first person in your family, buy a home, like you don't know

about these programs. Word of mouth isn't going to help you. So it's just, we're hoping to just educate everyone. And so that way, like, everyone who wants to buy a home has the resources to work towards that goal. That's really cool. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. And for anyone on this podcast who's looking to either buy your primary residence or potentially even to house hack a property, a two, three, four unit property, residential properties. A lot of times you can buy those kinds of properties with these types of programs. So definitely something you should consider. Now, Now, Carrie, you mentioned affordability, which is, to me, the biggest issue in the whole housing market. And I applaud what Zillow is doing to try and help people understand resources.

But from a sort of an economic standpoint, if mortgage rates are staying close to where they are and prices, you know, you said maybe they fall a little bit in real terms, like, how do we get back to affordability in the housing market? Well, the answer, and you probably already know it, is by building more. I mean, the U.S. as a whole is just structurally underbuilt. Still estimates there's a housing shortage of 4.7 million units in 2023, the last available bit of data. So there aren't enough homes for all the households that need a home. We know over the course of the pandemic, there was a lot of building. And that sort of helped in terms of slowing down the pace in which this deficit is growing, but it didn't stop the deficit.

It didn't reverse the deficit and certainly hasn't closed it. So really, we as a whole just need to. be building more. That makes sense. And it's what I often hear, but it is a long-term problem, right? It is. But we got here because we were structurally underbuilding for decades. And so it makes sense that the solution to undo something that was built up over decades would take a long time. But there are steps we can do to help this. One is to make it easier for builders to build with looser building regulations so that people would want to build in these neighborhoods where there's still demand. Yep. We've seen things on the federal level of opening up public land, for example,

but do you think that will make a change or what level of deregulation do you think is necessary? I think it was probably increasing density. So the issue is a lot of places with a housing shortage, you have geographical constraints. It's hard to build out to meet demand for all the people who want homes, right? So what you need to do is you need to build up or by marginally increasing density. And what we found is that there's a lot of support. There's growing support for residents in their own neighborhood to have middle density options. So these are not like large-scale apartment buildings. They're not single-family housing.

So the things in between. So those are 80Us. Those are townhomes. Those are duplexes, triplexes. And if you think about reason why. So the first-time home buyer is older. than before. It's because the affordability challenges the hurdles with the monthly payment, the hurdles with the down payment, right? So they're more likely to have a family. And so their

first home, their starter home, might not be a condo, right? They probably want a single family home. But geographically, I mean, you can't build enough single family homes for everyone who wants one. And so these options, these middle housing options, ADUs, townhomes, triplexes, duplexes, that could be a compromise in the solution for the housing shortage. And because this is sort of like a longer-term solution, how do you think the lack of affordability in the purchase market could impact rents and rental demand? So across the rental market and for sale market, everything is a little bit softer, a lot probably because of lower job mobility and so there's lower residential mobility.

So overall, everything is softer. But what we found is that rents is relatively more resilient. And that's because of relative affordability, right? It is cheaper in a lot of markets to rent than to buy. And so when the for sale market, you're hitting up against these affordability ceilings, it means that these people will go into the rental market. And then that gives rents a little bit more wiggle room in terms of growth. We're seeing this struggle with rent versus buy showing up in the way that Zillow users are engaging with our listings.

So what we're seeing is a rise in what we call the dual shopper. They're like looking at for sale listings and then they're like toggling back and forth for sale listings and rental listings and trying to optimize like what works best for their finances. It might be bigger pockets community members just ruining your data because all of us landlords are out there just looking at the cost of properties. And then we're like, oh, what was this property rent for? So then you go back and forth between selling and rent. So we're probably just ruining all of your data.

Well, we have a piece coming out that might make it easier. We were looking at active for sale listings and how many of them have a monthly mortgage payment that is lower than a rental estimate. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I will definitely be looking at that one very closely. Well, Kara, before we get out of here, I have one more question. We've talked a lot about the next year or two years, three years. And, you know, as an investor, homeowner, it's not the most exciting. It's not bad either. It's just kind of like a blah market. am I bated. It's like very neutral. Do you have any thoughts on like the long term trajectory, five, 10 years from now, like where the housing market is heading? Well, a lot of that will be determined by us. So over the course of five, 10 years, that's when you could possibly make a dent in the housing shorter. So if we are able to make it easier for builders to build, right, we might be able to shrink that gap. And maybe five, 10 years from now, hopefully, I'll see you before then. The next time on Bigger Pockets, we'll talk about how, like, it's so great that everyone wants a home can have it home because of all the building we've done over the last

decade. Well, I hope you're right. That would be very nice. And if you have any evidence that that's happening, please come back on. We would love to hear about it. Of course. Well, thank you, Kara, so much for joining us. We appreciate it. And thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Bigger Pockets Podcast. We'll see you next time. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new 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 Calicoe 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.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. 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. BiggerPockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.