Trulia

Does Facebook’s move into real estate signify the end of the Realtor?

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Social media has long been involved in real state. Aren’t all your real estate agent contacts your “friends” on Facebook? Aren’t you connected with them on LinkedIn? Don’t you regularly see their listings on all your social media outlets?  But the plot thickens!

According to a November 13 story in HousingWire, Facebook announced last week that it is significantly expanding the real estate listings section on its Marketplace, which is Facebook’s attempt to take on Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Redfin, Craigslist, eBay and other e-commerce platforms.

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The HousingWire story, which you can read here, reports that Facebook currently allows individual homeowners to list their homes for sale on Marketplace. The new development is that Facebook is significantly expanding the real estate listings section on Marketplace. The new feature is said to be “rolling out gradually” and is currently only available via the mobile app in the United States.

And, according to the same report, Facebook is going full force into rental listings via partnerships with Apartment List and Zumper.

Facebook plans to upgrade its platform to include custom filters for location, price, numbers of bedrooms and bathrooms, rental type, square footage and pet friendly designations. Also included will be the ability to upload 360-degree photos for individual rental listings. When the potential renter selects a property, he or she will complete s contact form on Marketplace, and the property manager or agent will contact him or her directly.

Facebook says it will not participate in any transactions. It will simply connect the parties. Real estate agents are probably safe for now, but it’s a brave new world out there as social media infiltrates all aspects of our professional and personal lives! Dirt lawyers who fail to embrace social media may be left behind sooner rather than later.

Trulia’s Blog Paints a Rosy Picture of Housing in SC for 2016

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Charleston is identified as the second hottest market in the country! Columbia is seventh!

_SC FlagIt’s budget time for me and for many real estate professionals. We are reading everything we can uncover on economic forecasts, and for me, the focus is real estate in South Carolina. Today, an interesting blog entitled “Housing in 2016—hesitant households, costly coasts, and the bargain belt” popped up in my newsfeed in Facebook. The blog, dated December 3, was written by Ralph McLaughlin of Trulia, the online residential real estate site for buyers, sellers, renters and real estate professionals.

As a part of its annual forecast for housing, Trulia commissioned Harris Poll to conduct a survey in November of about 2,000 Americans concerning their hopes and fears on housing. The survey indicated that the American Dream of home ownership is alive and well and continues its resurgence since the economic downturn.  The blog states that the percentage of Americans who dream of owning a home is up 1 point to 75% and up 2 points among millennials to 80%. But 22% of Americans believe it will be harder to get a mortgage in 2016.

Hesitant households in the title of the article is a reference to the obstacles consumers perceive to buying a home:  down payments, credit history, qualifying for a mortgage and increasing home prices are the top four.

Costly coasts are the expensive metro markets in the West and Northeast. Trulia is expecting those markets to cool because affordability has decreased, homes are staying on the market longer, and saving for a down payment is taking decades. In addition, consumers in those markets are pessimistic about housing.

The good news for us in The Palmetto State is that we are located in the so-called bargain belt, the highly affordable markets in the Midwest and South, where the survey shows consumers are upbeat about housing and where Trulia is expecting growth housing.

Trulia also identifies ten markets with the strongest potential for growth in 2016, and two of them are ours:

  1. Grand Rapids, Wyoming
  2. Charleston, South Carolina
  3. Austin, Texas
  4. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  5. San Antonio, Texas
  6. Colorado Springs, Colorado
  7. Columbia, South Carolina
  8. Riverside-San Bernardino, California
  9. Las Vegas, Nevada
  10. Tacoma, Washington

Everyone paying attention is aware that the Federal Reserve has expressed a commitment to raising interest rates either by the end of the year or early in 2016, and we have seen the stock market respond each time Janet Yellen speaks on this topic. But if this projection and others that indicate the market in South Carolina will be strong in 2016 are correct, we should expect a strong 2016. Perhaps by the end of the first quarter, we will begin to feel the worst of the TRID transition is behind us, and we will be ready to embrace the growth we are anticipating.  Let’s all look forward to the ride!